Matheny 1

Kaitlin Matheny

Prof. Enos

ENG 111 W03

06 November 2017

Climate Within the Classroom

Many are aware that problems exist within the structure of education. More importantly,

how education is incorporated into the classroom. From down-right stale lectures by old

fashioned professors, to arid PowerPoints that actually fail at their purpose more than not, the

way in which information is conditioned to students needs a change for the better. The

techniques mentioned and all the others in between, decline room for individualization towards

different recipient within the classroom. This creates a climate that does not openly welcome

cultural or learning differences. It is teachers applying the idea that each individual is capable of

learning from the same old technique that hinders learning the most.

Anyone who has experienced an hour-long lecture, or any length lecture, knows how dry

and lifeless the lesson quickly becomes. Picture this: Students have just woken up with barely

enough time to get ready for their 8 AM class, eating breakfast on the way. They walk into the

classroom and find their seat, dreary and half-asleep. As they sit there, waiting for the lesson to

begin, the professor walks in and announces a lecture today. Not only will there be a lecture, but

a joyless PowerPoint to follow. In this setting, the lackadaisical student beams back and forth

into and out of awareness during the whole class time. The hour at which the student woke up is

not to blame. The blame in this scenario belongs to the banking concept.
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The banking concept is an idea Pablo Freire discusses in The Banking Concept of

Education. First, he gives a little background story where there is always a narrating subject (the

teacher) and listening objects (the students). No matter what the subject being narrated is, it lacks

a certain meaning; it is talked about in a motionless and divided way. The narrating subjects job

being to expel, or deposit, so to speak, their topic of narration out onto their listening objects in

such manner that they, the listening objects, lose focus of what the actual meaning of the content

is. Freire states Four times four is sixteenthe student records, memorizes, and repeats [that]

phrase without perceiving what four times four actually means (1). This being the banking

concept. Rather than creating the ideal climate in a classroom, it throws the material out to its

audience and expects them to actually retain all information, when no real memorization takes

place. Nothing they are given has any more meaning than knowing it for the test. In terms of

the first scenario, the listening object is present, the narrating subject is present, and the

deposited knowledge is present. Although, even with that deposit made, the listening object

will still not actively know such information. Education is more than showing up for class and

mindlessly going through the motions.

Second scenario: Students have just woken up with barely enough time to get ready for

their 8 AM class, eating breakfast on the way. They walk into the classroom and find their seat,

dreary and half-asleep. As they sit there, waiting for the lesson to begin, the professor walks in,

arms full of brightly colored props. The professor exclaims to the students that they are going to

get into groups, pick a prop, pick a subject from todays lesson, and fabricate a story relating the

two to present to the class. The students lighten up with motivation and get to work, actively

retaining the information. This way of teaching, engages both the student and the teacher,

allowing both to learn from the other. Freire would call this technique problem posing.
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Problem posing embraces everything the banking concept is not; communication and

consciousness; the ability to be aware of not only the intent of the object at hand, but of the

object itself. The learning process is no longer the narrating subject and the listening object

scenario. It is now an equilibrium between both the teacher and the student with both parties are

a part of the learning process. Men and women are no longer just objects, but are something

becoming. Even though unfinished and raw, they are still able to find who and what they are in

order to build a better future (9). Problem posing as a form to educate allows the narrating and

listening objects to switch between roles and learn together. Doing so creates a more pliable

atmosphere, where the classroom is given opportunity to shape to the individual differences

presented within. Instead of focusing on hurling the information out into the classroom and

hoping for the best, education should resemble more of a problem posing approach where the

students are engaged into learning.

Third Scenario: Students have just woken up with barely enough time to get ready for

their 8 AM class, eating breakfast on the way. They walk into the classroom and find their seat,

dreary and half-asleep. A few students to the many are from another country. They have adapted

somewhat to the English language, but are still unaware of its many forms. As these special

students sit there, pondering if they are going to comprehend what their natural English born

professor is lecturing about today. Just then, the professor walks in, announces the lecture today,

and pulls up the PowerPoint. The special students already know their understanding of the

language is bound to get lost in translation and hastily sit until the end. Their differences are not

incorporated into the classroom. The fact of English being the main language used, is used as a

generalization that everyone is going to understand. As bell hooks discusses in Language:

Teaching New Worlds/New Words, this is not the case.

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Those that come into the foreign world of English, are expected to accept it into their

lives. They are to take it on and not even consider using the language that comes naturally to

them, whether it be a whole other language or just a broken piece of English. Controversially, the

ones native to English are less accepting to the idea that there are other languages out there and

to break from it, in whatever form it may be, is an unacceptable action to do. There is no one best

language. Each and every one differs within itself. Having one primary language within the

classroom and not welcoming other forms of even just one language, limits the ability for

students to be comfortable in the classroom and prohibit their ability to achieve a complete

education. This limitation hinders their ability to freely express themselves unimpeded from the

high-standard boundaries set before them. A classroom is a place for an individual to grow, not

to be imprisoned by anothers ideas of how educating must go. Therefore, a professor who

knowingly entails special students, should provide a quick translation for in the students native

language within the PowerPoint, to incorporate a learning difference and help maximize each

students chance at learning.

