George+M’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2016

=**Pursuing Creativity in General Education**= I would like to address an issue that seems to be of a great importance to me, namely how creative thinking is taught to high school students in the United States of America. I find it important, because our current political and technological advantage has been created by people capable of “out-of-the-box” thinking and finding non-standard solutions to the toughest problems and challenges. America is famous for Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Alva Edison, JFK, and Steve Jobs. But in nowadays our country seems to be losing the edge in the world-wide competition for the leadership. Why is this happening? I believe that the roots of the problem lie in the way how creativity is supported and nourished in students by the public education system. Indeed, since the beginning of Pre-algebra all the way up to the present time, math teachers have been prompted to let the student know there is most likely more than one way to solve a problem. Yet they go along teaching the curriculum in one fashion, plugging in numbers into a formula leading the student to imitate and follow. Realistically, the student only learns to emulate what the teacher has presented, not expanding further into the creative aspect of their mind, restraining the capabilities students are able to present. As children going through kindergarten through twelfth grade are brainwashed to act in the way suggested by textbooks. Creativity and critical thinking are what allows us to embrace the most complex aspects of our surroundings. Yet, the society we live in today does not encourage it. Every student is forced to cram, memorize, forget, rinse, and repeat. School is single handedly limiting people's potential to be creative. In the grand scheme of things, a majority of schools seemingly manipulate children to act as robots, mannequins, and mind-controlled individuals. With such decline society entails us to be just average or below average, which is something none of us want to be. In a study conducted in 1968, George Land attempted to see which age groups ranging from years 5-15, and 280,000 random adults, could perform with the highest levels of creativity. Astoundingly 5 year olds performed with a 98% tendency to be creative versus the random adult group having only a 2% tendency. The published study concludes with the statements that creativity can be taught and incorporated but not by sitting through zombie-like lecture after lecture, but by creative thinking processes. At Foothill Technology, we undervalue the amount of critical thinking taught to us. If Mr. Fitz hadn’t constantly pushed us to make historical connections, or Mrs. Kindred hadn’t shown us multiple ways to write essays and analyze text we wouldn’t be as near as successful as we are today. Those aspects in teaching is what earns the students a 5 on an AP exam or an acceptance letter to their school or choice. Many schools aren’t privileged with what some our faculty are able to do teaching-wise and the opportunities our school provides for us. We have all seen those stereotypical “ rich kid” high schools with the freedom to move around, share ideas, and becoming enlightened by many amazing teachers. It is the entire system of high risk and high reward, even though we aren’t the most “rich kid” school in the nation, we obviously see the benefits that arise. I personally know most of the APUSH students at Ventura/Buena who aren’t taught to make connection or stimulate ideas on their own, leading to not remembering important events and the classic “I’m screwed for the APUSH test”. It isn’t a mystery that the top high schools and colleges couple? with critical thinking to gain high test scores and national rankings. It’s ultimately what every future college, job, and opportunity are looking for. Prestigious schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Brown aren’t looking to pursue a students only with a 4.7 GPA and a perfect SAT score. They are now looking for applicants who are able to establish a creative style reflecting excellent academics and outside achievements. Good grades just don’t cut it anymore. I propose not to create a new class, but to incorporate critical thinking more thoroughly into the high school curriculum by diminishing standardized tests and focusing on how everything is taught. Standardized testing is a shallow way of reflecting how a student has progressed through high school and about 90% of you probably agree with me. But enough of school, why should you care about creativity? Without creative thinking we wouldn’t have our favorite movies from Disney or Pixar. In the long run, people might still believe the sun revolves around the earth. The modern day airplane most likely wouldn’t have a large wingspan. The standard car wouldn’t have four wheels. Cities wouldn’t be built of skyscrapers. And Albert Einstein would have never been able to imagine how space behaves beyond our knowledge. You see ladies and gentleman, I want to live in an America where the educational system doesn’t reduce the importance of our creativity. Because as Albert himself said “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

http://www.creativityatwork.com/2012/03/23/can-creativity-be-taught/
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