"This is the "banking" concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to students extends only as far as receiving, filling, and storing the deposits."
I think this quote symbolizes Freire's negative opinion of the education system. He feels that teachers are too authoritative, and that the knowledge they give to their students is controlled by the elites to subject them to their beliefs.
"The dominant elites consider the remedy to be more domination and repression, carried out in the name of freedom, order, and social peace (that is, the peace of the elite)."
I'd agree that what I learned in school is Euro-centric, but as for the material I was taught being used to control me, I disagree. I think that Freire brought up a good point that teachers should not consider themselves all knowing, and not take questions from their students or admit when they are wrong. While there are teachers like this, I think Freire overgeneralizes the system of education. A lot of my teachers in the past have stimulated my interest in what they were teaching; it made me think critically about the material like Freire says should be a part of good education.
Overall, I think that Freire is just ranting about a lot of random things he sees wrong in the educational system. He never really even gave a good definition of the banking-concepts or the problem-solving concept methods of teaching. While he brought up some good ideas, he never really made much of any kind of point.
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I think that it's easy to succumb to Freire's argument (as most of the people whose blogs I have read did) about education, so in a way it's refreshing to see you resisting it...I surely don't see how or you can say that he doesn't offer a "good definition" of the "banking concept" or "problem-posing." In any case, Freire, of course, is not an American. He came from a repressive South American country where the people with power were determined to keep those it oppressed down in order to preserve their power over them. Thus Freire's ideas (as hooks explains) are often referred to as "liberatory." Clearly, hooks (and other great American educators like her) were influenced by Freire's ideas and did see the relevance between what he said and what goes on in American classrooms.
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