By: Liran Hu
Visualize a scenario in which a high school student whose personality and behavior are often at odd with the rest being objected by virtually all his classmates, placed under the program for students with special needs by his ignorant administrators, and rejected by the AP program of his lifelong passion. However, at night, after returning home through the dark forest penetrated little by neighboring light, he composes a touching music in his dim chamber. This paradox is not an unrealistic imagination of any sort. Due to numerous standards and requirements issued to enforce what the society perceives to be proper, acceptable, and idealized, conformity is extensively practiced and encouraged to make students appear well rounded and adherent to standards and rules. In an environment where individuality and eccentricity are systematically suppressed, those who seek to maintain their individuality and unique conducts are often perceived as being problematic and in need of special accommodations. For years, the herd-like intuition of human being that fosters conformity, together with an education system designed to suit such nature, has failed to conceive intellectuals who can truly exercise their uniqueness to their own advantages. To avoid growing conformity that hinders individualism and creativity that contribute to a society on the verge of intellectual stagnation, the system through which minors are brought up should introspect and strive to eradicate itself of its errors; in addition, the society in general should reflect on its herd instinct to reject eccentric outliers.
The question of youth upbringing in an environment of conformity and standardization reached worldwide recognition when a reputed British educationalist Ken Robinson Spoke on Ted Talk in the mid-2006. He argued that school environment has been suppressing student’s individuality by utilizing an outdated and industrial oriented mode of standards and academic requirements. Students with creativity are often unrecognized and some undergoing the risk of being labeled as having psychological issues such as ADHD due to their misunderstood behaviors. As the modern society is deprived of the necessary innovation and individualism to cope with the ever depletion of available resource and intensifying competitions. However, this is not simply a contemporary issue. Taking a broader perspective on the shoulder of Ken Robinson’s findings, one can recognize many historical precedents that mirror the treatment received by those who are unique. As far back as in ancient Greek city-states, despite the allowance for free expression and selective suffrage, individuals such as Socrates could be exiled, or as in his case, executed for deviating from the popular conventions. Despite the humanist movements taken place following the Renaissance, things changed during the industrialized age and the modern era that followed. Once humanity discovered efficiency of mechanism, education and intellectual upbringing has shifted its focus from the traditional humanist approach to that of efficiency and uniformed qualification. "Critics contend that those old traditional liberal-art education do little to prepare students for the high-tech jobs of the 21st century. While these challenges may seem new, brought on by technological and economic change" (Roth, Michael, The False Promise of Practical Education). Even more, the society itself has become an agent contributing to widespread conformity in which people of eccentricity are often ostracized by their peers and institutions for their unconventional ideas. According to Robert Wilson, “one’s boss, Friends, colleagues, even family often reject innovative and outlying ideas because they resent the ways by which these ideas threaten the established methods, practices, rules, and systems they are comfortable with” . In other words, “creativity causes uncertainty, which in turns causes insecurity, and many people want to avoid that situation by attacking things alien to them, causing a pressure to conform”. Furthermore, “when one looks at creative individuals, they are risk takers, rule breakers, and non-conformists who are so persistent with their belief despite multiple failures to the extent of plain abnormality that many found discomforting”. With all these factors are present, compelled conformity and the suppression of individuality seem inevitable.
Despite the urgent need of an individualized environment for youths to thrive, many argued that solution has already been put forth to address the issue. For instance, in regards to Talented and gifted program, many concerns have been stressed about the lack of federal grant and state obligation to institute gifted education program for identified students. However, the trend seems to reveal that the program itself has become an obstacle for necessary reforms. For years, the program is known to produce student “elites” and well-rounded individuals acceptable by the standards of the society rather than true innovators. This is caused by the fact that “most of the teachers only receive minimum instruction on identifying gifted students. The term giftedness tends to evoke a sense of elitism, which results in the lack of serious attention paid to students other than high achieving”. On the other hand, many truly gifted individuals are being mislabeled and left languishing in environments intolerant of their eccentricity. According to Doctor Jack Wiggins, “The misdiagnosis of individualistic kids has become a widespread and serious problem that can cause the waste of life for both children and adults due to the inappropriate treatment that often followed” (Kuzujannakis, The Misunderstood Face of Giftedness). Furthermore, there are People who argue that conformity is the law of human nature and should not be discouraged; instead, the ongoing system that fosters conformity actually yields significant results. “Some critics of the liberal art oriented education advocate that these individualized education methods don’t prepare students for the high tech jobs of the twentieth century. Instead, they argue for an education system that simply equips people to play an appropriate role in the contemporary economy”. However, such statement has violated the basic tenet of human upbringing, which is no other than to “think for oneself, to avoid conformity, and to contribute to the society by unleashing one’s creative potential” (Roth, The False promise of Practical Education).
