In chapter 2 of the book “Pedagogy
of the Oppressed,” Freire does a great analysis surrounding the
banking model of education, one that I found to be quite insightful.
This method reflects the idea of the teacher depositing information
into the students who are considered to otherwise be empty. Freire
(1970) describes this method as having a scope that only extends “as
far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits” (p.72,) which
Freire (1970) then states “the more the students work at storing
the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical
consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world
as transformers of that world” (p.73). Ultimately, due to the lack
of scope descibed by Friere, the students are alienated and oppressed
as they are not the arbiters of their conscience, only holding and
then regurgitating information, and they end up only viewing the
world as “the way it is” rather than seeing themselves as
“transformers of that world”. The next interesting concept that
caught my eye was in regards toliberatory education, which “must
begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction”
(Freire, 1970, p.72). What he is referring to as the teacher-student
contradiction is the way that the teacher and student are presented
to one another as the opposite and therefore through the banking
method the possibility that students teach the teacher
