Mrs. Harris, our math professor, believed both classes were full of brainless children, and treated us less intelligently than Mrs. Ball, my kindergarten teacher. In Freire's text, he discusses the attitudes and practices of teachers who use the banking method of education. One of these is the idea that "the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing" (73). It is evident that this was the mindset held by Mrs. Harris. We all know the saying, "There's no such thing as a stupid question," right? In Mrs. Harris' class, this was not the case, to the extent where a detention was given to my friend, Charlie, for asking a "stupid" question. Rather than allowing students to question what we were being taught, we were punished for it.
This discovery that we would be punished for questioning Mrs. Harris, as well as other teachers, expresses another attitude Freire discusses, that "the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined" (73). At St. Elizabeth, there was a very strict and organized disciplinary system. Students received a "demerit card," which had space for a teacher to write the student ten demerits. Students were required to carry their demerit card at all times, and most students purchased personalized lanyards to carry them on. This was our way of exercising our small amount of freedom in the face of pedagogic oppression. These demerits were given to students for things such as not having our shirts completely tucked it, not wearing black or white socks that came above our ankles, and using the forbidden word, "stupid." Once the student received ten demerits, they were given a detention, and had to stay after school for several hours in a silent classroom. If a student was to receive ten detentions, they would be expelled from the school. St. Elizabeth administration felt that us kids must be incorporated into the "healthy" and "normal" society, so when we did not wear the exact required uniform to school, we had the potential of being sent home, sometimes permanently.
