Freire Kozol Essay examples

Freire describes the banking system that acts as the backbone of our American education system as a system that stands to maintain two roles for those involved, that of the oppressed and that of the oppressor. He speaks directly to the traditional relationship between a teacher and their students and describes this relationship as a one-way interaction, where the all-knowing teacher deposits information into the child as if they were an empty receptacle, devoid of self-thought. This ultimately sets the tone of dominance where the teacher tells the student what is so and the student will accept it without an opportunity to discuss the proposed information within the context of the students’ own experiences. Freire’s assessment of the established way of teaching and learning, which he has coined as the “banking system” does not differentiate between those students who have access to an abundant number of educational resources that go beyond the classroom versus those students who’s only resource is the classroom itself. It is this lack of acknowledgement of socio-economic inequalities within our educational system that makes Freire’s proposed solution of moving towards a “problem-posing” system one that still only benefits those school districts who can afford to provide the resources to apply this new way of teaching. In the following discussion, I will examine how these roles of dominance and the banking system play out between those children being brought up within wealthy school systems and those coming up through school systems with limited financial resources1.
In Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools, he examines how the concept of financial equity between schools becomes something very different when put on paper. Equity is argued by some, that what is considered equal, is at best proximal and that the difference in financial input “…is just enough to demarcate the difference between services appropriate to different social classes, and to formalize that difference in their destinies (Kozol, p. 290).” It is these gaps of financial equality that effect a school’s ability to hire and retain well qualified teachers, maintain small class sizes, keep current and relevant educational materials, allow kids to go on field trips and provide extra-curricular activities like clubs, sports and tutoring programs. It is the difference in access to these resources that dictates a school’s ability to implement a more progressive way of teaching, such as Freire’s problem-posing system. But this financial difference also translates into something more paralyzing than outdated school materials, under-paid teachers and the lack of extra curricular activities. It sends a very clear message to those children being brought up through poor school systems that they are not worth anything more than their surroundings and society does not believe they have the capability to do great things. This is the way of the oppressor. The opposite is also true of children who come up through affluent school systems, who are, through the access of unlimited resources, being told that they are more worthy than others (resources in this sense include aesthetically pleasing learning environments, safe transportation to and from school, new and up to date learning materials and designated spaces for eating, studying and convening with classmates). Even though these affluent children are subject to the same “banking-system” way of learning as those coming up though poor school systems, their comfortable environment and abundant resources provide an ease of learning that other children without those amenities cannot cultivate. Kozol makes the poignant argument that these financial differences between school systems are a way to keep those “destined” to be governors separated from those “destined” to be governed; it is the difference between becoming a general or becoming a soldier and works to “…assure that soldiers’

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