Journal #6: The Common Sense of Teaching

Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire was striking, and I can easily imagine why it took the world by storm when it was published. Education has always been posed as “the great equalizer,” an assumption that education is what drives off oppression and lifts the oppressed out from underfoot. Education has been framed as the path out of poverty as well. The truth as Freire explained it is that education is simply not enough, because depending on the type of education it may very well perpetuate oppression. I’ve certainly been in lecture courses where teachers utilized the “banking” method of teaching. Critical thinking is lacking in this method, and I’m pleased that Common Core is stepping up to try to fix this problem.

                I was reminded of the famous Common Sense by Thomas Payne while reading this. Freire used a lot of the same shocking methods to ‘jolt’ readers awake. Comparing the banking concept of education to necrophilia, for instance, is on par with the sort of comparisons made in Common Sense. You come away with the same feelings reading both texts, the sense of enlightenment and the desire to act. Freire’s answer, of course, is problem-posing education. Education that promotes discourse, and teachers learning from students just as students should learn from teachers. The environment promoted in this work is one where we as humans acknowledge that we are incomplete animals and that our common goal should be to advance ourselves. I love this, I love everything about teachers being willing to admit that they don’t have all the answers. I agree that students and teachers should all be working together to achieve betterment.

                Discussion classroom models are a very easy way to implement this kind of teaching. Instead of presentation and lecture, teachers need the input an answers from students. Students need to be engaged in their learning. Most importantly, students are not objects, they are not receptacles for meaningless facts. If a student memorizes a fact without understanding why things are that way, they are not truly knowledgeable. If students do not question facts, they are not likely to question authority either. If they do not question facts, they cannot hope to problem solve on their own.