While human drowse in content of the ongoing educational system, the waking ember of conformity that has inflamed both the school environment and the society as a whole is destroying the seemingly indestructible foundation of humanity itself. There’s something that differentiates the human breed from herds, yet the education system and society are generating herd-like individuals by assessing them through standards rather than judging by their potential for innovation. According to Thomas Jefferson, “the purpose of education is to help people acknowledge their own worth and ideas that first seemed alien” (Roth, the false promise of practical education). Nevertheless, in many aspects, modern society have made children into robots. Facing the increasing severity of the issue, ken Robinson stressed that “Our human nature is so diverse and rich, yet our education system has become increasing dreary and monstrous” (Azzam, Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson), The unnoticed yet grave impact of this paradox is made evident in the following case of study-“when children aged three to five were tested, ninety-eight percent can think divergently/individualistically, the percentage for thirteen to fifteen years old is around ten percent, and an appalling two percent for twenty-five years old”. This suggests that the conventions instructed by the society and schools are depriving the youth of their basic intuitions contributing to their uniqueness. (Nettles, Robotic Children) The education system has tried to educate kids to fit the industrial mode of the future workforce, but it has failed to equip students to confront unknown and futuristic situations with a creative and innovative human nature.
The issue can never be completely eradicated since it’s a norm for human to conform to the conventions set by the society, even in an individualistic society. Ken Robinson had once stated that “there's no doubt in my mind that collaboration, diversity, the exchange of ideas, and building on other people's achievements are at the heart of the creative process. An education that focuses only on the individual in isolation is bound to frustrate some of those possibilities” (Azzam, Why creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson). Instead, it’s the issue regarding the conformist nature in education and the upbringing of children that must be thoroughly addressed to prevent the society from spiraling down into incompetence. In an era in which people entered an environment dominated by teachers who emphasize discipline and academic performance over individualism, together with parents who want to secure their children a safe future in the field of high-paying jobs, many simply ignored the fact that creativity is within everyone, and everyone is entitled to the right of utilizing their uniqueness to their own advantage in any given point of his/her life. “Creativity is not just in relevance with some particular fields such as art and literature, it’s a terminology that extends to a vast arena of subjects” (Azzam, Why creativity now? A conversation with Sir Ken Robinson). Medically, schools and medical staffs should receive more instruction on differentiating giftedness with mental disorders due to the fact that these two traits can sometimes coexist and misdiagnosed. “Gifted education program should conduct more in-depth examination to select members rather than some simple exams that mirror standardized tests” (“We Don’t Need a Caste System for Creativity). Standardized tests, which some argued to be “systematically alienating people from their talent, and therefore the process of education itself” should be practiced in a much lesser degree; teachers should not be instructed to use it to account for students’ overall performance. Most importantly, people should acknowledge the fact that being eccentric and deviating from the conventions and norms don’t suggest that the person is problematic and should be ostracized. In the contrary, people with eccentricity are often geniuses in disguise.
