Writing Project 1 -Draft

Freire writes about two systems of education: the banking system and the problem-posing system. In his article, he points out all the flaws with the first method and gives his solution to those flaws in his second method. His main point was to help us readers see what an oppressive educational structure looks like and steps we can take to transform that structure into a better and more effective one.

In this writing, I will attempt to address a students responsibility in their learning apart from their professor’s actions at West Chester University. According to Freire, this can be achieved in a few ways. Students learn through direct application, communicating with others, thinking critically about what they are being taught- held up against their own experiences, and they learn through acquiring deep understanding by asking questions.

Set aside all the professors, teachers, and educators at West Chester University. Set aside the ways in which these educators teach, test, and, tract their student’s academic progress. Set aside generations and generations of instilled ways of acquiring knowledge. My question is: How does a student emancipate themselves from the ideas of what learning has been throughout their own educational journey and take ownership in the acquisition of knowledge for their own sake at West Chester University? According to Freire, a student is not only a student, but a teacher as well. Each student has a deep well of personal life experience, thoughts, and ideas that are worth sharing with others. This sharing takes place through communication and discussion. A student has the ability to make choices when it comes to learning or not learning. As soon as they meekly and blindly accept all the teacher says, they morph from critical learner and thinker to a passive and static automaton. It is the student’s responsibility to not allow this to happen.

I will attempt to address how to take these rather abstract ideas and apply them to students here at West Chester. As human beings, we have been given this innate desire to learn about the world in which we live as it relates to us and each other. We learn through processes and those processes are not achieved in isolation.  Sometimes we need to reprocess and then reprocess it again in order to understand. We were not made to be dumping grounds for information though, nor were our brains meant to be categorical piles of educational facts. Nor were we meant to learn by ourselves and without others.  To be human means that we ask questions, wrestle through those questions with others and see how to apply the answers to those questions to ourselves of the world around us. Freire says, “For apart from inquiry, apart from praxis, an individual can not be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human being pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” In applying this to student power at WCU, learning is a lifestyle, not a method. A few practical applications would be: Spend more time in a friendly debate over a cup of coffee with a classmate to wrestle though complicated theories from class. Come to class over-prepared to participate in class discussions.  Be ok to sit in a place of not knowing, so that knowing can follow. Too many students are afraid to open their mouths in class, for fear of being wrong. Meet with professors over lunch to talk about ideas. Taking responsibility and action for our education at West Chester University keeps away mechanical and habitual ruts in our learning and brings the material alive as we practically engage with the fresh information.

Author: Ruthie

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