Freire's Chicken/Egg Conundrum

Freire’s Chicken/Egg Conundrum:

“Banking” vs. “Problem-Posing” Education

Emily Bencsics

Indiana University South Bend

English L502

Rebecca Brittenham

February 5, 2012

Freire’s Chicken/Egg Conundrum:  “Banking” vs. “Problem-Posing” Education

            Rarely is anything defined so neatly into categories in this world.  Trying to label pedagogy practices into neat little terms, is much like missing Gibraltar while hunting a particular pebble.  To state that “teachers either work for the liberation of the people – their humanization – or for their domestication, their domination” (Freire, 2005, p. 256), is not only insulting, but leaves little regard for the learning process involved in getting a student from a “banking concept of education” to a more “problem-posing” method.  On some level, we are all products of the “banking” educational mold.  As children, we memorize words, numbers, and ideas.  Some students listened and absorbed the information, while other students merely went through the motions.  Either way, the students never lost their “humanity” in the process. 

            To say that “[t]he more completely [the students] accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them” (Freire, 2005, p. 258), suggests that students are nothing but a bunch of mindless creatures.  Freire’s version of the “banking” model of education assumes that it is somehow perverse for a teacher to exhibit superior knowledge, discipline, and content selection capabilities.  It is, therefore, my argument that one cannot fully arrive at the “problem-posing” model until one has first been through the “banking” model.  In other words, the two methods are not mutually exclusive exercises in academic snobbery, but rather, a perfectly harmonious (and well documented) symbiotic relationship.

            While Freire’s concepts about education are extremely interesting, they do not feel fair. After much reading and exploring, there were several essays and texts that appeared to express the “honorable” characteristics of Freire’s “problem-posing” concept.  However, after further investigation, not one of these texts could stand alone in the “problem-posing” department without first being subjected to the “banking” theory.  In some way, the “banking” concept is always lurking in the background of these authors’ experiences. 

            The first text under investigation is Onnie Lee Logan’s excerpt from Motherwit.  Perhaps one of the toughest essays to pinpoint Freire’s concepts, after close analysis, one can see the concepts illustrated beautifully within.  While Logan’s learning may be more closely related to an apprenticeship in midwifery rather than a more traditional education, it is still very apparent that the traditional “banking” system is at work.  Logan best shows this concept when she describes her preparation for delivering a baby. “…I get up to scrub up my hands because I got to scrub em up two or three different times befo’ the baby is born…Scrub em up real good with a brush halfway up our arms.  I did that through the rules and regulations of the bo’d a health in my trainin” (Logan, 1993, p. 485).  Obviously, there has been some knowledge given to Logan in the form of training.  In addition, throughout the essay she mentions and refers to certain rules and regulations within the medical community.  While she most definitely puts her own flavor on the work she does, there are traces of a “banking” model at work.  Even more fascinating, is that Logan’s essay gives us a glimpse of how wonderful it is when the two concepts come together.  “I tell you one thing that’s very impo’tant that I do that the doctors don’t do and the nurses doesn’t do because they doesn’t take time to do it.  And that is I’m with my patients at all times with a smile and keepin her feelin good with kind words…Most of the doctors when they do say something to em it’s so harsh” (Logan, 1993, p. 485).  Unlike the strict dichotomy of the teacher-student (or in this case, doctor-patient) relationship, Logan illustrates how she uses her knowledge to become partners with her mothers in labor.  In other words, she imparts her wisdom by way of the “problem-posing” method. 

            Another essay where the “banking” method holds hands with the “problem-posing” method is from Helen Keller.  “I was simply making my fingers go in monkeylike imitation.  In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words…But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name” (Keller, 1993, p. 445).  This particular scene demonstrates the “banking” concept very well in Keller’s instruction.  This essay is punctuated with many vignettes of a stringent teacher-student mode.  After Keller’s teacher distinguishes “water” from “mug” for her, Keller states:  “I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.  That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free” (Keller, 1993, p. 446).  Interestingly, the teacher (who is first shown to teach Keller by rote memorization of hand gestures) is becoming a student herself.  Basically, as she instructs Keller, she is simultaneously learning new ways of instruction herself. 

            The interdependence of the “banking” concept and the “problem-posing” is very strong in Keller’s work.  “I was forced to repeat the words or sentences, sometimes for hours, until I felt the proper ring in my own voice.  My work was practice, practice, practice.  Discouragement and weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward to their pleasure in my achievement” (Keller, 1993, p. 450).  While it is true that Keller is constantly practicing, memorizing, and gripping information from her teacher (“banking” method), she is very much taking ownership of this knowledge.  She is becoming more and more self-aware, and as a result, more aware of her transforming current reality (“problem-posing” method). 

            Finally (and probably most fascinating) areas in which we see the association between Freire’s concepts, is in Malcolm X’s Learning to Read.  First of all, it is important to note that Malcolm X’s education was essentially a self-education.  In other words, he taught himself how to read and write; he taught himself the functionality necessary to communicate on a level never before realized in his life so far. 

            Going along with this brand of homemade learning, there is most definitely a sense of Freire’s “banking” concept of education.  “I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages…Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying.  In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks” (X, 1965, para. 6-7).  Here, we see the seemingly self-imposed “banking” educational system working to his benefit.  Even though there is no outside force (i.e., teacher), Malcolm X is behaving as though he is being taught be means of the oppressive memorization and mimicking methods described in the “banking” concept. 

            In conjunction with the “banking” model, Malcolm X undergoes a realization process that can only be described as a “problem-posing” model.  “Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of the suffering of exploitation…I read, I saw, how the white man never has gone among the non-white peoples bearing the Cross in the true manner and spirit of Christ’s teachings – meek, humble, and Christlike” (X, 1965, para. 29).  Through Malcolm X’s readings and labor intensive self-study, a true revolutionary was born.  He would go on to become a radical leader during the civil rights era, and more than likely, would have morphed into a highly respected multicultural educator himself had it not been for his assassination.  When Malcolm X meticulously memorized and copied words from dictionaries, he was quite truthfully transforming his reality. 

            In the end, Freire postulates that the “banking” concept is the method of choice for the “oppressor.”  That somehow the act of learning through memorization, or by absorbing the teacher’s knowledge serves only to oppress peoples, is a theory that seems circular in its reasoning.  “Problem-posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor.  No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question:  Why?” (Freire, 2005, p. 267).  Yet, it is troublesome that throughout history, one of the most sought after questions from students by teachers is simply: Why?  How is it then, that memorizing mind-numbing facts and regurgitating recalcitrant formulas does not eventually answer the question “why?” 

            Imagine if Onnie Lee Logan had not learned the rules and regulations of midwifery, or if Helen Keller had not first learned the finger-spelled words.  Moreover, what would we have received from Malcolm X had he never bothered to pick up the dictionary in his prison cell and painfully copied every word?  To divide learning concepts so succinctly like Freire does is to gloss over the importance of their coexistence. The traditional classroom learning techniques do not have to be a dehumanizing event, and the perfect “problem-posing” classroom is quite meaningless without some “bank” of knowledge from which to withdraw.   

References

Freire, P. (2005). The “banking” concept of education. In D. Bartholomae & A. Petrosky (Eds.), Ways of reading: An anthology for writers (pp. 255-267). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Keller, H. (1993). The story of my life. In P. Rose (Ed.), The Norton book of women’s lives (pp. 444-451). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Logan, O. (1993). Motherwit. In P. Rose (Ed.), The Norton book of women’s lives (pp. 483-495). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

X, M. (1965). Learning to read. Retrieved from Oncourse.