Month: September 2019

Timothy Domanowski

I selected the first option which is the space of education and would like to focus on how classrooms are designed. The classrooms design is usually all the desks facing one direction which is where the teacher has a desk and board to teach with. This usually makes it awkward for whenever a student speaks and the class would like to give their attention but if you are sitting in front of that student you have to turn around in a desk that was meant to be facing the opposite direction. A better way to design a room to learn would be in a more circular pattern so students could talk with another for education purposes more easily.

“Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor” education is too much of the teacher talking to students.

“The students—no longer doc ile listeners—are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own” Students should be able to be positioned in a better way to communicate with each other.

Topic #2 Student Power

Team Members: Sean Redding

Thesis: Surprisingly enough, college shapes the pathways for young student’s rather than just education. Attending a university allows students to break the norm in their lives. From living with parents, being forced to hang around the same people, and being able to join on campus activities, colleges like WCU allows students to break free and get a whole new aspect on life. 

Quotable sections:

PG2 P4

“The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not “marginals,” are not people living “outside” society. They have always been “inside”—inside the structure which made them “beings for others.” The solution is not to “integrate” them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings for themselves.” Such transformation, of course, would undermine the oppressors’ purposes; hence their utilization of the banking concept of education to avoid the threat of student conscientizaçao.

PG6 P8 

Problem-posing education, as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation. To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality. The world—no longer something to be described with deceptive words—becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization.

Topic 2

Team :I

Thesis: Whether the teacher is intentional in thir oppressive operations, it is the job of the student to be responsible for their own education at WCU.

“Problem posing education, as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits a fundamental that people subjected to domination must fight for their freedom”(Freire pg 6)

“Problem posing education does not serve the interests of the oppressor”(freire pg 6)

Topic selection: topic 2, student power

Team Selection: Sarah Veneziale and Cait Mangini

Thesis: Students at West Chester University should display their power in freedom by taking the opportunity to teach their own classes, taking alternative online classes for each course, and being able to have better communication techniques between the student and the teacher.

Quotes:

“Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible” (Freire 3)

“Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” (Freire 4)

Topic #2 Student Power
Team: Myself
Working Thesis: In Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education” he explains the reality that teachers cannot produce student learning or freedom. The role of student power at West Chester University happens within the students and their choices. The new society changes a student to adapt to the rest of their life, Students learn on their own within their own time and choose when to listen in class and participate.

Quote #1: “Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of students, with the ideological intent (often not perceived by educators) of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression. “ ( pg 3 par 9)

Quote #2: “The teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students” (page 1 par 8)

Topic 1: The space of education at WCU

Group: Michael Lindholm

There are endless possiblities in the way a college campus could be rearranged in order to maximize potential learning. There is a lot of wasted space in dorm halls, and to be able to occupy that space with potential learning possibilities could reshape how a student is able to learn at WCU. One of the ways we are able to get students more engaged is to hold classes in a more personal manner. If all classes were more student-teacher based rather than lecture formatted than students would be able to get more out of their class time. But not only should the classroom sizes be smaller for a more direct education, but the delivery system of which the teacher reveals information for students.

Quote 1: “They have always been “Inside” the structure which made them “Beings for others.” The solution is not to “Integrate” Them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become “Beings for themselves” (Friere 2).

Quote 2: Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat”(Friere 1).

Topic: 1 

Team: John  

Thesis:  

Re-shaping the spaces of education at West Chester University would allow for a change of scenery. If the buildings on campus were rearranged, the students would do things a lot differently. Also, most students learn better in a classroom setting, compared to a lecture hall setting. If the lecture halls were all broken down into classrooms, the students would be more engaged in the learning activities that they are partaking in.  

Quotes:  

“It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them” (Freire 2). 

“Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge” (Freire 4). 

Topic #2

Team: Myself

Thesis: In Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education” he often talks about how the teachers see themselves as superiors to the students. “The teacher knows everything and the students know nothing”, this often seems to be the case in education. Society has made it a point that the teacher and the student are very separate from each other. This way of thinking creates problems in the classroom. When students view teachers as there superior they may not feel inclined to listen and learn and take what they are being taught and use it. Students just want to pass the class and be done with it, so what they do is memorize. But the point of college is to learn and use what you learned in the real world. When a student is put in an environment where they feel they have a relationship with a teacher and feel they have a say in what they learn in the classroom they are bound to be more successful.

