Makayla Medycki, Maura Kelly, Gwen Jordan
Professor Cream
WRT 120
September 29, 2019
Freire’s Banking Concept: Lack of Education in the Classroom
Paulo Freire “The Banking Concept of Learning” is about the mechanical flaw in modern education, and ways to fix the corrupt system. Friere believes that there is a flawed conception of teachers depositing information onto the students, which he calls the banking concept of learning. He believes that this is wrong, and students won’t be able to learn because teachers are just using repetition to teach, rather than actually having the students learn the information. At West Chester University there are many classes that do what Freire advises people not to do. The biggest example and focus of this essay is the class called First- Year experience, or FYE for short. First- Year Experience is a class for freshmen that help students get to know campus better, and help students smoothly transition to college life. First Year Experience takes place in a large lecture-based class. The class is held three times a week for an hour and fifteen minute period. Freire’s “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Learning” relates to West Chester University because of the lack of education that occurs in the First Year Experience class.
First- Year Experience is supposed to help students to adapt to college life and learn how to deal with the problems that they encounter along throughout their four years or more here at West Chester. The class, however, is taught by four professors from the university. These four professors are from different areas of study and are a wide variety of ages and personality. Some of these professors have not been first year students recently and may not exactly know what first year students wish they had access to or the knowledge to accomplish certain tasks. These professors also may not have ever been students at West Chester University. Due to these two reasons, the professors may not know what is needed by first year students, specifically the ones here at West Chester University. Therefore, having more experienced students, such as seniors at the university, teach the class since they have recently been students. They have acquired endless depths of knowledge that these new students could find immensely beneficial. This could be much more helpful for the first year students. It could also be easier for seniors who know exactly what the first year students need rather than professors trying to imagine what is needed. The seniors know how the first year students are feeling in this time of transition in their lives since they just went through it recently.
The professors are currently making lesson plans based on what they personally believe that first year students need to be successful. However, once again the problem emerges that these professors have not been first year students in some time and may have never even been students at West Chester University. Therefore, the problem will be restated that the professors are unsure of what is truly needed by these students at the time. A helpful solution could be that a survey is taken by the current or previous students, asking what they recommend be taught in this course.
