Do Schools Kill Creativity
English 1320
Mr.Peters
Febuary 11th, 2015
Word Count: 571
Schools Taking Over Students’ Futures Educational systems reward the knowledgeable data seekers and penalize the creative outside-of-the-box students. Education overall, has grown to be more about conformity than creativity. Sir ken Robinson states in his Ted talk, “If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance.” Robinson’s words reflect the fact that today the whole point of education is to teach things in a particular way to get certain results from students so that they can have a bright future. But what the educational systems fail to recognize is the students who are meant to flourish in a more creative future than what is normally being taught on a day-to-day basis. The best educational system should be producing a population of individuals more intelligent and versatile compared to the previous generation, yet they continue to do the opposite. Educational institutions are primarily focusing on the STEM fields because this is “where the action is,” (193) according to Sanford J. Ungar in The New Liberal Arts. The systems are not giving any value towards the liberal art subjects for example, dance, music, and photography. The STEM fields consist of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These fields are what many educational institutions consider the most successful fields of work to go into. Many creative thinkers get through high school and go onto college. But, often these same students are building up their future to do something they never truly wanted to do. The reasoning behind this can be explained by Sir Ken Robinson, he states, “Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they 're not, because the thing they were good at in school wasn 't valued, or was actually stigmatized.” These people end up changing their entire life because educational systems have set up basic standards about the
Mr.Peters
Febuary 11th, 2015
Word Count: 571
Schools Taking Over Students’ Futures Educational systems reward the knowledgeable data seekers and penalize the creative outside-of-the-box students. Education overall, has grown to be more about conformity than creativity. Sir ken Robinson states in his Ted talk, “If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance.” Robinson’s words reflect the fact that today the whole point of education is to teach things in a particular way to get certain results from students so that they can have a bright future. But what the educational systems fail to recognize is the students who are meant to flourish in a more creative future than what is normally being taught on a day-to-day basis. The best educational system should be producing a population of individuals more intelligent and versatile compared to the previous generation, yet they continue to do the opposite. Educational institutions are primarily focusing on the STEM fields because this is “where the action is,” (193) according to Sanford J. Ungar in The New Liberal Arts. The systems are not giving any value towards the liberal art subjects for example, dance, music, and photography. The STEM fields consist of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These fields are what many educational institutions consider the most successful fields of work to go into. Many creative thinkers get through high school and go onto college. But, often these same students are building up their future to do something they never truly wanted to do. The reasoning behind this can be explained by Sir Ken Robinson, he states, “Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they 're not, because the thing they were good at in school wasn 't valued, or was actually stigmatized.” These people end up changing their entire life because educational systems have set up basic standards about the
Cited: Robinson, Sir Ken. “How Schools Kill Creativity.” TED Talk. February 2006 Ungar, Sanford J. “The New Liberal Arts.” They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. Cathy Birkenstein. Russel Durst. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 190-197. Print.