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Education: Learning By Communism? Through Freire’s “ The Banking Concept of
Education,” we see the effects this concept has on it’s students and also we see
the effects that the alternate concept, problem-posing has. The ‘banking’
concept allows the students to become vessels of knowledge, not being able to
learn at a creative pace. By using communism, seeing through how education is
taught in the classroom, it is parallel to Freire’s ‘banking’ concept. We can
see that both ideas are similar and both were harmful to the human mind. While
‘banking’ poses the threat of creative growth and power, Marxism, which applies
Marx’s ideas to learning in a communistic way, it creates the threat of never
being able to learn. The banking concept is “ a gift bestowed by those who
consider themselves knowledgeable upon those who they consider to know nothing”
(Freire 213). The goal of the ‘banking’ concept is to deposit as much
information into the students as possible. This results in disconnected
memorization without the real understanding and discouragement of creative
thought.They cannot think for themselves. As Marx writes, just as there are two
types of learning, ‘banking’ and problem-posing, he explains that society is
this way also. There is the upper class and subordinate classes.
They both
struggle for economic and political power and the primary way the upper class
keeps its power is through their beliefs and values. They are allowed to think.
The subordinate classes believe they are subordinate due to the upper classes
prestige and way of thinking. Like Freire’s ‘banking’ concept, education is the
way to keep students down and this works because the students accept all
knowledge from the teacher, just like the dominant class in Marx’s ideology,
keeps the subordinate classes submissive. There are also things that make
Freire’s ideas of teaching that leave Marx at a disadvantage. This is because
most submissive people will eventually fight back to get their ideas heard. So
therefore the ‘banking’ concept has a flaw in itself. When Marx talks about the
subordinate classes believing that they had to live up to the upper class, he
forgot to mention that throughout time, an oppressed people will figure out that
they deserve better than what they are receiving. Overthrowing a government or
standing up to a figure of power allows the submissive to no longer not be able
to learn. They learn through facing what they had been crushed by for so long.
‘Banking’ will eventually fall to its demise, to its students. This will then
pave the way to actually learning something that is useful and can be utilized.
‘Banking’ and Marx both do not realize that you cannot keep something hidden out
of sight, a people that can learn and live, without having to keep them
subservient.
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