The Banking Concept Of Education Essay Research

The Banking Concept Of Education Essay, Research Paper  The Banking Concept of Education There is at least one time in everyone?s life in which they are able to reflect upon something in their past which oftentimes can prove to be helpful in the present of the future. In this case, I was asked to reflect upon a time where the banking concept of education had been used in my life. The case which I will be evaluating here is one of a class entitled ?Chemistry 4: Introduction to Laboratory Safety and Hazardous Materials.? The purpose of this class is to inform students of proper procedures for the laboratory and the handling of the substances which are used and found in laboratories. In this course, which is a course required for all University of Missouri Rolla students who

plan on taking a chemistry laboratory class, the teaching method is strictly that of the banking system. According to Freire, the teacher/professor essentially lectures the entire class period. The banking method of educating people is not totally wrong for everyone, or else it would not have survived as long as it has in school systems all over the world. Some people are actually capable of learning extremely well from the banking system, while others may not come through with the same results. During the course of one session of Chemistry 4, whish lasted approximately two and a half to three hours, the professor lectured for virtually the entire class period, only giving a break when assembling the video player which he would use later on in class. Throughout the lecture time,

the professor talked almost nonstop. The information which he administered to the class was being given at a fast rate. Oftentimes it was difficult to fully absorb all of the critical information needed in order to be successful in the class. However, some students may have fared better from the conformist style of education which the banking system, more often than not, tends to offer. There were no questions asked during the time of lecture, and there was virtually no time in which it was convenient and acceptable to converse, interact, and discuss items with the other people of the class. Also, a student?s progress was virtually undeterminable because the only graded work was the two tests. All of the other activities, which we did in class, such as worksheets (which were

study guides for the tests) were never even glanced at by the professor. There was a short period after class in which the we could address the professor with questions, but this period was rather small and insignificant in comparison to the size of the class and the amount of lecturing which had occurred. There is no possible way that two hundred and fifty students can ask a professor questions in a ten to twenty minute time frame and receive a high quality answer to their problem. Basically, it was up to we, the students to have the initiative to research the question on her own with her own resources, which in this case would be her handbook and various pamphlets. Even though there was almost no student-to-teacher or teacher-to-student contact, both the students and the

teacher played vital role in the education process in the Chemistry 4 class at hand. The professor was an excellent professor and knew all of his material extremely thoroughly, and could easily bring the information down to a level in which all of us (the students) could easily understand it with little or no difficulty. He was also very precise and organized in his presentation of the information, and did not skip from one topic to another without a proper segue which also enabled us to better understand the lecture. In the case of Chemistry 4, the professor was the banker, or person who had large amounts of information which needed to be passed on to the students. He used the banking concept in order to increase the information transfer rate. The students also played a vital