Blog 3

When people think of education, their first thought is not always pleasant. People usually think of school and education as a requirement that is not fun, but you have to get through it to become a happier person in the future. Why do people automatically hate school and think of it as a dreadful place to be in, full of unhappy people and subjects? This is one of several questions being asked in the article “Happiness in Education” by Mark Van Doren and also being touched on in the Film Do Schools kill Creativity By. Ken Robinson. These sources that I have come across have made me think of my experiences during my educational career and have made me want to change for the better. It made me realize that it is because people have different ways of learning. I realized that I am a visual learner and I need to find way as to incorporate that in my educational career in order to become a happier person.

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Mark Van Doren little brother loves psychology. He spends his time reading, writing and discussing the subject and he also studies the subject in Harvard. But when he was younger, as a student he hated the subject. This type of feeling is very common in students because their mind is programmed to believe that school is meant to be boring and during your free time you consider it to be fun. I personally found this article very interesting because it is something I can relate too. Ever since I can remember I always been very interested in drawing and fashion, even in class I would have a tendency to daze off or start drawing around my notes. Because of my family and the school system made it seem like the arts was not important; I did not take the effort to considered making a career in that field until this day. With my interests in the arts I notice that the only times I enjoyed class was when something was presented in the form of visual art. But because of the school system not making an effort in teaching us that it is okay to study arts it made me feel mentally dramatize till this day and I still feel subconscious about taking on the field that I desire. Which leads me to a brilliant film called “Do Schools kill Creativity” by. Ken Robinson, which speaks about his theories on Happiness and School.

When I saw Ken Robinson’s film on education I thought to myself this is something I can honestly see myself passing forward to many people so they can see the reality of the school system and how people think. When I saw this film I couldn’t help but to ponder upon all the experience I’ve been through with the school system. In this film, Ken Robinson spoke about how our educational system is built out of a form of hierarchy which are Mathematics and Language on top Humanities in the middle and the Arts at the bottom. By this system we are program to think that the Arts are automatically not as important as the other subjects such as Math and English but in reality they should all be equal. From young we are trained to think that taking a risk is a bad thing. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong you’re not prepared to be original”, a quote from Ken Robinson which means if you’re not prepared to take risk and be wrong then you’re not being yourself. From this film I have learned that I am a very creative person if I set my mind to it. Also, I am a visionary learner meaning that I register things in my mind better if I see the movement in front of me.

By being this visual person I realized that I have to train myself to understand things by seeing it. Maybe if I draw out these situations I have to do in class I would understand the problem better. By making those problems easier and more enjoyable for me maybe it would make my time in school much easier and happier. I have noticed that by taking an art class it has become a form of a stress reliever for me and made me enjoy me other classes much more, so another theory I personally have is that even if you cannot do what you love in your class try to take on a class that you love. Even if it is not part of your major, if you have at least a class that you enjoy it will help you in your other class because it will keep you more focused. These are some things that I’m planning on working on in order to further procure my happiness in school. I feel like by changing this it will help me be happier in school and will further my career in a positive way. By keeping my mind even, I feel like it helps me work much better. Having my required work and the work that I enjoy, which is drawing, it helps me stay focus because me tendency of dazing off or drawing goes away because I made time for that. I feel that so far these strategies are working and I will keep using these ways because it helps me stay happy. 

I’ve learn from this film and article that I have to embrace my inner child in the sense that I have to take chances and be more open to being wrong because by taking risks it makes me more original. I’ve also started taking an art class to get in touch with my artistic side again and I started to wake up thinking more positive about going to class. I feel that I have been feeling much happier. I have started to not think of school of an obligation and more as a privilege and it has been working somewhat, I see myself much happier when I walk the halls to my class day by day. And in time I see myself become very successful because I have a better understanding in how to approach my challenges and know to not be afraid of being wrong because in life you have to take risks as said in Ken Robinson film.