Don’t Bank on It
Upon entering the kindergarten classroom every 5 year old quickly figures out that school is a place where you learn things. This learning, known ambiguously as “education” to the youngsters, gives children an awareness of a whole world of knowledge and understanding that surrounds them in their everyday life. What is a light bulb? How does it work? Who invented it? Education brings people the intellectual ability to connect the experiences, opinions, and creations of others and transform them to a thought or idea in the hopes that it will build into something more meaningful and relevant in the future. The effects of education on an individual differ from one person to the next but it does, without a doubt, inspire one to generate some form of awareness on a topic whether it is from his own mind or the mind of someone more knowledgeable. From the beginning of life, education serves as an essential structure that promotes and fosters human growth in a diverse world filled with oppression, hardship, and misunderstandings on how to live and the purpose of “being.” In a world filled with altering opinions and wide ranges of ideas on various topics, finding the “right answer” to a question is not always possible. What matters is finding the right answer for yourself: gaining awareness about an issue and consciously deciding whether or not it has meaning to you and from there changing your own outlook into one that fits what you believe to be important. That is true education. By gaining new knowledge through the process of learning not simply to regurgitate this knowledge but transform it into something of meaning we turn ourselves into reflective beings. In this transformation we receive a unique freedom that allows us to adjust to the world so we may realize what is important and what our own human desires are falsely making important. By analyzing the essays The “Banking” Concept of Education by Paulo Freire and the The Achievement of Desire by Richard Rodriguez I am able to combine Freire’s ideals on the “banking” method of education verse the “problem-posing” method and apply these ideals to Rodriguez’s own story of how he gained his academic success at the expense of his family. In doing so I form an opinion on how real education inspires one to gain a conscious freedom and acquire an awareness on learning how to think in terms of “others.” My opinion generated through studying Freire’s and Rodriguez’s essays centered on the theme of “education” will be further supported and elaborated on by taking separate pieces of knowledge from David Foster Wallace’s “Address to Kenyon College” in 2005. As Rodriguez gives his personal account on how Friere’s idea of the banking concept of education took over his academic life as a child, Wallace breaks down how true education moves away from mere memorization of knowledge toward learning how to exercise control over what one thinks and becoming more adjusted not only to oneself but to others around him.
In The “Banking” Concept of Education Freire presents the reader with the educational method of the banking concept and how it treats knowledge “as a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (Bartholomae and Petrosky 319). In the banking concept students act as mere containers ready to be “filled” by the knowledge the teacher has to give them. The only job for the students is to take in this knowledge and memorize it in the hopes that they will be able to repeat it in the future. The teachers are assumed by the students to know everything while they themselves know nothing and the knowledge they receive is taken as true and “right.” In this sense, the teachers become the “oppressors” and the student’s creative power is minimized because their ability to think critically is replaced by memorization and repetition. The oppressors avoid student questioning and true communication is lost within the teacher-student relationship causing a “false understanding of men and women as objects” (322). In order to overcome this false understanding the core problem of the banking concept of education- the teacher-student relationship- must be transformed into a two-way reflective relationship between the students and the teacher. The reflective relationship inspires a dialogue between the teachers and the students that causes both sides to communicate and grow in knowledge with one another. To put it simply, the teacher must teach the students and the students must teach the teacher. This view of education brings about a light of freedom as the practice of domination and memorization is eliminated and a new method arises: the problem-posing method. In this method “the teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own” (324). By engaging in the problem-posing method teachers and students alike can become integrated in authentic thinking: “thinking that is concerned about reality” (322). The authentic thinking is made possible by the communication the teachers and students share in making themselves aware of their own pursuit of liberation for the process of humanization. When communication occurs, a reflection between men and women acts upon the world and helps people to become conscious beings concerned with the problems other humans face with their relation to the world. People become connected to a reality in progress that is moving toward a transformation of humanization between the conscious social beings of the world when they take part in the problem-posing method and deny the banking concept. When one denies the banking method he essentially denounces becoming a subordinate being to the oppressors that wish to fill his mind with “empirical dimensions of reality” (318). In its relation to The Achievement of Desire, Friere’s idea of the banking concept of education takes over Rodriguez’s life as his becoming of a “scholarship boy” forces him to be dehumanized and causes him to become nostalgic about his childhood. During this nostalgia Rodriguez transcends himself by looking back on his past and, by taking part in the problem-posing method in his own self-education, moves forward to look ahead to a new future of immediate experience with his family relationships rather than mimicry and memorization in his academics.
