Rushmore the school tries to keep Max under control, but Max resists it. Max has terrible grades, even in Theater II, a class which you would think he would excel at. But why is Max failing all of his classes when he is clearly very intelligent? It is clear that Max is far more interested in his many extracurricular activities than in the traditional classroom lessons. Max is clearly learning and creating and challenging himself; he just refuses to take part in the formal education in the classroom. Thus, we can see that Max has rejected what Freire calls the “banking method” of education. Rather than merely memorize what some authority tells him, Max instead prefers to be his own authority and direct his own learning, something Freire calls “inquiry.” Max’s varied interests—from beekeeping to playwriting—are things that Max does instead of the memorization that is required for “success” in the banking system at Rushmore.