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Richard Thomas

Mr. K

ENGL IV HONORS

26 March 2018

No Creativity? No Future

I want to take you back to a time where you had no worries, no age, and no limits. I want

to take you back to when you were a child. The average child’s mind is so powerful that it can

control that child’s life, reality. It was capable of giving abilities like flying, or teleportation; the

mind was capable of taking that child around the world in a heartbeat, or even to another galaxy.

The mind could turn the child into a top-secret spy, or an animal, a NASCAR driver, or a king.

There was truly no limit, and the line between the possible and impossible became blurred. This

power of the mind has been labeled: imagination. Every child has one or has had one at some

point in time. It was how we as children entertained ourselves, or even how we found ourselves.

This imagination seems to disappear as one ages- and it shows. While you were sitting at a desk

in a class, a child has found a way to explore space. While you were ringing up customers at

your job, another has singlehandedly saved the world from an invasion. While you were just

doing whatever you do to past time, several children have created their own society where evil

doesn’t exist, where everyone gets a juice box and crayons and everyone can have fun. While

you were just finding something to do in order to stop your boredom, a child has come up with

the idea to invent a new language on an unknown island with his dog, Spot. However, it isn’t

always the case that these minds lose their power with age. There are adults if not young adults

worldwide who are pushing the limits and questioning what is possible. There’s always been

some creative individual who has brought their imagination to the real world. Imagine growing
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up where the only means of transportation was by train or horse and wagon. Suddenly, you get

the idea to combine the two. You get the idea to create the world’s first car. Need a more recent

example? Imagine a life where all there was for communication were house phones, pay phones,

or flip phones. For games, you had to get a whole other system to plug into a huge television. For

music? A radio or MP3 player. You should be able to guess where this is going. In today’s

world, you can communicate with someone hundreds of miles away on a touchscreen phone in

seconds. On that same phone, you can listen to any type of music, play all kinds of games and

even watch television or just videos! Throw out those huge TVs, get a smart TV; a flat screen

which can weigh less than half that of the old ones and can do ten times more. The world owes a

huge thanks to the few creative minds that go against tradition and are dedicated to bringing

dreams to life. Those few creative people who change the history of the world.

Every day, less and less people are being creative. In fact, even less people have a true

idea of what it means to be creative. Fewer people have a true idea of what it means to be

creative. So many, maybe even you have confused creativity with art. Many more have confused

art as being just paintings or drawings or music. Emily Morrison even defined creativity along

with higher education: Creativity: a noun; the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules,

patterns, relationships, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretation,

through originality, progressiveness, or imagination.2 (Morrison). Art is more than just paintings,

much more than music. Art is the expression or application of human creative skill and

imagination; therefore, art and creativity do go hand in hand, however art is more than many

people mistake it to be. Perhaps if people realized that, people would value their creativity more

given that art is something various people enjoy in one way or another. Then again, as said

before, less and less people are being creative. The biggest misconceptions about creativity,
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according to Sir Ken Robinson, a creativity expert, are: that only a select few people can be

creative, that creativity is about special skills, and that it’s about “letting yourself go.” Why is

this an issue? Glad you asked. Remember those inventions mentioned earlier- the automobile,

the touch screen phone as well as the smart TV? These would’ve never came to be, as well as the

many inventions that came before, and we’d probably be stuck in the Dark Ages or similar

dystopian society. Just the thought of an idea different than that of others is enough to spark a

change in this world great enough to change the future. The education system has a significant

role in this decrease of creativity which has a negative impact on the world.

As stated before, we are born curious and full of creativity. This education system, which

instead of enhancing and building on our natural creativity and free thinking, focuses on

standardized testing and memorization of facts that more likely than not won’t be used in the real

world. Every child is different, from learning style to thought processing to skills and abilities-

we’re made different. However, schools insist that we conform and be the same so that we grow

up being just smart enough to work yet not smart enough to question why or start doing our own

thing. Kids, “learn how to learn,” which is a said by the author Amanda Lang’s in The Power of

Why. She goes on to say:

"Curious kids learn how to learn, and how to enjoy it – and that, more than any

specific body of knowledge, is what they will need to have in the future. The

world is changing so rapidly that by the time a student graduates from university,

everything he or she learned may already be headed toward obsolescence. The

main thing that students need to know is not what to think but how to think in

order to face new challenges and solve new problems." (p. 14)
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Common sense, if we just simply learn about a car, for example, then it will be nothing but an

accessory to our environment. If we didn’t learn how to get one, or even how to use one- the car

would be pointless. The same goes for thinking. Learning what to think just turns us into robots

whereas learning how to think is what has been keeping humanity going for so long. Computers

are told what to think; in fact, there are attempts to program computers and other artificial

intelligence how to think. Moving backwards at its finest. We’ve grown from teaching children

and programming computers to programming and brainwashing children and teaching robots. Is

that really growing? Is that really the advanced society we call it today? In the words of Shelby

Wright,

“Our school system doesn’t need to create kids who are good at school. Instead,

we need to create an environment that engages learners, fosters creativity, and

puts responsibility for learning where it belongs – with our students.”