Throughout the history, the human society has largely been a mechanism driven by the engine of systemic conformity by willingly offering itself to a world dominated by rules and requirements that only concern those who are willing to abide by them. On the crossroad of humanity “dominated by increasing strain in world resource accompanied by population growth and rapid technological advancement”, will it go down into intellectual stagnation and rigidness under a repressive regime of standardization or will it manifest out its endowed potentials to reenergize this world by utilizing the ingenuity, imagination, and creativity to combat the unpredictable challenges ahead? (Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson). Needless to say, it’s the obligation of every individual to invest their concern on conformity because anyone can be disadvantaged as long as they attempt to express and conduct themselves in a unique manner in the ongoing system. Youth is the future of the society; if they are confronted by a system that is so keen to the destruction of creativity and individualism, odds are they will forfeit their individuality and embrace conformity in order to gain acceptance among their colleagues and later the society. Just like generational poverty, this is a prevalent cycle of crisis, devouring the treasured gifts of individuality and conceiving men of convention and rigidness. Once one is accustomed to the standardization, once a hundred men are accustomed to the standardization, once a thousand, hundreds of thousands, exponentially onward, the society will become increasing intolerant and objecting towards deviating factors, leaving an ever shrinking ground for even the necessary creativity to thrive. However, as humans, the seed individuality and creativity has already sewn deeply into the genetic pool that has conceived the most glory race of all. It’s all about the presence of fertilized and cultivated soil to make individualism thrive and humanity to manifest itself by climbing ever higher from the shoulder of the already walked steps of its former greatness, and ascend majestically into the light of divine intellectual enlightenment.
Work Cited:
Magee, Kate. “"‘You Don't Want a Caste System for Creativity.’” Galileo, Campaign, 29 July 2016,
proxygsu-sful.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebscohost.com%2Flogin.aspx%3Fdirect&db=aqh&AN=117075420& site=ehost-live.
M.P.H., Marianne Kuzujanakis M.D. "The Misunderstood Face of Giftedness." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 June 2013,
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-kuzujanakis/gifted-children_b_2948258.html>.
Nettles, Nick. “ROBOTIC CHILDREN.” Galileo, Ecologist, Sept. 2008,
proxygsu-sful.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebscohost.com%2Flogin.aspx%3Fdirect
Roth, Michael S. "The False Promise of 'Practical' Education." Galileo. Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 May 2014,
proxygsu-sful.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=96096136&site=ehost-live.
Wilson, Robert Evans, Jr. "Nobody Wants You to Be Creative." Psychology Today. 10 Jan. 2017,
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-main-ingredient/201701/nobody-wants-you-be-creative>.
Visualize a scenario in which a high school student whose personality and behavior are often at odd with the rest being objected by virtually all his classmates, placed under the program for students with special needs by his ignorant administrators, and rejected by the AP program of his lifelong passion. However, at night, after returning home through the dark forest penetrated little by neighboring light, he composes a touching music in his dim chamber. This paradox is not an unrealistic imagination of any sort. Due to numerous standards and requirements issued to enforce what the society perceives to be proper, acceptable, and idealized, conformity is extensively practiced and encouraged to make students appear well rounded and adherent to standards and rules. In an environment where individuality and eccentricity are systematically suppressed, those who seek to maintain their individuality and unique conducts are often perceived as being problematic and in need of special accommodations. For years, the herd-like intuition of human being that fosters conformity, together with an education system designed to suit such nature, has failed to conceive intellectuals who can truly exercise their uniqueness to their own advantages. To avoid growing conformity that hinders individualism and creativity that contribute to a society on the verge of intellectual stagnation, the system through which minors are brought up should introspect and strive to eradicate itself of its errors; in addition, the society in general should reflect on its herd instinct to reject eccentric outliers.
