Freire

As an English education major, I was at first impressed by some of Freire's points in the introduction. I liked the part where he said that literacy is crucial because "it is the primary means by which we interact with and construct our world." I thought this was a valid point and agreed with him, and I also liked that he was such a strong supporter of education. However, as I began to read his article, I started to really dislike him. As a future teacher, I resent the fact that he said teachers are are a "narrating subject" and the students are "listening objects" that will become "lifeless and petrified" because of the teachers. His whole banking concept of education in which teachers turn students into "containers that are to be filled by teachers" has an interesting point, but I don't think it's true all of the time. I believe that students can take the information they are given and either simply memorize it, or apply it to their lives. It is their decision on how they use the information, the teacher simply provides it. I also disliked how Freire continuously said that teachers were oppressing their students and taking away their creativity. It was like he was suggesting that teachers were trying to mold the students' minds to think as the government wants them to. The intro said that Freire spent a lot of time in Brazil and Africa, so maybe he was speaking more about their education systems than those of the U.S. Either way, I was still annoyed about his negative portrayal of teachers and did not like the article because I felt it implied that teachers are heartless and uncaring.