Period  1

04/28/19

Education is one of the most important rights to the normal person. Education is not just if education is available free of charge or money, it depends on what kind of education and which way we taking the information. A lot of countries have free education until college, but it had a bad way to give the teaching, as Paulo Freire described it ( banking education system.) As an example of the ( let me say) dry education system, it is my experience. The last 10 years in my country (Syria) was the right way to explain banking education. Teaching in my country was based on the introduction of illogical and useless  information to young children until they reached high school. Regardless about massive quantities of studies, they rely on making the student memorize the books completely even if he/she does not understand anything. As explained  by Freire, “it is essentially an act that hinders the intellectual growth of students by turning them into, figuratively speaking, comatose “receptors” and “collectors” of information that have no real connection to their lives.” We were, as young students, memorizing  books with each word in it just to pass the class, and each lesson had to study for it every day just to don’t fail the class. When I came to the United State, I understood the  differences between the banking education system and the right way to learn; I’m watching my friends in Syria taking 12th grade in 2019 and they complaining to me how they have to keep in mind more than hundreds of pages of each book, to just pass 12th grade!! I will not say all the classes but most of the classes do not have any connection with the life that we live in. Teaching students to fill information in the minds of students directly and through conservation makes students unable to think properly to solve problems, but just makes them only look for answers from the information in their heads. And I believe that because when I was studying in their own way, I began to feel a lack of full understanding of the texts about reading; this proves the Freire’s  words”His task (teacher) is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration-- contents which are detached from reality.” The importance of what Paul said in the last part is the word "detached from reality." It's really a problem that the students' study information is will not give any benefit for life.

When the teacher gives the student information in a dry way or without the student understanding the real meaning, the student actually misses the real information but acquires the simple part is only the sentence containing the information. As an example, the writer said "four times four", the student will actually save four times four are 16, but the student can not know or even think how to get the answer because the method of solution was not put in  front of the student. The student did not understand that 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 are 16 but only (he save) 4 * 4 are 16!! A common thing is explained by the author Paulo that is "The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. the more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are” Mr. Freire explained one of the most common ways of  the banking education system. Some people think that more the student saves the better the student will be. Also, the more the teacher presses the students by lesson, the better he will be. This method of teaching affects the student negatively significantly, and I can say this after the experience I got from my education in my country. Another way that Mr. Paulo uses to explain what the students will be if they show obedience to the teacher is fully on this way of education is really compelling because it is the realistic logic of a student's situation. He states  “ Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.” We can understand why the writer called the topic we talk about by (banking education system) this words, because the case of students actually deposit bank, where information is placed in the mind of the student in the same way. The teacher is the one who sets the information and the student saves it to put it in the exam paper without understanding where the information came from or what way to reach the desired result. also, the student returns to forget the information as if he did not see it before. Mr. Paulo described the students like slaves to the teacher, to show people the amount of oppression and repression that students face when they undergo a teacher who uses static methods in education. 

To end this situation of teaching that is calling the banking education system, we have to start from the little part that is could be the students because students are subjected to unconvincing learning that can be a problem for the present and future generations. Trying to develop our countries depending on the most advanced countries as a first step, and then look for ways that students learn from the observations discovered and not given directly by the teacher. Education is what distinguishes the human race from the rest of the creatures, and learning in the right ways is the main aid to keep human offspring thinking of evolution and progress of the globe in all aspects of economic development and the environment.

04/24/2019

One day in my middle school math class the teacher was giving us a lesson. Everything seemed normal until one student spoke out saying “ I seriously don’t understand how this is going to help me in life”. It was silent after a few moments until the teacher responds “ I teach and you listen that's all you need to know”. When the class heard the teacher’s response my peers said nothing and continued to listen to the teacher. It seemed like I was the only one thinking, “Why isn't anyone siding with this student?” Is it because throughout our educational path from K-12 we always had the teacher play this authoritarian role? Ensuring we obey his/her command. I still ask myself why didn't I side with the other student? The only explanation I have is that I was really shy and I didn't really say what I thought but I expressed my thoughts by my writing.

By this little part of my educational journey, I had to use a Marxist lens to have this awakening to be able to be free myself from the banking education system as described by Freire. He writes, (The banking system)Only allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filling, and storing the deposits...”. One of the ways that I have been freed by the educational banking system is by figuring out what is the ideology of the situation.

First, I noticed that in a classroom these teachers give us the hope speech saying “ you can be anything you want with education”. I agree you can do a lot of things with your education but why are we not educated on the fact that there are systems in place that can prevent us from going into to these  schools? Eventually, these students realize it in college but it's too late because they were not educated early on. 

One of the things students tend to realize after high school is that they don't have any creativity as stated in Paulo Freire Chapter 2, “The capability of the banking system is to minimize or annul the student's creative power”. We may ask ourselves how does the banking system prevent us from being creative. One example of this from my experience, everyday teachers tell me what to do when, where, and how and if I don't listen I get in trouble. So I don't have the capability to learn in my own way because I was always taught that the teacher's creativity is the best creativity.

