Passion and Creativity

Passion and Creativity

             “Hey! What did you get for the score?” “Is this right?” “No, the answer for this is number 3!” “Oh, no!” These are the similar sentences and sound that is heard in the classroom every time after an exam. As I heard this over and over again, I began to think why they are so clinging to the tests that are all over. Of course, scores are important. Wait, are they important at all? Than what is important? What do we earn from good scores? Why are we studying in the first place? I had these questions for a long time in my head but couldn’t get clear answers. However, Ken Robinson cleared everything with his talk in TED. Out of all the talk, there were two sentences that cleared my head the most – one about mistakes and another one about universities.

             First, “And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make” said Mr. Robinson. I couldn’t agree more. Ever since I was in elementary school, I was taught of the ‘right answers’. There were no other answers except the ones that the teachers told. As this process continued through middle school, the idea of ‘one right answer’ came to be a restriction that bound me down from thinking more than what I was told to be right. Every time I tried to propose something different than the answer, it was considered to be ‘mistakes’ and received a punishment called ‘bad scores on the test’. As I took more tests, these mistakes turned out to be the worst thing I could do. However, are these mistakes ‘wrong’? I don’t think so. In my opinion, mistakes are what generate development. Through our mistakes, we learn how to avoid it and think about a better way.  Mistakes cause us to analyze and ponder over the problems. On the other hand, being taught about one right answer causes us not to think, only to memorize. Over time, this memorization of answers that public education gives restricts our creative thinking and imagination, bringing no progress at all.

             Second, “If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance” said Mr. Robinson. He is absolutely right. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford… we all hear about how great are these top and prestigious universities around the globe. After that, we hear how awesome and successful it is to attend to such universities. However, is being accepted to one of the top universities around the world the only way to define ourselves successful? I think not. There are numerous people that our society defines as ‘successful’ who didn’t graduate top universities and same number of people that our society defines ‘failed’ who attended top universities. Society defines people successful when they attain certain amount of income and earn respect from people around them. Although that may be true for some people, in my opinion, being successful is being happy with our lives. Of course, it is true that there’s more chance of being happy with much income and respect. Still, money and popularity doesn’t guarantee anyone anything. I think doing what you can put your best passion into can guarantee a happy life. Without passion, you will be bored or easily frustrated and even get stress from what you are doing sooner or later. Unfortunately, our public education doesn’t give us much chance to search over what we are passionate about. Public education is all about studying and going to universities. However, allowing time to find out what we are truly passionate about is the only way to let us grow up to what we want to be and bring about great developments, as Ken Robinson mentioned in Gillian Lynne episode.

             As some readers are reading this essay, they might think “so what?” Mr. Robinson did an excellent job on pointing out what kind of problems that public education has, but never gave any solutions to the actual problem. Come to think of it, it is our job to find the solutions. In my opinion, those who have to change in order to solve the problem that mentioned in the paragraph above are the parents. Most parents share the same ideas with the public education since they went through that kind of education as a child. It’s the parents who force their children to do what children don’t really want to do and it’s the parents who emphasize the importance of receiving good grades to go to good universities. Everywhere in our education, parents are there to restrict and bind us down. Some parents may not, but most of them do. We need to break their paradigm. The education that our parents went through may have required only one answers and good universities, those are not true in our generation. In our generation, what we need is creativity and passion. We need creativity that drives us forward outside of the same, old box and need the passion that can keep us going no matter how difficult our job is. Parents have to change in order for us to attain creativity and passion.

             As we live through the 21^st century, we are flooded with the change of educational paradigm. Only few decades ago, getting the answers right and going to good universities could guarantee people satisfactory life. However, those kinds of things don’t happen these days. The 21^st century society requires us to have both creativity and passion - creativity for innovation and passion for devotion to the work. Unfortunately, public education today is blocking the students away from those qualities. It is doing so by having only one right answer and by being only focused for the university entrance. As Ken Robinson mentioned, this must change. Not only the parents, but students must change too. We must search thoroughly about what we are passionate about and try to think outside the box. We must remember, public education don’t form our intelligence – it only aids us form it. With our efforts, combined with the aid from public education, we will be able to change. Through that change, we will earn two things – creativity and passion – two ingredients that can drive us forward today.

September 23, 2011
10b4 111080
You Jun Seung