teaching and learning for (a) change

Teaching and Learning for (a) Change Krista Hunt

Draft: Do not cite without permission

In the educational system, teachers and students are divided at the bottom of the ladder. They are alienated from each other by a hierarchy and a curriculum that establish the

teacher’s authority at the expense of the students. But empowerment requires their cooperation. They each know things the other must learn.

– Ira Shor, Empowering Education

Many of us come to university with the belief that we will learn new and exciting ideas from our professors, and leave with the knowledge and skills to ‘succeed’ once we graduate. The traditional method for disseminating this knowledge is the ‘banking system’ of education, where ‘knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider know nothing’ (Freire 53). This usually translates into the professor standing at the front of the classroom and lecturing – often non-stop – while students madly record what they are told. There is very little space for questions, and in some classes, questions from students are strictly forbidden. Besides, who has time to think critically about the information when you are frantically scrawling it down? As such, students are disciplined into being passive recipients of the knowledge their professors deem important, with the only expectation that they faithfully regurgitate it on a final exam. What I argue is that this method of education impedes critical thinking and the ability to practice asking questions and constructing arguments, which ultimately impedes learning. If we want to start teaching and learning for a change, then teachers and students need to practice a different method of learning that starts from what students know and seeks to build on that through a process of critical thinking and questioning. We must move beyond banking education to a transformative approach that challenges students to think critically, ask questions, make connections between what they learn in the classroom and what goes on in their lives, and think about how we can challenge the power dynamics that structure all our lives. In this paper, I will examine the kind of graduates the banking system produces, who benefits, as well as how we can change the way we teach and learn. I hope this article will spark ongoing reflections about the politics and process of teaching and learning, and at the very least, provide a plea to administrators, teachers, but most importantly students, about the necessity of changing the way we structure and work in the classroom. What kind of graduate does this system produce? Within banking education, educators hold the knowledge to be deposited in the student. This includes the power to define the curriculum (what students learn) and the pedagogy (how students are taught), based on the assumption that those being educated know nothing and are passive recipients of what the educator defines as knowledge (Freire 53-

Krista Hunt 2009 www.teachlearnchange.org

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54). Paolo Freire argues that this approach to disseminating knowledge is ‘characteristic of the ideology of oppression’ (53):

…the interests of the oppressor lie in “changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation in which oppressed them”, for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated. (55)

Here, students are disciplined to adapt to the rules and expectations of their professors and the university administration if they want to succeed (which is usually defined as getting an ‘A’). Many students tell me that they spend a lot of time trying to figure out what their professors think so they can parrot the information/perspective back in the interests of getting a good grade. As a former student remarked in the final course evaluation: ‘sometimes it’s good to go over the readings and tell us what you wanted us to get from it…so that we will have notes to study for the exam’. This is a strategy based in experience and highlights how well students have been disciplined by the banking system. Students have learned that the ability to regurgitate the knowledge teachers are trying to deposit is the surest route to success; jobs, bursaries, scholarships, entrance into graduate and professional schools all depend on getting good marks. Few people question that student success can be measured by how high their marks are. However, when students earn those grades within a system that expects them to quietly listen and regurgitate, we need to ask about the learning that results. In most classes, getting an A depends on passively absorbing the lectures, and mastering how to write a paper, read scholarly material, construct arguments, and make a presentation – all-important skills. Yet in most cases students are not encouraged to write, read, debate, or present on their own ideas (backed up by scholarly research). Instead, they are graded on how well they synthesize, describe, compare and contrast, and/or evaluate the ideas of experts (other professors their professors think are important to read). When the banking system teaches students that passivity, proscribed thinking, and conforming to the discipline are rewarded, it ends up producing graduates that follow rules, defer to experts, toe the line, and rarely challenge conventional wisdom. Is this really what teachers want students to learn? Is this really what students want to learn? This certainly not the way I want to teach or learn. Who benefits? It is important to critically examine who benefits from having students and future graduates who do not question what and how they have been taught. It is not difficult to see that anyone who is in a position of power benefits when their charges don’t ask questions that might threaten their power and authority. This includes people, institutions and ideas within and beyond the academy – teachers, administrators, politicians, bosses,


