Paulo Freire argues that education becomes liberating only when curiosity outranks mere obedience. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), he critiques the “banking model,” where teachers deposit facts into passive students, and instead proposes “problem-posing” education that begins with learners’ real questions. This shift is not a call to disorder; rather, it reorders classroom priorities so that inquiry, relevance, and dialogue lead the learning. A history unit, for instance, can start with students’ wonder—“Who gets remembered and why?”—before moving toward documents and interpretations. In this way, curiosity is not an add-on but the engine that drives understanding. [...]
