Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire, who was born in 1921 and died in 1997, was a Brazilian scholar who believed in liberation through humanization. Freire felt that no one could be authentically human while another prevents them from doing so. He also believed that full humanity required an act of fellowship and solidarity not isolation and individualism. He wrote a very powerful essay called The “Banking” Concept of Education” which was first published in Portuguese in 1968. Freire wrote, the students are not…

Megan’s reflective post broadened my thinking. First, Paulo Freire described learning as “learning is not about the mere memorizing of facts, but is the integration of knowledge” (Brown & Hannis, 2012, pg. 25). Megan stated that Paulo Freire is the most admirable because as a child he grew up living among the poor and oppressed but decided to take a stance and improve adult education in the developing world. She states that “I can relate to Freire the best because his passion was to create the…

Schools are inherently political. What is taught, both implicitly and explicitly, reflects what societies values. How schools are structured reflects how society is structured. And, most importantly, who succeeds reflects who society values. In America white middle class culture is the only valid culture. Everyone else must assimilate or they fail, in both school and in larger society. Education is administered by the powerful and thus it reflects and propagates stratified society. As Lisa…

“The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Before the 1909 strike where more than 20,000 garment shirtwaist makers walked out to picket for better wages and improved working conditions, there was the Lowell Mills women who organized to protest wage cuts in 1834 and again in 1836. The rebellious act of the Lowell Mills women was poignant, as it embarked a mass movement for workers’ rights in the United…

Freire essay The purpose of this essay is to discuss to connect Freire’s ideas in “The Banking Concept” with my own educational experience. “The Banking Concept” examines the educational system, where the author illustrates the teachers and students role in the system. The author also illustrates also how the banking approach works, and writes about the opposite approach in the second half of the passage, problem posing. Firstly, what is the banking education? The banking education is a term…

It is no secret to anyone who has attended; high school isn 't easy for those who attend. Students must learn to effectively navigate rigorous academic, political and social pathways. To take a wrong turn on one of these pathways is to tip the highly unstable scales from social inclusion to social exclusion. Social exclusion manifests itself in many ways: failing grades, poor attendance, isolation, and (as advertised most frequently in media campaigns) bullying. Bullying, imagineably, easily…

In “The Banking Concept of Education,” Freire denounces the “banking concept” that is premised on the belief that students are empty “ ‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by the teacher” (Freire 244). Freire explains that in this educational scenario students are submissive while teachers are active, thus creating a power imbalance in the classroom. Like the ideologies Fox criticizes…

In America, an education is no longer considered to be an option but in fact, a necessity. Many are raised to believe in order to ensure a successful future, education is a key component. In fact, there are others who believe that the educations systems we have in place today, actually does more bad than good. There have been many movements that had an idea to insure that students are properly educated and all receive the same form of education but, the institution of these movements may have…

how students are taught in school is vital; it is their lives on the line. The problem, then is that, the way students are taught ruins future learning and provides no such foundation. It is not the first time this problem has been addressed, Paulo Freire spoke about how the banking concept of education dehumanizes the students. It poisons the students so to speak. When you bring the knowledge you learn in the school system into the real world, it does not relate and a connection is not made, as…

Clint Smith in his Ted Talk, How to raise a black son in American delivers a very persuasive and powerfully touching speech on the dynamics of race and his childhood instilled values. Smith shares the life lessons instilled in him by his father when he was young on the unsettling and unfair reality of being a young black American Kid and the sacrifices they have to make. To elaborate on the unfair and unsettling reality of a being a young black kid growing in America, Smith tells the story of…