As alluded to above, anyone who doesn’t accept this ideology is punished.  For example,  students might not want to come to school anymore because they don't want to be apart of the banking system that they discovered and the initial consequence is that they will not be able to graduate and get their high-school diploma. 

The system, however, as implemented or uses mechanisms to ensure students buy into the system. One of the ways the system does this is by encouraging students that they will have scholarship money if they keep their grades up and do good on placement exams. In addition, the system even rewards their students for having good grades, participating in class, and doing as the teachers say. Moreover, these plans are to ensure that the students are put into the system by bribing them with money and recognition.

After looking into the banking system and my educational path from K-12, I learned that education should look like students being taught how to enhance the students creativity. The reason why teachers should help students enlarge their creativity skills is because we live in a society that people want creativity in any career you can find. So while we have creativity then we have the ability to be very competitive to the workforce.

Education is a powerful weapon and it gives us the power to be able to show others what we have. The people who learn education is something special for people because they get to use it when other people cannot. For example, when Freire said, ¨teachers teaches students are taught,¨ he is implying the question “Are they really learning?” Are they just acting like they are? Therefore, Freire says, ¨the teacher knows everything the students know nothing... the direct opposite.¨ This quote shows how the teachers aren't really teaching and how they, the students, still don't know anything. Every human being needs oxygen to survive in the world. Education is  as important as oxygen  because education gives people the knowledge and skills they require. 

Education is important to people of all ages and it has no limit. Children require education in order for them to learn how to speak and to write. It helps us build opinions and have points of view on things in life. People debate over the subject of whether education is the only thing that gives knowledge. Some say education is the process of gaining information about the surrounding world while knowledge is something very different. The difference is knowledge is something you have but education is something you learn.Your degree is proof of your knowledge, which makes your ideas/thoughts more valuable and important. Besides your degree, knowledge makes you persuasive and convincing. Both on personal and national levels, education has been shown to increase economic growth and stability. One of the most important benefits of education is how it improves personal lives and helps societies run smoothly. We live longer, fuller, and happier lives as learned and knowledgeable individuals. Confidence leads to being educated. The ideology of society makes education sounds bad because students aren't really learning to their full potential by the teachers not putting maximum effort to teach their students. The purpose of education is to develop students' desire and ability to think and learn about the world around them. Further, the purpose is to learn how to develop relationships that will enable students to work with their peers, throughout their schooling and beyond. 

Education should look like teachers are teaching but in a way that students actually learn. If teachers just teach, are students actually learning the way they should or know their way of learning? Students sometimes are afraid to ask questions because they think if they ask a question then they'll get made fun of. Never be afraid to ask questions even if they are dumb questions. The teachers should always help you no matter what. Learn the way you know!

Period 1

April 25,2019

    Ever since I started school which was in  Kindergartner in Maxwell it was hard for me to learn because I didn’t go to ECE Preschool. An ECE Preschool is to improve social skills and helps kids to be prepared to be in school for eight hours because preschool is only for half of the day. In my knowledge, if I would go to ECE Preschool I would of not cry so much due to my struggling in school and not be slow on learning.  After being in Maxwell for 3 years my parents decide to change houses which made me change schools too. After moving houses the school I attended was John H Amesse. When I had entered that school I was lucky that I had my cousins who went to that school and I had a cousin that had the same age as me only three months older than me. It was hard for me to adapt to that school and new people. What I remember about that school is that even though it was one of the lowest “grade” of school’s, the people who would work there always tried to teach us the best because what they thought me is that “Just because we are in a low range, don’t mean that is who we are.”  This quote really got into me when I was growing up and lived at Montbello. For my uncles this place was one of the worse places because of what they saw in the news and the schools. Until this day, my uncles believe that my mom made a wrong decision for living in Montebello for fifteen years and let her kids go to school in this community. 

    Overall, I was going to middle school and it was DCIS at Montbello. I love this school but there was something that I didn’t like when I started to be here for all my three years of middle school. The teachers wouldn’t stay and teach us there were some of those years that a substitute teacher would try to teach us for a whole school year, which was just watch videos or a movie and people would check in for their attendance and leave because the substitute would be on the computer or just watching the movie. That had affected us a lot because we started thinking are teachers leaving because we are not good enough for them to teach us, or is it something else? We never had anyone answer our questions because the principles would just say “ I cannot give you an answer to why they left…”  I remember in my eighth grade one of the teachers left because they were gonna go to college because she couldn’t deal with us anymore and she wanted to teach in colleges instead of teaching English class in middle school. In the Paulo Freire, in the second chapter, it mentions the concept of banking, it states " In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledge upon those whom they consider to know nothing." What this tells me is that students will think that they are way better than the other students which the other students would think they don't know anything, I don't want that to happen and teachers shouldn't let that happen. So one question that I have until this day and I still ask myself, Why do teachers leave us? 

