Pedagogy of the Oppressed

        The likening of passive students to being oppressed was kind of a shock to get past when first reading this article, but the more I read the article and the more I thought about it, educators who simply rely on narration of information to students really is making them oppressed. Pure narration is keeping the students from getting the education that they deserve, including critical thinking. Filling up students like trash cans with the “garbage” that is simply facts and gospel from the narrating educator is a way of saying that banking education (providing an education that simply consists of memorizing and absorbing information) is a very ineffective way of teaching students. For example, as I am writing this I am sitting in one of the history classes I need for my minor, an entry level class, and the professor (if he is a professor, I forget and do not care to look at the syllabus right now) is doing nothing but reading history facts and dates off of a power point at the front of the class. It is not like this class is even that big; there are maybe 25 students enrolled in the class. What does me reading this article and writing this post during the middle of this class say about the effectiveness of simple narration as a means of educating? I am not engaged at all with the class, an even if I was taking notes on all of the slides he is reading off of and then going off on tangents on, I still would not be learning anything. I wanted to learn about this point and place in history and learn what the mindset was between the nations and leaders/peoples of the era, but instead I am learning dates and names and locations with no end to this trend in sight. Oh well, at least the teacher posts his power points online.