“The more they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.” (Freire, 73).
This quote hit me like a slap in the face. I’ve seen this passivity in action at my school. Where the students accept the way things are because they’ve been lead to believe that they couldn’t possibly know what’s best for themselves. The teachers, as authority figures, know what the students need to know and they deliver that information via PowerPoint and worksheets. When students question why they are learning concepts and terms they already know we assure them of their importance and we continue with the PowerPoint as planned. The students then passively continue filling in the right hand side of their interactive notebooks. I feel like the banking concept I witness at my school is related to my blog post about Choice Words. I mentioned that when I would ask my students a question about their metacognition, why they chose the answer they did, etc, they would automatically think they were wrong and doubt their thought process and choice. Some of them see me as the all-knowing teacher, which is flattering for my ego, but this takes away from their control over their own education. They passively watch me hand out worksheets and go over notes, that I am “an expert” in and they don’t start a conversation with questions or wondering about the validity of things such as the 26 lines for the STAAR test or why we never read novels in class. We don’t do these things because people in the higher levels of education don’t think they’re capable.
The more we tell them “things are the way they are because we are the teachers and we say so” the less agency they take over their own educations and the less they seem to value what we do in class. I am continuously working towards a pedagogy that is far removed from the banking concept but at times, because of the environment at my school it is easy to fall into. With my poetry unit I am encouraging group discussions and a lot of creation of original poetry. I always humble myself as the teacher and push them to involve themselves in the discussions and share their knowledge and experiences to create a different environment in my class. It’s hard at times, because they don’t seem to be used to this approach to school and it can be awkward but I feel like it’s a step forward.
It must have been very compelling (and hard) to read Friere in the context you're in this semester. We've just talked some in class (when Holland brought it up) about the many years it can take to see the fruits of a pedagogy of dialogue or possibility, or critical pedagogy in students' lives. I wonder how long it may take for different students to respond to a problem-posing pedagogy after a school lifetime under the banking method? Friere's work suggests that his adult students did not take years to take up this different position that was offered to them, of teacher-student and to engage in authentic dialogue and learning situations. I hope you can see your students being transformed into teacher-students and people engaged in authentic learning as you begin your professional teaching life. Not to minimize the many challenges you're encountering but you've also offered some glimmers of student engagement in some of the things you've been able to integrate...
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned at the beginning of class Friere's work did not occur within the context of educational standardization of formal schools and so the larger schooling contexts in which teachers are trying to do this type of work is essential to this conversation.