Can We Have Steiner Join Freiro at the Bank

When thinking about the different kinds of education, I'm very sure that a lot of people do not think about the name, Rudolf Steiner.  Little do people know, Rudolf Steiner is actually an education philosopher who created the approach of Waldorf Education!

Until I began doing research on the different kinds of educations there are out there to offer, I had no idea that this even existed and I know that numerous of my peers and colleagues didn't know what it was as well, so I feel that there needs to be more information shared about this theorist and his wonderful approach to teaching!

According to whywaldorfworks.org, Steiner also created a different way of thinking on what it exactly means to be a human being, which was called anthroposophy.  Anthroposophy involved giving people the chance to learn about each endeavor they will end up facing through all fields such as drama, science, education, agriculture, economics, religion, and so much more!  Steiner truly believed that humans needed the opportunity to apply some kind of creative aspect into everything that a student learns from, meaning that sometimes when learning about science, students will be asked to write a song on what they learned.  Something else that really stands out to me about Steiner's theory is that he believes that the core responsibility of the teacher is that they are supposed to be able to guide every student to grow their soul and spirit.  As someone who wants to go into guidance counseling, I would say that is my own ultimate goal as well for the students that I'll be working with, I hope that I can help them to feel as though they are confident and comfortable enough to take on any journey that life has to bring to them.  I also personally think that Steiner's theory is very in touch with what I believe should be incorporated into a child's learning so that their minds can bloom into the most that it could possibly be.  I really enjoy the fact that he believes that education should involve incorporating all aspects of life that there really is out there in the world as mentioned before. 

On the other hand, another theorist named Paulo Freiro came up with another approach to education and teaching in which is known as, "The Banking Concept of Education", AKA, the Banking Concept.  The overall idea of the Banking Concept is that teachers are designed to be the "narrative" or also known as the subject and the students are the "patient listening objects".  The Banking Concept sums up that Education should be a form of just depositing education, it's the job of the teachers to get their students to memorize in a mechanical fashion, the subjects being taught and it's the students job to deposit the information of which the teacher is giving to them. 

I strongly believe that the Banking Concept does not fit whatsoever with Steiner's theory of education.  I believe this particularly because his theory really revolved around making humans to be the best that they could be in all different kinds of aspects and I feel that Freiro's theory focuses more on getting as much information into a student's mind and that it has little regard to wanting to make humans the best that they can be wholly.  The idea behind Steiner's theory really focuses on teachers being there to help guide their students in a very humanistic manner.  Freiro's theory really does not since there was a lot of mention about oppression along with that since it's very mechanical and repetitive. So while the Banking Concept does clearly have a somewhat valuable aspect to it, it really lacks the humanistic approach to it and therefore really just does not fit with Steiner's theory and we cannot have Steiner join Freiro at the bank.

Citation:  freire_the_banking_concept_of_education.pdf
http://www.waldorfanswers.com/RudolfSteiner.htm
http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/02_W_Education/rudolf_steiner.asp