February 6, 2017 - 19:08
As a child, I wanted to be a poet. I loved writing, and I wrote constantly. I wrote about the changing of the seasons, I wrote about the fireflies that visited my garden every summer, I wrote about interactions I had that day, I wrote, and then I didn't. It was around the age of 11 that I decided I was a bad writer. Around this age, in my middle school, our teachers began introducing peer critiques, and set a standard for "good writing". I felt inadequate compared to many of my peers. We place children in a system were the benchmark for intelligence is mechanized and standardized examinations, we present them with the end of goal of doing well on that test, and only prepare them to accomplish that. However, it is creativity that is truly indicative of ability, not the capability to perform after consistent memorization. Writing is the way for the subconscious to take control, it allows a new person to take over for a bit, and then when editing with the conscious mind a person can discover who they are and what they are thinking about in that moment of their complex lives. Not all children are the same, why is the American education system so insistent of changing that? Children must embrace who they are in order to find success.