Assignment 2: What are schools for?

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Han Jong Hyun, 한종현

           Ken Robinson argued in his video that schools kill creativity. He mentioned in his speech that children go to school, replacing their creativity with “education” such as mathematics, history and so on. From my perspective as a student, I believe that what Ken Robinson said is an undeniable truth, and schools do “assassinate” the students’ creativity and the students do not even realize it.

           Firstly, by enforcing a law on students regarding the dress code, students lose creativity of expressing themselves with different clothes. There is a quote that says clothes are an effective way of expressing yourself, and when judging others, clothes they are wearing play a major role. However at schools, students ought to wear the same uniform with the same hairstyle. This conformity restricts them to sheer education, and one is unable to see any thoughts of their own flowing. Therefore, they lose a right to show themselves, resulting in destroyed creativity. For example, our school, Korean Minjok Leadership Academy requires students to wear hanbok, which are the Korean traditional clothes. If one forgets to wear it, he gets demerit points, which can get him expelled if accumulated. However in an international school I previously attended to called Overseas Family School, a uniform is not a necessity. Students are free to wear whatever they want unless they are not too flamboyant. I am sure that a dress code has nothing to do with education, and students should be given freedom to choose what they want to wear.

           In addition, examinations held at schools get rid of students’ creativity. All the students study and learn the same content, and take exams that are from what they have learnt. Also, some teachers have the same format of setting the questions, which means the students have to only study according to that format. The ostensible main purpose of these examinations is to test how much the students understood. However, what the students aim is to get all the questions correct so that they can score high for their GPA. As students only focus on getting a high grade rather than focusing on understanding what they have learnt and develop their own thoughts from the lectures given, they are slowly turning into robots memorizing textbooks. If examinations testing content of textbooks continue, the least creativity remaining in the students will soon be annihilated. Instead, schools should focus more on assessments that require the students’ own thoughts such as setting up experiments of their own.

           Some might argue that students learn and revise the given content, and from that rudimental knowledge, they learn the skill to develop their own creative thinking. However, you have to understand that this so-called main purpose of schools is constantly changing its form. Now, most students memorize what they are given blindly rather than trying to grasp and comprehend what the lecturer has mentioned. Therefore, these students are unable to apply what they have memorized in real-life situations, resulting in failure of creativity.

           Let us go back and think about what schools are built for. Are schools built for conformation in the society? I do not think so. How about creativity? Maybe yes. Schools were originally built to raise the potential minds of people to the highest level so that our world can advance and change into a better place to live in. If we do not go back to our fundamental purpose of schools, our future generation will turn into robots with no genuine thoughts of their own. So let us go back. Let us go back and start from the infrastructure.

Assignment #1

Hi, this is Han Jong Hyun from 10b4. I am new to KMLA as I joined this school on monday. Anyway, what kind of writer are you? I think I do enjoy writing, even though I have not written much so far. However, I have written few essays, mostly argumentative preparing for SAT. in this piece of work, I will introduce my concept of writing.

To me, writing is a means of expressing myself, where I can scavange for words that correctly describe who I am. Therefore, writing has always approached to me in a friendly manner whenever I felt blue. I could play around with words I have never seen before, and was free to talk about whatever I want, whether sensical or nonsensical.

As I have mentioned in the introduction, I am quite strong in writing argumentative essays. I know how to structure an argumentative essay well, elaborating my supporting ideas precisely in body paragraphs. However, my word choice skill is deteriorating as I have not looked at my Word Smart for ages. Maybe my memory span is extremely short; if I do not use certain words I have memorized for about two weeks, they just disappear. In addition, like the author Hemingway my style of writing is rather simple and concise. Obviously the difference between Hemingway and me is that Hemingway intended to write in that simple style when I lack the skill to describe a certain experience or view in detail, or easily wield compound sentences.

I definitely need to read more books to learn how to phrase sentences in different ways. I need to touch on as many authors as possible, so that I roughly get the idea of different styles of writing. Reading will also help me to improve my vocabulary, so it is killing two birds with one stone. To further improve my vocabulary, I have to start looking at my Word Smart again. I should not only look at the meaning of the words, but also memorize the examples so that I get to know how those words are used in sentences.

I remember I wrote an essay about my favorite item in the world some time ago. I wrote about pebbles, which I really found marvelous and colorful when I was young. I really liked this essay, because of the way how I described different types of pebbles according to their colors and sizes. I even compared them with fairies of the forest, and I am really proud of the metaphors and similes I used in that essay. If I get the chance, I will upload it on this blog some time.

Lastly, I look forward to be studying with Mr. Garrioch. I believe that he is a great English teacher, and I hope that he can guide me whenever I have trouble. I just hope that my English class with Mr. Garrioch does not end up being a total fiasco, so I have to study harder and write more essays.