The Banking Concept Of Education Summary

The structure of education has changed drastically since it first began. As education grew more popular and schools began to be built in more places, lessons became more uniform and policies began to be put in place to structure education. However, as education has changed throughout the years, so has the quality of the education. In “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education, Paulo Freire uses the comparison of a bank to the current style of education in order to reveal several problems within the education system, suggesting that students are not being taught how to think critically. Paulo Freire uses similes to describe the current education system. In the system, he essentially compares knowledge to “gifts” or “money”, teachers to the rich, …show more content…
One cause is the general public education system. As class sizes grow and school budgets dwindle, education is becoming less and less individualized. Many students sit in class struggling due to the lack of aids, tutors, and other resources to help them succeed. In contrast, many other students sit in class bored as they are not getting enough of a challenge to allow them to grow to their full potential. Private schools may offer an advantage here as the smaller class sizes and more resources allow teachers to cater to different levels of need. However, for the majority of students in the public school system, their full potential is not being …show more content…
He writes that the banking style of education “anesthetizes and inhibits creative power” and conceals “certain facts which explain the way human beings exists in the world” (Freire). This implies that by merely giving students information and not allowing them to discover anything for themselves prevents students from developing a sense of creativity to help with critical thinking. In addition, it hides many facts about the current world as education focuses on primarily academic subjects. In contrast, he writes that problem-posing education “involves a constant unveiling of reality” and “sets itself the task of demythologizing” (Freire). By providing students with real world problems, this style of education creates a better understanding of the real world for the students. It also focuses on providing truthful examples and information as opposed to the banking style, which often ends up shielding students from reality and instead offering bias information. The banking style of education limits students’ abilities to think critically about the world they live in, whereas the problem-posing style allows students to think for themselves and become active members in their