Quote #1: “The teacher’s task is to organize a process which already occurs spontaneously, to “fill” the students by making deposits of information which he or she considers to constitute true knowledge.”

Quote #2: “The banking concept of education, which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophilic.”

Team: Gabby L, Riley B, Amanda J, Leah S

Topic #1: The space of education at WCU. Freire’s challenge for us to reimagine the ways in which we learn doesn’t just ask us to re-shape ourselves intellectually; Freire’s ideas also suggest a need to re-shape the spaces of education. Use your understanding of Freire’s ideas to analyze the space of education at WCU, identifying and proposing the means by which WCU space can be developed to achieve the ends of Freire’s concept of learning.

Thesis- Creating a different way of learning needs change not just from the teacher but from the atmosphere of the classroom. The layout of all classrooms are almost exactly the same. Creating smaller classrooms instead of lectures will allow students to become active in discussions. Taking advantage of the areas we have (such as classrooms in dorms that are not used) and allowing students to use these resources can create a new way of learning.

Quotes: “The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration—contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance” (Freire 1)

“Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power” (Freire 3)

Group Members: Mia, Gwen, Emily, John, Bella, David, Maura, Ethan, Ava, Amanda, Julia, Mikayla, Liv 

We discussed the ways people are taught. We talked about how people learn from teaching others, while they are getting taught by the other people. Learning happens quite frequently outside of the classroom. People learn from going through different experiences. Those experiences leave a mark in people in terms of learning. One very important component is simply communication. If you are communicating with others, then you are learning. People do not all have the same way of learning. There are many ways that people understand certain things. Certain people can learn things easier than others. Often these instances when the person you are trying to teach does not learn. Instead you are the one that does the learning and you learn even more. Overall, through personal experience you gain knowledge that is unobtainable in the classroom. Also, not everyone learns the same way, which means there are all sorts of different ways to learn certain concepts.  

Topic: 1

Thesis: Reimagining West Chester with dorms or academic buildings in different areas would completely alter the outcome of how students work and play. Having the difference between academic and social is an important key in the foundation of education. Having this separation of the two is a small choice but has a great impact on college kids.

Quote:

“The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not “marginals,” are not people living “outside” society. They have always been “inside”—inside the structure which made them “beings for others.”

“Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in “changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them”; for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated.”

Group: Lauren, Luke, Jenna, Nick,Dana, Kenzie, Noah, Kira, and Bella

In this group, we discussed the quote, “Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other.”

One of the main topics our group focused on is how a person learns the most when they are talking. We mentioned that when we are learning a complex topic such as math, we have to talk ourselves through the problems in order to really understand it. Even if the reason we are talking it out is to help someone else learn (tutoring or just explaining it), the repetition of the process helps to ingrain it into our brains. On the other hand, sometimes this repetition can lead to memorization and this could be detrimental to our learning. That is why being passionate about what you are learning is very important. The more you care about what you are learning, the better you will remember it. It’s just like what Friere said, we need to find a connection between what we are learning and something in our own world. The more personal it gets, the more important the information becomes.

Group: Samantha pawluczyk , Meghan Kidd, and Laura Mcgroay

In our discussion group we talked about how most of us learn better by hands on experiences. Along with hands on experience most students learn a lot from their mistakes. We also discussed how we learn a lot from trial and error because we realize what was right and wrong. On the other hand, most teachers believe that students learn best from sitting in lectures and teaching us but for students that’s not the case. The problem with students sitting in class and listening to teachers talk is that students are not retaining the information. Most kids are afraid to fail tests and quizzes so they learn the information for the test and quickly forget the information after the test, not gaining any knowledge but only trying to ace the test. We discussed that everyone is different and has different studying tips, so visual learning and experience may not work for everyone but for our group it helps us.

Topic # 1 

The space of education at WCU. Freire’s challenge for us to reimagine the ways in which we learn doesn’t just ask us to re-shape ourselves intellectually; Freire’s ideas also suggest a need to re-shape the spaces of education. Use your understanding of Freire’s ideas to analyze the space of education at WCU, identifying and proposing the means by which WCU’s space can be deployed to achieve the ends of Freire’s concept of learning.

