Education is the foundation of knowledge, the foundation of life. As we age and grow we
learn various things throughout education, but do we really grasp on everything we learn, and
do we really need all of the information that is given to us in the educational system? A poem
titled “To david, about his education” by Howard Nemerov makes the argument that everything
we learn in school is not useful and suggests that the education system need to change. In his poem by Howard Nemerov by “To David, about his education” he address that
education is lacking and teaching students a lot of useless information. He also uses satire in his
poem to describe this ideology, For example, in his poem he states, ”Things like the square root
of Everest, Or how many times Byron goes into Texas, Or whether the law of the excluded
middle, Applies west of the Rockies. For these, And the like reasons, you have to go to school,
And study books and listen to what you are told.” What Nemerov is trying to prove is that some
things that we learn in school are useless, no one really needs to learn what the square root of
Mount Everest Is, nor how many times Byron goes to texas, but this information is still provided
to students and thus the school system needs to change. Howard Nemerov also brings the banking concept into context, not fully, but his view on
education establishes a similar view to the concept. The Banking concept is the method of teaching, a form of teaching where information is
just being thrown at a student for them to simply just store it and memorize it. The problem
with this concept is that it’s just unfair to several students, it doesn’t really teach every student,
it teaches students to think one minded and doesn’t let students creativity flow according to
Paolo Freire’s book that explains this whole concept. Freire believes that this whole concept
contributes to an oppressed segment, He states, “Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others,
a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of
inquiry.” He explains this concept, stating that the banking concept, means that the teacher is
the subject of the classroom while students are merely passive in their eyes. This results in
students being unknowledgeable by listening to their professor, according to freire. He then
furthers his argument by stating, “Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques
and makes deposit which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. He say that this
is “banking” concept of education, in which scope of action allows the students to only extend
as far as receiving, filing, and storing deposits. He argues that this idea of the banking concept
makes students depositors and the teacher the depositor. Claiming that this method should be
abolished because it just doesn’t work and teaches students information that they will not grasp
upon and leant. Freire wants change, a different method of learning. He suggests a remedy for
the Banking of education would be “problem posing education. He believes that this type of
education would reject the banking concept, therefore adopting a new concept while achieving
liberation. He states, “The teacher is no longer merely the one-who-teaches , but one who is
himself taught in dialogue with the students, who i turn while being taught”.
The poem by “to david about his education” again resembles this idea that education is
lacking because we are thrown information that goes in one ear then it goes out the other. The poem points out many arguments regarding education and traditional education, it addresses
that not everything can be learned through traditional education, but everything can be learned
through book and nature, suggesting a new type of education. He suggests that education
should involve more reading and more exploring instead of learning information that will not
really help us in the workforce world. They both argue that education needs to change because
the traditional education is lacking. Education is very important in our lives, but some things we learn in school are useless
and are not essential to a successful life. A successful life is built up with experiences and
learning things we enjoy learning about. In school systems we are required to take classes we
don’t really like, but it is a learning experience to let absorb information that we had not known
about and maybe develop new interests out of it, but sometimes things that are not really in
our interest are not easily learned. In school systems information is just being thrown at
students and some students don’t really understand the concepts being taught unless in their
interests. It either that or you understand it and just memorize everything and then forget it
afterward because it’s not in your interest whatsoever. Of Course learning and absorbing all this
information is very important, the school system is not teaching all students. In my opinion this
has to change because information is just memorized instead of being learned. We are
constantly given information that we have to remember for our various tests we have in several
subjects, but in reality all this information that we are to grasp for a test is long gone after the
test is over, unless you display some interest in the topic being memorized as stated before. The
purpose of education is to make us smarter as we go and is truly does make us smarter, but the
overall fact is that we are taught some things that are not necessary. I truly agree with Howard
and Nemerov because i do feel like the educational system is lacking in teaching valuable information to students, they only teach students to be one minded, instead of being explorers
of the world.
