Based on the demands of our educational system, our society is forced to conform to the level of education that they want us to be at. This educational distortion is beneficiary to the educator’s realm and the way of governing education . We are seen as merely objects rather than subjects and are fed only facts/information that the educator only wants us to memorize not actually comprehend it or even ask questions or give our opinions to given facts/information. This is what makes the educator the oppressor and us the oppressed.
Paulo Freire’s “Pedogogy of the Oppressed” deals with the concept of oppression in the school system and suggests an alternative method of education. There is an absolute need for students to “Tear down the wall” (Pink Floyd) of conformity in education and express their individuality. Education in itself can be a contradiction. The teacher (oppressor), is there to educate/teach the student (oppressed) but is he really? As Freire indicates “Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content.
Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. ” (67). He also goes on to say “Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. 67), and he refers to this as the “banking system” where the student goes “only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. “(68).
This “banking system” method of teaching, really is not teaching the student(oppressed), but rather they are given facts/information by the teacher(oppressor) that they do not fully understand, and so there really is no learning. Also the “banking concept” holds the student down because he is told what to learn, and he is not allowed to work to his full capacity. It is because if this that the student lacks “creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. 68).
If this type of educational method keeps on, then there will be no change, therefore the minds will be filled with facts/information that the student will not always understand. This “banking concept” method of education also keeps a restraint to knowledge for the student to a certain level because it doesn’t give the student initiative, motivation, and drive to actually go out and want to learn. In other words this isn’t the way to go about education. As Freire states “This solution is not (nor can it be found in the banking concept.
