Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Chapter 2 Summary

In Chapter Two of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire describes his opinions on the American education system and the faults within it. He begins by explaining the “banking” concept, an analogy in which the student is the bank and the teacher is the depositor. This concept assumes that students know nothing, they lack creativity, and more importantly, knowledge. Paulo Freire criticizes this concept because only “filling” students with information rather than encouraging them to question the world through critical thinking and dialogue leaves them at a loss. When teachers implement the “banking” concept, it leaves them without the “existential experience” of their students. By doing so, education “becomes an act of depositing” where the student is considered an object in the classroom rather than a conscious being. Freire suggests an alternative concept, the “problem posing” method. This concept places teachers and students into a partnership in which

It works on the idea that “no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other”

In my personal opinion, I agree with Paulo Freire 's “problem posing” method over the “banking concept.” The banking concept generates numerous problems for students and overall impacts their education as a whole. Students aren 't really learning and acquiring the knowledge they should be. Instead, they are simply memorizing the concepts given to them for a brief period of time then, it is later discarded to