Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Chapter 2

After the initial chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I suppose I was vaguely let down by the follow-up chapter and Freire's correlation of the oppressed/oppressor relationship to that of education.  I won't say it doesn't make sense, but it is difficult to see (from the perspective of an American student in the 21st century) the student/teacher relationship compare to that of a "violent" oppressor and their oppressed victim. 

This is not to say I have not had classes which could fall into the banking education type. The teacher droned on with their information, seldom if ever pausing for the opportunity of comment or even an inflection indicating questions were welcome.  When some brave soul did raise their hand, offering their opinion or insight, they were quickly shot down by the professor's obvious superior knowledge.  As the teacher smugly renewed his pace of lecture, other students vowed to keep their opinions to themselves and endure his blathering with silent contempt.  

However, I have also had the teacher who can bring an otherwise dry subject to life with a gift for vivid story-telling.  I had a teacher in high school who sat on the edge of his desk as he carefully brought to life various aspects of history, specifically World War II, for a group of teenagers who would normally never have given the subject more than a passing thought.  I don't remember if he welcomed questions, most likely he did.  He certainly didn't shoot down a curious student.  

It is possible the education Freire was alluding to was something we could imagine taught presently in North Korea or a similar oppressive society.  Though I certainly don't know, I imagine their education is heavily laden with propaganda with very sparse question and answer time. 

I personally am much more drawn to the problem posing education scenario.  It is very gratifying to engage in meaningful discussion in a class and if the teacher is gracious enough to hint the learning was for him or her as well, I appreciate it.  So while I agree that problem-posing education is extremely valuable and is a much more effective manner to teach and encourage vital critical thinking, I am not quite ready to throw out the entire lecture format.  As with most things, I think my personal view would lie somewhere in the middle.