School just prepares kids for more school. The system mistakes learning for memorization; even

then, most of the memorized information is forgotten in less than a year. School only

successfully prepares kids for more memorization, less questioning; more standardized testing,

less creativity, more uniformity, less uniqueness. In an online survey, 79% agreed hands down

that school destroys kids and their creativity. Again, Morrison defined higher education as an

education beyond high school provided by colleges, universities, graduate schools and

professional3 that teach students how to follow rules, conform to societal norms, and learn old

ideas through repetition, standardized testing, and busy work.4

Is school truly for the benefit of the children? How could it be when it removes the part of us

that makes us human?

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There’s no doubt about it- school is standardized education. It is crystal clear that “more

and more districts are ramping up the standardized exams to prepare students for the bigger

standardized exams they will take later in the year,” (Provenzano 1). In addition, because of this

systematic course creation, education transforms into “an act of depositing, in which the students

are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor,”(Freire). This fact is apparent in a multitude

of teachers. Furthermore, Paul Browning, a principal of Brisbane’s St Paul’s School, stated that

teachers are “rote teaching. [They’re] forced to teach to the test.” Why? Well, because of fear.

Fear of what exactly? Fear of failure. Well, according to Dr. Browning:

"It's that sort of control and fear, I suppose, of not achieving … what you think

you should be achieving, that creates those inhibitions and the language we use

when we're teaching young children which puts them in a place where they don't

want to take risks or try new things."

Therefore, because of a fear of failing, at a young age children force themselves to not think in a

way different from what is being taught. From there, they stop thinking outside the box, of

course. Then, once used to not having to do so, they are conditioned to not take risks. This

“failure” is completely made up and highly misleading. The standardized tests, in spite of what is

said, don’t actually measure your intelligence. It more so boxes out the creative thinkers-because

it’s standardized. In a systemized environment, there are an assortment of irrelevant and

excessive guidelines you must meet, standards which mean conformity. Although school is at

fault, this does not necessarily mean it is the teachers fault.

"We have a very crowded curriculum, so there's not a lot of room for children to

have time to be imaginative, to be creative. This crowded curriculum does restrict

teachers' willingness to spend time on a big question and delving into that. They
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have to move on to the next thing, otherwise the bell's going to go and we have to

move onto the next period," (Margetts)

Classes aren’t necessarily always fast paced; however, they are certainly not long enough to

include a good amount of creativity. The curriculums barely allow for any critical thinking or

serious questioning outside of whatever activity or study is going on. The average classroom of

today’s society consists of the teacher being an unquestionable authority. Everything and

everything the teacher says is right. No matter the circumstance, the teacher is smarter- because

they have a degree. This is another reason many students do not question things in class- slight

intimidation or threat of being removed from the classroom for disrupting or something of that

nature. There are several students who have experienced something like this. On the other hand,

there are students who have been removed from classes because their behavior or learning style

is not that of the desired system. No matter how many learning style test we take in each class-

the teachers barely care. Conversely, as before stated, it’s not their fault: the curriculum doesn’t

allow for a teacher to break down each unit and cater to each learning style. This does not justify

it well enough, though. Kicking those students out just causes a bigger problem which is

supposedly the point of school. In case it’s not obvious enough, if someone is kicked out of class,

more likely than not they aren’t learning the essential information for that class. They are

missing class and they are missing out on, “education.” It may be harder to cater to each learning

style, but the old saying is “the best decisions in life are never easy- “or something along those

lines. Would implanting this type of support disrupt the whole system? Of course, and this is a

long overdue change. Classes should at least acknowledge the other styles or switch things up

from time to time instead of slowly leading so many grades to their graves. Besides, if creativity

was encouraged in school, it may take some weight off the teacher’s shoulders. Based on Lang’s
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quote which is presented earlier, curious kids learn to learn- because they are curious. In

addition, because they are creative, they will ambitiously search for information to satisfy their

own needs, let alone find entertaining ways to do so. Lang goes on to say, “The main thing that

students need to know is not what to think but how to think to face new challenges and solve

new problems.” Instead, people are told what to think about new challenges and problems. This

goes back to the connection between innovators and inventors- if no one is taught how, people

won’t want to learn why. If people won’t look deeper than the surface, than who would solve

problems?

