The Education-Innovation Paradox

I've thought a bit about a question posed in Writing about Literature in the Digital Age, a free e-book produced by BYU students under the direction of Professor Gideon Burton. How do you keep education legitimate while encouraging creativity and innovation?

The answer can really be summed up in a few words, I think, but I'm going to answer it in a few more than a few words. The purpose of education, in the end, is not to teach facts -- encyclopedias and wikis can do that; it's not to prepare us for careers -- we learn a whole lot of things that have absolutely no application to what we end up doing in the end, and most jobs provide training to help us to understand and master necessary skills; it's not about socializing us, though that is certainly an effect, be it positive or negative; and it's not to teach us what to think. The purpose of education is to teach us how to think and to give us the resources necessary to be able to engage ourselves in lifelong learning. I think sometimes teachers forget that, and that's perhaps the greatest detriment to student creativity and innovation. Sure, you have to study your classics and your theory, but you have to understand more so why they are classics and to whose theories are you ascribing. I wish sometimes that the educational system was a bit less institutionalized, because there sure are a lot of square, flat cookies coming out of the oven where they might have otherwise been perfectly wonderful stars or dinosaurs. The quest for discovery and innovation, however, must begin within each individual and must extend into every corner of our lives. We must become learners and seekers, and to misquote Mark Twain, 'we shouldn't let our schooling stand in the way of our education.' Especially in this digital age, truth is an open book (or e-book) before us, and we need to browse but a moment to realize the wonders that surround us and the wonders yet awaiting.