  How would the district let this happen to us and our future kids? I would love my kids to not experience the same thing, to not feel like it’s their fault that teachers leave. I want my kids to get taught correctly. By that I mean like no matter what school they are going to go, I want my kids to be excited and ready to learn and not be sad that one of their good teachers left them for a better job. Teachers should be ready to teach their students and not care that the school is a low level. They should prove others wrong and show them the good about this community. 

Per . 1

5 / 2 / 19

Everyone has had different experiences regarding their education, some not as good as others.  I would describe my education experience as successful.  For the most part, it was a liberatory experience and the other small part - the banking system of education as Freire describes.  The most unpleasant part of my educational experience started when I was in sixth grade and ended when I was in ninth grade.  I would have so many complaints towards my teachers those three years because their teaching ways were not functional for me.  But later on, I realized that even though their teaching techniques didn’t work for me back then, they later helped me in my learning for my early years of high school.  It’s funny how I would get frustrated and disappointed with the way that my teachers would teach us, not knowing that those different systems of teaching would come in handy in my future.

In sixth grade, I would have the same teacher for social studies and English and she would be very strict on her grading, especially when it came down to homework and tests.  Homework for her classes would be assigned every single day including weekends and I wasn’t in a private school; private schools are usually very strict on those two specific things.  Homework would count as 40 percent, tests for 50, and projects 10 percent of my overall grade.  Most of the students that took her class did not pass because they would find it hard to do homework on a daily basis.  I understand that giving out homework frequently improves student’s performance in class discussions, but in my opinion, giving too much of it overwhelms students.  Mrs. Caronaigen was a very good teacher, but her teaching techniques were not successful enough to keep the whole class engaged and interested in learning. 

The people who profit out of this situation are the districts, teachers, and anyone who works for the education system.  Even though the teachers are not teaching the class correctly nor making sure that the students are understanding the material, they are still going to get paid the same.  All of my educational experience took place at my old school in California, and I personally think that I should use that as my society because I recently moved to Colorado a year ago and I’m not too familiar with the education system here.  Starting my eighth-grade year, there was an ideology created by society about education that the more work ( homework ) that teachers leave the students to do after-school, the better the students they are and the same goes for teachers.   This later made the majority of the teachers slack in their teaching.  There was a concept developed for a while that since a lot of homework was going to be assigned, that was going to be our lesson for the day; we basically had to teach ourselves.  A lot of students would get frustrated at this and they wouldn’t have the motivation to keep doing their homework.  This leads to the reification part of the process, the abstract of hard work and success is being transformed into homework by society.  Teachers make homework worth a big chunk of your grade, and that forces students to do the after-school assignments; so really, it’s all about the grades.

Society does so much to try to convince students, teachers, and parents that doing more homework is the key to our success.  They create one on one conferences with parents and they have after-school meetings for students and parents with board members of the district and give whole powerpoint presentations on that.  The Ideological State Apparatus responsible for the spreading of this ideology are those after -school programs that encouraged that students should have more school work to do after -school.  Later on, after-school programs like Kumon and Elevate math; other programs started to create advertisements saying ( More Homework = Brighter Future ~ Better Grades ).  I was so confused because those programs are for after-school tutoring, but the district was so dedicated on enforcing their new idea that they started to pay those companies to encourage parents to sign their children in those after-school programs.  I had enough homework with school and did not need more from them.

I believe that the way that the education system should be is comprehensible.  Teachers should be comprehensible with students;  if they don’t understand their way of teaching, why not try it a different way that keeps everyone engaged and learning?  And by giving out so much homework it’s as if students are being self-taught and it’s doing all the work for the teachers.  Teachers should make learning fun and interesting, unfortunately, I got to experience that for a very short time of my life, wishing that my education would be that way throughout my whole years of school.

The ideology we are being fooled to know is that our education in the United States is one of the best. In class, I remember learning about test scores of other countries and realized those countries have a really good education system but then it hit me, where are we marked in the rankings of education. I had no idea if we were considered to have a good or bad education system. We are shown on the news about how great our schools perform but students are never asked what they learn and why they are learning that because the students obviously will not know why they are learning certain things. Students just show up to class and learn things that are important to the education system but will it really help us in our future? I have older siblings that can´t remember half the things they were taught in school because they didn't need that knowledge for their futures. So why am I being taught to memorize all these topics and equations that I might not need later on?

How does the education system fool us to follow its rules and never question it? Punishment is the answer to that question. When students rebel, teacher get them in trouble. As a senior in high school, there are many restrictions for me to graduate. I have to pass all of my classes in order to walk and graduate. I have to have a certain attendance rate to walk across the stage. We have to follow the rules and not question them at all. If we question the system then it will bring attention from other people but our schools are doing a good job at preventing that from happening. The education system uses grades as some sort of reward for the student to not rebel. When a student sees that they have a failing grade then it will push them to work harder and get their stuff together. I was struggling in a class where I found out I had an F and I started to make sure I got that grade up by completing all of my essays and making sure they were revised by the teacher just in case I made a mistake so I can make it better. I then found out that my grade did not matter as the teacher said to not pay attention to that grade because that is not how he will determine my final grade. That woke me up realizing my grade that shows up is not important. One thing that is also being used to cover up the ideology is how we are so focused on working on scholarships to earn ¨free money¨ and that is one thing that will keep us following the system by keeping us occupied on something that is supposed to help our future careers. We are so focused on trying to win money to help us on these expensive college tuitions but we do not realize that we are paying an insanely high amount of money for education compared to other countries that are getting it for free. We, the students, are being blinded by our very own education system.

