An Inconveniant Truth: Schools Crush Creativity

Something that really makes me upset is how schools sometimes tend to put down students for creative thoughts. This particular subject brings us back to my time during gradeschool at O.L.P.H. While attending school there, i found myself being continuosly shot down by my art teacher, Ms. Kadolf. If you talk to anyone that came out of OLPH, i can almost guarentee you that they have had the same experience with her.

At OLPH, i found myself trying to break free many times from the normalities of assignments. There was never any independent pieces of work, we had no freedom to experiment, and the worst part is i always got shot down. Many times i would get pretty upset, try to argue, and then eventually get sent down the office for a slap on the wrist.

I was reminded of this while Mr. Burman gave his TED presentation. As he talked about schools starting to disrupt the 'flow' of students by not allowing them to be expressive, i was constantly thinking about how much of a terrible time i had at OLPH.

What is interesting about looking at this now, is that i dont feel supressed by the teachers here at GBS as i feel towards OLPH. There has been very few times where i was repremanded in any class, even including math. This is probably the main reason why i enjoy my time at GBS more than most students. By having classes such as Humanities, woodshop, CAD, and ceramics, there were endless opportunities to be creative, and that is why i love it.

So yes, I do believe that there are some schools that crush the opportunity to be creative, but at the same time there are institutions that let creativity prosper. As i ride on into the future and go to college, i feel that i will be presented with more ways to be creative, and i will continue to prosper as i have at south.