Hannah Frisch

Midterm Essay
Educating for Change
I know nothing about education and I will be the first to admit it. With every new
conflict that arises, argument I hear, and glimpse into the cataclysm that is the American
education system, my confusion intensifies. Frequent discussions concerning education with
my mother, a long time elementary school teacher, only help confirm the fact that I am wildly
unqualified to make any real assertions about the education system. I am only 18 years old and
have not seen nearly enough of the real world to draw conclusions about anything, let alone one
of the most complex and important systems within our democratic nation. I know that things
are not perfect, but I am not even comfortable proclaiming that America needs to change its
ways. To feel prepared to enter the discussion on educational politics I would need to receive an
ongoing intensive, interdisciplinary education, travel the country and the world, talk to as many
different people as possible, and teach for several years. All I currently have to reference are
my experiences as a student and though as narrow as my view of education is, I feel that there
is a critical greenness that is lost with time as a person grows away from their student mentality.
With that in mind, the goal of this paper is to outline what my idealistic, ignorant, wonderfully
optimistic and passionate teenage self believes to be the best way to approach education reform.
Ideally, an older, wiser, and more worldly me to will refer back to this in several years to
remember what it was like to be a student myself and where the purest form of my motivation
to improve the education system lies.

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Banking on Education
In high school I was a master short-term memorizer. I could spend two hours total the
night before a large history test reviewing my notes, receive an A on the exam, and forget most
of the material within a week. If I studied hard enough, there were few things I could not do
well on, even in subjects that I did not particularly like or struggled to understand during class.
I could take tests like a pro and I quantified a lot of my worth on my ability to do so. For
assignments in English class for which I was asked to state my opinion, I would reiterate what I
had gleaned was the teachers perspective based on the way he spoke in class and present it as
my own view. On occasions when my teacher was unreadable, I would write down something
random with the knowledge that should I get a bad grade I could easily advocate for an increase
in points. I would argue that what I wrote was subjective and could not be graded down on
anything but my presentation, which I could easily control if I followed the writing guidelines
laid out in the syllabus.
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire discusses the banking model of
education, a form of teaching in which a student is treated as an object open for a teacher to
make deposits of information and the more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be
filled, the better students they are (72). I was the perfect receptacle: eager to learn but even
more eager to get good grades so I could keep doors open for myself in the future. I wanted to
set myself up to be in the best possible situation for getting into a good college, land a stable
job, live a comfortable life, retire at a reasonable age, and have enough money to spoil my
grandchildren. Every once in a while a humanities teacher would talk about social norms or
extreme feminism or success stories of people who did not adhere to the standard American
lifestyle and I would wish that I could be a person who did that. But I was already so intent on

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the generic life I have seen most everyone in my life follow that I tossed consideration of those
wild prospects away almost as quickly as I heard them. Every once in a while those same
teachers would do an exercise to get my classmates and me to think critically about the world
we lived in and would emphasize the importance of stretching our minds to solve real world
problems. Though interested in these activities, I was so exhausted from keeping up with my
banking model schoolwork that when I received such subjective assignments I paid them no
attention. I even struggled to see how my teachers could think that their students would invest
time on such a project that had no legitimate quantitative value.
Since coming to college I have been able to recognize the pitfalls in my education.
However, despite my education setting me up more for vapid corporate work than changing the
world or being a good citizen, I want to be a person who changes the world and innovates
rather than a person who fits nicely into the existing system. It is interesting that I have
maintained this aspiration considering I was able to use the system so successfully to my
advantage in high school and how unfortunately committed I am to leading a typical life. I can
say without a doubt that if I did not have people outside of school who challenged my thinking,
with whom I could spend long hours having deep conversations about the meaning of life, and
had I not been exposed to the problems of the world at a young age or heard my moms
thoughts on education, little of the content in this essay would be of substance. I learned how to
think on my own not in school, but at home, from friends who challenged me, and from my
experiences growing up in South Seattle. Had my family watched TV during dinner instead of
talking, my friends made fun of me for wanting to talk about a book I had just read, or had I
never seen a person with less than I have, my outlook on life would be drastically different. On
a more extreme level, if I did not have a family or a stable home life I could rely on, if more of

