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Active Learning Is The Key For Understanding, Not Passive Learning

Decent Essays

Active Learning is the Key to Understanding, Not Passive Learning
According to Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and philosopher, the current education lacks teacher-student communication. In his article he reveals that, “Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently perceive, memorize, and repeat. This is the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.”
Basically, Freire’s argument is that education should involve student-teacher knowledge exchange, rather than the teacher being the one teaching all the time. As someone who is an educator, Freire understands that knowledge is a result of active learning rather than passive learning. He likens the current education to a banking system whereby the teacher just deposits information into the students’ empty heads. Freire complains that this type of education does not give students the understanding they need to connect the material with reality. In fact, he stresses out that students just memorize what is said by the teacher without understanding the concepts. Due to that, he further describes how the concepts taught in class seem to be disconnected from reality since the students cannot relate how education affects their day-to-day lives.
Although I agree with Freire that education should not be like a banking system, I cannot accept his overriding assumption

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