Problem Posing Education Summary

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Picture a classroom of thirty students. We are sitting in perfectly lined rows with six desk to each row, facing a dry erase board with a teacher talking monotonously, and pacing habitually across the floor. Her face buried in a textbook, she speaks directly from it, and the book contains the information we will be learning from that class. “Today you will be prompted to think critically and analyze appropriate data by presenting controversial issues.” She talks about the current assignment as she does all other tasks we are delivered, no emotion, just empty words with little significance. My classmates write frantically, as not to miss any small note she may say that does not happen to be stated in the text, we may be expected to memorize. …show more content…
According to Freire, one would define this as “problem-posing education”. In his essay concerning ways of teaching, he discusses how students are never engaged in discussion with their educators, let alone with each other about what they learn; they are “oppressed” by their teachers who are clearly the “oppressors.” Apparently more and more teachers are using this “banking” concept instead of the “problem posing” method. This is best explained as presenting material to students for their consideration and a teacher rethinking their initial views as students express their own. Freire stated, “Only through communication can life hold meaning.” People use communication every day in all forms in order to function within society. So, when students are allowed to voice their opinions and discuss class material, they become better equipped for life in general, and can successfully function and or excel in the classroom setting. Students learn critical thinking skills, which are essential for the real life problems they are currently facing, and will begin to experience in the future. The most important reason of them all is because in the outside world, individuals must be able to use common sense, problem solving skills, analyze situations quickly, and have the abilities to effectively diffuse them if necessary, if they are going to obtain a job or sustain a