The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.Įducation thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teachers she is. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teachers. Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated account. The idea of the banking model of education is shown by the accompanying illustration. Freire suggested the banking model of education, which very much sounds like the pouring of water into the vessels that students bring to our classroom. What is this possibility? In this sense, while hooks would see it as a positive arena of possibility, it might be a place to retain the possibility of the status quo.īefore considering the work of bell hooks and how we can work together in our classrooms to “move beyond boundaries, to transgress” (hooks, 1994: 207), it is useful to look at some of the work of Paulo Freire, whose writings inspired hooks, but also she went beyond him in the critique of existing education systems. Even though I would largely reject this model, I still accept hooks’ suggestion that even “with all its limitations remains a location of possibility” (hooks, 1994: 207). This is very much the knowledge transmission model of education. Some of the classrooms I have been in, either as a student or as an observer have striven to be such places. Teachers might want consider themselves to be completely neutral and that their role is to pour water into the vessels that the students carry with them. The challenge I have is that however your classroom fits, or doesn’t fit, with what I’m going to suggest can I invite you to reflect on why you agree or disagree with me? Through that process, whether it inspires you to change something or whether it makes you more secure in your approach, the consideration of the discussion will, to a small extent, transform our teaching.Īs a child, I considered a classroom of whatever level to be a neutral, safe space where information was transmitted, and skills developed.
I have to admit that I don’t know what your classroom is like and so I may be preaching to the choir. Let me begin this paper with an admission and challenge.
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