It’s not that there are no creative types in higher education. It’s that the ladder of modern education requires a level of organization and type-A memorization that often purges the system of the purely creative mind.
Think back to high school. Perhaps this is a fallacy, but I remember far more artists, musicians and drama geeks — people who, while they tested poorly and had low college prospects, continually sketched intricate drawings in their notepads or toyed around with Photoshop in their free time. The ones who create rockets in their backyard and paint murals on their bedroom wall.
Prestige is fast becoming an indicator of memorization speed rather than what the Greeks called paideia — a truer and deeper education. School is sometimes a contest to see who can best memorize numbers rather than understanding what the numbers mean.
We are an accomplishment-driven culture. If it can’t directly be used to gain money or status, consider it moot. Why do we associate prestige in education and politics strictly with the ability to memorize and categorize? The system does not incentivize creative thinking and problem-solving — it incentivizes calculated micro-steps toward an eventual goal or title.
Utility is not the end-all. There is something else. While Pepperdine does make a strong, concerted effort to instill in us a sense of vocation and meaning through a liberal arts education, Convocation events and mission, the theme remains that (depending on the chosen major and individual sensibility) some Pepperdine graduates spent $200,000 to become a glorified calculator.
The sad truth is that anybody can succeed in college without the slightest iota of creative talent. The alternative is absolutely not true, though. Even the most creative personalities, capable of producing world-class work but stripped of the ability to perform in multiple-choice tests, would hardly make it past enrollment.
Is this how we want to frame education? Is this how we understand prestige and success? Herein lies the tragedy of modern education and one of the deepest fallacies our culture has to offer.
This column contains some statements that, if taken to their absolute end, are fraught with holes and can even be politically incorrect. This does not diminish the fact that the current system dictates that creative types are less “intelligent” than those who thrive in a classroom environment — a notion that is simply untrue and undermines what those gifted creative thinkers have to offer larger society.
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Follow Nate Barton on Twitter: @TheNateBarton
