Creativity, killed by educational standards

“And now we’re running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is we’re educating people out of their creative capacity” -Ken Robinson

Though the argument can be made that the quality of and end results of public schools in America have improved over the last 50 years, not all aspects of public schools are catching up.

In today’s modern age, competition over jobs has reached a new cut-throat level, and public schools aren’t preparing students for the problems they will face in the real world. Furthermore, student creativity is being killed, definitely stifled by the constant standardized tests and unforgiving curriculum.

Ken Robinson is a critically acclaimed International Education Advisor, recognized for his special achievements in education and awarded with a Bammy Award in 2014.

Robinson supports the argument that schools are, in fact, the new version of creativity killers in his recent Ted Talk, which reached an astounding 41 million views and now holds the title of the most viewed Ted Talk ever.

Robinson and his many viewers share the idea that children are born with such a capacity for creativity and originality, and the strictness and standardization of public education teaches them out of it.

According to Robinson’s source from the College of William and Mary, Kyung Hee Kim, children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative, less humorous and imaginative, less unconventional and passionate, and less likely to see things from a different view, mainly due to all of the latest data-driven hype.

However, there are those that do not agree that multiple standardized tests and standard curriculum based assessments are truly killing student creativity.

The number of high school and college graduates is at an all-time high. The results collected by the National Assessment of Educations Progress test (NAEP), first administered in 1971, show that the NAEP scores, along with the nation’s opinion of our public schools, have vastly improved.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2015, 33.5 percent of Americans ages 25 to 29 had at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to a meager 21.9 percent in 1975. By these statistics, public schools in America are doing their job, and better than ever.

Yet, the percentage of Americans with bachelor’s degrees and an increase in NAEP test scores doesn’t truly measure the quality of our schools. Our education system is fostering the wrong ideals, valuing standardization over uniqueness, and equating thinking outside the box with failure.

According to businessindsider.com, Robinson states that when the education system around the world was invented in the 19^th century, the curriculum and teaching style was centered on the needs of that time: Industrialism. Now in the 21st century, not changing the system to fit the times causes an ineffective result in adequately preparing students for the real world. Industry jobs no longer are the predominant career path for American’s. Most jobs now require creative thinking and problem solving; two skills that public schools don’t think are valuable enough to fit in the busy curriculum.

It’s no longer the 19^th century. We are more than capable of improving our education system to be as rewarding and useful as possible to the students which rely on it. Focusing on actual learning opposed to grades, and rewarding new original thinking instead of punishing it are changes that should and can still happen.

Leaders in education need to recognize that there are better ways to teach the material to students, other than with the constant bombardment of standardized tests. Educators need to see that there is more relevant and important information that can be taught.

Education is what helps students to learn and grow, and when that ceases to be true, then there simply needs to be a change.