When I think of the banking in the education system, I think of a cow being constantly fed to get bigger and bigger so the owners can win or earn a lot of money from them. The students are the ones being fed all this knowledge and we are told it will benefit our future without giving a proper reason why. The ¨banking concept¨, as determined by Freire, is essentially an act that hinders the intellectual growth of students by turning them into ¨receptors¨ or ¨collectors¨ of information that have no real connection to their lives. In class, there are always times where I question my teacher why our subject is important. In math class, we have a lot of equations that we have to learn and there are always students questioning the teacher, including myself, on why this is important but the teacher never gives proper reasoning other than ¨Its for your future¨. The teacher always shuts up the student every time the student speaks up in class and us students never get reasoning to what we are learning and how it will benefit our future.

In conclusion, the education system is seen as almost ¨perfect¨ in America but do we really see what is going on in our schools? Students have to follow certain rules and if they break those rules there will be a punishment but what does the school use against punishment you might ask? Schools use false rewards including grades and scholarships that we are given to believe that we will do good in our futures but in reality, other people have it easy compared to us and we do not realize this because we are being fooled to follow our education systems standards.

 This Florida teacher held all the power over me. She was basically the oppressor and I was oppressed. There was one day that I turned in my work late. She ripped my paper and threw it into the trash can next to her and told me to get out of her class.  I had worked really hard on that project and I tried my best. She was comparing me to other students that were born here and had fluent English by saying, ” if he can turn it in in one day, you can do that too. ” She was very strict about her assignments and she wanted everyone to turn them in on time. Of the way she would treat me, I was always scared to ask her questions or tell her that I needed help. No one in that class would talk to me or help me because my English wasn’t good enough to speak or understand them. Of this problem I had it made me failed both my 9th and 10th grades because of the issues that I had in that school. 

Freire’s Banking Concept Of Education describes how teachers give information to students, making the teachers “depositors”  and students the “receptors.” The “depositing” is done in an oppressive way, to oppress students and to dehumanize them. My teacher made me less important and less human than the other students. It’s easier for an oppressor to get more powerful and to get others on his/her side if he/she can first dehumanize the oppressed. In this view, according to this quote from Gabrielle Micheletti’s essay titled Re-envisioning Paulo Freire’s Banking Concept Of Education, “ Freire claims that by assuming the roles of teachers as depositors and students as receptors, the banking concept thereby changes humans into objects. Humans (as objects) have no autonomy and therefore no ability to rationalize and conceptualize knowledge at a personal level.” For example, my teacher would speak to me very rude in front of other classmates. She made my classmates to see me as a lesser person and someone that doesn’t deserve the same humanity as other students do. 

To summarize, education is something really important in my life but complicated at the same time. Based on the experience that I had in my past, after missing 4 years of my school and then starting my 9th grade in the U.S. with no English knowledge, it was really challenging and hard for me. The way my teacher treated me was making it even worse. But finally I’m here and I’m about to graduate soon. At first, I used to get really sad when other students were making fun of me, asking why am I still in school if I’m 19. But they don’t know what I’ve gone through. If I didn’t fail my 9th and 10th grades I would’ve been walking with the rest of my class and I would graduate on time. But because I failed those two grades and I got only half credit from each class, now I’m struggling with getting enough credit. I hope there will be more opportunities for people that don’t speak English in the future. Hopefully, there will be better ways to make-up credits. For example, I don’t want other refugee children to experience the same thing that I experienced. I don’t want them to struggle like me, I want them to feel comfortable with their school and the condition around them. 

Per. 1

5 / 6 / 19

Through all my years of school from kindergarten to 12th grade I have felt like my education has been both liberatory, where I have wanted to do my work, and to where Freire describes as the banking system of education, where I have felt like I’ve been forced to do my work that I didn’t want to do. When I was in elementary school, I went to a bad elementary school from kindergarten to 4th grade, but my parents didn’t find out until I went to 5th grade. My parents found out because in the school that my parents changed me to, they were told that my test grades were much lower than where they should be have been. Despite the fact that I was doing bad in elementary school, I have always felt free when I was in elementary school. After I  changed schools in 5th grade, my grades increased drastically nearly to where they should have been.