Fourth Scenario: The professor is preparing the lesson. He looks back to what has already

taught and what was declared necessary to teach next. The professor thinks to himself I have

to lecture thisI cannot stray from thatI want to keep my jobboring, boring,

boringdeadline, deadline, deadline.... This is an example of how the current structure of

education is outdated and does not allow growth outside of its skeletal structure. It focuses on

getting the subject out to the students in a way that does not work for everyone. If the subject is

math, and the way to solve a problem is only given one way, when there are different ways to get

the same answer, not every student can understand the approach from one direction. Also,

continuing with Math as an example, from teacher to teacher, there is variation of how it is
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solved. Education does not accommodate for such differences in how one tells the story.

Robert Schank elaborates on this idea in Story Skeletons.

More specifically, Schank refers to when individuals tell about an event, it is shaped to fit

around a familiar story skeleton (the selected stories or event chosen to be told, commonly

shaped around a familiar outline, often lacking all of the pertinent information) (130). What is

read and stories that are told, the way one analyzes them, is based on opinion and perception. No

one story will be told or perceived one exact way by two different people, not even by ten

different people. No two minds think exactly the same. Meaning, education having this strict

standard of having to accomplish this or that by whatever deadline is shaped around the skeleton

of necessity to survive. The teachers conform to the skeleton to keep their job, while the students

accept that version into their lives due to the standard that they must absorb such skeletons in

order to pass the class, go on to the next grade/level, and repeat. The restriction of this

educational skeleton demands that the shape of the course stays within the given skeleton,

instead of having a small fence of free range chickens which have the ability to roam and grow

as an individual, rather than being held within one form.

Fifth scenario: The professor is preparing the lesson. He looks back to what has already

taught and what was declared necessary to teach next. The professor thinks to himself How

can I make this interesting for my students that incorporates their individual differences and also

enhances their ability to grasp this concept?. Knowing different approaches and realizing the

differences in his students, he is able to choose the technique that best works for that class. Jack

Mezirow with Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice, embraces this idea.

Mezirow discusses how within adult education, there are different processes, but not all

processes work best. He discussed how Jurgen Habennas declares that learning can be
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instrumental, impressionistic, normative, or communicative (88). According to Mezirow, the

communicative approach is the one that should be used. The communicative way being two or

more people coming together to understand the meaning of an interpretation (88). Mezirow

states that learning requires that new information [needs to] be incorporated by the learner into

an already well-developed symbolic frame of reference (91). Mezirow addresses how different

approaches lead to different outcomes. Knowing that not every individual adapts or interacts

with incoming stimuli, allows for each of said approached to take root and expand within the

classroom, making it possible for individual growth. Education always has one goal in mind: to

educate. What it does not seem to keep in view, is the journey there. Acknowledging how

different paths lead to different outcomes (different techniques have different outcomes), would

be one step closer to improving the climate in the classroom.

Additionally, naming the communicative way the most admirable approach for learning

as adults, is a reminder about the similar ideas in which education and learning can have

different forms of delivery. Also, it reiterates which approach is the better form, much like Freire

discusses. hook would agree that allowing an arrangement for communication to happen, or

something like problem posing or communicative learning, would disperse more comfort

between contrasting languages. Allowing such diversity in structure, provides an ample

opportunity for students to be withdrawn from their realm of story skeletons, and eliminate the

need to shape themselves around one concept, one language, one common story, in order to

succeed.

School should be a place where one is able to be comfortable within their own skin,

within their own boundaries of what makes them unique from the rest. Adding a comfort factor

to education could increase the likelihood of one not just banking the information being
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deposited to them, but actually retaining it for future use. Providing the ability to be able to

choose against conformity of language and others be accepting of that difference, could increase

the likelihood of one honing their ability to learn. Furthermore, instead of strictly shaping a

course to a skeleton, education should have a set up like free range chickens. Doing so would

encourage the development of each individual to reach their maximum potential with a course

flexible to do so. Included in all that, the climate within education should allow space for

conversation, in which all parties come together with an understanding of the learning topic.

Conclusively, Education cannot be shaped to enhance one group, one classroom; no one

classroom will perceive, receive, or interact with the information the same way, nor transform it

for future learning equally.

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Works Cited

Freire, Pablo. The Banking Concept of Education. pp. 1-12.

hooks, bell. Language: Teaching New Worlds/New Words. Exploring Connections Learning

in the 21st Century, Pearson Education, 2016, pp. 55-60.

Mezirow, Jack. Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice, Exploring Connections Learning

in the 21st Century, Pearson Education, 2016, pp. 86-92.

Schank, Robert. Story Skeletons. Exploring Connections Learning in the 21st Century, Pearson

Education, 2016, pp.128-140.