What is in my hand? | The Banking Model of Education

Paulo Freire teaches us in Pedagogy of the Oppressed that to treat students as banks of knowledge into which deposits can be made and from which the knowledge can be retrieved is to rob them of the very essence of their freedom. Such a model is oppressive, treating the teacher as the knowing and the student as the unknowing, and the lesson which is most effectively delivered by such a model is that authoritarianism and oppression are the natural states of being. This leaves students vulnerable to accepting that type of relationship with society later in life, and unequipped to exercise dominion over themselves in a liberated way. With teammates we discussed how this teaching is also static, and therefore in defiance of the nature of a dynamic world in which students will be asked to operate dynamically. It is also a teaching which is dismissive, we concluded. Treating the students as not only lacking knowledge, but also as lacking the capability of producing and contributing original thought and original knowledge in a dynamic discussion. By positioning the room not as teacher and student, but rather as as teacher-student and student-teacher we develop a model more analogous to the true dynamics of the world in which we all live, in which we all learn, and in which we all contribute and create knowledge. Freire, P. (2017). Chapter 2. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (pp. 44–59). Penguin Random House. #teaching #students #LGBTQ