 Afterward, when I got into middle school I still felt a little free, but not as much as I did in elementary school. When I first got in middle school I was excited that I was getting further up, but then the work started getting more and more difficult the further in middle school I got to. At first, I did all my work, no problem, and I would be getting good grades, but as I got closer to high school I started to drop in my grades, but I still didn’t get lower than a C, but I didn’t want to do the work anymore. I started to learn that students are forced to go to school because if they don’t go to school or if they ditch and they get caught, they will have to go to court. 

 I have felt like as Paulo Freire explains the banking system going into high school. The difference between going to elementary school and high school is that I slowly started to feel more forced to go to school. When I was in elementary school I the work was simple and I didn’t feel like I was obligated to come to school. Going to middle school I the work was becoming more difficult and I was starting to feel more stressed, but my parents didn’t let me stay home. In high school, the work became very difficult and I was getting stressed out. I learned that students get court if they ditch or miss school. Starting high school I have felt that I had to go to school not because I wanted to, but the reason is that my parents wanted me to go to school and they didn’t want me missing. I also felt forced because if I didn’t go to school I was scared that I would have to go to court. Therefore, I went to school because I felt like I had no other choice than going to school and getting my studies done. When I first started high school, I wasn’t doing as great in school but I was still maintaining a Cs and Bs in 9th grade. Going into 10th grade, I would only go to school because my parents never let me stay home and they expected me to go to school. I started to get C’s or lower, I even had an F, but I was able to raise it to a D by the end of the semester, so by the end of the semester, I passed my classes with C’s and D’s.

 In these first two years of high school, I learned that if I wanted to get a job in the future most jobs require a high school diploma in order to work. After learning that, I started wanting to do my work more, but the classes started getting more difficult. I still kept pushing because I wanted to be successful. I had watched how my parents and brother struggled in order to be able to make money and I told myself I will do better and move further ahead. Both my parents didn't get to high school and my brother had just finished with high school and he had two years of college finished by the time he graduated high school. My brother wanted to be a mechanical engineer and he had two years of college finished and he needed two more years to finish studying for it, but by the time he graduated high school, he didn't want to go to college anymore. So now he works as a trash truck driver and he has to get to work really early and he doesn't get out until very late, so he is always very exhausted when he gets home from work.

 After seeing my brother struggle, I have wanted to finish high school and get my diploma and go to Pickens, a technical college, to be a mechanic. I have always wanted to be a mechanic because I grew up with my dad being an automobile painter and his closest friend is a body man, so I have always wanted to work on cars. My last years of school to now I have been putting effort so that I could pass my classes to graduate and I have already been enrolled to Pickens for the fall. I sometimes start falling behind at times, but I still keep trying to push forward.

 To sum up, the ideology of this society encourages us to believe that we need a high school diploma in order to be able to get a good job. This ideology is true, but false at the same time because there are people that never finished high school and never got a diploma, but they still have a good job. My dad never got a high school diploma because he didn’t go to high school and was able to get a good paying job as a painter at an auto body. Although, that's not always the case because most good-paying jobs require a diploma to be able to work there. Therefore, the ideology of this society is both true and false at the same time because people have to be lucky to get a good paying job without a diploma, but it is still possible to get one. People don’t always need to get a good education in order to get a good job, they mainly need to put in the effort and have the willingness to work. 

Period: 1

4/24/19

                 Now that I am a senior in high school I indeed have learned a lot from this class. During my junior year I’d leave my social studies class to go to Duval’s and I sure am happy that I went. I've experienced so many changes in the education system over time and it wasn't until this year that I realized about how we as students are treated.  

               In the education system the teacher is always correct no matter what and the students are initially wrong. The “banking concept” as termed by Freire shows  what really is going on in the education system. The teacher teaches and the students listen and cooperate with no hesitation. I've noticed on some occasions that when students don't agree with a teacher about whatever subject they are being taught, problems tend to occur. Most teachers would definitely be triggered if the student were to teach a lesson as they strongly believe that that student is wrong generally. Why are we in a country where we as students cannot share our thoughts and let the teacher know when he or she are wrong? This of course is a source of banking in the education system where the teacher “deposits” information into the students brains even if not entirely correct and the students’ empty mind is waiting to be filled. Other examples  regarding the banking method that's very common in the education system is how its all about memorizing, the teachers disciplining the students, the teacher choosing the program content without the students permission. The teacher talks and the students pay close attention, and the more information that's filled in the students mind the better. After researching more about education in the US and in other foreign countries I came to find out that the US has a very horrible education system. This can explain why many students tend to drop out or simply don't pay attention in school because they end up rebelling. 

