It’s easy to understand why this is the first piece of reading a teacher might assign. The topic discussed is the failings of the educational system with regards to the freedom of thought left to students after they’ve completed their studies. The text begins by addressing the dichotomy of teacher and student, then spends quite a deal of time describing the current common mode of teaching, what the author calls the “banking concept of education”, followed by what the author suggests as a replacement to that method.

The relationship among teacher and student, Freire argues, is a strict vertical hierarchy. The teacher is in a roll that grants them authority and value, and their responsibility is to recite information to the students. The student is valueless without the teacher, because the teacher is the one who gives them information. The transaction is such that at the cessation of the relationship, the student should have memorized the same things the teacher has with regards to the subject of the class. Freire poses an alternative relationship where in there is not a teacher and many students, but rather a teacher-student and many student-teachers. In this new mode of organization value can be shared and moves in all directions rather than in a strictly vertical teacher-to-student direction. The teacher-student then becomes the person who has the most information or experience on the topic at hand, but always leaves room for more depth of understanding to come out of interactions with the student-teachers.

Freire criticizes the current mode of education as too impersonal, prescriptive, rigid, and transactional. Using the banking analogy, the teacher deposits information into the student, who is otherwise an empty vessel. Freire describes the banking concept of education by ten rules, including; the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing, the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it, and, the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students. The result of this style of education is the stripping away of the creativity, kindness, and free-thought innate in humankind, and, by extension, the mechanization of the people. Freire then states that a person’s natural vocation is to become human through the exercise of their own will.

As an alternative to this style of education, Freire suggests the “problem-posing” method. In the problem-posing method of education, each lesson becomes a discussion among peers. The teacher-student may decide the topic of discussion and guide the discussion from going too far astray, but should not set strict limitations. Through this method there will naturally be a great deal of exchange and evolution of thought. Not only does each student-teacher instruct the teacher and their peers, but they must also examine more closely their own opinions before giving them voice in a room of other free thinkers. This is what Freire calls “libertarian education”; education that sets one free.

Freire’s theories on education suggest that the mode in which one is educated is responsible for the way one lives their life. An education wherein one is taught to memorize and repeat information leads to a rigid, docile, easily-controllable population. A libertarian education is one that demonstrates a dynamic, changeable world in which the “students” are actors and who may affect its course. As Freire was a Marxist, he argues that any revolutionary society must adopt a liberatory educational system or risk becoming reactionary themselves. The influence of Marx is also clearly visible in the idea of a discussion based class, the focus on dialectics being the path to true knowledge.

I was excited as I read this piece and if it is an indication of what this class has to offer then I look forward to starting class in a few days.