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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.
Format: article
By Heather Coffey.

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).

Additional information

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.