In my school years in India, I felt like I was in one kind of prison which controlled my thoughts, and my mind. I could not think outside of this St. Xavier school in Anand, a small town near Bombay. When I was in the fifth grade, a teacher read from the science book that Newton had found the rule of gravity when he observed an apple fall down on him. I was thinking, Is this possible for me? Can I observe the same as Newton?
Suddenly my teacher asked me, "What are you thinking? You should read the book and understand the rule." I was shocked that I could not think on that. Why can I not ask questions? After some time I got used to it and I became like others, an "object," without any thinking, just accepted everything and repeated it, memorized it. At that time I did not realize that I was passing through the "banking Education," as it is called by Paulo Friere. Every school or college does not have "banking education" but there are also some schools in other areas where sources of information are not enough compare to others. In today's world, people have realized and accepted this "problem-posing" method. Students and teachers do many activities such as presentations, projects, and group discussion to teach the students. The school education is base of the college level education or higher education. We send children to the school because they can prepare for the world and one day when they face problems of the real world they can solve them with their own sense instead of being frustrated. The future people can increase their skills and get new experience. Furthermore they can advance and grow themselves. Until students are treated as "objects" they can never understand "biophilia," the love of life. People should remove "the banking system" and introduce the "problem-posing" method to the students and teachers.
The imprudent society has trained students and the teachers to use a misguided system where they can never think for themselves. They are "depositing" the books in minds of the students. Students are nothing more than depositors and they think those who support banking education would become the perfect human for the future world. In my view, the teachers are like the warden of the prison and classroom is our prison room. If you do anything outside of the warden's order, then you will be punished for it.
The teacher says you have to accept anything from books and you do not have any rights of asking questions or thinking over it. This system turns men and women into "automatons," people who act like machines. According to Friere, "knowledge" is not something which can be measured, but it is gain by experience, understanding and creativity. Banking education has reduced the creative power of the people. Friere said that "Their response to the challenge evokes new challenges, followed by new understandings; and gradually the students come to regard themselves as committed." This means that when the students try to answer the question and respond to that question, they found new questions under new understanding. At the end they gave up and accept to follow the "banking" concept. Likewise, this happened to me in fifth grade, and I accepted to "receive" whatever my teacher read or wrote. After that incident I have never thought critically or given my opinion on any topic. I felt that there is no need of thinking and I adjusted myself in that world. Here the world has been leading me through a misguided system, which neither gave true knowledge nor true culture.
In the present world, education is applied with technology and it can distribute in any part of the world. Students need to see, read and examine the study on the global perspective. Schools need to teach with "dialogue" which involves teacher and student and makes them think together on the topic and do applications to be conscious of it and use it. This process is a "problem-posing" method. The "problem-posing" method is continuous, attaching with the real world and talk about reality. I became conscious about it when I started studying in my college year as a freshman at Oakland University. I got to work with others in groups. During the group discussions, I discovered studying is easier to comprehend when we work with others and are active in the real world. For my first profile essay I had taken interviews of many people and when I talked with my colleagues; furthermore I knew about my essay topic. I had written a good essay which is connected to reality. As Friere said, "The distinction, however, is essential: the objects which surround me are simply accessible to my consciousness, not located within it. I am aware of them, but they are not inside me."(p.16) I have known that things are around me, I need to analyze them and when I think about them critically, discuss with others. Then, I would have the" knowledge" about those things.
"Has to start from what we are and what we do as a people, not from what some people think and want for us."(p.106) Spoken by one of the students of Freire's literacy work, it shows that one's importance in the world. Because of the "banking" system students have extracted their souls from the experience and so are isolated from goal or the search for goal. According to the Freire the "problem posing" method is dynamic because, according to the text this method is associated with the continuous change in reality. I enhancement strongly that way about most of the rest of "content" learning as well -- history, geography, science, literature, art -- that it is by plunging into the world of those things which are meaningful to use and transformational for us, that we learn them best. As Freire says, "The world -- no longer something to be described with deceptive words -- becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization."(p.43) People will change the world into creative place where one can learn new things at every moment as human not as "objects" of something.
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. "Paulo Freire: Chapter 2 of The Pedogogy of the Oppressed." New York:
Continuum Books, 1993. Bob Corbet. Philosophy of Education. Course Website.
Jan.-May 2000. Philosophy Department, Webster University.
In my school years in India, I felt like I was in one a kind of prison which controlled my thoughts, and my interfered with my clarity of mind.
I was thinking, Is this possible for me? Can I observe the same as Newton?--- What do you mean? You want to be as observant as Newton? You should add one more sentence to help clarify what you mean.
Okay, I love it! This is a very thoughtful essay. I think you should change the way you do the first paragraph break, though:
In my school years in India, I felt like ... and understand the rule." I was shocked that I could not think on that. Why can I not ask questions? --- I think all of this should be one paragraph, and then you should start paragraph 2:
After some time I got used to ...
