Devin Warner 11/17/13 Lucia Elden Eng 111

Why Cant I Be Creative?

In college, some students have problems writing papers that involve using any creativity at all. This can be because of a multitude of different causes that can really devastate the abilities of the student. It seems that the total transition from high school to college can be the nail in the coffin for these students. The two main factors that affect the transition are different teaching styles and high school teachers inefficiently preparing students for college. These problems are evident and must be overcome in order for the student to succeed in their college classes. It seems that high school teachers have a knack for not preparing their students for their classes that they will take in college. As Mr. Frisch, a Physics teacher from Farwell High School, once said and continues to say, Students are taught to be parrots by their teachers. Whatever the teacher says, the teacher expects the students to say right back. No more, no less. There is little creativity on the students part. I would rather you be thinkers than parrots. All students really have to do is repeat what the teacher says and then write it on the test. Creativity is not required by the student at all. Everything that is needed to be done is laid out right in front of the students face. It is then required that the student complete the assignment exactly as it is laid out in the instructions or they risk getting a bad grade on the assignment, or even in the entire class. It is bad because the student is not taught how to think at a college level. The objective of high school is to prep students for college and then, the real world. With inadequate teaching methods that embargos the creativity that lies in the minds of the students, it can cause them to become

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lost. These students are being sent into the woods without a map. How can the student be expected to be creative in a paper if they have no idea on how to do it and have been repressed over their high school years? These students are being set up for failure which makes their lives, and doing college assignments, really frustrating. How is a student supposed to learn if they dont put a little piece of themselves into what they are doing? In short, they really dont learn much. On many occasions after the class is over, the information is lost as it is no longer considered needed. How does this help prepare the student for college when college encourages the pupil to think on their own and use a bit of themselves in the assignments they are working on? Realistically, it doesnt. Paulo Freire, a refugee of Brazil and now, a professor at Harvard University, would agree with the opinions that Mr. Frisch has created about the educational system. These similarities in ideas can be seen in Freires article The Banking Concept of Education when Freire brings this idea to the forefront: The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interest of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see them transformed. (242) It is obvious by analyzing this quote that Freire does certainly share some of the same ideas as Mr. Frisch. Freire makes it blatant that students do have their creative minds suppressed by teachers trying to get their students to learn. Freire also mentions the fact that the teachers are

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not trying to reveal the world to their students. The quote also brings up the fact that students are not being transformed by their teachers. The development of students is minimal which means that because of the minimalistic mentality of the high school teachers to develop their students, the students will end up not being prepared for college in the future. Freire backs his hypothesis up with another quote. Friere produces that, Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power. (245) The students are just puppets that bend to the whim of their teacher oppressors. Just plain automatons programmed by their teachers to think a certain way and do things in a particular way. What happens if the teaching style is inefficient though? This can really handicap that students ability to think about and complete their assignments. The students dont know how to be creative with synthesis. They just see the assignment and the sources to synthesize too broadly and dont look for very small, yet creative way to connect their sources. When the high school students transition into college classes, they realize really how underprepared they are for this change. In college, students are encouraged to be creative rather than to just learn between the lines. Students are also thrown head-on into assignments which make them use their brains and creativity in order to reach their goal. The transition to college reveals high school teachers inadequate teaching methods and how much they actually suppress the students creative abilities with little exception.

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The students must use what they have learned in high school, which can be very minimalistic, in order to complete these assignments. Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb, cowriters of the articles Two Metaphors for Learning and The Novice Writer proclaim, Knowledge belongs to groups of people who have some shared stake in exploring, preserving, and expanding it. The outsider must acquire knowledge from insiders, usually through some form of an apprenticeship. (221) These gentlemen are conveying the message that the student must learn a subject from a master or teacher of the subject. But, what if the information the teacher is conveying is not adequate? Students will become lost in a sea of information that they cannot begin to understand. Without the ability to be creative, it is hard for the information presented to be remembered in a creative way by the students. This information can have the tendency to get lost in the wash within the students mind. High school teachers are just as human as their students. These teachers can form biases on the content that theyre teaching. These biases can further suppress a students chances to use their creative minds. Just as in Christopher Laschs article The Lost art of Political Argument, these biases can be counterproductive and possibly destructive to a students creative mind. Lasch, an American historian who worked at the University of Rochester, use a quote by Walter Lippmann, founder of modern journalism, to make the previous point evident when he indicates, Questions of substance should be decided by knowledgeable administrators whose access to reliable information immunized them against the emotional symbols and stereotypes that

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dominated public debate. (293) If it is thought that officials with stereotypes and biases are not fit to lead, then why should it be expected that someone with these same stereotypes and biases be fit to teach students? If a high school teacher, or any teacher for that matter, forms a bias against creativity, then this puts a huge strain on the student. Just like Frieres quote earlier, these teachers can become even more oppressive when they add on these biases. This puts the student in a more disadvantageous position where success can become something of a myth, more a lost cause than an obtainable goal. With this much resistance, it is harder to develop complex ideas within a students creative mind. Students must learn how to cope with such a huge obstacle in order to save their academic lives. Technology has had a huge effect on the creativity Students have more technology in their pockets than was ever thought possible in histories past. An endless world of creativity is available in technology is available to students and teachers and yet is sometimes vastly overlooked. But this technology cannot be ignored by high school teachers forever. This ties in well to a quote made by Neil Postman. Neil Postman, a renowned writer, makes the case: The technology is here or will be; we must use it because it is there; we will become the kind of people the technology requires us to be, and whether we like it or not, we will remake our institutions to accommodate technology. All of this must happen because it is good for us, but in any case, we have no choice. (599)

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This quote makes it evident that technology is the future of education. Eventually, this technology will take over the classroom. Then why is it so hard to allow this technology into the classroom. The technology will allow students to display their creative side in a variety of fashions. Assignments wouldnt just be isolated to writing a paper in Microsoft Word. High school teachers could assign projects online where a students creativity can blossom into a project that may surprise the teacher. High school teachers should consider this option as it is one of the main solutions to the creativity crisis. To conclude, creativity is plays a huge part in a students learning and writing processes which should be embraced rather than suppressed. Students would be more active in their work and would be able to learn the material easier if they are allowed to be creative. Students shouldnt be forced to act like marionettes bending to the strings that the teacher pulls. Students should be given some free reign to do assignments in a more creative way and possibly, in a way that would really surprise the teacher. High school teachers could also use more technology to allow their students to have more vehicles to create more creative projects. With this technology, hopefully the creativity crisis can be averted in the near future, finally releasing these students from the cruel, cold grip of creativity suppression.

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Citations

Works Cited
Colomb, Joseph Willliams & Gregory G. "Two Metaphors For Learning and The Novice Writer." Composing Knowledge, Readings for College Writers 18 Nov 2007: 221. Freire, Paulo. "The "Banking" Concept of Education." Composing Knowledge, Readings for College Writers 18 Nov 2013: 242,245. Lasch, Christopher. "The Lost Art of Political Argument." Composing Knowledge, Readings for College Writers September 1990: 293. Postman, Neil. "Virtual Students, Digital Classroom." Composing Knowledge, Reading for College Writers 9 October 1995: 599.