Paulo Freire, the 'Banking' Concept of Education, and 'Authentic Thinking'

Freire uses the term 'authentic thinking' to refer to thoughts stemming from biophily. The term biophily is adapted by Freire to mean the living growth of education and its progression. When Freire considers biophily, he believes this term to most accurately represent the nature of true education - correlating life experiences with education, creating a cohesive understanding, in the student, of reality and its nature.
Building upon this concept, Freire terms 'authentic thinking' as realistic, grounded, and critical thought. Such thought, according to Freire, may only occur if and when the student is relieved of the burthen of the 'banking' concept of education. When such repression is removed and the student is not compelled to daily learning by regurgitation, critical, or 'authentic', thinking may occur. This thinking stems not from daily memory by rote, but from actual, purposeful learning and experiences. These thoughts are the foundation of what Freire believed was a meaningful life, and the result of a successful education. From this 'thinking' stems other results. Perhaps the most important to Freire was what may be termed intention, or "consciousness of consciousness of consciousness."

As problem-posing education requires critical thought and enquiry, the 'banking' concept of education does not function in this realm. 'Banking' education provides its own answers, but problem-posing education necessitates inventiveness on the part of the pupil. To solve the queries of problem-posing education, the student must rely upon all education (including life experiences) to address the matters at hand. This critical thought and enquiry outside the bailiwick of 'banking' education is termed by Freire as 'authentic thinking'. According to Freire, this sort of thinking should be the aim of education.

The 'banking' concept of education is a system of routine questions and standard, limited responses. Just like a build-it-yourself desk chair, students in this system are expected to insert answer 'b' into question 'a' and so forth. There is no room for individuality, personalised life experiences, or critical thought and enquiry. Since the student has no use for 'authentic thinking', any potential in this area is slowly asphyxiated by the humdrum equation of matching, fill in the blank, and short answer.
There are two primary causes for this problem in education. The first is the state's desire to create a nation of homogenous, innocuous automatons. In a nation without cultural, linguistic, or otherwise difference, the consolidation and maintenance of power is a relatively simple task. Take, for example, the Dominion of Canada. Canada is officially a confederation of provinces and territories. Most provinces, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Prince Edward Island, are predominantly Anglophone, but even in these provinces, a significant distinction exists between Atlantic Canada and the western provinces. On the other hand, the provinces of Ontario, Québec, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia have a significant Francophone population. Again, a significant difference exists between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador in Atlantic Canada with a sizeable Anglophone majority, Ontario on the prairies with the same ratio, New Brunswick with an almost equal split, and Québec, which is the only province with a Francophone majority and is the home of a considerable separatist movement. Furthermore, Québec and the Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut Territories have a large population of First Nations (Canadian term for Native Americans). The First Nations still hold their lands based on centuries-old treaties with the British Crown. The First Nations have constitutions, languages, cultures all their own. For the sake of the example, Canada is an incredible pinnacle of wide-ranging diversity living in harmony. The 'banking' concept of education would aim to destroy all of this rich heritage and replace it with a bureaucratic definition of 'Canadianism' that has nothing to do with Canada and Canadians.
Likewise, institutions in the United States and in many nations throughout the world have gone out of their way to impose such a ridiculous definition on their constituent parts. Children and minority groups have suffered as the new-age guinea pigs of modern day equivalents of Bonar Law. The second reason for the provenance of 'banking' education is the phenomena known as 'teaching to the test'. The first instance mentioned above causes institutions to impose standardised tests on all levels of education. Soon enough, these arbitrary test results are tied to funding and other drastic penalties. Properly threatened, teachers respond by 'teaching' the standardised test. They are bound to the unimaginative curriculum-dictates of a pencil-pushing mandarin by a pay cheque. Thus are the imaginative and creative abilities of students the world-over crushed; they didn't even have a chance.