How Does Chalk Illustrate Freire/Gatto Charges

How does Chalk illustrate the charges Freire and Gatto level against education?

5 charges from Freire and Gatto.

1.  #1 in Ingli's six basic functions, is:  The adjustive or adaptive function. The first sentence says, "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority."

The example I think of from Chalk  is when Lowry, a first year teacher, is trying to control his class.  He has it in his mind how the students should respect him.  He actually looses it during one of his classes when a student for the "3rd time that week" had used his cell phone and gets dismissed from class.  He wants that respect when he tells hisIn students what to do and they do the opposite.  He then goes to the students mother about the situation, who turns it around that it is "his" fault.  They end up sharing a bottle of wine and "everything is fine" after that.

2.  In "The Banking Concept of Education" Freire lists the attitudes and practices, #d & e says, " the teacher talks and the students listen-meekly; the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined.

Again, I use Lowry as an example.  Throughout the year he is trying to get his students to listen to him, and he is trying to figure out how to discipline and "control" his class.  He goes to the library and checks out a book on "Classroom Management".  He studies it and comes up with some productive ideas.

3.  In the "Banking Concept" Freire says, "The student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means".

The 2 teachers that does this method I see the most with was:  Lowry and Stroop.  Both teachers are having things on the board and trying to point to each item, getting the students to repeat what was said.  The students get very bored and disruptive during class.

4.  Gatto brings out in his paper "Against School" that "Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there."

We see this in Chalk at every teacher lounge scene. The scene that comes to mind is where all the teachers are sitting around talking, complaining about their classes, and Coach Webb is on the floor doing a workout or yoga.  She has a liking for Lowry and asks him to "workout" with her. 

5.  In Freire's "Banking Concept" he talks about "liberating education" which "consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information."

This brought to mind of  Coach Webb.  She seemed to want to liberate her students by teaching them yoga.  Trying to help them relax and think deeper.  In the one funny situation, she has them all on the floor laying on their mats, and the one heavy set student can't seem to get into it and she tells him to turn and face a different direction so he can focus.