When Breaking the Rules Is Vital to Solving the Holes Found In Our Educational System:

VOICES

When Breaking the Rules Is Vital to Solving the Holes Found In Our Educational System: A New Creative Approach

ROKHAYA RODRIGUEZ Voices Editor

Last Sunday, I was in bed and decided to watch a movie in search of relief from my overwhelming life. The film “En corps” beautifully portrayed the impact of societal pressure and expectations on the good functioning of human beings. Reflection upon this issue sparked an idea in my mind. Creativity was the solution for the main character of “En Corps”; why couldn’t it be the solution for the educational system? We study for many years, hoping to enter the workforce with a livable wage. School is a “capitalist workplace.” Students are not paid for their work but work to get paid in the future. Does that make sense? Students are like actors in a well-written play directed by people with the most power. It is problematic since “recent studies show that mental health issues are growing due to the pressure and result-oriented mentality of the educational system.” Perhaps, the educational system should rethink its goals. I would argue that schools should first and foremost empower individuals instead of counting them as numbers on an economic scale. How does the broken educational system concern Dawson students? Well, what kind of school experience do you want to have?

As a current second-year Dawson student, most of my classes have adopted the traditional teaching style: Lecturing. Honestly, this approach lacks imagination and cannot be used in all contexts. The pandemic demonstrated how attention span is hard to maintain during lectures. Shout out to the few teachers I know who have tried to make learning stimulating and about exploration. However, the traditional activities, in my opinion, reinforce the idea that the educational system isn’t ready to make compromises and change its structure. So, creativity for me is not just about learning activities that leave space for diversity but about how the whole system can adhere to new learning and teaching methods.

I have often found myself a “victim” of this system since students are subjected to unrealistic standards. In the past and even currently, I sometimes feel like there is no room for mistakes. The path we need to follow seems straight, leading to “success,” but it is the opposite.

Our grading system is an example of a dysfunctional system. I never understood why we were graded compared to each other rather than based on our own previous individual performances. Do we want to create machines that make money or individuals capable of revolutionizing the world?

In “En Corps,” the main character, a female ballet dancer, started contemporary dance and found a new world that offered her more than her previous one. What if we changed our values to improve the school environment? To achieve more innovation, which society often raves about, don’t we have to teach children to respect one another, see each other as an equal, and work with each other? Team group assignments are not enough since they can go in one of two ways; a person is stuck doing all the work, or the whole team works together but only for a reward (a good grade). What if we had a big round table where everyone seated could see their classmates? Would a student be as inclined to laugh at another? Would a student be as willing to exclude another? There are many more solutions to rethinking the educational system, and they require students’ attention.

I won’t pretend to have all the solutions. It takes guts to admit that you feel like a small piece in a game where more prominent players are winning. I want students to win as well. I may be idealistic but using more creative approaches in the educational system seems vital.

Sources:

Hyman, Peter. “Our School System Is Broken. Let’s Grab this Chance To Remake Them”. The Guardian. 5 Jul. 2020, www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2020/jul/05/ourschool-systems-are-broken-lets-grab-this-chance-to-remake-them. Accessed 13 Sep. 2022.

Buckley, Michael F. “The World Needs More Outspoken Creatives.” The Startup. https://medium.com/ swlh/the-world-needs-more-creativejerks-38e5cc358191. Accessed 13 Sept. 2022. p p

Photo VIA KATHLEEN M. G. HOWLETT