Many would argue that it’s ridiculous to assume that schools destroy creativity- we have

art classes and clubs even. You’d be wrong to assume that this is a correct statement. Majority of

schools in society fund sports teams- even if they are horrible. To be exact, at Western Guilford

High School, the art teachers, for the most part, take it upon themselves to provide the necessary

art materials. Meanwhile, a new gymnasium was built. This is not the schools fault, which is why

Western is not the blame, nor is any other individual school. It is past the fault of the county as

well. It is the fault of the whole system. Praising sports over the arts, multiplying the idea that it

is unlikely to go anywhere in life by being an artist of any kind. From a young age, many are told

to have a “back up plan.” This is just a nice way of saying give up. By not funding art classes

equally, whether AP 2D design, band, chorus, it breeds the idea that nobody cares about artist

that much. Nobody cares about creative thinkers, at least not as much as athletes or honor roll

students. The system chooses one way thinking, closed minded students over free thinking,

creative, adventurous individuals.

There are many ways to solve this issue of driving creativity to extinction. In a TED Talk,

Sir Ken states that " it's important that everyone practices the sciences in a creative and
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inquisitive way but I think it's equally important for them to practice the arts- “that balance is

vital. Just simply finding that balance, that equal support and encouragement goes a long way.

Other solutions are as easy as implementing creative activities into the curriculum. Some

“assignments” that won’t feel like assignments yet still involve critical thinking. If schools

provided entertaining assignments that are relevant to real life issues and situations, minds

nationwide would be activated. Instead, you only get a class like this usually when it’s too late:

senior year of high school. When nobody cares anymore, when students are institutionalized and

prefer a “normal” class, when creativity is already drained out of the mind, when individuals

have conformed and no longer think freely or even ask questions. By then, it’ll be too late. This

change needs to take place early on- elementary to middle school early on. Encourage creativity,

and actual learning over this standardized letter grade education system. In fact, outside of school

this action can take place. Encourage free thinking, creativity as well as questioning instead

forcing our kids to be someone they aren’t meant to be so early. Too many children worldwide

are being forced to wear shoes too big for them to fit; others are forced to squeeze into shoes too

small for them. Either way, kids are being shaped to be one way or another and it kills them.

This education system is killing our minds, our future. It is up to us to spread the

necessary motivation and fortification of creativity. Unless of course, you want to live in a

dependent, weak minded, slave powered dystopian society. The other alternative: remove a part

of the brains of those who refuse to think freely and creativity to speed up this process. If you

have the slightest bit of sanity, I’m assuming you wouldn’t want to be a victim of that. The

choice is yours. You can save the future by acting today, support your local small artist- whether

its financially or just providing some support, it goes a long way. Generations.
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Works Cited

Ascd. “Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson.” Educational

Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken

Robinson, www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept09/vol67/num01/Why-

Creativity-Now%C2%A2-A-Conversation-with-Sir-Ken-Robinson.aspx

“Creativity in the Classroom.” Edutopia, www.edutopia.org/blog/creativity-in-the-classroom-

nicholas-provenzano.

“Does School Kill Creativity?” Debate.org, www.debate.org/opinions/does-school-kill-

creativity.

Freire, Paulo. “PAULO FREIRE: CHAPTER 2 OF PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED.”

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-

2.html

Hogan, Finn. “Schools Kill Creativity - Education Expert.” Http://Www.newshub.co.nz,

www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/03/schools-kill-creativity-education-expert.html.

Khatib, Mira. “The World Is Changing, but Can Education Keep up?” www.thenational.ae/,

opinion/the-world-is-changing-but-can-education-keep-up-1.161186.
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Morrison, Emily. “To think Outside the Circle: How higher education killed creativity and the

future of innovation.”

https://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/law/centers/childlaw/earlyeducation/2014studentpapers/Morri

son.pdf

“The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching.” Http://Knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu,

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-objective-of-education-is-learning-not-teaching/.

“Why Academic Teaching Doesn't Help Kids Excel In Life.” KQED, 3 Sept. 2014,

www.kqed.org/mindshift/32681.

Wood, Patrick. “Is School 'Killing' Your Child's Creativity? And Does This Matter?” ABC

News, 15 Feb. 2017, www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-15/schools-and-teaching-are-they-killing-

creativity/8271362.