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my friends were in gangs or messed around with hard drugs, or had I been less privileged in a
world of large discrepancy and unfairness, there is a good chance I would have lost faith in
education and discouraged from developing my critical thinking.
Freire saw the banking method as a means of perpetuating oppression in Brazil, where
he was raised in poverty. He believed that empowering the oppressed with the ability to
recognize themselves as oppressed people would allow for change. By teaching them to think
for themselves and create their own worldview, his people could stop focusing on moving up to
become an oppressor themselves. In an oppressive system it is all too easy for climbing the
ranks of the existing structure to seem like the only option for improving quality of life. Even in
a democratic nation like America a similar pattern of climbing the ranks is simple to fall into.
To change this, Freire suggests a dialogical approach to education, in which teachers abandon
the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human
beings in their relations with the world (79). The model of using problem-posing education to
teach children causes students to develop a commitment to the world around them, a desire to
improve the situation people are currently in, and the self confidence necessary to believe an
individual can make a significant impact on the fight for liberation. From what I have seen of
Americans however, we pride ourselves too much on our democratic and free character to label
the current system as oppressive and alter education accordingly. Consequently, the banking
model that most American high schools use will not be going away any time soon.
I challenge my future self to find a way to create a school structure in which critical
thinking skills are a priority for students within a system that does not reward non-cognitive
learning in a quantitative manner. Even with parents who told me they cared more about the
kind of person I became than the numbers I got on test scores or on report cards, I was far more

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concerned with succeeding by traditional standards than I was with broadening my view of the
world. From what I have seen, schools who focus exclusively on free thinking do not set their
students up for success in other education models, so it is crucial to also supply students with
the skills necessary to succeed in the banking model of education as well. But how can a school
support students who have never been encouraged to think this way and do it in a manner that
keeps students motivated and makes them feel empowered?

Role of Schools on Character

I spent my first six years of school at Kimball Elementary, an alternative public school
on Beacon Hill in Seattle. The curriculum and the expectations for the students are the same as
any regular school in the district but the physical layout of the building makes it unique. No
doors separate classrooms. The entire interior is open, with designated areas for each grade
level but only bookshelves and a few separators to distinguish one classroom from the next.
The library, a quiet space, is located in the heart of the school with all of the grade areas
surrounding it. Everything is connected, which requires students have to be on their best
behavior at all times to respect the students doing other activities in nearby classrooms. It is not
a small school; Kimball consistently enrolls approximately 500 students year to year. Upon
entering kindergarten, students are immediately expected to respect the learning environment
and monitor their own behavior accordingly. When one classroom is out of control, the teacher
cites the surrounding classrooms as a reason to quiet down, reminding students that the space is
shared and other classes might be doing quiet learning activities. If one student in particular is
being disruptive, he or she is asked to apologize to the people affected by the disruption,
whether those people are in the same class or another area.

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At KIPP, a school examined in Paul Toughs book How Children Succeed, students are
given a report card for both academics and character. Though the idea of character development
being one of the schools primary concerns is revolutionary and sounds appealing, the character
report card changes the way students view their behavior. Quantifying a students character
encourages the same behavior that my peers and I exhibited academically in high school; it
results in students doing the bare minimum to get by without fully understanding the
importance of behaving a certain way and not caring what the actual purpose is. Behavioral
issues shift away from being a social problem that requires the student to consider their
environment before acting, as was the case at Kimball, to a personal problem in which bad
behavior results in individual punishment.
This particular method of promoting character building in the classroom is a prime
example of how banking model tactics have leaked from information transfer to the core of
how students view themselves as a peer, colleague, and citizen. Ironically, the right to education
was established in an effort to develop a more thoughtful public with the ability to contribute as
citizens and interact with their government, a necessity for maintaining democracy. Most
schools however have gotten caught up with Americas obsession with results and fast action.
Americas need to verify that the public school system is upholding its duty to create good
citizens has lead to the creation of standardized testing, which moved the focus of schools away
from citizenship and towards proving themselves through test scores. The unfortunate reality is
that many schools have become so engrossed with banking model education that it would take
a complete overhaul of the system to return to the original model of citizen based education.
Though Kimball was able to achieve a model that naturally embedded character building into
the school experience, the school did not do particularly well on the WASL, the state mandated

