Compare/Contrast Essay

Hillary Hines

English 111

8 January 2013

Compare/Contrast Essay: Joel Westheimer and Paulo Freire

            Joel Westheimer’s “No Child Left Thinking: Democracy At-Risk In American Schools,” and Paulo Freire’s “The “Banking” Concept Of Education,” share many similarities, as well as differences. Both author share the idea that critical-analysis, or independent thinking, is being diminished by an obedient approach to education; however, the authors have different views of who, or what, is at fault for this display of compliant learning. Joel Westheimer believes the government’s method of limiting critical analysis through reform policies, is causing students to have a limited education in politics; making our country more of a totalitarian nation, instead of a democratic one. Paulo Freire’s arguments are focused mainly around the relationship between students and teachers, causing students to adapt to a way of learning where the teacher is the authority. In either case, students are not truly able to learn if they are not able to exercise their critical-thinking skills.

            Learning has become an issue of repetition, students take in facts and figures only to repeat them back to the source on command. Westheimer and Freire both share this view of obedient education through statements in their articles. Westheimer stated, “Current school reform policies and many classroom practices too often reduce teaching and learning to exactly the kind of mindless rule-following that makes students unable to make principled stands that have long been associated with American democracy.” (Westheimer) While Freire stated, “Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat.” (Freire) If these ideas were put together as if they originated from the same source, this would completely describe the issues of learning and teaching in today’s schools. Students are expected to take what they are taught by a teacher, or authority figure, at face-value and without argument. These statements by Freire and Westheimer differentiate from one another by the source of this issue and by how the ideas are being portrayed. Westheimer believes the problem resides in reform policies, while Freire portrays the problem resides in teachers and students viewing themselves as separate entities, instead of equals. Westheimer states that this issue causes “mindless rule-following,” while Freire states that the relation between students and teachers causes obedience and teaching that only instructs repetition. However, this could also be viewed as a similarity. The idea of “mindless rule-following,” provided by Westheimer, could be viewed as equivalent to the idea, provided by Freire, of students allowing themselves to be “depositories” for unquestionable facts and figures.

            Oppression is another shared idea among these articles; however, it is understood by both authors in a different sense. Westheimer states, “In the past five years, hundreds of schools, districts, states, and even the federal government have enacted policies that seek to restrict critical analysis of historical and contemporary events in the school curriculum.” (Westheimer) In this example, students may feel oppressed because they are unable to devise their own assumptions and understandings of what occurred in history. They are, again, expected and directed to take the teacher’s interpretation as absolute fact. However, isn’t history just that? His-story, another’s interpretation of the events which have affected the present and the future? Freire states, “Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.” (Freire) Here, students feel oppressed by the notion that they are not equal, in stature, to their teachers, the authority. Through this understanding, students feel their individual ideas are unimportant and they are there to simply learn from their superiors. However, Freire also mentions how students do not understand that they also educate the teachers. Teachers are blind to this idea as well, due to feeling as if they are empowered by their position of authority. Both articles portray the idea that students are expected, and directed, to take what they are being taught as absolute, unquestionable “truth.”

            Regulating how much a student may learn about their society is also a commonly shared ideology between these articles. Westheimer states, “An increasing number of students are getting little to no education about how government works, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the evolution of social movements, and U.S. and world history.” (Westheimer) This statement, shows how students are not being educated as to how their society works so they cannot begin to comprehend how to affect change within their society. This, in turn, is the basis of how reform policies are influencing a totalitarian nation. Freire claims, “It follows logically from the banking notion of consciousness that the educator’s role is to regulate the way the world “enters into” the students.” (Freire) This statement, in itself, summarizes and enhances Westheimer’s notion about how students are limited about how much they understand about the workings of their society. Freire’s statement better describes how teachers/reform policies control and regulate their understanding of the world which surrounds them. Students are being taught how to blend with society, rather than how to affect change, for the better, within said society. This method of education produces people who are passive, or compliant, individuals; hence, forming a totalitarian society for the future.

            Though Freire and Westheimer have differences in opinion as to whom, or what, is at fault for this state of obedient education; both, are able to agree that it is diminishing a student’s ability to practice analytical-thinking and maintain a democratic nation for the future. By using the method of repetition in students, the students become oppressed and lose the desire to think for themselves. If teachers, or reform policies, are able to oppress these students, they can easily influence obedient academic behaviors within said students. Once students are successfully influenced to be compliant individuals, teachers are able to regulate how much they may understand about their world; which isn’t enough for the student to affect change and support a democratic nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Freire, Paulo. "The "Banking" Concept of Education." Norgaard, Rolf. Composing Knowledge: Readings for College Writers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.

Westheimer, Joel. "No Child Left Thinking: Democracy At-Risk in American Schools." Education and Democracy (2008).