Implications of Freire’s pedagogy for teacher education in Nigeria

Abstract

Freire‟s concept of education, which he calls problem-posing education, can best he understood against its polar counterpart, which he calls the Banking model of education. Education in colonial and ex-colonial territories functions to perpetuate in disguise the status quo. In the banking pedagogy, the teacher is very visible; he is the subject of the learning process while the students are the objects or containers or receptacles that must be tilled by deposits of information. Hence the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; the teacher is infallible. He narrates, prescribes, deposits and transfers, information which the students must mechanically receive, memorize and regurgitate-thus providing the teacher with an easy way out, encouraging in the most prominent manner the narration syndrome in the lecture-deposit-memorization-regurgitation pedagogy. In the light of these, this paper will attempt to show the implications of Freire‟s pedagogy when viewed vis-à-vis Nigerian education with emphasis on teacher's education.