Our environment and the quality of education we receive can shape our minds, our voice and our behaviors. Not every lesson or teaching method is tailored to every student’s needs and that can cause unnecessary frustration. So many students develop a poor academic self-concept because they cannot grasp the material in the way it is being presented to them and that affects their performance (Schneider et al., 2013).
The challenges we face both in a classroom setting and out in the real world can influence tour achievements (Hoffmann et al., 2015). The article, Intended Persistence: Comparing Academic and Creative Challenges in High School, studies how students approach and tackle said challenges. Researchers used 190 high school students, 73 males and 117 women, with an average age of 16 to complete an online survey. The participants were asked a series of questions that related to both creative and academic challenges they have recently experienced (2015). Data collected from these surveys showed that motivation and persistence were correlated to interest and that the students reported more interest in creative challenges.
In my opinion, the participants were more interested in creative challenges because those results are open to interpretation. While there are still right and wrong answers to be found in creative classes, like art and music, most of your findings can be your desires. You can create your own designs, draw up your own sheet music and not be afraid to think outside of the box.
Cao, P., Meister, S. & Klante, O. Mark Rev St. Gallen (2014) 31: 77. doi:10.1365/s11621-014-0427-y
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1412976381
This is a concept that I hold very close to myself and my academic experiences. Prior to transferring to Penn State, I attended a small, Catholic University in Pittsburgh. The first day of my freshman year, during my first chemistry lecture, I was asked by my professor to take a survey that specified my idea learning style. The professor passed out the survey explaining that she wanted honest feedback about the learning styles of her students so that she could tailor her teaching style to each class. I was excited by this, therefore, I answered the survey honestly. After reading my responses, the professor pulled me aside and questioned whether or not I was in the right major for myself, as my style of learning and thinking was to artistic to ever succeed in science. This was extremely discouraging, but I assured her I would be successful and went on to prove her wrong.
I have always flourished in the arts. I am a dancer and a musician…but I am also a scientist. I believe my intellectual well-roundedness is thanks to the discipline and versatility that I learned from being an artist and creative person. I do not appreciate the idea of being categorized into a box, which I much of the reason why I left my previous university. To them, well-roundedness did not exist: you could either be creative, feminine and a scientist, but they would not acknowledge the coexistence or symbiosis of the three.