Education: Freire and Bell Hooks Essay Example

which it is. Language is knowledge to listen and learn from and these valuable opportunities are being lost in standard education, as we know today. hooks wants students to be able to speak in perspectives of their own lives, not be criticized of this language but to see it as a gift. Altering the way we view different languages will shift our attitude toward learning more about cultures and the way we neglect to accept diversity. hooks believes in education having no dominancy, no one group of people such as ‘the oppressor’ being in control.

The students are viewed as the victims of the oppressors, students need to never forget where they came from and never be ashamed of their talents. All students should be in touch and aware of oneself. Teachers need to focus more on individualizing the students and recognizing their abilities. By doing this as a whole we will be able to discover ourselves and experience our differences. Freire wants similar changes, changes that will bring together the student and the oppressor, to be able to unite as one and help each other learn. Nor the student or the teacher has more to offer.

Freire wants schools to change to “problem-posing education”, which sets the education to focus on the student’s long term goals and achievements. Enlightening students helps them realize they are just as important as anyone else. I believe every student has something to offer to a teacher whether it is exceeding ones expectations, or a personal experience that touched your heart; you will remember that person forever. Education determines how you think, how you make decisions and

how well you work, through this we are able to unite.

This is what Freire means when he states, “Problem-posing education is revolutionary futurity. Hence it is prophetic. Hence, it affirms men as beings who transcend themselves, who move forward and look ahead, for whom immobility represents a fatal threat, for whom looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can move wisely build the future. ” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 7) In the writing “Teaching Towards Death”, hooks is very concerned with the route colleges are taking to educate their students.

Hooks makes a valid argument that teaching at the university levels are not as effective as they could be because university’s are too goal oriented. She claims student’s can not get the best overall education because they are so focused on their future; therefore, they can’t look at the present. Hooks writes “In modern schooling the messages students receive is that everything they learn in the classroom is mere raw material for something that they will produce later on in life.

This displacement of meaning into the future makes it impossible for students to fully immerse themselves in the art of learning and to experience that immersion as a complete, satisfying moment of fulfillment. " (hooks p. 166) In this quote hooks is implying that the ‘imperialist white-supremacist patriarchy” is the blame for the education system being the way it is. She goes on to say that a lot of students do not put much effort into what they are learning because they can’t apply it

to their future goals. Many people get caught up in this life, they do not know what their future has in store for them, so instead f trying to live for the future students should live in the present. One is not alive in the future; he is alive “now. ” What hooks is getting at is simple. If people would stop focusing more on what awaits them in the future , they might gain more enjoyment from different parts of life, education for one. Freire and hooks both focus on one similar thing, reality. Neither author agrees that memorizing books in school can help your grade or how reading about cultures and diversities can help you understand them.

They want to see realistic experiments, such as relationships gained from learning, a student looking up to the educator as an idol, and white women learning from the black vernacular. We gain solidarity, and valuable skills that will help us through life through these actions. These two authors didn’t agree on everything though. Freire focuses on the big picture, the education as a whole, the oppressors need to change, and the students to remain the same, as a ‘receptor’ or ‘collector’ of knowledge. ooks wants the students to become more realistic, such as when the slaves came to America, and adapted to the language by applying it their own vernacular. Students can learn to resist the oppressor’s authority as well as learn from it.

For instance, a student in a classroom listening to the educator but also being able to see past the knowledge they bestow and thinking outside of the box, they can

deciding if the knowledge they are receiving is valid. Neither Freire nor hooks views should compete to be the ‘better’ view in my opinion. ooks and Freire’s views both have flaws but together they can make a perfect match as to how education should be revised and taught, the student teacher relationship is vital to a students learning. hooks focuses on education and background of students but the students may not know how to stay in touch with their backgrounds, due to the oppressors language. Freire focuses on the educator being the sole reason students are not receiving information sufficiently when it could be the student as well.

Freire also fails to observe the imbalanced power structure between teacher and students inside the classroom. Meanwhile, if the two strategies are put together the students may be able to adapt and learn more from each. All students have entirely different backgrounds and different degrees of achievement they are willing to accomplish but when the educator takes this into consideration they are able to “discover” knowledge with and from each other. If you focus and an individual students background as well as their achievements and ong-term goals you are able to pin point the student’s needs and help them succeed. Education is more than opening a book and reading, more than academic based problems and more than receiving and communicating information. When Freire talks of the banking concept of education, he means the idea of knowledge deposited into a student’s empty head. Education should be a confrontation with oneself and the world surrounding oneself. Education shouldn’t be the same with every person, we are all unique.