The question of youth upbringing in an environment of conformity and standardization reached worldwide recognition when a reputed British educationalist Ken Robinson Spoke on Ted Talk in the mid-2006. He argued that school environment has been suppressing student’s individuality by utilizing an outdated and industrial oriented mode of standards and academic requirements. Students with creativity are often unrecognized and some undergoing the risk of being labeled as having psychological issues such as ADHD due to their misunderstood behaviors. As the modern society is deprived of the necessary innovation and individualism to cope with the ever depletion of available resource and intensifying competitions. However, this is not simply a contemporary issue. Taking a broader perspective on the shoulder of Ken Robinson’s findings, one can recognize many historical precedents that mirror the treatment received by those who are unique. As far back as in ancient Greek city-states, despite the allowance for free expression and selective suffrage, individuals such as Socrates could be exiled, or as in his case, executed for deviating from the popular conventions. Despite the humanist movements taken place following the Renaissance, things changed during the industrialized age and the modern era that followed. Once humanity discovered efficiency of mechanism, education and intellectual upbringing has shifted its focus from the traditional humanist approach to that of efficiency and uniformed qualification. "Critics contend that those old traditional liberal-art education do little to prepare students for the high-tech jobs of the 21st century. While these challenges may seem new, brought on by technological and economic change" (Roth, Michael, The False Promise of Practical Education). Even more, the society itself has become an agent contributing to widespread conformity in which people of eccentricity are often ostracized by their peers and institutions for their unconventional ideas. According to Robert Wilson, “one’s boss, Friends, colleagues, even family often reject innovative and outlying ideas because they resent the ways by which these ideas threaten the established methods, practices, rules, and systems they are comfortable with” . In other words, “creativity causes uncertainty, which in turns causes insecurity, and many people want to avoid that situation by attacking things alien to them, causing a pressure to conform”. Furthermore, “when one looks at creative individuals, they are risk takers, rule breakers, and non-conformists who are so persistent with their belief despite multiple failures to the extent of plain abnormality that many found discomforting”. With all these factors are present, compelled conformity and the suppression of individuality seem inevitable.
Despite the urgent need of an individualized environment for youths to thrive, many argued that solution has already been put forth to address the issue. For instance, in regards to Talented and gifted program, many concerns have been stressed about the lack of federal grant and state obligation to institute gifted education program for identified students. However, the trend seems to reveal that the program itself has become an obstacle for necessary reforms. For years, the program is known to produce student “elites” and well-rounded individuals acceptable by the standards of the society rather than true innovators. This is caused by the fact that “most of the teachers only receive minimum instruction on identifying gifted students. The term giftedness tends to evoke a sense of elitism, which results in the lack of serious attention paid to students other than high achieving”. On the other hand, many truly gifted individuals are being mislabeled and left languishing in environments intolerant of their eccentricity. According to Doctor Jack Wiggins, “The misdiagnosis of individualistic kids has become a widespread and serious problem that can cause the waste of life for both children and adults due to the inappropriate treatment that often followed” (Kuzujannakis, The Misunderstood Face of Giftedness). Furthermore, there are People who argue that conformity is the law of human nature and should not be discouraged; instead, the ongoing system that fosters conformity actually yields significant results. “Some critics of the liberal art oriented education advocate that these individualized education methods don’t prepare students for the high tech jobs of the twentieth century. Instead, they argue for an education system that simply equips people to play an appropriate role in the contemporary economy”. However, such statement has violated the basic tenet of human upbringing, which is no other than to “think for oneself, to avoid conformity, and to contribute to the society by unleashing one’s creative potential” (Roth, The False promise of Practical Education).
While human drowse in content of the ongoing educational system, the waking ember of conformity that has inflamed both the school environment and the society as a whole is destroying the seemingly indestructible foundation of humanity itself. There’s something that differentiates the human breed from herds, yet the education system and society are generating herd-like individuals by assessing them through standards rather than judging by their potential for innovation. According to Thomas Jefferson, “the purpose of education is to help people acknowledge their own worth and ideas that first seemed alien” (Roth, the false promise of practical education). Nevertheless, in many aspects, modern society have made children into robots. Facing the increasing severity of the issue, ken Robinson stressed that “Our human nature is so diverse and rich, yet our education system has become increasing dreary and monstrous” (Azzam, Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson), The unnoticed yet grave impact of this paradox is made evident in the following case of study-“when children aged three to five were tested, ninety-eight percent can think divergently/individualistically, the percentage for thirteen to fifteen years old is around ten percent, and an appalling two percent for twenty-five years old”. This suggests that the conventions instructed by the society and schools are depriving the youth of their basic intuitions contributing to their uniqueness. (Nettles, Robotic Children) The education system has tried to educate kids to fit the industrial mode of the future workforce, but it has failed to equip students to confront unknown and futuristic situations with a creative and innovative human nature.
