What this world REALLY wants.

Title : What this world Really Wants

10b2, MinSun Park (박민선)

Final Draft : Sep. 10, Due Date : Sep. 23

Every word he spoke was like a precious jewelry to me; after watching the video of Ken Robinson, I clapped my hands, just like a reflex. Then I thought, ‘Wow, this guy is the greatest speech maker in the whole world! I am so convinced!’ But then I thought about what he said for a little while and soon found out that although I completely agree with him on some level, I had some points that contradict with his idea.

As he said, students are criticized and punished if they don’t follow the rules. Therefore they only concentrate on fitting in the restricted path, not even thinking of crossing the line even the slightest. When they do, they are complemented and prized of what they did. This repetition of cycle teaches everybody to only follow the fixed route, slowly changing not only their body, but also their mind and brain, ‘ruthlessly’ destroying their creativity, a great gift they were born with.

Scientists say, as people get older, their brain usually atrophies slowly. However, I don’t think that is the actual case. As people get older, they are literally ‘trained’ to go through a certain path, not being able to stretch their imagination as much as they want.

It’s like the alleory of flea, a story that is prevalent in Korea. Imagine that there is a flea which can normally jump up to three to four meters high, but humans cage them in 20 centimeters high box. The flea keeps on try to get out of the box by jumping as high as it could, but then realize that it will only bump on the ceiling of the box no matter how high it jumps. Later, the flea stops trying and only jumps up to the top of the box, and even if human let the flea get out of the box, it can only jump up to 20 centimeters high, no more than that. Majority of our education system is treating students like this flea. Education confines the ability of students at the start.

Some people might think, ‘What is so important about creativity? So what if students grow out of creativity?’ Nonetheless, the world has changed. It now wants a lot of creatively talented people. For instance, Google is well known for its unusual work environment, for the purpose of pulling out much creativity as possible. The following video clip introduces us how the work environment in Google helps workers to regain creativity.

             Also, Samsung is now in a great crisis because it lacks talents who can produce softwares. Ahn Chul Soo, the most respected CEO of Korea, quoted, ‘If Korean companies cannot get enough creative talents like they do now, these companies will collapse pretty soon. The main reason why Samsung was always behind Apple was because it lacked creativity.’ Struck by this, Lee Gun Hee, the President of Samsung company, ordered the department of human resources to fill up over 20% of company’s workforce with creative talents who are able to produce innovative softwares. Likewise, the world is now craving for creativity, which even strengthens the argument that we should revolutionize education.

In this way, Ken Robinson is right about the education ruining creativity of the students, but I do not agree when he said that it is wrong to teach mathematics everyday and teach dancing or music once a week. This educational system is certainly inevitable for both the students and the global society. In other words, the world needs this system, for the following reasons.

First, it definitely will not be easy to change the whole system of the world in which we can make enough money through practicing dancing or singing everyday. As we can see by world singers and their sad episodes of their growth stories, it takes tremendous effort to earn enough money to feed themselves or their families. Of course, to be on the top of a certain field in any kind of genres, it will be difficult, but in case of art or music, there is no guarantee that you will earn enough money to feed yourself. You would either starve or be a millionaire. Nowadays, there has been emergence of a lot of regular occupations such as character designers at manufacturing companies. However, these kinds of jobs have very narrow entrance opportunities, therefore difficult to be in one. Of course, if one is passionate enough on certain field that money doesn’t matter at all, one can choose to be an artist or a dancer. However, most of the human beings, if they care about themselves and their future, they choose to take a safe path, in which they have to wear white shirts.

Second, the global world needs white collar people in order to get itself working. With people dancing and singing all the time, of course more audience will get great quality of entertainment. But then if too much of the population in the company and government moves to other fields, it is pretty obvious that this world will collapse, and will no longer develop.

            When we make important decisions, always look for what this world wants and requires. This may seem like a small-minded step for some reformers, but it IS a realistic step to take.

My Favorite Quotes from Ken Robinson (directly quoted):

I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it.

What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.