Public Education killing Creativity? What are parents doing?

     I had been studying the US history just before I watched Sir Ken Robinson's TED speech and the video did inspire me to throw out the textbook.

     I was always curious why Korean residents in the US accomplish more especially in the areas of arts and sports. To name some of those people, there are Hines Ward who received the honor of MVP in Super Bowl 2006, a golf genius Michelle Wie and a world-famous violinist Sarah Chang. Moreover, stories that say a family went to US for better academic education for the children and there, they found a special gift and developed it further, are quite common. Since I had never experienced the education system in the United States and never thought about the reason why, I simply concluded that American education system is just superior.

     However, after I watched the two videos, I realized that American education system is not as admirable as I thought before. The speaker was criticizing it for the same reasons that Korean system also possesses. I would say there is a difference in the level of badness. Public education in Korea started during the Japanese colonial time. Japanese rulers wanted to grow students in a way that they will live in submission without revolts. The teachers at school forced students to wear uniforms that look like a military uniform, to keep hair as short as possible and teachers had always carried a gun or knife during classes. Still now, most highschool students are not allowed to have a hair style they want and many teachers and most teachers in Korea allowed to impose physical punishment to students. Also, student groups reaching 40 are filled in a small classroom unable to leave the room during the school hours.

     I do not want to deny the fact that our public education. As a student who had experienced the public education for 9 years, it is bad for majority of students. First, it is too much restricted. Young aged children and juvenile should stay seated for straight 6 to 8 hours a day without meaningful breaks. What is even worse is that most students do not consider the classes valuable. They rather sleep or do some other works such as homeworks from private institutions.

     However, the current public education system is the finest way in which everyone can receive certain amount of education. The primary goal of public education is to provide everyone enough amount of education to live as a democratic citizen in the society. The aspects of public schools such as restriction on hair style or physical punishment can be criticized. However, I believe it should not be criticized for its incapability of giving students chances to find their own interest or develop creativity. There is no certain way or method to develop creativity. If there were one, public schools would have already adopted it. Moreover, the quality of lectures may vary according to students' preparation or intelligence because the lectures are settled on the average students based on the basic principle.

     I believe the creativity part of education is based on the parents' role. Recently, issue of an elementary school student president election came up in conversation between people in Korea. One of the candidates won the election after he had pledged to provide a fishbowl to every single class with several kinds of fish with his own money. This event if not epitomize, gives an example of parents who are too eager in their children that they unintentionally teach the principle that only the result is important and the process does not matter if the result is good. Public education cannot care every single students as parents can because of lack of human power since governments cannot hire billions of teachers. In contrast, parents can take time to watch their children and find out what they want, like and excel.

     However, what many parents only care about is their children's scores and entrance to good schools in a more broader way. This overheated passion of parents is the actual cause of students' lack of creativity. If parents want their children to be a unique and valuable person, they will have to consider the other way around.