Has Your Education Stunted Your Creative Potential?

Don’t confuse my criticism of the educational systems with me somehow being anti-education. I’m pro-education, in fact I’m an ardent advocate for education in the form of non-fiction/fiction reading, the study of languages, world travel, activism and art- whatever expands your mind and gets you thinking.

Here’s my problem with typical “education”

• School should not be your only source of educational enrichment. If you are reliant on a school to foster your learning, you probably haven’t picked up a book in a long time and you’re missing out on a lot of fascinating stuff that school didn’t tell you was “important.”   I firmly feel that everyone can be passionate about education– they just haven’t found what they can get excited about, whether it be learning about planes or the biology of dog breeding, and they sadly haven’t been taught to search.

• Not only does it leave you vastly unprepared to be competitive in the job market, but the institution itself stifles creativity and innovation.  America no longer is an industrial nation, it manufactures ideas- the grunt work is done elsewhere for cheap.  If you want to make top dollar, the possibility lies in your ability to lead, innovate and create. (i.e.  the iPhone was “invented” in the U.S., it is manufactured in China).

• The costs are high in time and money- and the return on investment is getting smaller and smaller. I feel it would be hard to innovate, kick butt in your career or lead a healthy family life if you’re in 50k+ of college loan debt and in a career you have no enthusiasm for.  It’s difficult or impossible to take risks, start a business or put money aside for investments and retirement if you have at least 10-20 years of steady loan payments (that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy) to worry about.

The high educational debts will cost more than individual happiness, it’s going to have long term impact on            growth and lifestyle sustainability for America at large.

Ken Robinson has two books that I plan on reading-The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything and Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative as his TED talk was fascinating and I think he has more insight to offer.

Do you give much thought to creativity, or do you value something else?  Is there anything positive or negative that stands out in your schooling experience that helped/hindered your career or creativity?   What do you think of Ken Robinson’s ideas, do they matter?