Students, Meet the Real World | Teen Ink

Students, Meet the Real World MAG

October 31, 2011
By madrigaltrooper BRONZE, Brooklyn, New York
madrigaltrooper BRONZE, Brooklyn, New York
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Jon Von Stein's article “Students, Meet the Real World” seems to target the very basis of our system of education, which he deems to be outdated in the digital age. He says that schools should prepare us for the real world through applied sciences so we will be ready once we are thrust into the dark and scary abyss of adulthood.

He goes on to say that English class should cease to be an outlet of creativity and interpretation of literary works and instead ­become a place for writing formal business letters, proofreading documents, and reviewing the work of other people. He even thinks that art classes (formerly a way for us to tap into our souls with the flick of a paintbrush) should become a place to do work assigned by others, to fit our flourishing minds into a plaster mold. I disagree on all counts.

What would our society be like if such systems of schooling had been implemented in the past? Would Picasso have been able to stray from conventional art to something entirely new through his mind? Would geniuses of literature like Edgar Allan Poe and e.e.cummings have been able to let their ideas flow if they had not been exposed to other literary works, instead only writing business letters?

The system of schooling that Jon describes is setting young people up for failure by not teaching them to express creativity. Is this getting us ready for the real world? There is no harm in exposing young minds to great literary works in the hopes of bettering them and inspiring them to pen their own masterpiece. There is no harm in giving us a paintbrush and leaving us to let our ideas flow. This is not “time wasted,” it is the glue holding our society together.



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 2 comments.


on Sep. 17 2013 at 9:34 pm
I recently read the article in question for an english class assignment. I decided to do some more research on it since I very much like the article. I stumbled across this. I don't belive that the author was saying what you're implying. This would not suck all creativety out of school and I agree with Imaginedangerous, does your school give you that freedom in english class? 'Cause I sure don't see it that way. English is studying diffrent writing styles and then being forced to write like that when you have a way all your own. It's being forced to write papers on topics that don't intrest you. In my school's art classes (though I am not in any visual art classes I have many friends who are) classes do uniform projects, everyone makes the same thing but each one turns out slightly diffrent based on skills and prefrences. This is not creativity in my mind (and many of my fellow pupils agree). Though I hate to admitt it, school isn't the place for that, an art studio or a writing club is. Our teachers job in high school is to prep up for the real world, to be successful in out carrers and high school now isn't doing that for students. I also feel that if a school adopted a program like the one suggested students would flourish, if a student could direct his or her schooling towards what they wanted to do they could get much farther in their carrer. If I could do actual accounting in my math class (instead of calculus) I would be ready for when I entered the finacial field but with the education I am getting now I do not see myself as anywhere near preared. I believe you should re-think your idea on what school is like and how it should be run.

on Nov. 3 2011 at 3:41 pm
Imaginedangerous PLATINUM, Riverton, Utah
31 articles 0 photos 402 comments
It's true that eliminating all creativity from schools would be bad... but there certainly isn't any creativity allowed now unless it's an art/dance/theater class. If your
English teacher lets you write creatively, I want to go to your school. :)