Assignment #2: What are schools for?

“Draw me a sheep.” is a line of the little prince, who could see through the box-his imagination-of a sheep. The one who drew the box was a man who wanted to become a painter but had given up because of the adults who had instructed the man to study geography, history, arithmetic and grammar instead of art. Today, those adults have built the education system for the new generations to learn limited subjects and not create. Just like the man in the little prince, almost every student is pushed to become a ‘useful and rich person’ such as, lawyer and doctor. That is the present address of public education; killing the creativity and diversity. At this point, Ken Robinson throws a question: What are schools for?

First of all, at school, there’s no such thing as different answers but wrong answers. Mistakes can’t be accepted at any rate. No approval of different answers aggravates the atmosphere to restrain students’ creativity. Ken Robinson has mentioned, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” to claim that people must be generous about mistakes for students to accept mistakes as experiences and processes of maturing. Students must raise their opinion by discussing to create new insights. As Robinson has pointed out, being wrong is not the same thing as being creative. But to come up with anything that isn’t conventional, adults must inscribe the fact that mistakes are not shameful to be done. We must provide an atmosphere that is provoking challenges.      

     Second, people must perceive all the subjects equally important. Ken Robinson criticized the hierarchy of subjects existing all over the world. Schools consider math and language to be the most important, secondly the humanity, science and at the bottom, the art and music. The hierarchy of subjects bans integration of subjects to have unique and insightful eye that will inspire others with creative blooming contents. By studying art, we can improve some other parts that can’t be improved by math or language. So is music. Art and music can fertilize our soul. We must open up the chances to learn music and art as math and language.

     Lastly, creativity comes from relaxed and open mind. However, students have lost their composure just to enter popular universities and to get higher score than others. The school has become too competitive rather than becoming cooperative. Since students are young, they are at the high point of energy. Every single cell is breathing and desiring to sense the world and contact with the surroundings. Students are oppressed under homework doing it dispassionately less leisure time taking. The school must let them make beautiful memories and reflect on their lives. Students need to travel and feel the nature. Especially, spare time to read, write and to focus on something they love will develop students’ creativity and ability to manage time by oneself. Students must search for their thirst of knowledge. Schools are too tightening the students by ordering assignments. We must make students feel released and trusted from adults. That’s the first step to make the creative ideas spring out from students.

     To sum up, creativity is a common thing that everyone is born with. But there are only few who keep the creativity without getting destroyed from the schools. I am not denying the importance of learning. One cannot develop to be creative without any knowledge on the base. What I want to point out is current system degrades creativity by only focusing on memorizing and getting tests in the process of informing. The focus must be turned to improve creativity while learning knowledge. There’s limitation when we learn and not create. Creativity is the true source of innovations that doesn’t limit human capability. If the little prince got educated on earth, he might lose his purity and ability to see through the box of his ideal sheep. I agree with Ken Robinson’s opinion that public school need to improve the education system for students have an original idea that has value: the creativity. Unordinary ideas that induces sensation must be built to touch the stars from the ground. The old generation must look through to new generation’s future and revolutionize the educational system to fit into their lives.