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and parents, to name a few. According to Ira Shor, ‘traditional schools thus prepare students to fit into an education and a society not run for them or by them but rather set up for and run by elites’ (1992: 20). Since the content and process of classrooms and the academy are structured by the same systems of oppression that structure society - racism, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and eurocentrism (Child 6-7) - those structures of power (and oppression) are reinforced unless actively challenged. In order to actively challenge structures of power and oppression, we need to think critically about the power dynamics that shape our everyday lives. For example, I am often surprised that more students don’t complain about the practice of ‘bell curves’. At the university where I teach, only 25% of students in a course can receive an ‘A’. Students are fed the myth that hard work will translate into good grades and that one’s grades strictly reflect how hard they work. However, students are beginning to recognize that no matter how hard they and their teachers work at learning, there are only a finite number of As available. As a former student put it, the bell curve makes a mockery of the idea that hard work, intelligence, and creativity translate into good grades (or good jobs) (WGS434, UTM Fall 2007). This is just one example of how students (and teachers) are disciplined into accepting unfair and undemocratic structures. The result is that most students continue to compete with each other for the few available As, rather than challenge the system. Perhaps this is because it mirrors the capitalist society we all live in, and as such we have already adapted or accepted the claim that nothing will change. No one bothers to ask why a system that only results in ‘excellent’ learning for 25% of the student body is considered rigorous rather than ineffective. The truth is that university reputations depend on not having a lot of A students; too many As and the standards are not seen as rigorous enough. As a result, the university and the classroom become a training ground for the capitalist society, based on the same myth of meritocracy. Within this system, knowledge is thought to be something that you gain/possess rather than something you exercise/utilize. In order to gain the status, accreditation, and social mobility they have been promised, students must adapt to the system. When students are so busy focusing on how to succeed within the banking system, they have little time, energy or skill to question or challenge that system, and the other systems of power - like capitalism – that it reinforces. Freire’s words reverberate: for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated. You can tell students have adapted to the banking system when they sit silently in class, accepting, without (explicit?) question, what they are told. But if you scratch the surface you see that students are rarely given the space to ask questions or challenge their professors. In most lectures, there is little or no time for student questions. When I first started university teaching, I was a teaching assistant in a course where the professor expressly forbid questions based on the argument that she wasn’t going to be able to get through all the material if students kept asking questions in lecture. However, professors who argue that they can’t engage with students because they won’t get through all the information may have done a lot of research on the lecture topic, but they haven’t done their research on student learning. As Brown demonstrates, ‘the average student never mastered more than 30 per cent of the key essential concepts. But if you reduce the load


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of information and have students work the brain vigorously – very much like developing a muscle – research shows you can increase retention to about 65 per cent’ (2007). Throwing a ton of information at students impedes the ability for students to retain the information (still a banking style goal), not to mention their ability to hone their critical thinking and questioning skills. Thus, it is essential for teachers to question their role as all-knowing professors and realize that if we want students to learn something, we are going to have to start learning how to teach (differently), starting with creating space for students to ask questions, and challenging the idea that teachers must have all the answers. Since my ‘lectures’ are based on getting students to ask critical questions about the material and its connection to their own knowledge and experience, I receive a lot of feedback from students stating that they have never been encouraged to ask questions, think critically, or see themselves as already knowing important things that they can teach others. As one student writes:

I think this learning environment is very effective in the sense that you get to see that other people share some opinions and ideas and of course getting the chance to hear other people’s experiences makes a big difference. I enjoy the fact that we can talk in class and actually give our own opinions and it helps with teaching me to analyze things more critically in life, rather than just memorize and write it on the exam. (Sahar Chaar, WGS 369, UTM 2008)

While students may be able to remember a bunch of other people’s ideas, can they develop and articulate their own? Another student comments:

Class discussions, group work, and presentations – instead of two hours of listening to a professor lecture – made me motivated to come to class and learn not only about the topics, but also my classmates’ views and experiences. I learned that we learn best through interconnectivity instead of individualism. This approach needs to be used in more classes….We were taught to identify, respect, and help each other as opposed to some other courses where the professor doesn’t even let us speak or rejects our views and ideas. (WSTC20, UTSC 2008).

Why aren’t students taught to ask critical questions about their education, in addition to every other aspect of their lives? I argue that it is because students are largely being disciplined within the university to adapt to inequitable systems rather than question and change them. The banking system has been successful at teaching students that they will be rewarded for following rather than questioning the rules. How could teaching and learning be different? If teaching and learning are to be transformative, the approach should not be to integrate students into this structure of oppression by teaching them what we think they need to know. Rather, the approach is to transform that structure through revolutionary education


