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 In this process, arguments based on “authority” are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it.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)
Your thesis is on the right tracks but I think you could shorten it and at the same time more clearly state what exactly it is that would help students learn better and retain information. For example just state how you are going to change the classrooms instead of just saying it will help students feel equal to the professors. Other than that I think your link between your idea, the topic, and Freire’s ideas of learning are solid.
I think the thesis is entirely too long and is not truly presented. You have a good basis for your essay, but need to develop a more clear thesis and give an example of how the classrooms should be created. The quotes are very good picks and will help your essay strengthen your argument.