Q: How closely does University Studies adhere to a
Freire'ian education model?

The University Studies program initially appears to
support Freire'ian education. However, after carefully
considering Freire's article, I've come to some
conclusions about the program and my education as a
whole. Nearly every class I've taken has taken a hybrid
of the problem posing / banking educational model. How
each class marks up on either side is up to constant
debate -- some classes are more banking (i.e. history),
while others are clear half-and-half (i.e. physics), and
others are obviously problem-posing (i.e. physics lab).
History can include pseudo-problem-posing in the form of
investigation through history texts and historical
papers. Physics is a learn and experience class; we
actively seek to understand the world through
mathematics and formulae already discovered. The active
part is, obviously, deriving formulae from simple
postulates that appear to be true in all instances. The
lab portion of Physics is entirely active, and ,apart
from a few equations given to us, is completely
problem-posing. University Studies can not efficiently
be entirely problem-posing. How can we learn about
Darwin in any way other than banking education? Darwin
is facts, not the natural world (even though the entire
point of Darwin is nature). As a matter of fact, I do
not see how problem-posing education could be
implemented for scientific history. Yet, history can be
actively interpreted and we can all become junior
historians if problem-posing education is implemented in
the study of history. Even so, problem-posing education
is a completely valid method of learning scientific
fact, given that science is the study of the natural
world. Our study of Dickinson was different. Rather than
chew on every detail of her life (as we did with
Darwin), we studied her poetry and posed the problem of
interpreting it. Thus, we took an active role in our
study of Dickinson.  With an educational campaign as
broad as University Studies, it appears to me that there
is no choice but to include some of the aspects of
banking education. We seem to avoid the evils of banking
education that plagued Freire -- we keep in active
dialog with our instructor and we are able to inquire on
any matter that concerns us. All in all, University
Studies seems to do an acceptable job of offering
problem-posing education.

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