Rhetorical Analysis of “The #39;Banking#39; Concept of Education by Paulo “修辞分析和# 39；银行与# 39；由保罗的教育理念.doc

DATE \@ M/d/yyyy 4/27/2008 Page PAGE 4 English 101 Rhetorical Analysis of “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” by Paulo Freire Todd May Paulo Freire does an excellent job of communicating with and convincing his audience that the current educational system has problems in “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” His goal in the essay is to show people who have something to do with education – whether they are a student, teacher or parent, that the current form of education is an awful way of teaching. He refers to it as the “banking” method. After he shows how awful it is, he poses an alternative way to teaching which he claims eliminates all of the problems. He calls this method the “problem-posing” method. To explain the banking method Freire gives several examples that most people can relate to and understand, such as simple math problems or geography. Students are taught that four times four is sixteen, but they are not necessarily taught how or why it equals sixteen. In the same way, students will be taught what the capital to a country or state is, but they will not know why it is important. Freire uses logic to draw several conclusions from these and numerous other similar examples. One is that students are just like empty jars that need to be filled with the teacher’s infinite knowledge. Another one is that students should be passive, meaning that they just take in the knowledge the teacher gives them. They do not question or think about what they have just learned. Another conclusion he was able to derive was that since students are empty and do not know anything, then students and teachers are complete opposites. So far all of his logic has been sound, but there is one section in his essay where he takes it too far by claiming the knowledge teachers give is a gift. He comes to the conclusion that “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing