Lack of creativity may stifle education

Unwittingly, some professional educators are marketing college to K-12 students based on the amount of money as a way to success. This may be a case of good intentions with bad results. By inference, are students being told they are failures because they won't make as much money as college graduates? As a society, do we want to measure success by how much money one makes?

Furthermore, what happens to those students who have no interest in college, those with no money to pay tuition, and those who have untapped intelligence but are not academically inclined? And what about those students who have found their passion and can't wait to explore and learn more about achieving their dreams?

Most disturbing is that we may be losing a great pool of intelligent, creative and innovative students because they don't fit the mold of how our educational systems — K-12 and higher education — test for academic intelligence. Our K-12 system is not designed to let students use different learning styles such as aural, visual and kinesthetic.

Make no mistake, if our nation is to compete with other nations that are graduating more science and engineering students, then we must accelerate our efforts to educate our own. Globalization has changed our world, where creativity and innovation are the talents needed for a nation to compete in today's knowledge-based economy.

More and more organizations, including business and the National Association of Governors, are realizing that imagination, creativity and innovation are the currency needed to succeed. The Rainbow Project, a study funded by the College Board, the organization that administers the SAT, found that adding creative, practical and common sense parts to the test better predicted a student's collegiate success and narrowed the scoring discrepancy between ethnic groups (Newsweek, Aug. 14, 2006).

Most students already know that a college education can increase their earning potential. What they don't see is the connection with what they are learning in school and future job prospects. Furthermore, many teachers don't have the opportunity to understand today's job market and the skills needed to succeed. Matter of fact, some teachers today often ask, "Why am I teaching this?" The No Child Left Behind program creates an assembly-line classroom that does not allow teachers to challenge, discover and build upon the imagination and passion that lies within the mind and heart of every child. Once a student's passion is ignited, the search for knowledge is endless.

But don't look for either our K-12 or higher education establishments to change the current system. Change must come from without. It is unrealistic to expect the mid-managers and special interest groups to allow change to happen. They may make cosmetic changes, talk about collaboration, but circle the wagons and kill the messenger. Their solutions are to call for more studies and blame the Legislature for not giving them more money.

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