Synthesis on “The Banking Concept of Education” and Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” drawn from “The Republic, Book VII”

Education – what exactly is education and how can education be defined and achieved? Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills and acquiring tangible and intangible knowledge of the world. Both texts focus on the concept of education – namely discussing different approaches to effectively educating people and the respective effects.

The texts to be synthesized are Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and an extract of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” titled “The Banking Concept of Education”. Paulo Freire’s argument about education is that it is very one-sided and narrative. The teacher in his concept solely deposits information and facts and the students are simply required to receive, memorize and recall the information. His argument is that dialogue and communication is non-existent. Plato’s work approaches the same argument in a different way. According to Plato, the students already know everything; the teacher is seen as a facilitator asking questions promoting the right answers. He says education is the product of dialectic reasoning and being open-minded to the world around you. Additionally, both texts prompt us to use critical thinking, i.e. challenging us to question the information received from our teachers. According to Freire education and knowledge emerge through invention and reinvention and through a restless and continuous inquiry about the world. Furthermore, the described system of education does not make the students more aware or knowledgeable about this world – it rather promotes the adaption to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited on the students. Plato is saying that humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our cave. The things which we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall. Just as the escaped prisoner ascends into the light of the sun, we acquire knowledge and ascend into the light of true reality.

In conclusion, education is what educators make out of it and it is a question of individual taste how information is distributed to students. However, it is essential for educators to find ways to teach students effectively which can be done by encouraging dialog and communication between the teaching body and the students.