Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Chapter 2

I shall relish the opportunity to pick apart this nakedly communist education piece.

However, to do so effectively, I must start by showing that I understand the substance of what it is saying, a feat not easy, since the writer's language seems deliberately constructed so as to alienate any reader who is not a true believer in Marx (and here I adopt the word "alienate" intentionally, as an illustration of the hypocrisy). 

There is a good message here, buried in the divisive rhetoric. The good message that is told is old as education itself, though the Marxist may claim it as the brain-child of his movement. The message is as simple as "show, don't tell." It is the understanding that true and deep knowledge is attained through relationships, not disconnected, memorized facts, as if the brain were a stone tablet to be etched upon. Our brain is rather more like a vine, where each new branch must grow from an older, sturdier branch, deriving its significance and meaning from earlier knowledge. When the new branch has arrived at maturity, it may be ready to support new branches of its own.
Freire says that most modern education (the book was published in 1992) is enacted through the philosophy that a student is an empty receptacle for the teacher to fill with what he already has to give. He also calls this "banking" education. It is the idea that whatever is valuable for the student must come from the outside and be put inside (willingly or not). I have had a few teachers like this, and they were truly awful, and everyone knew they were awful, and they probably knew themselves that they were awful (however these awful teachers could never be fired, courtesy of the Marxist-designed Union, which Freire would probably praise as being "revolutionary"). 
But I've been blessed to have mostly good teachers, who understood that the "banking" philosophy is false, and even the more mediocre teachers held this perspective. I have picked up books of ancient philosophy and found that even Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle formed their teachings from this universal truth. 
I also object to the false urgency that Freire applies to the situation, though I know that to do so will make many consider me ill-suited for education, claiming that I don't take it seriously enough. I do take it seriously. However, having bad teachers, as well as good, has made me a better student. Student? No, it has made me a better man. Freire says that these bad teachers are dehumanizing the students. Maybe I am incorrectly assigning connotative meaning to that word, because I use that word when I'm talking about what dictators do to truly oppressed citizens. I don't think I am, though, because he uses that word too: oppressed. It's all Marxism jargon, meant to equate the bad teacher with a political leader like Chairman Mao (though they would never use that particular example).
But I still assert: having some bad teachers made me a better man. I was given the opportunity to practice self-discipline, to enhance my flexibility, and to experience something like the real world (which, newsflash, is not full of cookie-cutter perfect leaders). I would never intentionally place a student under a bad teacher (though I would see them fired, in some cases, if possible), but if the situation must continue, I would not call the student "oppressed."

What is most frustrating is that, while eloquently denouncing "authoritarianism," the Marxist view of education actually enforces that very philosophy. One of my best high-school math teachers (this was in an honors calculus class) once gave me and my fellow-students a three-page double-sided packet of trigonometric formulas and told us to have them memorized over the next three weeks. We used the formulas in class everyday, and some of them we learned how to derive from others. Freire would have called this "banking" education. He would not have allowed it. But this was exactly what this course called for, and at the end of the grueling process I was amazed at my own previously-untapped capacity for precise memory, and I know now that it was the best method at the time.
And this is the problem with the truly "modern" approach to education (the approach that has been developed by people like Freire). It is intolerant of diversity. This is profoundly counter-intuitive, I know, but it's true nevertheless (and a legitimate criticism of all Marxist application). They know the way that everything has to be done, and refuse to entertain counter-points. They refuse to believe that a situation could possibly exist anywhere where memorization was actually the best method of instruction. But the situations and environments that teachers face are incredibly diverse, and it is arrogant to imagine that the perfect standards, or objectives, or planning materials, will fit every need. Ultimately Freire says that "problem-posing" is the superior educational strategy to "banking." This means that the students' curiosity should be aroused, drawing on past experiences and background knowledge. It humanizes them, he says. But I have also had classes where this approach was taken and nothing substantive was ever accomplished. If he insists on this superior strategy, and does not allow the other, he is enforcing the very authoritarianism that he claims to oppose.
Lastly, I must point out that the entire university system is permeated with this philosophy, and by lecturing to us about how "banking" dehumanizes while they give us an 8-digit student number and bury us under paperwork, requiring us to jump through every hoop they can construct, the university is giving a resounding chorus of "Do as I say, not as I do." This is the anti-thesis of relational education.