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where students are ‘critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher’ (Freire 62). Whereas banking education fails to analyze the way the world is structured, transformative education looks critically at transforming those structures. Whereas banking education resists dialogue, transformative education ‘regards dialogue as indispensible’ (62). Whereas banking education objectifies students, transformative education ‘makes them critical thinkers’ (64). This conception of transformative education challenges the belief that students do not theorize or have knowledge, an assumption that is itself an act of oppression. Often we think of the university as the place to find answers; instead, it should be a place to ask and explore questions. Michael Wesch argues that teaching and learning could be radically different if we created ‘life long learners rather than savvy test-takers’ (5). Life long learning depends on asking, and living, your questions. Instead of beginning and ending with what the professor wants students to know, we need to start from what students know and build on that through a process of critical thinking and questioning. This obviously takes a lot more work on both the professor and the students’ part. It will no longer work to stand at the front and deliver the same, tired lecture. It also won’t work to rely on electronic lecture notes as your source of learning. Since teachers and students have something to learn from each other, we must interact. As Ira Shor puts it, “academic expertise is structured into student experience, not set ahead of experience or separate from it’ (145). If this is the kind of teaching and learning environment that we want to create, then teachers must create space for students to ask critical questions, give up some of their power to decide what gets taught and learned, and focus as much on teaching critical skills as they do ‘getting through the material’. The idea that within a classroom students can be teachers and teachers can be students fundamentally challenges the banking system. First, it challenges the myth that teachers know everything and that students know nothing. Second, it challenges the practice of lecturing, because you can’t learn anything from your students if you are still standing up there talking the whole time. Lectures are monologues that attempt to transmit ideas; discussions are dialogues that attempt to share ideas. The research shows that average learning retention rates are 5% for lectures and 50% for discussion groups, so the lesson for teachers is to talk less and facilitate more (Figure 1). Learning must be multi-directional, active, and engaged. This requires that teachers spend less time writing reams of lecture notes (content) and spend more time researching and creating ways to get their students talking (pedagogy). It also requires students to take responsibility for their learning, and to reflect (and take notes) on what they are learning, the questions they are asking, and the critical analysis that they are developing in relation to the course material and their lives beyond the classroom. As Brown argues, ‘the focus will be delivering less content and giving more time for students to debate with each other about ideas’ (2007). Teaching isn’t about what teachers know; it is about what students learn. To be sure, this approach to teaching and learning is unsettling for (some) students. I hear from a few students each year that they are much more comfortable being lectured at; that they don’t feel comfortable asking questions in class because they don’t think they have anything to say; that they just want me to tell them what the right answer is. I feel for


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them. And then I remember what bell hooks says about learning new things: that there ‘usually is some degree of pain involved in giving up old ways of thinking and knowing and learning new approaches’ (hooks 1994: 43). I now encourage students to respect and think critically about the ideas and approaches that make them uncomfortable, and to become curious about why that is. We all have the ability to figure out what we can learn in any new and unsettling situation. Some students come into my classes and comment on them being more like a tutorial than a lecture. The only other learning environment on offer to most university students is a tutorial, so it is not surprising that not lecture equals tutorial. While the tutorial – if it is indeed run as a discussion group rather than another lecture – provides far better learning opportunities than a lecture because students are more active and engaged, this is just the beginning in terms of creating environments where we can teach and learn for a change. As the learning pyramid shows, the best ways to learn is by doing and by teaching others. So, in a sense, these classes do resemble tutorials, as students learn from each other while being facilitated by a more senior teacher/learner. Since students are not taking courses to have teachers do most of the learning, then teachers need to start doing less formal teaching and instead support their students to become effective learners. Figure 1: http://www.lifewisdominstitute.org/learningpyramid.html

Thinking Critically and Asking Questions It is important to state that this does not mean that students don’t have anything important to learn from their professors. They do. I just think that it goes far beyond any particular information we are trying to cover. They can get information in a book. Hell, today most students are better at accessing information than their professors are (I am always humbled by how much more tech-savvy my students are than I am). However, what they still need to learn - and more importantly practice and integrate into their lives - are critical thinking skills. If we want students to be critical and to see themselves as agents


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of change, then they need many more opportunities to think critically and ask questions that are relevant to their lives. In response, teachers need to learn how to teach critical thinking skills, which includes modeling and providing space for students to develop, ask, and debate questions that are significant to them. As the learning pyramid shows, doing is one of the most effective methods of learning. In this case, doing means having students ask critical questions about the course material and the relevance to their own lives. As Ira Shor argues, ‘To think critically…means to examine the deep meanings, personal implications, and social consequences of any knowledge, theme, technique, text or material’ (169). First, you must ask critical questions about what you read (and hear) in order to judge whether or not an argument is convincing, and why. The ‘and why’ part means that you need to go beyond your gut reaction/opinion – ‘this book was impossible to understand’ – and look at why it was impossible to understand. It is extremely important - especially in this so-called ‘information age’ – to be able to sort through information and make judgements about the implications of its findings. Simply put, the first principle of critical analysis: don’t believe everything you read or hear. The second principle: read/listen for arguments and evidence rather than recording information (this is what you should be focusing on when you take notes too). The third principle: ask lots of questions, especially the ones no one else seems to be asking or wants to answer. In other words, being able to ‘do’ critical analysis is not simply an academic skill – it is something you can and should be doing as you encounter ideas, information or arguments in all your courses and beyond. Asking critical questions takes practice. And practice means that students are not sitting there listening to the teacher tell them how to ask critical questions, but by practicing this skill and observing their peers and teacher do so as well. Our dialogue with each other – be it in the form of a written paper, a presentation, or an in-class discussion – should be based on asking critical questions about the material (readings, discussion, films, current events, etc). For example:

