Reflection Task II
Banking
of Education & Anti-intellectualism
This
week, we were assigned to read two articles. One was “Paulo Freire’s Banking
Concept of Education” and the other was “20th Century Teachers and
Anti-intellectualism” by S. Yetkin Işık. One common point of both texts was
that they both had a critical perception on the current education systems. The
article on Freire’s Banking Theory focused on the fact that teachers had the
uncontrollable desire to overload the learners with the content of their
narrations, which in the end leads to the overflow of knowledge flowing out of the
heads of the students without permanently staying there. As the teacher creates
no meaningful context for the students, the learners experience difficulty in
grasping the concepts. The knowledge they are presented lacks learner reality,
thus, learners desperately start to record, memorize, and repeat these phrases they
hear in class without knowing what they actually mean. This rather mechanic way
adapted by the students involving the transfer of knowledge to the short term
memory, only saves the day of the learners enabling them to just pass the exam.
Right at this point, similar to Saussure’s “signifiant" and “signifié”,
Freire puts forward the “banking” concept of education, which regards the
students as “depositories” and the
teacher as the “depositor”. This shows
us that the teacher holds his/her lecture-long monologue, and the students
patiently receive, memorize, and repeat what they hear. Unfortunately, this
kind of passively accepting to store deposits is also commonly done by the
learners in Turkey. I guess, one of the reasons why it is still so in in Turkey
might be that it is one of the easiest ways to follow for both the teachers and
the learners. Teacher repeats, learners copy. See, neither the teacher nor
his/her students have put much brain into the so called “learning” process.
Some good news! This sad generalization of course doesn’t always exist in every
corner of Turkey. For instance, the high school I have visited as a student
teacher paid much attention on learner collaboration in class. In order to be
able to achieve this, my mentor teacher constantly tried to activate the
learners via multiple tasks, which was great to observe. She always made sure
that everyone was not only physically, but also spiritually present in that
classroom. Her priority was also not the curriculum but the learner. Whenever
she had sensed that somebody didn’t understand the topic well, she didn’t rush
to complete her actual lesson plan. She made sure that everyone was with her,
and then she continued. If all of our teachers were as passionate to teach as
her, I guess there would be no banks and no deposits at least in the field of
education. J This week’s second article was a
Turkish one by S. Yetin Işık in which he concentrated on the concept of
anti-intellectualism. As the members of the 21st century, I guess
this concept seems to be one of the biggest challenges we face currently. The
fondness for the abovementioned banking theory in the educational context may
lead the teachers to promote ignorance and not education. Singing lullabies to
students will make them sleep inside and provide you as the depositor with
various simple ways to hold your monologue. I think this is exactly what
anti-intellectualism does, it sings you lullabies. I have personally
experienced anti-intellectualism during my high school years. Whenever a
teacher came to our school with the potential to make a difference, s/he was
immediately sent to other places. Our director didn’t fancy questioning
teachers, so he somehow sent them away. This case once again proves us how hard
it is to escape authority pressure. The other teachers, who had managed to
survive at our school, were generally those who feared to think, question, and
read. Ironically, this shows us that the
roots of anti-intellectualism lie in the seemingly most intellectual places in
Turkey: schools. In addition to anti-intellectualism, Işık also touched upon
individualism and the drawbacks it might have on the society. The modern
individual just cares about himself/herself and is a literal consumption freak.
I guess I completely agree with the notions of the authors as leading a “carpe
diem” life style and constantly reading personal development books will lead
you nowhere when there is no community any more where you can adapt these
philosophies.
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