Underscoring Paulo Freire’s Freedom as Essence of Educational Practice in Kenya

Abstract

In its endeavor to make education relevant to the needs of the Kenyan people, educational reforms could perhaps underscore Paulo Freire’s concept of banking education. Freire articulates the banking concept of education as a hindrance to the realization of the essence of education as practice of freedom. In the banking model education climate, students are often treated as receptacles for the knowledge that comes from the instructor, and are therefore not given a free orientation to their own ideas. This articulation of education stifles critical thinking, because students are taught to disassociate their educational improvement from their experience. The banking approach puts education in crisis because critical thinking or first order thinking that is fundamental to human experience fails to cultivate its importance to the skills and information demonstrated in a classroom.