                 My educational journey has been very simple and boring until my senior year. The banking system by Paulo Freire makes perfect sense to me now. I would always be expected to pay attention, participate in activities, get good grades and never to argue with the teachers even if they're wrong. I can agree that in the education system we are like sheep. If we don't cooperate and follow the expectations from teachers and the administrative staff it would result in us students to be expelled, to get detention or have our parents called. My elementary educational journey was a complete mess. Every kid was to be taught what to do and not to do and it would always backfire because as a young kid we still take time to mature. My middle school educational journey was just as much as a mess as my elementary school years. My first year in middle school was very harsh. When I was still in the process of trying to get cured from cancer I was always brought down by peers and some of my teachers. I always had the gut feeling that my teachers felt that I wasn't capable of doing well in school. It infuriated me very much. I would always ditch my classes because I didn't have that self confidence as I should have. Being so behind my classes I ended up staying for tutoring and going to teachers I felt helped encourage me to push harder and get the learning materials in just like everyone else. My high school educational journey was very difficult though. My first two years in I didn't have the support to help me get everything on track and get into classes that would benefit me. Just like every other freshman we were expected to find our classes right away and start getting prepared for the first lesson in each class we are enrolled in. My freshman year kinda took a toll on me when I had found out barely my senior year that my English teacher failed me for two semesters. I didn't understand how though. I would always pay attention in class, do all of my homework on time, I would even ask for extra credit, as well as participate in class discussions but it never went anywhere. My sophomore and junior year went down the same route. I didn't have much support to help me get everything on track and I was still considered to make sure I was passing all my classes no matter what. My senior year though was quite different than my other high school years. Ever since we got new counselors I have gotten so much help and advice on my classes and my missing credits to make sure I graduate on time. After being enrolled in Duval’s class for this semester I learned a lot about my education and how in some ways we are brainwashed and are expected to follow the expectations of teachers and the administrative staff. 

               Paulo Freire really made me interested on how he sees the education system as something very dull. Instead of trying to help students find their weaknesses and strengths in certain subjects and to see what career would better fit us, we are to soak in every little lesson we are taught and to not question anything about it. We need more people like Paulo to help lead others to help improve our education system. The crazy thing is that a lot of people don't know we are manipulated to being taught whatever program content the teacher suggests; we are to pay attention, we students should not correct the teacher, and to memorize everything that is being taught. We are blind to realize this because of the ideology that is being created to cover things up. No one questions how we are being taught and that's something that needs to be taken into consideration to help improve our educational system all across the US.

                  Overall, this country needs a lot of improvement in general. Education I feel having to be number one to fix. If we’re going to better this country we need to set aside our pride. Half of the materials we are learning in school won't even benefit us in the future so why continue to waste time on materials we don't even need? There's literally no point of having to study lessons about subjects that won't necessarily help us learn to buy our first house, pay our bills, be responsible etc…  we need content that will boost our self confidence to be better out in  the world when we’re on our own. 

For example, History class. This subject revolves around the educators being given information in books and being expected to give the students lectures about past times with no real importance that’ll help the students in life or in their futures. The students just memorize factual points but without actually taking something from the class. Paulo Freire’s banking idea of education actually makes a lot of sense. Freire accurately describes the education system in the United States. Freire refers to the students as containers or bins, and the educators as the fillers of these so-called bins. As stated in Chapter 2 of Paulo Freire, “The student records, memories, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four ties four really means, or reading the true significance of “capital” in the affirmation “ the capital of Para is Belem,” that is, what Belem means for Para and what Para means for Brazil.” This explains exactly what Freire’s banking system idea is about, the students blindly soak up the knowledge thrown at them without questioning it. 

For my years of going to school one of the things that stood out was the fact that while learning the United States history, they never taught us the real history of the US. Starting off how Christopher Columbus was the reason for a lot of natives getting killed or raped or getting their land taken from them. Another example would be segregation. Yea, they taught me what happen but they didn’t show us what horrible things that were going down like African Americans getting hanged by the KKK or getting tortured. Schools only want to teach us what they think is okay not the truth.

In conclusion, school has been a long road for people but graduating means the start off life and sometimes I'll look back at the things that went through in order to get where I  am now.  

05-1-19

Period 1

Education Essay

Many people have different experiences with their educational journey, some might have good ones or some bad; thinking about my education experience, I would describe it as a consciousness awakening  experience. My educational journey began when I was in 6th grade in geography class. Ms. Jensen always wanted us to learn everything about the world and the different cultures there is, but one way she would always make us remember  would be making projects being assigned to a different culture and create food using their best spices for making presentations that would catch our attention.

 I remember one time we had an assignment about traditions we had in our culture and I remember I did one about Quinceaneras, but the information I used wasn't from my own words they were from the internet. Since I had used information from the internet, she noticed and made me redo it all over again.  Throughout the years of middle school and high school, I've experience banking system of education as Paulo Freire describe it. The Banking system occurs more when the student is not focusing and the teacher is just giving a lesson but it is not as effective because the student doesn't memorize anything. I remember being in another geography class in 9th grade. The teacher would give her lesson out but I wasn't getting anything out of it because she wouldn't show us right; everything she would say she knew but when I was paying attention I did not get anything out. 

