Draft

Paulo Freire expounds the flaw in the current education system, and offers different perspectives on how to mediate the learning-teacher problem. After, examining “The Banking Concept of Education” we saw problems in our own education at West Chester University. Freire proposes a key concept to learning in relation to the world to their education. He presents this concept with the “Problem-Posing” education. This involves students to discuss topics relating to their world in order to understand and learn. West Chester University’s space affects how students learn and socialize. The University can be improved by changing classroom space, changing the space of campus, and changing the generational space between students and professors. 

West Chester University does not utilize concepts presented by Paulo Freire with respect to the space presented by the university. The classrooms found in the university are all desks facing towards the front of the room. This does not allow for students to socialize with their classmates. This also causes students to not properly learn, because according to Paulo Freire, students learn by discussion. The University is also split between two campuses, north and south, which separates upperclassman and lowerclassman.  This only allows students to connect with people who are in their grade and not with people older or younger than them. This could be crucial to students’ understanding of other cultures and other walks of life. This also does not allow lowerclassman and upperclassman to discuss classes, which limits their learning. Lastly, the university has a large generational gap between professors and students. This affects how students socialize with their professors, making it hard for them to relate to each other, making it hard for them to learn from each other.

In problem-posing education, one learns from discussing a topic relating to their world to another student. A way to achieve students discussing with one another is to rearrange the typical desk arrangements in classrooms. Typically, desks are set up in rows facing the teacher, limiting the ability to be able to discuss easily with one another and giving full control to the teacher. A way to mediate the classroom setup is to turn the desks in a circle. ( See Figure 1.) Therefore, the teacher is only the mediator while the students have more control and can discuss with one another more freely. Freire poses this idea by saying, “It follows logically from the banking notion of consciousness that the educator’s role is to regulate the way the world “enters into” the students.” (page 3) In a deeper meaning, the teacher’s role in a students education is to “feed” the students ideas to gain a fuller understanding of the topic. Re-shaping the desks in classrooms allows students to feel more comfortable in a classroom setting, allowing them to take in more of their world. This would be the most beneficial set up in a classroom to ensure students get a more rounded education.  

The campus space of West Chester University can be drastically improved. This can be done by breaking the barrier between north and south campus. To do this the university would need to buy the land between north and south campus. On this land, the university would move all housing on this strip of land. This would allow all on-campus living students to socialize and interact with each other, no matter what year the student is. On north campus to replace where the dorms used to be the university would move the health and science building there instead of on south campus. This would allow students that attend class in the health and science center to feel more included in the university. Lastly, the university would keep the sports fields where they are located now (see figure 2). This will allow student-athletes to be able to be within a short walking distance between classes and practice. These ideas come from Freire posing the idea “Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality”(page 4). This can be interpreted as education is meant to create creativity. This can be done when everyone comes together as one and is not separated by age or class. 

Connecting to a student’s world is vital in their learning process. In order to mediate the generational space between students and professors, the university should have a mandatory class to update the out of date professors on changes in the student’s world. This would contain a panel of juniors and seniors in the educational department discussing topics of the world as a graduation requirement. The panel would meet every year, to ensure the professor would gain the knowledge of changes a student’s world is going through. This class would meet every Monday during the summer, to ensure the professors are up to date for the following school year.  In this class, the professor and students would discuss how to effectively teach the students generation in order to make sure classes are designed to fit everyone’s “world”. This class would be designed in the same fashion as the other proposed classes in order for it to be more of a discussion than a lecture (see figure 3). Freire proposes this idea by saying, “Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” Transforming the world allows the generational space between students and professors to disappear. Allowing students to feel more of an equal with their professors. This idea is necessary in order to fill students’ social and academic needs. 

By changing the space of the classrooms, campus, and generational space at West Chester University allowing all students to be more successful in completing their degree. Therefore, these changes to the university will benefit the students in order to fulfill their academic and social needs. Freire proposes the notion of problem-posing education as a way to benefit the student’s overall education. This allows the student to identify how they can use the information given in a set class later in life. This connection is important for the student, so they value their education more than someone who is taught using the banking concept of education. 

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