My Thoughts on Chapter 2 of "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire

After reading Chapter 2 of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” I participated in a class discussion about the pros and cons of the two models of education that were mentioned in the chapter. One of these education models that Paulo Freire talks is the “banking” model which in his own words focuses on students “receiving, filing, and storing deposits,” otherwise interpreted as memorizing any information given to them by the teacher. There is a pro for this model which is students learning whatever information is being presented to them as “the teacher teaches and the students are taught.” Then there is the con of this model which is the lack of interaction between the teacher and students as “the teacher talks and the students listen-meekly.” The banking model of education as described by Paulo Freire prioritizes the learning and memorization of information that students received from the teacher but this does not form any sort of relationship between these two groups which could’ve led to a deeper understanding of the subject where the information comes from.

The second model that Paulo Freire talks about is the “problem-posing” model to replace the “banking” model since the former is “responding to the essence of consciousness.” That quote for this “problem-posing” model could be interpreted as forming an environment where interactions can take place so that opinions can developed from information presented to both the students and teacher. This model’s pro is the expectation “that the teacher-student contradiction to be resolved,” so that the students and teacher could form a relationship together in which they cooperate with each other to develop their own thoughts instead of memorizing details about certain subjects. Then there is the con of the students becoming “critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher,” which can lead to issues with some specific subjects such as math or science where there are equations that have to be remembered in order to solve problems relating to the material used in these subjects. The “problem-posing” model of education that Paulo Freire talks about in the text, it has benefits that improves the students interaction with their teacher but it also conflicts with certain subjects in which learning about information is crucial for that subject.

The entire reading of Chapter 2 of “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” is certainly interesting as Paulo Freire discussed about his perspective on education but I was kind of disappointed when he made his point of replacing the “banking” model with the “problem-posing” model instead of suggesting that these two models could cooperate with each other. In any case, this is just my opinion on the subject.

My Thoughts on "Raw Material" by Jane Maher

    After reading “Raw Material” by Jane Maher, I began to think about how a person’ values on subjects such as reading and writing can differ greatly from one another. The prisoners who were in the college program that the author, Jane Maher, described in her essay seemed to be more enthusiastic about what she taught than the students that she mentioned teaching outside of the prison. As for reason for where there enthusiasm comes from, I believe it was made clear near the end of the essay as Maher talked about how these prisoners were disconnected from the world outside of their jail cell. This reason could explain why the prisoners are putting in as much effort as described by Jane Maher in “Raw Material,” they want some form of connection to the outside world and this college program was their only way of experiencing it. It makes sense as there are theories, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, that explain that a person’s need some sort of social interaction with the world in order to feel satisfy with their life.
    Other than the reasoning behind the prisoners’ want to continue their education in this college program, there wasn’t much that I wanted to know about. This doesn’t mean that Jane Maher didn’t introduce anything else interesting in “Raw Material” because there is a lot of stuff she described in it. The first thing that comes to mind was that one of the prisoners she taught had manage to publish one of their writing pieces on a magazine, this little detail could lead to some interesting questions. Then there was the officer named Joe that Jane Maher talk to about writing a book or essay but his life changed after suffering a heart attack, there may be some people who would be interested in learning if he continued writing or not. There is a lot of material in this essay that could make for some good discussions but I don't exactly want to write about any of those topics due to my lack of interest in them.
    In any case I felt that Jane Maher manage to write something fairly interesting in “Raw Material,” about her experience teaching a bunch of prisoners in the college program that was put in place in that prison.

The First Essay of The Spring Semester

I recently finished writing a essay for my English class with the topic being to write a autobiographical piece on a certain prompt of my choosing. The prompt which I picked to write about was to explain how I found a certain writing or reading task that I done in the past was challenging. What I wrote for the prompt was basically my experiences with a project that I am currently working on called “In-Between Colors,” which is basically a story revolving around the theme of morality. In this essay, I shared my experiences of struggling with creating characters who would be appropriate for the story and how I learned to improve my writing skills from this project. When the time came to bring it in for the class, I had to do a peer review with a randomly assigned partner.

That peer review was useful for two reasons, the first one being that my partner gave me their input on what I wrote for the essay. Their input was simply corrections on spelling mistakes and asking some questions about certain details which I lacked in the writing. Then there is the second reason which was that I was able to see what my partner wrote and give them my input. The second reason allowed me to gain some insight into what another student in my class thinks about when it came to writing. This whole experience gave me some time to think about my development in terms of writing.

My Response to Stephen King's "Reading to Write"

           In response to one of the questions under Stephen King’s short essay, “Reading to Write,” I personally believe that writers could learn a thing or two from television. The reasoning for this thought comes from how some television shows such as the news or history channels can offer information from around the world to inspire writers. Events such as acts of terrorism or crimes in general could lead to writing ideas for stories about horror and violence. Then there are historical discoveries like the pyramids, ancient buildings, and important figures that can be a good source for stories relating to fantasy or retelling past events. These examples are here to show that inspiration can come from anything but it depends on the writer themselves to try to find it. While news and history channels can act as sources for new writing ideas, there are more programs offered by television. These programs consist of cartoon shows, soap operas, and others like it. When watching those types of programs, a variety of reactions could happen to writers such as thinking that they could write something better than what they saw or having the desire to create something similar. There are examples of these types of writings in the form of text that admits it took inspiration from other sources or fanfiction of television shows. In any case, inspiration can come from anything including television.