Paulo Freire focuses a lot on how the student isn't getting a good education; he mentions how ¨ the teacher knows everything and the student know nothing¨. That's how Freire describes education that is not being taught  well, and how it becomes banking education. Through my whole education journey since Kinder till 12th I feel like I've had so many different learning techniques because of how so many teachers have taught me differently. I haven't had that many problems with teacher teaching I mostly try to focus on how to get it done but then I end up losing track because I get distracted or I find the lesson so boring. Attending a public school and growing up learning two languages can be pretty difficult, especially when you're younger because you are trying to learn other things. However, now being a twelve grader in high school, going back to how I started I feel like I've grown a lot not only in my speaking but also in learning different things. 

Society and school districts focus a lot on student turning it works and how advanced they are. Instead, we should  work together and cooperate by helping each other in order so we can have a liberatory education; not just banking education. Students need to able to learn and understand lesson not just memorize things and forget them the next day. Teachers should work on making lessons so that way many students can actually do it and get something out of it.  The ideology that is being represented in education is that getting homework done and having good grades can make you successful, but what will actually get them successful is paying attention and learning new things so that they can be papered in the future. 

In my opinion, as a senior, I think teachers should communicate with their student more to see if they understand or need more help in anything. When learning a new lesson students tend to stay quiet because they are too shy to ask or get help, so that's what brings them down and they end up forgetting about what they just learned. I believe that fun and interesting lessons will make a great change in students learning and there won't be as much banking system and everyone can have a liberal education journey.  Teachers should know how to make their teaching techniques successful enough to keep everyone engaged and learning.

However, I always planned to graduate high school at least. I have failed many classes; classes that are important. I have disappointed my parents multiple times. I was known to be the class clown and I never was a teacher's favorite student. It would always be “Jose don’t do that” or “Jose please don’t talk”. I might not be “book smart” but I do consider myself to be “street smart”. Neither of my parents received an education, in fact, I’m the first one in my family to graduate, well that’s if I pass all my classes. 

Paulo Freire has a unique way of seeing education; he describes banking education as teachers giving students some information, not really going into full detail. When students receive information from the teacher they don't stop twice to see if they are wrong, it’s coming from the teacher so why would it be wrong, right? This is the way that most students think when they are receiving information from their teachers. In my opinion, I believe that the banking concept favors those who have power. In school teachers are the ones that have the power and lead, while the students are the ones that have to follow their rules and listen to them. Paulo states that “ The teacher is, of course, an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile…….”, the teacher can explain and explain but not everyone will get the same understanding because we all learned in very unique ways. 

Overall, my education hasn’t been the best over these past 12 years. It is a place where you are just another number to their data.   They do not take account what the students need; they just want to see their numbers rise so that they can look good to all these people. They need to see that there is a student that would rather do more learning the sit and read a book. They should make a change just like me there many others out there that feel the same. 

As the population is growing, we should keep in mind what is beneficial for our future. There are many beneficial things we should consider, but in this case education in one of the biggest key factors for our future. Education empowers you by providing you with tools and knowledge to succeed in life. I firmly believe knowledge is power, and it is something that no one can take away from you. For example, Healthcare is an ever-changing career, always changing based on technology, medical advances, and even varying levels of care and job opportunities. Education will help individuals adapt to an ever-changing workplace because when new things are presented they can easily use the education they have to adjust to the changes. Adding education to everyone's life’s tool kit helps to ensure a productive and fruitful life, but for this to happen we first need to make sure that everyone is receiving the right education they need.

As I started to get older my grades started to drop, the A’s and B’s slowly started turning into D’s and F’s. When we first enter school we start off in kindergarten we’re all about the age of 4 or 5. At that age our brains are like sponges every little thing we are told we absorb. So the first thing taught is ABC’s and how to count, merely it is something we need in order to be able to function in modern day society. Kindergarten though is where the engraving starts, where the most important thing in your life is school. When I got older my grades dropped, but why? As I went through the semesters of Math, English, Social Studies, etc. I slowly started to realize how the things I was being taught were so unimportant to me. “Why do I have to learn about the dead presidents if I'm going into engineering?’ I would tell myself. All the things I was being taught were so superficial, it wasn’t making me any smarter. Maybe the best thing I learned was how to 🤬 on a ton of work. I cheated my way through high school and I’ll proudly admit that.

The 4 years of high school is the transition of being a teenager into becoming an adult. So as we’re told high school is here to prepare for the real world. The “Real World” means college, so basically they’re preparing us for college. Given it’s not a terrible thing but there isn’t a “one size fits all” type of education that works for all. We are still left in the dark without knowing anything about how to really survive in the real world. Many of us still do not know how to create a resume, how to do our taxes, cook, and manage finances. I know a couple of people who bought brand new cars with a 17% interest rate, like seriously, we don’t even know what a good interest rate is! High schoolers are so underprepared for the real world. Our counselors and advisors have always tried to program our heads just for college. The closed mindset making us believe that college is the only way to become successful, or college is the best thing you could do for yourself. This ideology is extremely toxic I see people in my grade stressing and having sleepless nights, because they want to be accepted in that prestigious college.