Team member: Rabi

Working Thesis: According to Friere, the spaces of education bound the ability of a student to think and learn. I will talk about how students should no longer be dependent to come to a certain place to study and teachers should be facilitators to support students in developing their way of thinking and learning to change the education space at WCU.

Quotes:

 They have always been “inside”—inside the structure which made them “beings for others.” The solution is not to “integrate” them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings for themselves.” pg 2

They are treated as individual cases, as marginal persons who deviate from the general configuration of a “good, organized, and just” society. The oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy society, which must therefore adjust these “incompetent and lazy” folk to its own patterns by changing their mentality. pg 2

In this discussion group, we talked about the quote “Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other…” and how it compares and contrasts from our education system.

It was discussed that the person talking the most is the one learning the most, not the one who is listening. The reason for this train of thought is because when someone talks about something they are passionate about, they are inclined to learn more about the subject or topic of discussion and therefore share their knowledge with others. Sharing this kind of knowledge has the potential to challenge the thinking and thought process of the listeners, which can also turn into a learning lesson for the talkers, because they could be exposed to new perspectives and thoughts they might not have had before. However, our education system does not always implement this kind of learning structure. We have mostly been taught to memorize what we learn so we can succeed in our exams and be done, but this leaves little to no room for true learning from one another. If we focused less on memorization and more on learning and passing on what we know with each other, then it would make the learning process much more meaningful.

Group Members: Luke, Dana, Jenna, Lauren, Nick, Kenzie, Noah, and Bella

Team: Tyler Evans

Topic 1: The space of education at WCU. Freire’s challenge for us to reimagine the ways in which we learn doesn’t just ask us to re-shape ourselves intellectually; Freire’s ideas also suggest a need to re-shape the spaces of education. Use your understanding of Freire’s ideas to analyze the space of education at WCU, identifying and proposing the means by which WCU’s space can be deployed to achieve the ends of Freire’s concept of learning.

Thesis- Through out “The Banking Concept of Education” Freire talks about how oppressive and useless the Banking System is for students. The Banking System is what most students are used to, memorize what the teacher says for the test and then delete it from your mind as soon as the test is over. This system doesn’t support learning, critical thinking or individuality and it is not good for our society. As students we need to reinvent the system of learning. One way the system of learning can be improved is by changing what a traditional learning space or classroom looks like. Most if not all classrooms on campus are laid out in a way that puts all the attention on the professors and it makes the students feel inferior and uncomfortable while interacting with their educator. For effective learning to take place students need to feel comfortable in the environment which they are in. Creating a learning environment where students feel comfortable and equal, not inferior to the professor, will promote more dialect which is the key to knowledge and understanding according to Freire.

Quotes: “problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality” (Freire 5)

“Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow. In this process, arguments based on “authority” are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it. Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone selftaught. People teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are “owned” by the teacher” (Freire 4)

Topic # 3

Team: Mimi Riley

Thesis: I will discuss the comparison of Student teacher relationships from Freire’s “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” to teachers and students here at WCU. I will also bring in real life situations to add more of a comparison.

hierarchy grading communication age

Quotes: ” Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the
depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently
receive, memorize, and repeat.” (Page1, paragraph 5)

“a. the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
b. the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;”

 Topic: #1 Space at WCU

Team: Samantha Weitzel, Katherine Sola, Leann Carroll

Thesis: The layout of any place that people learn at is a big factor to success. Having space between academics and personal life is critical. Here at West Chester University, residence halls and academic buildings are a good distance away from each other making it easier to keep those two things separate.

Quote 1: “To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality.”

Quote 2: “The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not “marginals,” are not people living “outside” society. They have always been “inside”—inside the structure which made them “beings for others.” The solution is not to “integrate” them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings for themselves.” Such transformation, of course, would undermine the oppressors’ purposes; hence their utilization of the banking concept of education to avoid the threat of student conscientizaçao.”

Topic Selection: Topic 1 

Team Selection: Gwen Jordan, Maura Kelly, Makayla Medycki

Working Thesis: Freire’s “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Learning” relates to West Chester University because of the way the professors belittle the students and hand them information without further concern about their understanding of it. The space of West Chester University is primarily based on computers.

2 Quotes:

“The teacher knows everything and the student knows nothing.”

“The teacher talks and the students listen — meekly.”