Pedagogy of the Oppressed Reflection

Pedagogy of the Oppressed Reflection
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Pedagogy of the Oppressed Reflection
Paulo Freire observes that education suffers from narration sickness. He believes the contents of education whether, values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated become lifeless and petrified. Narrative model of education, therefore, tends to not focus on transformation power of knowledge but the sonority of words. Students become mere containers and receptacles to be filled by the teacher, and a teacher’s success is gauged by how much information he or she deposits on her students. The more meekly the students permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. The traditional deposition of information from the teacher (depositor) to the student (depositories) does not encourage student creativity because they patently memorize concepts without having an in-depth understanding of what they truly are. This is what Paulo Freire called the banking concept of education, where the scope of action allowed to the students only extends to receiving, filing and storing the deposits of information from the teacher.
Banking concept of education has presented a contradiction to the core intention of education as an equalizer. In this model, the teacher comes out as a superior, who has a gift of knowledge bestowed upon him or her and consider themselves as knowledgeable over their students, who know nothing. For example, in an Algebra class, the mode of instruction from teacher to student is one that is linear where orders are issued as opposed to discussing problems and finding a solution together. The teacher also disciplines his or her students in case they cannot grasp concepts, projecting him or her as an authoritarian figure that chooses to ...