The Banking Concept of Education

The Banking Concept of Education

One of the most valued traditions of America would be the old idea of enforcement of education to its children. A great many of America’s young people complete twelve years of education, which ultimately makes America’s literacy rates among the highest in the world (UNESCO Institute for Statistics). Yet still many Americas lack, or disregard the basic fundamentals of the education they have learned in the twelve years of elementary and high school education. If students, or post graduated high school students, were asked to fill a sheet of paper with the knowledge that should have gathered over the years on any basic subject the average student would most likely have great difficulty filling up gust that single page.

As the times change so should the teachers and how they teach. Better techniques of teaching should be taught to teachers so that those methods can be applied in the classrooms in schools. Teaching should be fun for the teachers as well as the kids that they teach, but to achieve this those teachers need to know what works and what does not. Closely comparing the least effective facets of the cometary’s education model with a few more ideal, utopian vision of what education could be will ultimately to the realization that the two extremes are not so far away as we might initially think. I believe that a few simple changes to the current education system would drastically improve the education system of today.

The worst facets of the current education system stem directly from what Paolo Freire called “the Banking Concept of Education.” freire’s metaphor revolves around the idea that students are recepticacles to be filled with knowledge from the powerful dominate teacher. The implication of this model is that their instructors, in large part, offer students instructed under the “Banking Concept” very little respect because neither their own accumulated knowledge nor their abilities to think critically are taken in to account. A simple survey of college age students reveals many instances of students who experienced instructors who essentially taught under the “Banking Concept” model. Droning Lectures with little or no participation from students, for example encourage students’ minds to wonder off topic.

Changes to the current education system the current education system more efficient, tolerable to both educators and students, and world increase the number of graduates among all levels of schooling. Education should be fun for both student and teacher, by having more interaction action between them. For example when having lectures, instead of having just the teacher talk and possibly causing the students to tune out, the teacher should interact with the students by asking them questions to develop problem solving skills. To further enhance the students’ knowledge the teacher should do more hands-on teaching, for example bringing in props, historical artifacts, videotapes, etc. all to do with education.

Of course, it is not only the instructors themselves who are at fault. Many students think of the classroom itself as a kind prison. Ridged, uncomfortable desks with less than ample room for books and materials make being in the classroom at all a difficult physical task. Even the set up of the classroom where rows of desks all face a larger, more dominate desk held by the professor is thought of by some critics of education as an essentially facest model that under scores the power relationship between the teacher and his or her students images of being