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Jessica Orrett
MUE 101
24 September 2014
How Schools Squander Creative Careers
Creativity is an important part of anyones daily life. Whether youre creating an eyecatching PowerPoint presentation for a business meeting or writing an essay for English class, it
is always important to incorporate creativity in almost everything you do. However, high school
students are being discouraged by their peers, their parents, and their teachers against being
creative, and pursuing creative careers in the Arts, such as Dance, Art, or Music, because they do
not always make as much money as a more practical career does, such as business or
engineering. Ive been told by a family member or two that Im going to have to marry rich,
but no one discourages against these careers like schools do.
My high school in Canada had a specialized Music program. This meant that instead of
having our music courses once a year, it would be once per semester. The students who were
accepted into the program would have the regular instrumental or vocal music class one
semester, where we were integrated with non-Arts students, and the other semester would have
Music for Creating, where the Music Arts students would come together and learn more
advanced music and theory. The freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors each had their own
class and theme, ranging from Musical Theater to World Music to Jazz. Everyone was in this
program because they loved music, and wanted to further pursue a career in it. However, there
were a lot of teachers who did not like the idea of an Arts program, or the idea of students
pursuing careers in the Arts. Each teacher thought that their class was the most important, and
missing it for competitions, performances and rehearsals was an absurd idea. One math teacher

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even went so far as to fail some students who were in the pit band for Kiss Me Kate with me, if
they did not come back in the middle of the show to do a test. As a result, a lot of us ended up
having to sight-read music in the middle of a matinee to make up for their absences. Another
teacher gave daily lectures to the Arts Music students who were pursuing music in their postsecondary education, saying that they were making a huge mistake in pursuing music, and that
they would end up poor and homeless. By graduation, only two Arts instrumentalists (one being
myself) out of six, and three Arts vocalists (one being my twin Kathryn) out of eight ended up in
music programs. It was truly surprising that a so called Arts school discouraged creativity and
careers in the Arts.
Some schools can even view creative minds as ones with learning disabilities. In Ken
Robinsons TedTalk How schools kills creativity, he describes a story he was told by a dancer
named Gillian Lynne. As a young child, she could not sit still, and was taken to the doctor to see
if she had a learning disability. In the end, the doctor diagnosed her as a dancer. Gillian was
taken to a dance school where she met others like her, and she thrived. I myself have been
diagnosed with a few learning disorders, such as ADD. I was told to go on medication by the
Special Education staff at my high school so that I would do better and be able to focus in my
academic classes. Though the medication helped me focus on subjects like Math and English, it
made me shaky and almost incapable of playing clarinet. If Gillian was told to go on medication
like I was, she might not be the dancer she is today.
Many music students have accepted that we wont make a lot of money. But if we wanted
only money out of our careers, we wouldnt be pursuing music. We get jobs in music because it
is our passion; because it is so fulfilling; because it is simply what we do best and coincidentally,
what we love to do. Schools should stop discouraging the Arts and start encouraging creativity.

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Works Cited
Robinson, Ken. Schools Kill Creativity. TedTalk. February 2006. Video (Web). September 22nd,
2014.