I read Paolo Friere as part of my graduate composition pedagogy course that taught me much more about research methodology and writing about pedagogy than it actually taught me about teaching. The idea is that traditional models of education commodify knowledge (go figure) and create a system by which the teacher makes deposits into the student (who is an empty shell), and the students must then provide a return on what has been deposited. There are any number of ways that this metaphor could be modified. The idea is that this is bad because the student is a passive recipient and does not actually process the information (cash?) received (except that the student would have to do something with it in order to make a return, which implies interest, but that's not really the point). Freire is used as one more theorist supporting the student-centered classroom, where the focus is on student engagement and involvement and not so much what the instructor has to offer by way of information. Now, as the student who wanted to sit at the feet of someone wise and learn the ways of the world, the model proposed by my professor in grad school was not one that I would have found appealing as an undergraduate. As someone who lacked confidence in my own persona as a teacher, however, it had a lot of currency (haha) because it shifted the burden from me to the students--I didn't have to give them the knowledge, they had to discover the knowledge, and all I had to do was to set up the right conditions! And that, my friends, is much easier. Ten years later, I'm quite adapt at orchestrating and arranging; I can really impress in a job demo (when everything goes as it should) and I can pedagogy with the best of them, and though I do sometimes give a lecture, they are not my forte by any means, especially in literature courses. Because, in part, I teach required courses--at least for now.
Herein lies the problem. I teach required courses. Some students enter my courses with a real need of the skills in analysis and writing that I offer. Most if not all have not thought of literary genres or rhetorical concepts in the ways in which I present them. All have had some experience with literature and writing--for better or worse. Some have all of the necessary writing and analytical skills, but still seek to learn something from the required course, because they will learn from all available situations. Some have many to most of the necessary writing and analytical skills, and are completely unable to learn from the required course which is, as far as they can see, a waste of their time. In the current model of university education, I can not simply take these students who see my efforts as a waste of their time by the scruff of the neck and shove them down some hallway to a person who is qualified to test or interview them to give them credit for what they already know. I can not reprogram them to think that what I say and do has value--yes, even for them. And while I can not teach them, I at least must put up with them. If my syllabus is designed for maximum student initiative in the creation of knowledge--if their major grades are paper and presentation grades--they may in fact not need me in order to get the grades they desire. Drawing only loosely on half-heard course concepts, they can finesse their major grades--even with a hardass grader like me--and get a "B" pretty easily. Will they learn anything? No. They will merely pair their own preexisting notions with what knowledge they already possess and complete busywork. My course will, quite literally, have been a waste of their time. These students do not so much need to be taught the information; they need to be taught how to learn.
Every undergraduate course must have a bit of the banking model present. Students must have some incentive to pay attention to concepts introduced, and the instructor and student must both acknowledge that the instructor does, indeed, have something to add that is valuable, otherwise, why do requirements exist? Why are Ph.D.s granted and those who have them employed? And why does higher education continue to exist in the age of Wikipedia and Google? Those may be valuable questions in themselves, but I am not the one to answer them. The banking model does have value, though students are not empty shells for the deposit. Perhaps we can think in terms of the building and combination of assets. The funds should be available for withdrawal at any time, but what counts should be the interest from the instructor's--and students'--investment of time, effort, and attention.