In The Achievement of Desire Rodriguez admits to the reader that a primary reason for his success in the classroom was that he could not forget that schooling was changing him and separating him from the life he enjoyed before becoming a student (516). By reading Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy Rodriguez was one day able look back on his childhood and find a fitting description of himself known as the “scholarship boy” which helped him realize his academic success came at the loss of intimate relations with his family. As a child, Rodriguez was passionate about his schooling and he would have done anything to please the teachers and receive their praise. He was embarrassed at the lack of education of his parents and he would correct their minor grammatical mistakes around the home occasionally. The parents became “figures of lost authority” and young Rodriguez’s attention was now focused on the knowledge of his teachers (518). He yearned to be “like” his teachers in every way possible and to possess their knowledge and authority on a topic. His home and school became separate environments and Rodriguez begin to “hoard the pleasures of learning” to himself and leave his family behind (520). As he looks back now on himself as the true “scholarship boy,” Rodriguez admits that, to his teachers, his success was their proudest achievement. The knowledge he took from them and memorized made him into the good student he thought he was being. After 20 years of education Rodriguez is now able to admit how the scholarship boy is actually a very bad student. “He (the scholarship boy) is a great mimic; a collector of thoughts, not a thinker; the very last person in class who ever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own” (529). The scholarship boy takes part in the banking concept of education as he takes in information given to him by his teachers and memorizes it for what it is and not what it means. In acquiring information he gains knowledge but he does not gain how to use this knowledge. He is only “filled” with ideals given to him by his teachers because he equates “imitation” with “education.” Not until Rodriguez grew up and acquired the realization that real education required a “radical self-reformation” did he begin to move towards the problem-posing methods of education and put an end to the nostalgia he had been feeling about his family dehumanization (529). Rodriguez’s education had adjusted and liberated him to the reality of the world of immediate experience with his family. His education brought him into a conscious awareness in learning how to think in terms of others (his family) and not his own academics. By learning how to exercise control over what he thought Rodriguez was able to consciously make the decision about what he wanted to give meaning to and what he wanted to decide to “worship” (as David Foster Wallace says). This takes effort. The unconscious worship of intellect and academics had taken over Rodriguez as his “scholarship boy” roots had managed to stay with him into his adulthood. The “default setting” to hang onto this unconscious worship of what the “self” desires had to be overcome in order for Rodriguez to find freedom in being able to truly care about his family and think in terms of others around him. That is what David Foster Wallace believes to be real education: an awareness of our own arrogance and desire to just mimic those who we see as “intellectual” and instead forming our own conscious opinions on what we choose to believe and what we want to have meaning in our lives. Rodriguez was able to overcome a life engulfed in the banking concept and transform it into one of real education. It is the thoughts, perceptions, ideas, imaginations, and creations of the people that make the world what it is. Without people the world is nothing; it is merely just a planet. Lifeless. As Rodriguez transforms his outlook he makes the world an object of transformation in which men and women both have the power to bring about humanization. He uses his real education to become selfless and begin to reflect on what is important to him.