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standardized test that every student took annually beginning in the third grade. In 2009 the
school average was between 45-70% across subjects and grade levels in all but one section,
fourth grade writing for which the average was a 90%. It is unlikely that a school with such
mediocre test scores will be put on a pedestal to be looked up to and emulated in other places.
Not to mention this kind of learning environment is extremely difficult to replicate in middle
schools and high schools and would require a bit of funding for remodels.
They way Kimball built influences community and student responsibility at the school.
Kimball teaches students to be better citizens not by handing parents a list of character traits
and promising parents to make their children into a textbook workplace aficionado, but rather
by putting their behavior into context and forcing them to think critically about how they fit
into their environment. It does not help a child to tell them that they need to learn to be
resilient, motivated, respectful, and so on, if they do not understand why such qualities are
important. A teacher can tell his or her students that these qualities are good form and will help
get them to college, but those explanations mean nothing to a kid when they are in elementary
school. Even to high schoolers, especially those who have never had a family member attend
college, such language amounts to little more than a collection of words they have heard fall
out of teachers mouths since they began school. In addition to this, education should be a
means of helping people grow and not of conditioning. It should be a process of becomingas
unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality (Freire 84). Creating
a well-rounded student body that can survive well in the real world should be the goal, not
producing a book-smart student body that can sit still in class if they are yelled at enough. As
one teacher explained in How Children Succeed, If you believe your schools mission or your
job as a teacher is simply to convey information, then it probably doesnt seem necessary to

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subject your students to that kind of rigorous self-analysis. But if youre trying to help them
change their character then conveying information isnt enough (Tough 121). Though it is
important for schools to push academics, an area in which Kimball is a little weak, it is also
important to put character into context rather than rattling off the reasons why it is good to
behave. At KIPP, character has become just another topic of information that a teacher is
required to convey. At Kimball, teachers showed students how to change their character,
refraining (for the most part) from giving instructions on how to be a good student. Schools and
teachers must recognize their role in shaping how a student is able to handle what the world has
in store for him or her and how a student sees him or herself in that world. The trial at hand is
to find a way to create an environment that encourages natural character building but also sets
students up for success for later banking model education, which is unfortunately inevitable.

A Teachers Role in Supporting Children Emotionally

My band teacher was the most influential person to me in high school. Sure, I had my
role models, like Ellen DeGeneres and a heavily involved student leader named Ben Poor who I
lucky enough to know when I was an underclassman, but the most important person to me
going through high school was Mr. Bixby. Mr. Bixby ran a music program of 300 students at
the high school and dedicated time to another 500 students in lower grades. Though he had far
more students than any other teacher in the district, he made time to try to get to know each one
personally. His door was always open and he would talk to students about anything, from weird
things that he heard on Radio Lab to helping students think of topics for English essays. He was
more than just a teacher. He was a friend, counselor, and comedian. Mr. Bixby was the first
person whom I felt really believed in me. He told me when I was a freshman that I should think

