Schools Kill Creativity and Shapes Students to Be Servants

There is one common question that is usually discussed is “How does the school system help students accel at their life?” This question isn’t easily answerable but in “Do schools kill creativity?” essay it cut down into multiple topics that lead to the answer for this question. Sir Ken Robinson, a respected British author, has talked greatly about how schools are designed to kill the creativity out of students and leads them to a life where they follow orders from people more creative than them and how everything in life only has one right answer. In his book and Ted talk, Sir Ken Robinson discusses how core classes in school tend to drive the creativity out of students and make them follow orders from teachers. With subjects such as math, science, and history as their core classes, students will keep wondering how everything in life will always have only one correct answer. This paper will be discussing how school shapes students to be servants of the system and how creativity is the characteristic being blocked.

Creativity can mean a lot of things to different people but one thing that is common throughout everyone’s understanding of creativity is that it is the basic freedom to illustrate thoughts and emotions. Everyone interprets creativity in their own way and uses it to their own advantage to try and explain to people everything that they feel without having to say it. By using creativity in schools rather than the simple system that has been placed since the beginning, students will further their understanding in creativity and will be able to explore more things in life than they imagined. Schools aren’t necessarily killing creativity but are certainly keeping a student’s creativity to themselves as they restrict the ways in which a student can use it. By introducing new subjects to schools or even approaching the same subjects in a different manner, students will be able to comprehend all the information that they take from classes rather than simply memorizing what they study without understanding. For example, students can start being more interactive with their classes like using simulations to understand concepts and get a hand-to-hand experience, or even incorporating a form of arts to their core classes.

Attending school is one of the things in life that are considered a must before starting a career in anything or even working at a 9-5 job. There is one theory about the school system that arises from these topics which is, do schools kill creativity and lead to an unfulfilling job in the future? Every school in the world has one main system when it comes to teaching and that is the structure of what they teach. In every school in the world a student has core subjects that teach them the basics of life and what they can expect after graduating but what if students are taught how to think more outside the box, how to think creatively, and how to think critically. Sir Ken Robinson makes a case on how the school system should focus less on standardized testing and should alter their focus more towards trying to help students reach their full potential. By essentially adding classes such as art, science labs, workshop, and creative writing this will start promoting the idea of a more creative environment that will help students think more and allow them to show their thoughts better rather than restricting them to a certain way of learning. Essentially, classes are the main thing that will continue promoting a healthier and more creative environment, but other measures can be taken to help with that such as changing the way classrooms are structured. For example, students would learn better if the chairs were structured in a circular fashion and the teacher was the center of the circle making him the most important factor in the classroom and would allow students to focus more as they are already facing himher.

As mentioned before the most important thing in a school system is to create an environment for learning and creativity and not an environment that promotes command and following orders. By creating this environment students will be forced to think on their own and would have to find creative ways by themselves to reach the solutions to the problems presented. Education is one of the aspects in life that will be useful no matter the circumstances and schools have the upper hand in teaching students everything they need to know about life and how to approach it. Future is the one aspect in life where no one knows what is going to happen and the one aspect where schools won’t help in getting ready for it. When looking at the sense of the future the first thing that comes to mind is having success and freedom. Schools are the factor that tend to limit that since all a person does throughout their school years is follow orders and commands given by teachers when most jobs will look at a person’s capabilities on how they can solve a situation as soon as it happens. Creativity is one thing most jobs tend to focus on because it is the main aspect a person has that will allow them to think of solutions to problems that aren’t clear to everyone. Every person has a creative side to them that can be nurtured until at its best, but the case Sir Ken Robinson is building is that schools limit people from reaching that potential.

People tend to think better when their environment is most suitable for that, meaning that the environment that surrounds a person greatly enhances a person’s creative abilities. Looking more at the environment and how it affects a person, people usually judge a person’s intelligence by their grades in school when in fact intelligence is simply how a person perceives information and how he is able to apply that information. Intelligence has nothing to do with a person’s academic ability as someone could possibly be good at memorizing information but couldn’t solve a real-life problem when put in it. On the other hand, a person with bad academic abilities could possibly be the most intelligent and creative person out of everyone. This means that a person’s intelligence shouldn’t be judged on what they have on paper but should be judged by how they tackle real life scenarios and find solutions to problems that aren’t clear.

“The world is changing faster than ever in our history. Our best hope for the future is to develop a new paradigm of human capacity to meet a new era of human existence. We need to evolve a new appreciation of the importance of nurturing human talent along with an understanding of how talent expresses itself differently in every individual. We need to create environments—in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our public offices—where every person is inspired to grow creatively. We need to make sure that all people have the chance to do what they should be doing, to discover the Element in themselves and in their own way. ”What can happen if creativity is nurtured in schools rather than demolished? Creativity can simply take on many forms for example it can be in a form of innovation, design, or art. Creativity remains the same between all its forms, it is simply the process of thinking outside the box and coming up with uncommon ideas alone rather than a sequence of learnt ideas. Schools tend to demolish the fact that students should think on their own and use creativity to find a solution. Some things are meant to have a certain way of thinking such as math, history, and science but that doesn’t justify how schools shape students to become one of the systems rather than live outside of it. Creativity helps students understand and grasp the idea of life and helps them achieve things that they don’t believe are achievable. Schools should turn their focus towards nurturing creativity to lead students to better life’s and allow them to solve problems more efficiently rather than living a day-to-day life with the same problems. One thing that comes from learning creativity is having self-awareness which is the fact that a person will be aware of their own strengths, weaknesses, and behavioral traits. By improving self-awareness, students will have the freedom to understand their characteristics and learn to use them to their advantage and find other ways to succeed in life rather than the ones taught in schools.

In conclusion, creativity is one of the most important aspect of life, it helps us understand the corners of success and helps us reach it effectively and most importantly, in our own way. This paper highlighted the importance of creativity and how schools tend to stray students away from creativity rather than nurture it. The future is full of opportunities that can only be grasped and understood with an open mind and an understanding of the world. Some people are better than others when it comes to creativity but the one outcome everyone has in common is that no one knows what the future holds. By changing the system schools work by, students will be ready for the future and will be able to make their way around any problem they face. Finally, people tend to undermine the importance of creativity when in reality it is a characteristic that is used daily to solve common problems, we face every day.

Bibliography

• BIBLIOGRAPHY Blog, P. S. (2019, March 25). Does Our Education System Kill Creativity? . Retrieved from Penn State: https:sites.psu.eduaspsy20190325does-our-education-system-kill-creativity
• Robinson, S. K. (2006, February). Do Schools Kill Creativity? Retrieved from TED: https:www.ted.comtalkssir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?language=en#t-677865
• Robinson, S. K. (2009). The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. Viking.
• Ross, S. (n.d.). Artists are struggling to find inspiration in isolation. Artists are struggling to find inspiration in isolation. The Washington Post, Washington.