“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.” said Stanley Kubrick, director of “The Shining,” “A Space Odyssey” and “A Clockwork Orange.”
Fear has no place in an environment that encourages people to learn. Learning cannot be forced. It’s dependent almost entirely on the willingness of an individual. If the individual is unwilling to learn, then learning almost never takes place, it’s as simple as that. Why has learning become such an inconvenient chore instead of a fun way to better oneself? Because the question schools don’t seem to be asking is “What makes students want to learn?” and the answer is not through instilling a sense of fear.

Fear does not inspire people. I can’t force myself to care about subjects I have no interest in. Therefore, much of my high school career was spent with constant worries of getting that D or F on my report card and the growing dread of not being able to graduate. Did having these fears make me any more inclined to genuinely care about the material being taught? The answer is a big fat no. Only when the individual truly cares and has the drive to learn does true learning take place.

Example: I have an interest in music, but have never had any formal musical training, it’s been strictly inspiration and pure interest in the subject that has carried my progression in it thus far. And ultimately, I’ve learned more about music in my own time than I’ve ever learned about math, despite years and years of classes for it. Sure, learning things through inspiration can be challenging at times, but we mustn’t confuse challenge with fear. Challenge is good, it’s what drives us to become better, but fear is stressful and constricting. I had no fear of failing when I started learning guitar, and even if I did, what was my potential loss? I was just learning for learning’s sake.

That’s what education should truly be about. We should always be pushing students to better themselves, but what’s more important is giving them the will, the want and the motivation to do so. And this is done much more effectively when methods of inspiration, creativity, and genuine interest are employed. From my experience, school turns the joy of learning into, “You’re going to fail if you don’t graduate and to graduate you have to pass this class, and to pass this class you have to learn to analyze interpretive literature as we see fit.”

Um. . .what? No. Sorry, but I’m not buying it. My future does not revolve around whether or not I can learn how to solve a logarithm.

Education has adopted a motto of “Better yourself, or fail completely.” Maybe it’s just me, but I think, “better yourself because it’s cool and fun to do so,” has a much nicer ring to it.