The Pedagogy of Richard Wright

Joe Weber

AP English

Mr. Arthur

9/6/15

The Pedagogy of Richard Wright

        Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed focuses on two systems of education. The banking method and the problem-posing method. The banking method, described as oppressive, dehumanizing, and border-line tyrannical, is one in which teachers fill students with pre-selected information without context, rendering it useless. The problem-posing method, which can be described as the protagonist of Freire’s essay, is centered around reasoned discourse where any individual can be both a student as well as a teacher. Richard Wright, who had to educate himself, falls under the latter, which allowed him to recognize his reality that he was a black man in America in 1940s, rise above it, and undergo a transformation. This ascent can be seen in the fact that his works as an author are still relevant today.

        The banking method of education which involves teachers projecting ignorance onto students (a quality of oppression,) dehumanizes the students by turning them into mechanical receptors who cannot think for themselves. In Richard’s time, African-Americans were second-class citizens, which would classify them as oppressed. In Freire’s point of view, this means they can not have personal opinions, forever placing them below the whites who subjugate them. The idea of being able to think for oneself comes into play when Richard feels compelled to write his own ideas, but just cannot do it despite all of his efforts. He says “I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had let my crude imagination roam, but the impulse to dream had been slowly beaten out of me by experience.” This “experience” which he refers to is the banking method of education implemented into society by whites in order to keep blacks in a figurative cage. After reading some of the works by H.L. Mencken, Richard questions his fellow Negroes. He knows there are black men who are doctors, lawyers, etc., but he wonders whether his contemporaries have the same ideas as him. Wright explains that he never caught the faintest echo of his interests in the pages of the Negro newspaper when he read it, implying that the other black men cant think for themselves.  This is an example of the banking-method of education in action, only white men act as the teachers and negroes are the oppressed students.

        The problem-posing method allows individuals to be both students and teachers, thereby fostering critical thinking and idea sharing in rational discussion. Although Wright is a victim of the banking method first-hand, he makes good use of his mind by exploiting the problem-posing method. He becomes the educator and the educatee, reading countless works in order to gain a greater understanding of his circumstances. While the banking concept causes students to fatalistically accept their situation, the problem-posing method identifies fatalism as the problem.  Freire states in his essay, “A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as a historical reality susceptible of transformation.” In other words, the more people understand their lives, the more likely it is that they will change their reality. This is evidenced by the fact that Wright was classified as one of the oppressed, but educated himself and learned the details of his situation, then transformed himself into an acclaimed author.