Essay 3

From a young age, the idea of Success is a topic drilled into our highly absorbent and sponge-like adolgescent minds. We are predisposed to think of success as a combination of school, high test scores, college and eventually a career with lack of any creative thinking in the midst of it all. In an article from Harper’s Magazine, John Gatto writes “We have been taught … to think of ‘success’ as synonymous with [or dependent upon] ‘schooling.’” However it isn’t success that comes from school, but from education itself with just a bit of creativity sprinkled on top. Teaching each student the same curriculum the same way would be a lucrative route to teaching if each student were exactly the same. Fortunately, we are not ergo the numerous methods of teaching and learning available to America today. Although not all of these methods may be the “right” way, there is no determining the wrong way. Passion, critical thought and curiosity are key elements in the upbringing of young scholars. The next step is to apply these elements and bring light to the creativity of the brilliant young minds that make up our forthcoming generation.

            At just the tender age of six, students are put into a classroom with roughly twenty-five others of the same basic qualifications. Here they are expected to inhale a mouthful of information, digest it, and spit it back out in the form of a test score. These test scores are what determines a student’s academic success. Keyword: academic. It is these scores that have the potential to build students up or tear them down, academically and emotionally.  However, not all students have the same type of digestive system so to speak. Learning is diverse whether it is auditory, visual, kinesthetic, abstract, etc. and the expectation of each student learning the same information, the same way, in the same amount of time is foolish and nonsensical. This is our educational system’s biggest fault. Instead of shoving useless information down a throat that will throw it back up, the real consideration should be the student’s talents and passions, where they are able to flourish into something that is greater than any equation could ever be. In a 2006 TED lecture, Ken Robinson talks about how the most potentially brilliant students are lead to believe that they are unintelligent because what they are good at wasn’t valued in school. This feeling of incapability is unhealthy for students and can carry on later in their adult lives. Rather than feeding them information that they will never put to use, they should be focusing on what they are good at and coached on how to further blossom their fostering potential. One-on-one learning with the students gives teachers the opportunity to really target each student’s individual strong suits. Here they are able to openly communicate and express any excitement or concerns that they have, all while exploring and igniting sparks in their own colorful minds.

            We are coached to go to school so that we can get a job and go to work. Ensue, we become successful. This is a system based solely on industrialism that dates back to the beginning of schooling where students would grow up to become workers. Today however, there is much more to “success” than becoming an industrial employee. In fact, a very small percentage of students nowadays go to school for industrialism due to the endless opportunities provided in today’s booming job market. Often these opportunities are overlooked and students feel the obligation to continue an education that they care very little about because that is what the rest of the world is doing. After being taught for so long that conformity is a valuable approach to life, you begin to believe it. In Bell Hooks’ book Teaching Critical Thinking, she states “… children’s passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only.” Constant conformity is a hard habit to break, especially for those being brought up in a system that encourages it. This is where students find themselves with lack of any individualism, thinking the same way and evolving in each other’s shadows. The key is to realize this and to take the steps to stray from it, avoiding acquiescence and paving a path made for the student, by the student. This opens their frame of reference, allowing choices and introducing opportunities for creating their own success.

            There are those able to learn independently, using their own inner dialogues and applying personal methods to solve puzzling situations in their day to day lives. Then there are those who are dependent upon our education system, sending their children off to let the paid educators do all the teaching for them. Although classrooms are reputable for where learning happens, to think that they are the only source for legitimate education is extremely close-minded. The real classroom is at home and the real teachers are our mentors. It is the parent’s job to plant ideas in the minds of their child from a young age. This provides food for thought, inspiring them to explore, consider and question the new concepts introduced to them. In his article Against School, John Gatto says “we could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness- curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight …”As opposed to denying their right to those qualities, giving them the impression that curiosity won’t get them a career, but going to school will. These qualities play an essential role in the fundamental growth of a student’s conscience. As Ken Robinson said, “we have to see our creative capacities for the richness that they are and we have to see our children for the hope that they are.” Encouraging leadership, independence and fruitful thinking from a young age can lay down a clear path for an evolving, bright young mind.

Having the ability to think freely, explore the mind and apply multiple perspectives to daily life are fundamental elements in showing exceptional leadership qualities. With a society brought up educationally equal, leadership isn’t a common trait found among today’s youth. Finding a voice within themselves gives students hope in creating a bright future. Although there may be no changing the current educational system in America, there are steps to take to lead your kids astray from curriculum that they will not find beneficial and from conforming into un-individual robots who lack thought. Realize what they are good at, embolden their talents and allow their passions to prosper. Recognize creativity, encourage curiosity, challenge their minds and their hearts will follow. After using such an out of date method for educating for so long, take the opportunity to change it for yourself and your children. As Ken Robinson said when speaking to his peers, “we may not see this future, but they will.”

WORK CITED

·         Robinson, Ken. “How schools kill creativity.” TED 2006 February 2006. <https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity>

·         Gatto, John. “Against School” Harper’s Magazine September 2009. http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

·         Hooks, Bell. Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom (2010)

New York, London: Routledge. 7-21.

·         Freire, Paolo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970. Chapter 2

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