David Foster Wallace finds that people have a “hard-wired” setting to be deeply self-centered and to perceive everything through the thoughts and opinions of the self (Wallace). To support this he gives the idea that “there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of” (Wallace). The notion that the world as a person experiences it is completely unique to him and other people’s thoughts, feelings, and desires must be communicated to that person in order for him to gain an understanding of a separate perception causes people to develop their own hard-wired natures. The thoughts we have are so urgent and real that the idea that another thought not in our immediate possession can be true is immediately questioned. Because of this people tend to be arrogant and do not want to accept, nor do they bother to find out about, the beliefs and opinions of another person. This is the problem. By learning how to think we become aware of the opinions and perceptions of others and we adjust ourselves away from our default settings of arrogance and begin to live a life connected to the human reality around us. The default setting is what prevents us from following the “problem-posing” methods of Freire because it is easier for us to take something we believe to be undoubtedly true from a teacher and make it our own without having to listen to anyone else’s opinion who we deem “not educated enough.” As people learn how to think and learn to control what they think, as Wallace mentions, they begin to construct meaning of things rather than just memorize them and “fill” themselves with information. The adult life is a concept that Wallace hits on often in his commencement speech and he finds that, to keep from entering into a dull and lifeless adult life, one must construct meaning from the everyday life experiences he is put in. If one wallows through life taking information in and never putting his own mark on it he is taking part in the banking concept and no critical thinking or growth is brought about from it. The banking method turns into a seemingly meaningless and boring routine because the person is not making conscious decisions about “how to think and what to pay attention to” (Wallace). Wallace brings up the story of grocery shopping after a long, tiring day at work. A person is miserable because they just worked a full day and now they want to go home and relax but first they have to stop at the crowded grocery store and buy food because he just recently remembered there is no food at the house. He is mad because things do not seem to be going his way and starts to get angry at the small things going on around him at the crowded grocery store. His default setting is telling him he should be miserable because his situation is the most immediate and real experience he can feel and at the moment he feels miserable. There is no consideration for the people around him in the store and all he wants to do is have his own way and leave as quickly as possible. This presents an interesting solution. By making a conscious decision to become aware of his miserable grocery store surroundings the person shopping is able to put meaning to his own immediate reality and try to see things in a new way with the realization the he is not the most important person in the world. With this newfound realization he can take into consideration possibilities that are greater than himself and develop a new respect for the people that surround him. Bottom line people are going to go through some crappy times. It is how you adjust yourself and draw meaning from these crappy times that count. Because our unconscious desires cause us to falsely worship things we find to be of importance (i.e. Rodriguez and academics), we many times forget about what matters the most. Without other people on this planet we are left with nothing but ourselves and our own selfish desires. There is no communication. There is no dialogue. There is nobody that allows us to learn from our own mistakes and make ourselves aware of the fact that we need each other to grow as human beings. As Wallace says, we need to adjust ourselves and gain the “freedom of a real education”- an education that makes us aware of others and encourages us “to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day” (Wallace). The real value of education is not knowledge but an awareness of the need to humanize within the family and beyond. An awareness that not only adjusts the perceptions we have about our own struggles but the perceptions we have for the struggles that other people endure every day. This is everyone’s job as human: to think in terms of one another and be conscious of the need for humanization in the world. As Wallace states, “Your education really is the job of a lifetime” (Wallace).
All three pieces of work give a unique outlook on education and how true, authentic thinking is only acquired when one decides to form his own opinions based on a selfless awareness of world perceptions and experiences. The works also show that humanization is an essential part of “being” that allows for growth and understanding in one’s own life. By applying Friere’s idea of the transformation from the banking concept to the problem-posing method to Rodriguez’s story of growing up a “scholarship boy,” one can connect the two essays to David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech and see that real education allows for a freedom to become adjusted to the conscious desires of what one wants to worship between the unconscious desires of what one’s default setting wants to worship. In overcoming this tie and discovering one’s own conscious awareness, he is capable of putting meaning to an experience and understanding how to think in terms of others. It is not knowledge that great education brings, but awareness of how to think. To do this we do, without a doubt, need “more than luck” (Wallace).
Works Cited
Bartholomae, David, and Tony Petrosky, comps. Ways of Reading. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. Print.
"DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, IN HIS OWN WORDS." More Intelligent Life. Web. 20
Oct. 2011. <http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words>.
