Formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free

The author claims that education tends to restrain our minds. Although academics certainly restrain us in some respects, I would argue that it does not restrain our creativity. Indeed, education creates the foundation for authentic creativity.

For most of who ever received a formal education, there must be at least one class where we sat in the classroom, mind wandering off to a distant universe, before jerked back by the droning of the teacher, or being reminded about algebra, when happily drawing on a scrap piece of paper. These instances could make us feel that education is limiting the imagination. However, this is simply not the case.

Without an education, what ideas we have would be prone to wild imaginations, more often impractical and naïve than useful. As Confucius once said “Learning without think is labor lost, thinking without learning is perilous” this is similar to the saying “a little knowledge is dangerous”. We wouldn’t actually listen to a child, or any untrained professional for that matter, giving us new techniques of how to perform brain surgery—we would want top of the line professionals. It is true that the child could come up with brilliant ideas ignored by professionals, but more often than not, it would just be ideas ignored by professionals.

A formal education doesn’t actually limit our minds and spirits, but rather, provides the fundamental basis for it to be free. Not unlike the string that tethers a kite to the ground, without it, the kite would definitely fall to the ground. True, we hear fantastic stories about many uneducated individuals triumphing in individual fields, unrestrained from traditional views; however, these represent only a small fraction of the uneducated population. In the course of history, most of our revolution-bringing-innovations are still contributed by those with a formal training in their respective fields.