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about auditing for Drum Major, the highest position in the band and arguably the most
competitive leadership position in the school. He told me that I could change the world and
talked to me about issues for hours after school until my mom was able to get off work and pick
me up. When I was a junior in high school, I fell into a slight depression for a few months and
he was the only person who noticed and talked to me about it. He was my support system all
the way through high school and had he not been there to back me up, write me letters of
recommendation, or help me realize my potential, high school could have been a dismal
experience.
No matter how successfully a school empowers students with the ability to think
critically about the world or integrate character development into their existing curriculums,
students are not likely to excel emotionally or academically if no one in their life has expressed
faith in them. In high school, even with an extremely supportive and loving family at home, a
lot of my confidence came from teachers expressing their support for me. Three teachers in
particular made me believe in myself more than any of my family members did. I was never a
self-deprecating person or someone who needed frequent reassurance and praise, but rather my
relationships with these teachers, particularly Mr. Bixby, grounded me and helped me think
more clearly about where I was going and what I was capable of doing. In my life, teachers
who have assumed the dual role of academic liaison and professional friend were the most
effective form of motivation, more so than all of the motivational speakers who visited my
schools, more so than any other mentors I had, and especially more so than my parents telling
me, You can do big things, Hannah. We know you can.
For students with less familial support than I had growing up, finding someone who
believes in them is even more important. In an ideal world, though extremely difficult, teachers

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would have the responsibility to connect with their students emotionally to show students that
doors are open to them but also keep them grounded and promote self-awareness and balance.
This would require teachers to think of teaching as a profession that extends beyond academics.
Some may argue that a counselor, coach, or someone outside of the traditional
classroom setting is more appropriate for taking on this sort of emotional role in students life
to preserve the classroom teacher as a person who is unbiased toward his or her students,
focuses on what needs to be taught, and makes the learning environment strictly professional.
But in order to put in place any kind of dialogical framework into a classroom, emotional
connection is crucial to creating a setting that lends to encouraging self-reflectiveness and
balance. Learning is a deeply personal enterprise and should be treated as such. Freire
described an ideal learning environment to be one in which The teacher is no longer merely
the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn
while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow
(Freire 80). For this to happen, students and teachers must develop a strong relationship that is
not purely academic. Their relationship must also be a friendship in which the teacher acts as a
peer who can support, listen to, and learn from the student. Younger students may require a
more nurturing and pseudo parental approach (though a teacher would need to be very
intentional and reserved when attempting to create such a relationship to avoid problems with
the students caretakers), but for teenagers the most motivational attention a teacher can give is
the unexpected experience of someone taking them seriously, believing in their abilities, and
challenging them to improve themselves (Tough 121). To have someone with no obligation to
love, who goes out of their way to talk, and who helps students be the best people they can
possibly be is indispensible and overlooked. For many students, particularly those who are not

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involved in extracurricular activities or unlikely to seek out the company of a guidance

counselor, a teacher is the best resource for building support for a student who might otherwise
be lost.

To a More Realistic Future Self

Dear Future Me,
The postulations above barely scrape the surface of all the feelings and ideas I have
about education and where it needs to go in order to truly reform how people learn in the public
schools system. Should you pursue attempting to change the world through education,
hopefully you will have seen enough in your life to have acquired an educated view on how
things really work, the politics of the situations I have discussed, and a more inclusive outlook
on different learning styles and home-life situations, as well as a better understanding of the
human psyche and condition. There is so much I have left to learn that all that I have written
above is subject to change the moment I turn in this paper for grading. To draw any conclusions
now, as I expressed earlier, is offensively premature, especially for people with more
experience in the field than I do and already understand the inner-workings of the education
system. As I did in high school to prepare for college, my goal moving forward is to put myself
in the best possible situation to understand most every angle of education beyond a
comprehensive level. Please, please, please, do not become just another person who gets
thrown into a high up position and does not understand what they are working with or for.
Reject opportunities to assume a position of authority until you have understood the system as
an unremarkable person at the bottom of the food chain. Do not forget how it felt to be a
student, frustrated with how things are run, and critical of how others teach. Students hang onto

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your words more than you may think they do. Do not forget how hard it is to go through high
school, even in an ideal situation like I did. Never make a job in education about yourself. It is
always about the students and any sort of self-promotion or arrogance detracts from the
learning environment. And most of all, never lose sight of why you are here in the first place: to
make education a better place for people not workers, to create a world of thinkers not just
doers, and to make the education system a place where all people can thrive and find their
niche.

I hope immersion in reality has not made you lose optimism.

Sincerely,
Hannah