Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"

Freire's "banking concept" of education reminded of William Butler Yeats' quote, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." Its a quote you often find in the offices of teachers or education programs, and it is quite appropriate for this topic. In this instance, the banking concept is the equivalent of the "filling of a pail" - the idea that students are vessels in which teachers deposit information. The "lighting of a fire" is the direction that education should be aiming for, according to Freire. He calls it "problem-posing education." I certainly agree - to an extent. I agree with Freire that yes, education should serve to engage students in "acts of cognition," teaching them to think critically about their world rather than "adapt" to it as Freire calls it. And, as he said, teaching shouldn't be a one-sided affair; ideally, teachers should be learning from their students as well. The two roles should meet in dialogue, and not in the "narrative" that Freire says is the current (as of this publication) mode of education. I agree with all of these things.

The only thing that gives me pause is the seemingly absolute disdain for the idea of "depositing" information altogether. I am reminded of the previous readings done in the last week, which prompted the reader to consider what they valued in education: factual information, or the analyzing of information (that is a very simple explanation of what was covered). In both these readings, the push seems to be geared towards the ability to analyze information, and rightly so; in the past, it sounds like most of the emphasis has been placed on learning factual information, which is not enough for a student to become a fully realized human being. However, I think it is important that we not completely disregard one for the other. Without the learning of factual information, analysis is more difficult to accomplish, or is at least limited in scope. Its possible that I feel strongly about this because most of my own education has emphasized factual information, and I want to believe that it was all worthwhile. But even objectively, I think there is a place for both methods of teaching and education, and we should aim to strike a balance between the two.

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