In brief, in this essay Freire focuses on the pedagogical problems and political distortions of a classroom that rests on the "banking" concept of teaching. In such a class the students are asked to see reality as "motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable" (207)–a reality that reifies the status quo. The teaching effect is that of an extended narrative without relevance: "a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity" (208). In this "banking" concept of education "the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits" (208). And the tragedy for Freire is what happens to the students: "For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, men cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry men pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other" (208).
The entire essay resonates with the writing studios' emphasis on inquiry, something that sometimes gets lost sight of these days, though in Freire's case with a decidedly political emphasis–both on the power relationships in the classroom, as well as the position of these students in the world, in his eyes an oppressed position that must be deconstructed, resisted, and transformed. In the classroom he calls for "a profound trust" of students (211), and a partnership (211)–an ethos that also marks studio co-inquiry. He notes: "The students–no longer docile listeners–are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their considerations, and re-considers his earlier considerations as the students express their own" (214-215); problem-posing education involves "a constant unveiling of reality" (215).
And what to do with these new realities? For Freire, the next step is political action, something that is more difficult for students to imagine. In his words, "Problem-posing education is revolutionary futurity;" it is "prophetic (and, as such, hopeful)" (217). Problem-posing leads men to "a deepened consciousness of their situation [which] leads men to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible of transformation" (218).
By itself teachers have found this essay, though challenging, extremely useful. Typically, students can use the frames in this essay to assess educational experiences they have had or are having, both their oppressiveness and their liberating qualities, and to talk about the power relationships in a classroom, as well as reciprocal responsibilities. (One warning with applying this to other educational experience is to steer students away from individual situations [the mean teacher in tenth grade] and towards more broad, institutionalized situations and roles, for broader critique.) In addition, the essay itself offers opportunity to be critically assessed. Is all "banking" pedagogy bad? In what sense does Freire himself engage in "banking"–how can an essay respect the dynamics of inquiry? What about the sexist language?
Furthermore, the essay is difficult in parts, especially when Freire states the philosophical roots of his views. For example, he notes, "'Problem-posing' education, responding to the essence of consciousness–intentionality–rejects communiqués and embodies communications. It epitomizes the special characteristic of consciousness: being conscious of, not only as intent on objects but as turned in upon itself in a Jasperian 'split'–consciousness as consciousness of consciousness" (213-214). He continues this theme later: "the world which brings consciousness into existence becomes the world of that consciousness. Hence, the previously cited affirmation of Sartre: 'La conscience et le monde sont donnés d'un même coup'" (215). Students struggle with these ideas; some never understand them, and others do not see their importance. But many are able to unpack them. Eventually, it is another moment for assessing Freire as a writer. What about the more obscure parts–are they rewarding, or has Freire alienated readers with his abstractness?
Work with this essay can stop at this point profitably, working the common ground between this radical educator and the lives of Syracuse University students. But what if a teacher wants to venture further into the essayist's experience and context? What about Freire's claims about the revolutionary consequences of problem-posing education? What about his work with peasants? His influence in the world, for example in Cuba's revolutionary literacy campaign in the early Castro years? Why is such a writer exiled for sixteen years from his native Brazil? How could all this matter so much? For most students these questions, most of which are brought up by the anthology’s headnote, are a mystery that they do not bother to pursue. But by linking work with Freire's essay with Luis Puenzo's 1985 film The Official Story (La Historia Oficial), teachers can move students much further into both asking and answering in a political sense the question "So what? What's at stake with Freire's call for problem-posing education?"
The film is excellent (Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide gives it four stars), but again a stretch for students in its foreignness in time, place and situation. But that is also its value to them. It is set in the early 1980's in Argentina, and centers on a woman, Alicia, played beautifully by Aleandro, who lives a secure life, well-provided for by her businessman husband, and protected from the political turmoil that surrounds her. Through learning of the experience of a dear school friend, she comes in contact with the reality of torture under the military regime, and the possibility that her adopted daughter whom her husband obtained for her, may have been the child of desaparecidos, victims of the junta. What follows is a great coming apart of her life as she inquires further into her child's origins, and with each step come further truths, and further responsibilities to take certain actions, resulting in a complete unraveling of her world. A key reason for linking this to Freire is what the movie does with Alicia's role as a history teacher, and her initial approach to historical truth, as contrasted in the film with the approach of the literature teacher, Benites, who teaches her class of young male students before her. As her view of life changes, with dramatic and painful consequences, the film uses the shift in dynamics in her classroom as a metaphor for her shifts in thinking.
The film deals with pedagogical inquiry, classroom politics, the nature of truth, moral choices, the role of memorization, government-sanctioned terrorism, the nature of authority, the place of debate, the conditions of marriage, political protest, the church's failure to react to political realities, and the authority of texts; through filming classroom discussions and discipline, a child’s birthday party, a grieving mother’s story, a reunion of school chums, interaction between husband and wife, bitter arguments both personal and political among members of the husband’s extended family, and at the end, most shockingly, domestic violence. Most of all it shows how the political is personal, and the personal is political. Though the story's overlap with students' lives (as we assume them) is not obvious, students find the story engaging, which can carry home the strong political statement for them.
So if you like the Freire piece and all that it can do for 105 students' awareness of their own educational experience, but also want to extend students’ understanding of the kind of political context Freire’s writing comes out of, this film presents in a different medium excellent opportunities to do so.
Paulo Freire, "The "Banking' Concept of Education" from Ch. 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. Copyright 1970 by the author. Reprinted by permission of the Continuum Publishing Company. Available in Ways of Reading, third edition, edited by Bartholomae, D., and Petrotsky, A., Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1993.
The Official Story, (1985, Argentina, Almi Pictures), Director, Luis Puenzo. Starring Norma Aleandro and Hector Alterio. Oscar winner as Best Foreign Language Film. La Historia Oficial. New York: Fox Lorber Home Video, 110 minutes. Available at Chimneys Video Store in Dewitt, English dubbed.