The issue can never be completely eradicated since it’s a norm for human to conform to the conventions set by the society, even in an individualistic society. Ken Robinson had once stated that “there's no doubt in my mind that collaboration, diversity, the exchange of ideas, and building on other people's achievements are at the heart of the creative process. An education that focuses only on the individual in isolation is bound to frustrate some of those possibilities” (Azzam, Why creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson). Instead, it’s the issue regarding the conformist nature in education and the upbringing of children that must be thoroughly addressed to prevent the society from spiraling down into incompetence. In an era in which people entered an environment dominated by teachers who emphasize discipline and academic performance over individualism, together with parents who want to secure their children a safe future in the field of high-paying jobs, many simply ignored the fact that creativity is within everyone, and everyone is entitled to the right of utilizing their uniqueness to their own advantage in any given point of his/her life. “Creativity is not just in relevance with some particular fields such as art and literature, it’s a terminology that extends to a vast arena of subjects” (Azzam, Why creativity now? A conversation with Sir Ken Robinson). Medically, schools and medical staffs should receive more instruction on differentiating giftedness with mental disorders due to the fact that these two traits can sometimes coexist and misdiagnosed. “Gifted education program should conduct more in-depth examination to select members rather than some simple exams that mirror standardized tests” (“We Don’t Need a Caste System for Creativity). Standardized tests, which some argued to be “systematically alienating people from their talent, and therefore the process of education itself” should be practiced in a much lesser degree; teachers should not be instructed to use it to account for students’ overall performance. Most importantly, people should acknowledge the fact that being eccentric and deviating from the conventions and norms don’t suggest that the person is problematic and should be ostracized. In the contrary, people with eccentricity are often geniuses in disguise.
Throughout the history, the human society has largely been a mechanism driven by the engine of systemic conformity by willingly offering itself to a world dominated by rules and requirements that only concern those who are willing to abide by them. On the crossroad of humanity “dominated by increasing strain in world resource accompanied by population growth and rapid technological advancement”, will it go down into intellectual stagnation and rigidness under a repressive regime of standardization or will it manifest out its endowed potentials to reenergize this world by utilizing the ingenuity, imagination, and creativity to combat the unpredictable challenges ahead? (Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson). Needless to say, it’s the obligation of every individual to invest their concern on conformity because anyone can be disadvantaged as long as they attempt to express and conduct themselves in a unique manner in the ongoing system. Youth is the future of the society; if they are confronted by a system that is so keen to the destruction of creativity and individualism, odds are they will forfeit their individuality and embrace conformity in order to gain acceptance among their colleagues and later the society. Just like generational poverty, this is a prevalent cycle of crisis, devouring the treasured gifts of individuality and conceiving men of convention and rigidness. Once one is accustomed to the standardization, once a hundred men are accustomed to the standardization, once a thousand, hundreds of thousands, exponentially onward, the society will become increasing intolerant and objecting towards deviating factors, leaving an ever shrinking ground for even the necessary creativity to thrive. However, as humans, the seed individuality and creativity has already sewn deeply into the genetic pool that has conceived the most glory race of all. It’s all about the presence of fertilized and cultivated soil to make individualism thrive and humanity to manifest itself by climbing ever higher from the shoulder of the already walked steps of its former greatness, and ascend majestically into the light of divine intellectual enlightenment.
Work Cited:
Magee, Kate. “"‘You Don't Want a Caste System for Creativity.’” Galileo, Campaign, 29 July 2016,
proxygsu-sful.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebscohost.com%2Flogin.aspx%3Fdirect&db=aqh&AN=117075420& site=ehost-live.
M.P.H., Marianne Kuzujanakis M.D. "The Misunderstood Face of Giftedness." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 June 2013,
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-kuzujanakis/gifted-children_b_2948258.html>.
Nettles, Nick. “ROBOTIC CHILDREN.” Galileo, Ecologist, Sept. 2008,
proxygsu-sful.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebscohost.com%2Flogin.aspx%3Fdirect
Roth, Michael S. "The False Promise of 'Practical' Education." Galileo. Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 May 2014,
proxygsu-sful.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=96096136&site=ehost-live.
Wilson, Robert Evans, Jr. "Nobody Wants You to Be Creative." Psychology Today. 10 Jan. 2017,
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-main-ingredient/201701/nobody-wants-you-be-creative>.