Banking Vs. Problem-Posing: A Need for Synthesis

Banking vs. Problem-Posing: A Need for Synthesis

Education has long been a concern among society. Studies show that different minds grasp knowledge differently; thus new techniques are always invented, while old ones are modified. In Pablo Freire’s essay, "The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education," Freire simply attacks the traditional teaching style, claiming "it turns them [students] into ‘containers,’ into ‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by the teacher" (Freire 213) and thus should not be used. He goes on to pose his own solution, a concept called problem-posing method. Yet it seems that these two styles must be synthesized if the learning experience is to be successful. A student cannot be expected to learn anything without the foundation gained by traditional learning, which Freire calls banking. So banking cannot be eliminated from the educational system, but should be used alongside the problem-posing method.

Freire begins his essay with the argument that banking does not promote knowledge. Instead the students merely memorize what they are told, but according to Freire they do not learn why two plus two equals four or the importance behind knowing all fifty states and their capitals. Students under the banking method just sit in the classroom and absorb what is told to them to be true. This is the meaning of Freire’s quote earlier about students being “‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by the teacher" (Freire 213), the students are just a storage place for facts and truths, but lack the knowledge to apply that information to other concepts. Then the reason for Freire’s argument against the banking method is he views knowledge as something that "emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry men pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other" (Freire 213). Yet this would not exist under the banking method; there is no inquiry, which is the main problem Freire has with the banking method.

Freire then takes the banking method to a larger scenario of world leaders and proceeds to say that oppressors like and utilize the banking method because the people "accept the passive role imposed on them, [and] …they tend to simply adapt to the world as it is…"(Freire 214). The banking method allows oppressors to, in a sense, "brainwash" their public and keep them under control, since the people only know the truths as they were taught to them. The thought process, the way of reaching those truths is left out of the banking method, creating people who have no idea how to think on their own, who have no knowledge. Thus the oppressor does not have to worry about unrest or revolutionary activity because the people have no motivation to rise up; they are true example of "receptacles" for information.

Although Freire’s criticism of the banking method is demonstrated nicely with the oppression model, he loses strength in his argument against the method with his discussion of the classroom setting. Children are not born into the world with the knowledge of how things work; they also develop in a way that they must learn the facts before they tackle the concepts behind the facts. A first-grader is not able to grasp the reasoning behind why two plus two is four, yet he can begin to build the foundation for that understanding by memorizing the fact that two plus two is four. So the banking concept is necessary for younger children, especially if they are even to begin to seek knowledge.

The banking method, however, cannot be used for all of one’s education or else one would create an oppressed society as Freire points out. Freire then poses another method to teaching called the problem-posing method. In this method, Freire stresses the need for the student and the teacher to work together and allow the student discover knowledge on his own. In the problem-posing method communication becomes vital to the learning process. Freire believes "only through communication can human life hold meaning"(Freire 216). So in the problem-posing method, which Freire sees as the only way to promote freethinking as opposed to oppressed thinking created by the banking method, the lines between teacher and student are blurred and