Hello Xin,
I can totally relate to the higher education system, you’re trying to highlight in the post. I’m from India and both these asian countries share major aspects of the education system that you’re talking about. It is sad how one examination can totally change your life, either it brings you a rainbow or totally serves you rocks. Well.. it’s good to see that now you’re voicing your opinions. The post is amazing.

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Thank you for sharing your experience. It takes courage to talk about such major changes in ‘important’ decisions. I agree that an idea, an abstraction or a theory becomes valuable and adds meaning to our lives when it has been practiced. Your experience shows that once we are open to hearing what others say, we may find the inspiration to shape our aspirations for future. I believe we do not become more vulnerable when we question what we want to do with our life. On the contrary, we become braver and stronger in dealing with the challenges in our lives as we keep hearing and reflecting our experiences. – Ezgi

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Thank you for responding, Andrea!

I think you have a good point in critiquing the duality between the banking pedagogy and the problem-posing approach. Without any doubt, we need to think about what we miss to conceive when we reduce complex processes such as teaching and learning to models. Nevertheless, the gap between the educator and the student, the precedent and the successor, an experienced and a fresh mind, and memories of past and aspirations for future requires us to come up with strategies to fill this gap.

My learning experience was closer to the banking pedagogy. Before I was introduced to the concept of critical thinking, all I knew was trying to improve my memory. I was aware that what I knew and how I expressed it had a value in my social and cultural exchanges. I think it is valid for all cultures and societies; however, it is shaped in different ways in accordance with the historical development of social organization within a particular society.

I observe that the form of banking pedagogy is embedded in our pragmatic and economical thinking, which aims at accumulating our knowledge capital to exchange it when necessary. It ensures to reproduce and reinforce cultural values as it is narrated by the constituting ideology. Freire urges us to challenge this structure and rehumanize this process.

Although I am critical of the discourse on humanity and tolerance, I think he addresses an essential dynamic which is critical for all relationships and all forms of social organization. The teaching process should have a horizontal structure, where the teacher and student will shape the process together, rather than a vertical one, in which the exchange value is set by the those, who have a hierarchically superior position. – Ezgi

I think sometimes memorization can be useful. It has been extremely useful for me to memorize certain abstract theoretical models that can mapped onto reality or real world particular circumstances, conditions, etc.

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Your case is not universal.

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Nobody trains their child to talk, Darren.

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I agree with some of your points. The worst feedback is the kind that gives you no direction.

What a thoughtful response, and I’m sorry you experienced that when you first started here. I am student who even though was born in the US, English is not my first language. I find that I am a better writer than a verbal communicator as well. Way to not that bad experience shape the rest of your world.

I love the figure. The idea of shared mutual respect can do a long way. The transfer of information is always a two way street, and the classroom is a perfect way to bridge this gap.