Freire Summary Response Revised PDF

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Jade Tamondong English 20 Professor Shadden February 13, 2017 Freire Summary Response In Chapter Two of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire explains his views on the education system of his time and how it is affecting the students’ well-being and future. Freire describes the teaching method being used by educators as the “banking” concept, which he perceives as an inadequate way of teaching. However, Freire proposes an alternative teaching method called the “problem-posing” concept, which he believes is the proper way to educate students. Freire introduces the banking concept of education by first talking about the “narrative character” of the teacher-student relationship. This kind of relationship involves the narrating subject (teacher) and the listening object (student). The students are only seen as objects that are being filled with information that is being narrated by the teacher. Because of this relationship, education is perceived as an act of depositing information, which Freire describes the banking method as. Freire criticizes this type of education because he believes that students aren’t actually learning or gaining knowledge this way; the students are only memorizing what the teacher is saying. With students only memorizing the information, they aren’t able to form their own opinions or come up with their own ideas. As a result of this, Freire believes that the banking concept oppresses the students because it generates them to be passive and unquestioning. Freire claims that when a student is unable to question the world around them, they are not aware of reality and remain oppressed because they have not develop a conscience, therefore they are not their own person. With that being said, Freire ultimately concludes that the banking method teaches the student to adapt to the status quo of society.

In order to reform the current education system, Freire suggests to get rid of the banking education altogether and replace it with an alternative method he calls problem-posing. Problemposing education revolves around the teacher not only educating the student, but the student educating the teacher as well. This type of relationship gets rid of the the teacher’s authoritative role and allows the student to be able to express themselves. Freire explains that with the problem-posing method the teacher “presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-reconsiders his earlier considerations as the students express their own.” By this, he means that teachers present their material in a way that the student is able to question the information and form conclusions by themselves, all the while the teacher also learns from the student’s observation. In this way, students are actually gaining knowledge because they are being active with the learning process and applying the information that’s given to them. Freire believes that the problem-posing method gives the student the power to make an impact on society because they are using their knowledge to challenge the problems they will encounter in reality. Freire’s observation about the education system is a concept that I have overlooked throughout my years as a student. From elementary to high school, my education consisted of the banking method. For most of my life I’ve been taught to memorize what the teacher says or else I won’t get a good grade in the class. I was so focused on getting good grades that I never internalized the information that was given to me. Only a few of my teachers actually engaged with the students in class and that was mostly seen in my AP (advanced placement) classes. My AP classes included a lot of discussion between the teacher and the students. My AP teachers would ask us lots of questions about the reading or asked how did we interpret it. Most of my other teachers just lectured on what was on the powerpoint that they made and then passed out

packets of homework. Those teachers were too focused on what material that they had to cover by the end of the year that they didn’t give the students the opportunity to actually understand what was given to them. These examples of my education experience is what Freire believes is dangerous to the student’s mind because they aren’t really learning anything. I do agree with Freire when he says that problem-posing shapes students to able to have a mind of their own, however I don’t agree when he says that the banking method is entirely oppressive. I am a biology major and most of what I learn is through the banking method. Even though I'm memorizing a lot of terms and concepts, it also gives me the opportunity to think of ideas that can further my research or how to conduct an experiment. I’m still able to think critically even when I’m learning this way. Student have the choice of whether or not they want to use the information that they “bank”. In my opinion, the information obtained by the banking method can be used as a foundation of your education and can continue to built by using the problem-posing method. Overall, I think that banking and problem-posing being used together can better the education system and also generate students that will become great members of society.

Cover Memo Dear Ann, I wrote this paper by annotating the reading and writing down the main ideas. I basically developed an outline that included the main ideas as well as evidence from that

supported the ideas. I worked on the body of the essay first and left the introduction for last. Although you said that we didn’t need an introduction, I wrote one anyway because I like giving the reader a somewhat vague outline of what the paper will be about and then go into detail about it in the body of the paper. I wasn’t too confident about the draft that we brought for our writing workshop, so I’m glad that my partner was able to give me advice on how to further my paper’s potential. When I was editing my paper after the writing workshop, I highlighted the problem areas of my paper that I needed to fix. By doing this I felt more organized and I was able to mainly focus on those points in my paper. Normally, I would usually go over the paper and rewrite most of what I wrote because I tend to second guess myself a lot. However, my partner assured me that my overall paper was good, except I needed to add more examples. I feel very confident with this draft, I let my friends read it and they said they were able to get the main points of Freire’s reading and didn’t feel confused at any point of the paper. I actually liked writing this paper because with your teaching style, I felt more at ease and more confident with what I am writing. The only trouble that I had with writing this paper was the response portion. I’m not too sure if I provided enough information to support my ideas about how and why I feel this way about Freire’s idea, so if you could focus your feedback on this part of the essay that would be greatly appreciated. Also this is my first time not writing a conclusion, so to me it kind of feels weird but if you think I did a good job I would love that reassurance.

Thanks, Jade Tamondong...