Academic Success at MTS
Sixth Former wins Cambridge Essay Prize
The purpose of education is something that not only affects all of us as students, but also shapes societies, their values and broader cultures. In my entry to Robinson College, Cambridge’s Essay Prize I responded to the assertion that creativity should be the highest goal of education, reflecting upon my own experience at school as well as current political discourse, in order to identify how creativity overlaps with the curriculum. However, what I found was that the very definition of creativity is up for debate, and while it is often attributed to arts subjects, it has a place across the entire curriculum, including Maths, the Sciences and the Humanities. This led me to draw upon philosophical thought and psychological studies to examine the way in which creativity interrelates with education to determine that its true benefit is with the role of the teacher, where creative teaching has the power to animate subject content and in turn inspire more creative and fulfilled students. I therefore concluded that if we maintain that education ought to maximise the learning experience, creativity ought not be the goal but the bedrock of education, imbued in its broader sense within the foundation from which learning stems.