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Paulo Freire has clearly shown that he feels the only way to help education is to begin using problem-posing. He completely dismisses the banking concept of having any good qualities and also shows problem-posing as flawless. In my own experiences, I have found that the banking concept does have good qualities and problem-posing is far from flawless. I better solution for education at the high school level would be to find a median between these two concepts. Before a solution can be made, we first need to see what parts of Freire's concepts do not work in high schools.
With the banking concept, the teacher seems to be far superior and more intellectual than his students. He intimidates students with his pious attitude, sometimes making the students seem unworthy of his knowledge. The intimidated students may then refrain from asking questions, therefore, causing them to not fully understand the subject matter. Students have absolutely no say in what they learn and how they receive the information that is taught. Since the topic isnt chosen by the students, they are more likely to be uninterested and their creativeness would suffer. As Freire states, The humanism of the banking approach masks the effort to turn women and men into automatons-the very negation of their ontological vocation to be more fully human. (351).
This is saying that the students will become robot-like and are forced to adapt to the teachers style. The students arent able to personally relate to what the teacher teaches and the information seems separated from reality. The teacher teaches only so that receive positive recognition, which causes the students to only get enough information to just survive in the real world. I have had a lot of experience with the banking concept. These teachers had a very cocky attitude and seemed as if coming to that class was a waste of their time. For example, my pre-calculus teacher was always looking down at us and would say we wasted his time with dumb questions.
He didnt like explaining things more than once and got very impatient with us. All the teachers like this had similar styles of teaching. Class was mostly just notes on the board, homework, and lots of quizzes and tests. We were forced to take in the information without question. If a student were to strike up a question, the teacher would get upset and, in some cases, would try to make that student seem dumb. The teacher tried to be our complete opposites.
This lack of similarity inhibited our creativeness. This was a teaching style that I disliked greatly and hope that I never have to experience again. Paulo Freire makes problem-posing seem as a cure-all for all educational problems. This may seem like a great solution, until its practices are looked at more deeply.
As Freire suggests, The teacher is no longer merely the one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students (354). This is not necessarily good. One student may continually ask questions for long periods of time until they understand to their liking. It would be good for this one student, but the rest of the class would be at a standstill. This could waste valuable learning time for the students who already understood. Students also decide on what subject they want to learn.
This would cause a major problem for the teacher. He would have to create different assignments and tests for every student. To replace assignments and tests, he would have to only give out projects. The lack of tests and homework causes a grading dilemma. With only individual projects, how can the teacher decide how well the student understands the subject? The letters wouldnt represent a score, but now it would represent how much the student understood.
During my high school years, I experience only one or two teachers who taught this way. Before we started a new unit, we voted on topics that we would investigate. In my biology class my teacher select 8 to 10 things and we voted on 3 that we would learn about in a give unit. During each unit, we would receive homework and take a few quizzes, but no final test. These tests were replaced with projects that involved large amounts of research in a topic, which we chose as long as it related to that unit. The teacher was also closer to the students.
The teacher was very friendly and open to questions. This was very good. Everyone could ask questions and even see the teacher for additional help if needed. I did notice that this closeness did cause the teacher to hesitate on dealing out punishments and large homework assignments.
Both the banking concept and problem-posing have good qualities that need to be implemented in the classroom. Combining the two concepts and finding a median will be a solution to the problem that Freire suggests we have. First of all, the teacher needs to be close to the students, but separate himself enough so that they still have authority over them. This would make the students comfortable around the teacher, but still respect their authority. Students would want to ask questions and be courteous to not slack off or fool around. With this combination of concepts, students would not be able to choose what they learn.
If they did get to choose, they may loose out on all of the important information that is in a particular class. They would only want to learn things that were fun or interesting. Sometimes the uninteresting parts of a class are the most important and are the base of the entire class. Students would get to explore an interest with projects that the teacher would give out every unit.
This way, they get all the important information and get to explore an interest. The teacher also needs to be open for questioning to an extent. The students and teachers must realize that a continuous asking of questions will delay the learning process for the rest of the class. The teacher must not focus on one single person, but direct his answers to the rest of the classes needs. Most of my classes were close to that combination. I found them very beneficial and made me want to learn.
Combining these concepts should be used in high schools across the United States to improve the educational system. If Freire would have looked at the positives and negatives to each one of his concepts, maybe he would have found that a combination would have been a much better solution to the educational problem he suggests we have.
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Research essay sample on Paulo Freire And Solutions To Educational Problems
