As I was reading Freire's "Banking Concept of Education," I opened a word document, changed the format from portrait to landscape and wrote "What is your Problem?" I did this to remind myself to be a problem-posing pedagogue. As much as I purport to be one, I know that I have banking tendencies. The only way that I'm going to remember to pose problems, is by having a big sign on my wall. Otherwise, I tend to resort to making deposits when things aren't going well, or when I feel like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. It's because of the way I was taught in high school.
I think my approach to each lesson must be foreshadowed by this question, or at least some form of it: "What is the problem that I would like my students to work through in this activity?" Further, "How can I get my students to pose problems which I can participate in "solving" within the activity?" If I'm posing all the problems, then I'm still banking. I think that's the case anyway.
An example:
I am currently teaching a Humanities course in which we study cultural phenomena and how the arts impact humanity and society. One of my favorite activities is the "album study" in which each student analyzes the lyrics of one song on an album. The idea is for the students to see how the album becomes an "album" of songs and to see what problems or ideas the band in question was dealing with at the time the album was created. This year, we have studied The Rolling Stones' Beggars' Banquet (1960s), Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1970s) and Michael Jackson's Thriller (1980s). The problem I'm seeing, as a recovering banker, is that I've chosen the albums. As such, I've dictated the important albums of the decade. That said, I'm not sure that there is a "problem" to be "posed" here. Sure, I can have the students work in groups to decide how they want to study the album and what they want to do with it, but that's more of a "democratic" process than a "problem."
I guess my questions are these: What should a posed problem look like? What should it entail? How do I go about getting students to see problems that they want to pose without dictating the problems to them? I could go on and on here, but my point is that a discussion is necessary to help create problem-posing atmospheres within our classrooms. What does that atmosphere look like? How is it taken care of and fostered by those of us responsible for doing so?
I'll leave it at that... Thoughts?
Richard, It is such a tough balance at the primary/secondary level when there is a curriculum because there have to be boundaries to the problems or guidance on the problems or students would be on a totally self-directed learning path. It seems like the common core is pushing towards a greater emphasis on problem solving/critical thinking skills and less on breadth but...
ReplyDeleteI think you should give yourself credit for coming up with some very cool problems that tap into the arts! Since reading Freire I have been doing some thinking about the kinds of problems my student might create in the higher level history class I will be teaching next year. And that leads, really, to back to your question: What does a posed problem look like? I think the answer might lie in the type of thinking and the skills you want to promote through the problem approach. And this may be different depending on the discipline. In history, for example, this approach has a name: historiography. Historiography is all about how we look at events in the past in ways that challenge assumptions and seek out key evidence to support an explanation.
ReplyDeleteI've got to be honest - I struggled with reading the Freire article. (Not because I disagree with the key concepts, but because the rhetoric was a little thick.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for breaking it down and applying it to your work in the here and now. I'm glad I took the time to read the posts here.
I do not know if I have the key to answer your question about what a posed problem should look like, but I do know what it should NOT look like. We can't ask kids questions or pose problems that can be solved by typing them into a search engine. I also wonder if we can get the learners to pose the problems? If this is supposed to be a back-and-forth, then why can't the students generate the questions and the problems? There have been times that I have challenged my students to create the "essential questions" for a unit of study, then research and work with the questions,and, finally, teach what they have discovered to the class. I have learned a lot from those units. Freire might even approve.
Truth be told, I think we all fight our banking tendencies on a regular basis on all levels and in all areas. When I began teaching years ago, that was the impression that I was left with that teaching was, the banking education model. Our goal was to instill knowledge into our students that they would then use to be a productive member of society. What then was the problem? Students excelled in their ability to regurgitate the information, but not in their ability to utilize that information to solve a problem. As this question was investigated, it was easily seen that students from other countries would then be more successful landing internships, jobs, and continued education.
ReplyDeleteIn the twenty-four years since I left my undergraduate program, I have found that my paradigm has shifted from the dominant banking education to the problem posing education, which seems to be one of the reasons the Common Core has been adopted. With the Common Core, students will be asked to go deeper into subjects and pose problems that will allow them to gain a deeper understanding. Additionally, it will strengthen a skill set that all students deparetely need to have to maintain their competitive edge as they venture out into society. I feel like this is nothing new for education, but yet something that has been around since the Space Race began,although now it has been given an official name and catagorized in the history of education, but as I was reading the Freire, I couldn't help making these connections to this article.
On a side note, I found myself utilizing all of the skills we teach students to utilize when approaching a new text of great complexity. The Freire article was a quite a difficult article which challenged me to work through it, carefully choosing the skills which would be most effective, thus proving again what I share with students regularly. Since piloting programs, students have seen teacher's ability to work through a difficult piece of text utilizing the skills that a life-long learner uses.
How to make authentic student-based learning- that is really a problem about finding "problems." I think what holds me back/ keeps me in the "banking-deposit" holding pattern, is how to give students real control over problem-based learning. As you wrote- if you are creating the "problem" for students to solve, is this really an equal forum of student-teacher communication that Freire writes about? As a history teacher, how can students create an authentic "problem" to solve about World War I before they have absorbed and have understanding of the concepts of the war? Where do I start with the "problem" concept- after teaching (lecturing?) the "important" information about the war? At the beginning before students really have the necessary background to conceptualize this intelligently? Is assigning a textbook reading part of the process of "depositing knowledge"? Paulo Freire, in a quasi-Marxist castigation of formal education as serving the "paternalistic" dominant status-quo, might agree that "assigned readings" and follow-up quizzes minimalize the creative power of students, thus denigrating and marginalizing them. But where then is our starting point? What is the base-line of "historical knowledge" that students should learn before beginning their own authentic "problem-based" learning? Should it be agreed upon that students ought to share some common knowledge about the past? What is the most appropriate method for students to obtain this information? Traditional methods all seem guilty of "depositing" knowledge. Should we bother with "teaching" history at all if most scenarios circle back to the banking method?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Paulo Freire’s argument in “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” Historically, teachers have also been viewed as masters of information. Students were sponges, soaking up the information presented in lectures and written on chalk boards. The role of the teacher needs to evolve to fit the complex needs of our students. With the ride of the internet, knowledge on any subject matter is much easier to come by. As teachers, we need to emphasize skills instead of information. We need to teach students how to decipher and understand information. We need to stress how students should value the information available to them. This makes teaching much more difficult. Instead of insisting on the “right” answer, teachers need to help students learn the skills needed to analyze and synthesize the information and make it relevant to their everyday lives. As a history teacher, I try to write assessments and deliver a curriculum that challenges students to think creatively and give their own meaning to the course.
ReplyDelete