Education Reform: Teaching How to Think, Not What to Think

When was the last time you witnessed a student, of any age, claim he or she was excited for school? Looking forward to studying? Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed waiting by the door for the bus? Probably never. The education system is just a series of steps getting you to the next level of schooling, and this journey is becoming increasingly long with academic inflation. People spend the best years of their lives pursuing a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree and eventually a Ph. D. And not everyone gets hired, for the skill set needed to land a job in our ever-evolving society changes perpetually.

The education system is proving ineffective because we are teaching students the wrong things. There seems to be a universal hierarchy in schools all over the nation: an emphasis on literacy, math, and science, and a depletion of the arts. The former teaches formulas and organized thought, and the latter emphasizes creativity. But as we continue to cut the arts nationwide, do we see an improvement in the education students receive? In our evolving society, we must teach creativity so students learn to adapt to change, rather than teach them a curriculum that expires before it can be used in the real world.

Thoreau captures this sentiment eloquently: “What does education often do? It makes a right cut ditch of free, meandering brook.” As it turns out, many of the people who we regard as the literary, scientific, and innovative geniuses of both our time and history books have it out for traditional schooling. Einstein. Gates. Jobs. Judging by their impact on our world, I might have to agree.

A few years back, Ken Robinson did a TEDxLecture called “School Kills Creativity.” In this lecture, he discusses the unpredictability of the future—in the long run—and even five years from now. We don’t know what the future holds, hence teaching static information seems irrelevant. Instead we should teach creativity so that we can be prepared for the unsure future. He claims that we are born free thinkers and we get educated out of creativity. Just think back to your early childhood. Remember how those students who always did the assigned work, followed the arbitrary rules of the classroom, and sat quietly with their hands folded on their desk were praised? And how students who do anything but that were diagnosed with a “learning disorder?”

Michael Michalko, another advocate of teaching creativity and author of “Creative Thinking,” has a whole reservoir of quotes ready to chuck at you on the topic. Similar to Robinson, he claims “everyone is born a creative, spontaneous thinker, but people create mental blocks that keep them trying something new.” Referencing the famous fact that Edison came up with 3000 prototypes before inviting the light bulb, he encourages people to “desire success, but embrace failure” as well as “listen to experts but know how to disregard them.” If his ideas were employed on a daily basis, I think we would see more innovation and less fear of failure. Because failure is inevitable, embracing it creates a positive learning experience, rather than a creativity killer.

I’m highly interested in education reform because I think a solid education, like the one discussed above, is the solution to many problems—with the least important being low test scores. What problem in our society couldn’t be fixed, or at least improved, by innovative and creative thinking? I’m not embarrassed to admit that I shed a tear or two during the film Freedom Writers. I’ve always been sensitive to the topic because I feel I’ve been shaped by traditional schooling—at first a product of it and eventually an adversary.

When I was a little kid, I could draw a sentence much more clearly than I could write it. My teachers told me I was a gifted artist, but also told me to focus on academics. I tried to integrate creativity into my daily life, but it got harder as school progressed and college loomed in the imminent future. By the time I graduated high school, I was the poster child of traditional schooling. Straight A’s. More extra-curriculars than I could count on my hands. Acceptance letters from great universities. But stressed to the point of sickness. School wasn’t fun—it seemed like a never-ending job.

Sometimes I regret the decisions I made in high school, but then I remember if I hadn’t been such an obsessive student, I wouldn’t have gotten into USC. And now that I’m here, I’ve realized it’s time to control my education, instead of letting my education control me. I take classes that seem interesting and study parts of the textbooks and lectures that intrigue me. Sure I don’t have a 4.0 GPA anymore, but I look forward to school. I get excited to study because I focus on the material that interests me most. Rather than having a temporary storage box of material I forced myself to memorize, I have a free flowing consciousness of information I want to know. Taking art classes again, I’m encouraged to be creative and to think outside the box on a daily basis. And I can honestly say I like school now. I’m lucky to have had this epiphany, because many students don’t. But If schools taught how to think, rather than what to think, this could be the mindset from day one.