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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Learn more about banking model of education

Critical literacy
Critical literacy is the ability to read texts in an active, reflective manner in order to better understand power, inequality, and injustice in human relationships. This article outlines the history and theory of critical literacy and details its application in the classroom.
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By Heather Coffey.
Reform and a new era
In North Carolina in the early 20th century, page 2.1
Brief history of the Progressive Era in the United States, including the administrations and reforms of presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson.
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Model of education in which teachers "deposit" information and skills into students. The emphasis is on memorization of basic facts rather than on understanding and critical thinking. The idea of the banking model was articulated and critiqued by Brazilian liberation theologist Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).

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Freire rejects the banking model of education in favor of problem-posing education in which students act as "critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher." Chapter Two of Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed details his argument against banking education.