Discussion #5

"Interrogating" texts means to review the text and look through is closely to find the true meaning behind the mere words. Interrogation is an extraction of meaning, sometime hidden, to better understand the message of the author. We should not just question everything, that would slow the reading and the learning process dramatically. But, at any time we find ourselves questioning an ulterior motive while reviewing text or other media, we should slow down and deeply penetrate the text for  insights we may have missed.

To bank is to take from ourselves and place a valuable piece of information or consciousness and place it into another in the hopes that the receptacle will use this bit in a way that grows knowledge and understanding. Banking in education is when teachers place bits of information into the student that they store up and use, but the student does not develop their own knowledge from what they have stored. This procedure is flawed, in that the students do not learn how to use their knowledge to develop new knowledge, ideas, or learn to apply their knowledge in a different situation than the one in which it was deposited. We need to open dialog between our students so that the students are actively engaging with each other and their environment. By doing this, the student may arrive at their own conclusions without someone else (i.e., teacher) holding their hand on the way. This development of opinion and new knowledge by the student, for the student, and of the student frees the student to become actively engaged in their own learning and understanding of the world; not one instituted by another.

Paulo Freire was an educator and philosopher who developed critical pedagogy to release the oppressed of the world of their oppression through teaching the knowledge and understanding of their effects on the world. Critical pedagogy is the active reflecting of the educator on how he/she teachers, on what and how the student learns, and the effectiveness of the educational method. This is to say, that teachers must be critical of every learning experience they are part of to better meet the needs of the student, especially the oppressed student who may not know that they can affect the world.

Sources used to complete this assignment and develop my understanding of critical pedagogy:

Avila, J., & Pandya, J. (2013). Critical digital literacies as social praxis: Intersections and challenges. (Vol. 54). New York, NY: Peter Lang.


Seeing through paulo's glasses: Political clarity, courage and humility [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.freireproject.org/freire-project-tv/