The Education of Our Children

The Education of our Children

We as a nation have been educating our children for many years. Our education system has been using the banking concept as a way of teaching, without question this concept has been working. Many (including John Gotto) are now questioning our schools. My experience with my own children has brought me to an understanding that there is no doubt that there is some difference between the public and private schooling. I have two children one 16 and 24 years old. My oldest attended private schools all of his school days, where my daughter has gone to public school all of her life. Many pros and cons for and against come to mind.

In Jhon Gatto’s ‘Against school’ article he describes our public school system as one that is crippling our kids. Gatto depicts schooling as forced schooling. John Gatto argues that Restrictions that the public schooling prohibits learning and is nonconductive. Henry Adams in “The Education of Henry Adams” Condemned his course of study at Harvard. He not only blamed himself for his failure to mature in his intellect but also blamed the education system as well. Adams reveals that after four years at Harvard his education not yet started. Adams carried negative options of his formal education. (Adams 32)

Our learning way of life in our nation’s institutions takes us for the first eighteen to twenty-five years of our lives. Always being taught by our teachers and professors, hoping that what they say will give us light to a hopeful future. The teacher is in power in the class room, and his or her ideas are going to be the most influential. It is common knowledge that two of the bigger problems originate from the issues of public school funding and child poverty, although there are several other factors contributing to the problem. In today's public education, the process continues to be that of the banking process. The subject of inadequate education is the subject of Paulo Freire’s essay Paulo Freire argues that a new and advanced process by which America should learn by, one that will prove to be an investment in our nation’s prosperity.

In the banking concept of education, Paulo Freire says “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.” (Freire 259) Is it that education has never allowed children to think for themselves, and the problems we are experiencing today are hard felt due to the fact that correct education was not implemented long ago.

Richard Rodriguez’s