Foucault’s panopticon parallels Freire’s banking concept of education

Evidence

When Michel Foucault (1977) described the panoptic architecture of prisons, he seems to make the case for a critical education when he argues that the person who is incarcerated “is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication” (p. 200). This language practically mirrors Freire’s (1993) vision of the banking concept of education, wherein students are recognized as “empty vessels” waiting for instruction. When critical pedagogy seems the most appropriate liberatory strategy for empowering students, perhaps it is worth taking a moment to pause and consider the ethical implications of such methods in the context of the prison. In other words, “a pedagogy of liberation” (Shor & Freire, 1987) is one in which practitioners must ask themselves, in what sense of the word are students being liberated, and what are the ethical implications of a pedagogy for liberation in a carceral state? — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 407

Categorization

• XREF: The Foucault-Freire parallel echoes the reader’s existing corpus on surveillance and control (World of Strangers, colonial power material). — connects to: Surveillance-capitalist digital tools function like Freire’s banking method of education — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 521; Neoliberal school reforms operate as Freirean banking education — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 943; hooks’ core distinction is education-as-freedom versus education-as-domination — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 16 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance-capitalist digital tools function like Freire’s banking method of education #expands (0.85) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 521
• Neoliberal school reforms operate as Freirean banking education #expands (0.80) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 943
• The panopticon amplifies whatever institution it is applied to #complicates (0.75) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 274
• hooks’ core distinction is education-as-freedom versus education-as-domination #expands (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 16
• The rod’s only pedagogical function is enforcing the banking model of education #exemplifies (0.70) — , The Rod and the Child, 5002