I’ve been thinking about the talk that happens in the hallways,
in the faculty lounge (now there’s a word I’d like to discuss), during prep
periods. If we intentionally reject the banking notion of education, then we
must consider that any communication that attempts to problem-solve is a form
of learning and coming to know. As my
colleagues and I whine about the end of year assessment schedule and then
unknowingly morph the conversation into how to deal with students who struggle
to pass assessments, are we not learning? When the principal and I discuss how
to help students of poverty access books over the summer break, are we engaging
in “problem-posing education where we
develop the power to perceive critically the way we exist in the world…and see reality in process, in
transformation.”? Freire states that "problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality." Isn't that what we do when we engage in professional conversation - knowingly and on purpose or unknowingly and accidentally?
I think this is a jumping off point for the summer. What do
you think? Where has Freire taken you?
The entire time I was reading Freire the TD Bank commercial played over and over in my mind: It's time to bank human again. So many connections there, metaphorically and literally.
ReplyDeleteThe struggling readers in my support classes need to build strategies for comprehension before they can create a “consciousness as consciousness of consciousness.” But maybe the problem-posing doesn’t have to be that complex.
Two of the comprehension strategies we work on are questioning and making connections (text-to-text,to-self,to-world). Both involve dialogue…and a certain amount of “metaconsciousness”. So in a sense their inquiries and connections are responding to the essence of consciousness.
"Banks must serve society, not rule it"- Archbishop of Canterbury, January, 2013
ReplyDeleteI was very engaged by the "banking" motif throughout the Freire article from "Pedagogy of the Oppressed." In many ways, I feel it goes beyond the metaphorical allusion of just depositing knowledge in student's heads. In our modern sense, banks are these global entities that shape so many aspects of our existence, yet most of us are ignorant to their control mechanisms and how they impact us personally. The "bail out" and the Fed and interest rates and inflation are these bigger concepts that float beyond our reach, yet impact us in ways we don't directly see, or even know how were are being molded and controlled.
I think in the same vein is the "banking concept" of pedagogy. Larger forces and smaller forces all complicit in perpetuating this stagnant model: state governments, the Department of Education, Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, local school boards, College Board, the college admission professionals, test prep centers, your own superintendent, your colleagues, even you, all have skin in the banking game. Our superiors check that we correctly "deposit knowledge" and then have the accountants review the receipts to make sure everything adds up. "Proficient" "Advanced" "Not Proficient"- labels are ceaselessly stamped by a diligent egg-checker. Curricula is hastily reworked, action plans are put into effect, review sessions are added, important looking graphs are generated, experts are consulted. Eisenhower once warned Americans to beware the "military-industrial complex." Today we should guard against the "educational-industrial complex." Great ideas in pedagogy, from Friere's concept of "problem-posing" lessons, to 'differentiated instruction' all meet the same fate- crashing themselves upon the unmoving, oppressive wall of government and industrial-based based "testing" which only sees temporary knowledge acquisition (banking of "knowledge" deposits) as worthwhile metrics of education.
The larger question is how do we as a society move beyond this paradigm? How do we join individual voices of protest against an unjust and fallacious system into a solid chorus of opposition that must be heard, and must be answered?