The results culture of education

I have chosen to discuss the results culture of education; this is a subject that I am very passionate about, as it is something I have experienced throughout my whole education. The results culture of education is a term that represents how schools mostly care about students just getting high sores in tests, killing student creativity and not valuing the arts as subjects.

Being a creative student who enjoyed subjects at GCSE like Music and Drama, I saw how the education system invested less money and care into those subjects. For example, I only had one Music lesson a week, but I had at least three maths lessons, this is because the education system doesn’t deem these as “important”.

The most important and bothering matter in all this is that the most talented student at Art is made to feel that they are less valued and intelligent, than the best student at maths. For some reason as time has gone on, these subjects have been more and more devalued and Maths, science and English ‘the important subjects’, now being the only measure of intelligence. 

Every student is different, yet we are all taught to write in the same style and say the same things otherwise we won’t pass our exams. They are killing creativity, as imagination holds no place in this system of facts, numbers and tests, and it’s the arts that are paying the price.

Others may argue that subjects like Science and Maths are important and that they provide knowledge that you need to learn in everyday life, for example a basic mathematical knowledge. I agree; however, no subject should be deemed more important than another. It should be up to the student to decide what subject is the most important to them, as they know where their talents and gifts lie.

After being frustrated by this for years and discussing the matter with my creative peers they agreed with my point, so I went online to do some more research into this topic. In this I found far more articles supporting rather than differing from my point of view. 

Many people of my age feel the same way and they feel as though their talents and individuality is not valued in the education system. Myself and many other creative students find this upsetting and distressing, as we feel as though instead of celebrating our differences and talents, we are all being gradually programmed to think and function in the same way. Schools say they ‘value’ creativity and individuality, yet it seems as though they are saying one thing and teaching quite the opposite. There needs to be change before student individuality is killed.