Week 9 - Anthology Ch. 9 & 11

“The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence” (Anthology P.92)

This quote is referring to the banking method of teaching; in this ideology knowledge is considered to be a gift to the student. This is a very top down approach and bothers me quite a bit because I know from experience no one like to be talked down to, immediately just based on the style a large portion of the class will not be paying attention. This method of teaching undermines the student’s ability to be an active participant in their education instead of a “bucket” for knowledge, effectively making them non thinkers.

“Translated into practice, this concept is well suited for the purpose of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how people fit the world the oppressors have created and how little they question it.” (Anthology P.95)

The banking method in schools helps the oppressors set up the student to be an active part of the oppressor’s world instead of their own. The method promotes non-questioning, which to me is one of the essential parts of being human. Isn’t it our natural ability to wonder that allowed us to develop to where we are today? And shouldn’t we be afraid that a group of people are effectively taking that away from our future, I feel that our generation is barley involved with politics as it is to think that generations to come won’t even have the ability to question is scary.

“The revolutionary society which practices banking education is either misguided or mistrusted of the people. In either event, it is threatened by the specter of reaction” (Anthology P.97)

This statement helps to supports what I said above, it may have taken a few generations but finally America is dumb. No one ever wanted the public to be informed, who could be now a days? The monster is so big and the young Americans can’t read and don’t care.  Even when you think of it like this, there is a part of me that thinks that it injustice like this can’t possibly run this deep…but it’s equally as possible.

“They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing problems of human beings in their relationship with the world. “Problem-Posing” education”(Anthology P.97)

It was interesting to see it put this way, “Problem-Posing” education the kids grow up learning based on what is relevant in their lives. There is nothing more relevant then the problems we face and will face as a society. In that there is schooling built in, math, science, English, technology, history, the arts, it’s all relevant and useful. I believe that a method like this would create excitement about education among the students because it would be an active education, they feel invested and they understand why they are learning what they are learning.

“So while I have heard a lot over thirty years about teaching competency and merit pay. I have yet to hear a sincere effort to acknowledge what is the essence of great teaching” (Anthology P.113)

I’m not even a teacher yet and I know exactly what he is talking about, teaching is a combination of an art and a science. With that combination it becomes difficult to quantify a way to “assess” the teacher merit based pay sounds nice, but this is a sport where you can follow stats or be able to watch every performance and determine ones “worth”. With so many teachers and the rapid pass of the year there is no way to be able to sit in enough to determine something like if the test scores actually reflects the teachers doing, not to mention all the other factors that should be considered about test scores. 

“No standardized test for students can ever inform us of the teacher’s enthusiasm, caring, or belief that students can be successful-three factors that have an enormous effect on student achievement and self-esteem” (Anthology P114)

Jackpot! Exactly how I feel it’s like in coaching your team can be 1 – 15 but that doesn’t mean the season is a lose, no no no a lot was learned, if the kids had fun, learned, and got better then the season was a success. A test score doesn’t say much about how far a group has come, everyone moves at their own pace. Education shouldn’t be using these big tests to measure anything. We all have special talents and it should be a teacher or coach’s job to bring that out, to bring out the best that any individual student has to offer!