• What sort of evidence does the author use to support their thesis/argument? Is their argument convincing? • Who is the audience (who is the author speaking to)? • What assumptions does the author make? • What has this author left out? What hasn’t been said? • How could this argument be strengthened? • Who is speaking/being spoken for? • How would a person from an opposing perspective respond to the argument? • What is the significance of this text - politically, socially, and historically? • What is taken for granted/assumed to be natural?

Another key aspect of critical thinking includes making connections between the course material and our everyday lives. This means examining systems of power and oppression, and recognizing how we are implicated in these power dynamics. So for instance, one might ask:


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• How do the arguments presented relate to my own experiences? • How does this argument stand up when applied to historical or current events? • How does this text challenge or support other texts that you have read in this

course? • How do I benefit from the oppression of others? • What privileges and oppressions do I experience in my daily life? • How do I see power operating in my life? • How do specific public policies (or proposed reforms) affect the most

disadvantaged and marginalized members of my community? And finally, it is essential to critical thinking that we move beyond simply analyzing what’s wrong with the world and start to think about what we can do to resist and make change.

• Now that I know this, how can I/we ‘be the change we wish to see in the world’? • What do these readings tell us about how political change happens? • How/does this text challenge and/or reinforce inequalities/power imbalances? • If a particular argument or idea were implemented, who would benefit and who

would be injured? As you can see from all these questions, there is so much to think critically about that there is no time for sitting passively. Asking critical questions about systems of oppression is the key to challenging dominant power structures within and beyond the classroom. What I’ve learned from my students is that they overwhelmingly want to be engaged, and to understand the connections between their lives and the course material. Most importantly, they want to know what to do with what they learn, and how they can live in a world of inequality and not feel powerless to change things. When students are lectured at, they are rendered passive vessels for their professors to fill up. This is not simply oppressive, but a patriarchal and colonial system of education that continues to profess the knowledge of the powerful at the expense of the rest. And within certain classrooms within various universities, teachers are learning from their students and starting to focus on ways to teach beyond the banking system. While I find that the majority of students take advantage of a classroom that is open to their ideas and experiences, I always have students who would be more comfortable with the banking model. Let’s face it, the banking model is easier for both students and teachers because that is what we are used to; when professors deliver the same lectures to years of uncritical and unquestioning students, neither has to work very hard. In fact, in these sorts of classrooms, many students don’t even show up because the material is not/does not seem relevant to their lives and questions. As I have argued, banking education is not only oppressive; it is an ineffective way to learn. Students should not be able to leave university – as so many do now– unable to think for themselves, to be critical about the information they receive, or to act in the face of injustice. This is not evidence of successful learning, nor what creates graduates with the skills to understand and challenge the power dynamics that structure all our lives. I’ve learned that those students who embrace the difference - and often the discomfort - of transformative


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classrooms report that they learn critical thinking skills that they can use throughout their education and their life. The reality that student questions are often silenced speaks to how powerful (and challenging) such questions can be. If we are to transform teaching so that students can actively learn and explore ways to ask, live and act on their questions, teachers must create space for all students to ask those questions, encourage students to question authority (including our own), and engage students about how to learn to make change.

Works Cited

Brown, Louise. “The fine art of (not) lecturing.” 4 November 2007. The Toronto Star

Online. 3 January 2008.

<http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Education/article/273356>

Child, Lisa, and Alyson Daly, Michelle Herbert, Krista Hunt, Genevieve Ritchie. “Now

What? Getting Politically Active Within and Beyond the Classroom.” Paper

presented at the Learning Democracy by Doing Conference, The Transformative

Learning Centre, OISE, 17 October 2008.

Freire, Paolo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1993.

hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Shor, Ira. Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Wesch, Michael. “Anti-teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance.” 2008. Canadian

Education Association. 3 January 2008. <http://www.cea-ace.ca/media/en/AntiTeaching_Spring08.pdf>


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teaching and learning for (a) change

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