Comparing "The Banking Concept of Education" and "The Achievement of Desire"
In "The Banking Concept of Education," Paulo Freire argues that education, as it is portrayed now, treats students as empty vessels into which teachers simply pour information. This is seen as fundamentally flawed, as the students are mistakenly assumed to be incredibly passive, and does not take into account any semblance of critical thinking. The result is an oppressive school system that leaves little input from the student; they are less critical thinkers themselves and merely repositories, vessels for the teacher's specific brand of information. Richard Rodriguez, as evidenced by his essay "The Achievement of Desire," would expressly disagree with Freire's assessment, as he believes that education and knowledge can only be conveyed truly and effectively through the actual activity of engaging with one's environment. However, Freire' looking at Rodriguez' education, would find many parallels between the banking concept of education and Rodriguez' own experiences; the process of education started to change and 'bank' him, as he started to change himself as a result of the lessons he was learning from his teachers.
The strict divide between what is learned at home and what is learned at school is the essence of Rodriguez' reflection: "Teachers emphasize the value of a reflectiveness that opens a space between thinking and immediate action" (Rodriguez 515). According to Rodriguez, before you enter school, you primarily exist in a singular and unique home life, separate from the rest of society. When you enter education, however, you must start to adapt and change yourself in order to develop skills and knowledge that will help you overcome these obstacles. In this way, you start to lose essential parts of yourself that you may have valued before you entered school; in your home context, you developed yourself to a point where you fit in perfectly, but this is changed by necessity in the school system. "Good schooling requires that any student alter early childhood habits" (516). The dichotomy of home life and the real world is exacerbated by the regulatory nature of school; education is argued to have an equalizing effect that prepares students for the real world equally without considering their individual value.
This equalization happens through the intervention of the teacher, according to Freire; the teacher performs a type of 'oppression' by suppressing one's own set of knowledge for another, claiming it to be more important, or pertinent to the real world. However, Freire, unlike Rodriguez, wishes to rebel against this notion of oppression: "you need to develop a power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves" (Freire 706). The act of education itself has an indelible effect on the students; entrusting their personalities and knowledge to the teacher, the existing school system treats them as mere repositories of information just waiting to be filled. The implicit trust students like Rodriguez place on these teachers does even more damage to their existing identities: "The more completely [students] accept the passive role imposed on them, the more than tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them" (Freire 707). Instead of aiming their critical lens at reality, a teacher informs them of what reality is, overriding their own experiences and desires for the sake of expediency and convenience on the part of the teacher. Rodriguez' experience is shown to be like this, with the relating of information no longer tied to any social or interpersonal experience.
The loss of identity that Freire would argue comes at the hands of an oppressive education is very clear in Rodriguez' writing; schooling has a two-stage process wherein the student is first taken out of the context of the family and then brought into the classroom. This has a fundamental effect on one's personality and behaviors, as the act of education often leads to chances in who you were before you went to school. Freire would argue this is one major effect of 'banking,' as the teachers are depositing their information and agendas on the student, thus replacing their own fears and hopes with those of the teacher.
Rodriguez argues that, in order to prevent banking from taking a complete and utter hold on you and your identity, you must be aware that it is happening. The transformative nature of education is made clear by Rodriguez: "A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn't forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student" (Rodriguez 520). At the same time, while he laments this change, he deems it necessary; Freire would argue otherwise. He sees that as the aforementioned 'oppression' that must be combated through reforms of the school system.
Rodriguez' overall experience leaves him with a colder relationship with his family; by the time he has fully invested in the traditional education system, he can barely speak to his family. During their final conversation, he "tried to make our conversation seem like more than an interview," but the implication is that he couldn't; the education he received made him a different person who simply could not communicate on an equitable level with his parents anymore, a fact he seems to lament (Rodriguez 536).
Looking at Rodriguez' education experience, Freire would say that Rodriguez should not have had to become a different person in order to enjoy a quality education; he should have been given greater opportunities to think critically and absorb this new information without being molded so much from the outside. Freire would say that the opportunities for Rodriguez to mold himself were taken away from him; the distance that Rodriquez experiences with his family could have been avoided while still having greater knowledge of the world around him.
In conclusion, Freire's assessment of 'the banking concept of education' would lead him to pity Richard Rodriguez' education experience. Both authors are aware of the fundamental changes that the act of traditional education and 'banking' has on the student; however, while Rodriguez simply states that one should be aware of it, Freire believes that the system should be reformed to avoid banking however possible. Freire would see the separation of Rodriguez and his parents as tragic; instead, with a proper education system, the student would not have become so fully entrenched in rote education that he would no longer be able to figuratively speak the same language as his family. Freire, in his perfect world, would see to it that Rodriguez kept his education and his family at the same time.
Works Cited
Freire, Paolo. "The Banking Concept of Education." in Ways of Reading (9th ed.). Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2011, p. 81.
Rodriguez, Richard. "The Achievement of Desire." in Ways of Reading (9th ed.). Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2011, p. 113.
