“Why does it do that? How do they know?” I asked. I don’t remember exactly what the question was, but we were studying molecular structure. I wasn’t even really interested in the atomic and molecular powers at play, but if I had to learn it than the text darn well better at least have the decency to answer my questions.
It didn’t. Neither did the teacher. I was basically told to stop insisting upon more and more questions and simply learn what I needed to know to answer the text-book questions – the test. Either grow up and become a molecular scientist or shut up.
As I said, I wasn’t that interested, but if I was going to have to learn it, I wanted to do it right. I don’t remember exactly what grade I got on that test, but I passed the class. I don’t remember a single thing about molecular structure. And I don’t bother to ask too many questions about that subject any more. Luckily other subjects of my schooling have counter acted this – I’ve been blessed with AMAZING opportunities for education and for asking questions (which I shall expound upon later). But most people aren’t that lucky.
Today I was asked to give my opinion of Freire Paulo’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapter 2. My first honest impression is that the whole thing is MUCH too long and complicated, and this is coming from an honors student who values both vocabulary and precision in speech. Also, Freire’s main point about the oppressed was no nearly as interesting as his sub points, and seems to get in the way of the value of this chapter. Then again I was not provided with chapter 1, so my opinion might be different if I had.
Regardless, I’d like to address the bits I DID like about this chapter. Freire defines two teaching methods, the “Banking” method is what he calls the method of a narrator or teacher filling his students up with information – a lecturer or fact-filled textbook does this. Freire spends a good amount of time talking about the evils of this type of teaching and how oppressive it is and how it displays a lack of trust in people’s critical thinking abilities, but that it not the part that interested me. I really liked how he covered the alternate form of teaching – “Problem-posing”, he called it; to “Abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world”
I thought that this was a brilliant phrasing of the “deep-thinking” type of learning that should be sought. It is certainly the type of learning that I flourish under. I loved what he said about dialogue: “Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality. Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers.” Dialogue is of the utmost importance. It is the only way for a teacher and student to have any connection at all. In my mind, there are two things that must be present that are lacking in Freire’s “Banking” education: 1.) The student must ask questions and receive or find answers. That is the first way to “humanize” education – personal interaction. Through asking questions, the student learns which questions to ask and how to answer them. I believe that we cannot learn the answers to questions that we do not ask. And 2.) The student must be able to express not only what they have learned but why it matters. And not in a mechanical way, but an open-forum type of discussion way. “What do you think that means?” or “What do you think about that?” are important questions. “Why is this important?” and “SO WHAT?!” Are much MUCH better queries than “How many protons are contained in an Oxygen molecule?” or “What year did Christopher Columbus die?” These better questions require dialogue – the mutual participation of more than one party in exploring and understanding the subject. I think that this is what Freire wants when he says that we must be “Revolutionary – that is to say, dialogical – from the outset”.
I could go on and on about how this type of communal action in learning is one of the God-given goals of mankind, but I won’t. Not now at least. All I shall say is this: ASK QUESTIONS. Be curious. Find the answers. Find meaning. Express your thoughts. Ask more questions.
Here are a few: How can we encourage question asking (and more important the right type of question asking) in schools? How can we encourage dialogue? What are some of the most important problems that we should pose?
Kel
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