I was never a really good student. My grades aren’t the best and  I ditch a lot of class but never once in my mind I doubted myself in anything. I know I’m intelligent and can solve a lot of my problems on my own. I taught myself how to work on cars, and I am still learning but the school didn’t give me my passion to work on cars. I found out the things I needed for in order to become a certified mechanic. I focused my work towards my mathematics classes in order to be finished for some of the requirements needed to be a mechanic. School and being a mechanic share their similarities, but the thing that makes school so different is the way we “learn”. The materials in school we never really learn, we memorize. The teacher gives us a certain problem and they give us the instructions on how to solve it, you write it down to remember but you never really learn it. This is why I believe how my schools used to give us work to do over the summer so we could keep our minds fresh, but in actuality, they know that we will forget everything we were taught. I feel like they know that it’s all about who has a better memory.  When you actually learn something it is usually something you are passionate about, like cars, makeup, etc. I will never forget how to change the oil on a car and over time I will not forget this. Ask anyone who has graduated high school to solve a complex math problem they will struggle. As my 12 years of being in the education system, I can say that from all the classes I took I am not going to remember anything.

May 2nd, 2019

Mr. Duval

    From K-12 I have been fortunate enough to have received free public education without a struggle. I believe that I was sort of part of a banking system because my education was kind of forced by my parents, which I'm thankful for because I do believe that education is the only way to achieve my life long goal of becoming an engineer. The education system has treated me fairly good. I'm not saying it’s perfect because it's not. Being categorized by some test scores doesn’t and shouldn’t establish how smart or dumb I am. The banking concept is something I’ve never thought about but now that it has been brought to my attention I believe that the government should be run by people like my senior English teacher..

    My journey throughout the DPS board of education has been nothing but good. I’ve never questioned my teachers about how and why we are learning something, and maybe that was a mistake that us students are making. I don’t really care about what we learn in high school because I know that I won’t use most of it and college is where it’s at. Although my education might have not been the best, it can always get better and it starts with us the students. If we can advocate and be heard many of the other students in the school will actually learn something meaningful in school. 

The only thing I hate about our education system is the standardized test. I am not the best at taking tests and it sucks being categorized by some test that is meant to make you struggle and not show off your true potential. We are forced to follow rules or we are threatened by the school. Our attendance has to be over 90% to be able to graduate and walk across a stage that we’ve waited for over a decade to walk. We are forced to learn about things that are not relevant to our society anymore. Most of my teachers  believe that the curriculum we are forced to learn isn’t all that great.Us students don’t have a voice in the education system, we can’t rebel or try and argue with the district because no one will take us seriously.  

    The ideology of this society encourages us to believe that America has the best schools in the world because they are public and free. That is most definitely not the case. From a quick google search, I read that America’s school ranking is at 38/71.  When I think of the banking system I think about an animal being fed a lot so it can be fatter and when killed it will have more meat to sell. The “Banking Concept” as determined by Paulo Freire, is an act of giving someone a bunch of information that has no real-world connection behind it. I believe that every student in the United of States is part of a banking system in one way or another. 

    In conclusion, my experience growing up in this education system has been all right but many of the problems with this system is how students are forced to learn things that we will legitimately never use in life again. We are forced to follow certain rules and never question them so we can graduate with a diploma because more job clearly thinks a diploma is better than someone with job experience. As a senior waiting to graduate about 2 weeks from now, I would have hoped to learn something meaningful in 12 years of school. I am thankful for having Mr.Duval as a teacher because he really opened my eyes about our government and how it’s corrupted.  

Once I got into high school that changed. In high school, it's more about the analysis than the information, well in my English classes anyway. The other side of the “banking” side of education is the “problem-posing” side of education. The term means that both the teacher and student can learn from each other. Everyone has a voice and has the chance to let their voice be heard. In my English classes when writing essays there is more than one answer to a prompt that is given. This is especially true in the current English class I am in. Throughout the year when having discussions or writing essays there were many perspectives given and so many different experiences shared. In this class, we talked and wrote about things that related to the world we live in today. There is however, one of my high school teachers who I do believe follows the “banking” way of education. My Chinese teacher is from China and she has told us many times how they focus a lot on studying. Well the class - including me - has told her that people learn in different ways and that there are easier ways to do things than how she was taught. She disagrees with us and is very strict on how she wants things done and how she wants her class to run. In class, we do bump heads a lot going back and forth about how she could make the class more enjoyable and make it easier for herself and the students however she continues to teach the way she wants to. I do believe that more people would enjoy her class more if she switched to the “problem-posing” way of teaching. It makes it more inclusive for the teacher and students.

Learning shouldn’t be something that is exclusive for teachers to do for students. Teachers should be able to learn from their students in the same way that students learn from them. If all teachers taught in this way students will learn better and have a strong connection with their teachers. It will in turn cause students to be able to talk to their teachers on a deeper level than just education. Not only do our parents prepare us for the world so do our teachers. They make sure we are ready for the world and that we have the tools we need to be able to change it for the better.