Jordan Peterson - Why Creative People Fail At School

The more creative and self aware a person is the more you realized as a kid that school was like a really long prison sentence and you would just do what you needed to barely slip into the next grade. All the while being likely far beyond your peers, you nevertheless learn to endure the sadated masses and see a world full of half awake sheeple fulfilling their roles as obedient worker/consumers.

I know loads of people who dont have an ounce of creativity. Cant even hold a conversation. But they are successful because they can knuckle down and work hard and not get distracted. Being creative and riffing ideas doesnt interest them.

Nono, it´s NOT as simple as you want to demonstrate !
Maybe you misunderstand creativy !

I often got less good grades on essays that I was really proud of that I really saw effort and felt like I had something to say. Better grades on essays that I kinda didn't know what to write about so I just wrote something basic. I learned they don't want creative answers they want you to mention the specific things that give you points. And that's how essays are graded in school. Stopped doing creative and just filled the essays with facts from textbooks. Better grades.

Because the usa government financially blocks them from their education. Evil country.

Realized at 13 14 years old there was something wrong with school went out on the road to get an education

Somebody said the American school system was based on the Prussian model, the concept of incorporating the creative arts came only of late

My experience in graduate school exactly. Undergraduate was so much more rewarding, at least in the states.

It’s simple. School is there for the middle people. School is to turn you into an employee.

Creative people do GREAT at school. For a very short while. THEN THEY NEED BETTER THINGS TO DO.
Just because you're drowning doesn't mean you're a shitty fish, maybe you're a really good eagle being held under water...

it's not in the curriculum.

Official position in a liberal state, American Indians are stupid. I failed miserably but had a lot of teachers who helped keep me going. According to school records my IQ was 58. At that time it meant I was to be one of McNamara's idiots, to be shipped to Vietnam to cleanse the gene pool (to die there). Nixon got in and they missed (I did go in the Army LOL). After a lot of turmoil, I wear my scars with pride. I write, edit, and am a manuscript researcher, have two sheepskins under my belt and am working on a 3rd one; 13 kids, most of who adopted me, many of who attended college after military. Grandchildren, own my own home, and love life. Grow in what works for you. Your best mentor is you. If you need more, prayer works. Even if you don't believe in God, it's a form of release to talk about problems. Nearing 70 now, having missed the great chance just to end it, I'm heading for the grave. Not with a whimper over life's scars, but shouting FRIGGIN SH*T WHAT A RIDE!

Guys!! "Working hard", "in long hours" at a company is NOT why you get promoted. Not anymore. Trust me. Maybe that used to be the case back in the late 20th century at the peak of Western Civilisation, when people valued effort and Hard Work, but that's gone. Every single one of us will learn this in the hard way sooner or later. Nowadays, sadly, ""interpersonal skills"" aka 'floor politics' are much more of a determining factor. How jolly you are, how much you gossip, how much you join in to those corporate unless programs which require your time outside the working hours, how much the boss of your boss likes you, etc...

I am 39 and I have seen at least 5-6 people in my lifetime who did absolutely mediocre work, or paid sub-optimat attention to detail in general, yet they got promoted anyway because... guess what... they gossiped/smoked with the right people at work in their 10 mins breaks. While the 12% on the floor, or in the team, who actually worked hard and did the weight lifting, left the company one by one....

Make no mistake. I am aware that connectivity, interpersonal skills in the traditional sense of the word is important in order to be a manager or a team leader. But trust me, at most companies this is just all bs...

These noble criterias turn into Office Politics in a heartbeat. If you experience this, RUN. Trust me, it won't change. Do not have hopes.

Formal eğitim bana saçma geliyor. Belki benim canım yaz ayında öğrenmek istiyor. Ya da yazın öğrensem benim için daha verimli geçecek eğitim.

High risk, high return strategy they didn't choose.

It was exactly the same in former the communist countries , where intelligence was irrelevant if the "subject " wasn't aligned with the political system.

He talks pretty. ☺

Think outside the Jail!

Creatively, the hail Mary pass of human traits...

The type of understanding we need most in the West, namely the USA, isn't intellect or creativity.. We need WISDOM. It's almost totally dried up in the USA.. Our problem is that we have far too much intellect, plenty of creativity, but no wisdom - which is why we know how to make an iPad.. But can't figure out what a man and a woman is anymore. Smart people perform well at work, but in their lack of wisdom their home falls apart. We have tons of intellect in the government.. But without wisdom, many of our leaders thought it was a great idea to let illegal immigrants pour into the country... And now political leaders and their people in the most migrant filled areas are panicking.. Simple social issues that should be easily solved are viewed as calculus written in Chinese to those without wisdom.

This is me to a T.

Most creative people are not involved in this corporate, competitive world of industrial achievement that Mr. Peterson is speaking about.

Western European school curricula which is 80% of the world's curricula is trained psycopathy, a student is taught to deny his or her own personal experiences and practical abilities and to organize everything to the entitled descriptions of someone else. School is academic imperialism, someone far away goes into a lab while the student waits to write down what that person finds out my his or her own senses, making all students numb to their personal senses, by telling them they need a PHD to to access actual evidence even in their own lives. In actual sense school makes the student numb to the environment by the opinions of gradiose entitled men called explorers, scientists, professors, discoverers and such, who are the only ones allowed to form a lab.

I think creativity is also discouraged in the education system. As a kid/teen I used to come up with pretty unusual ideas and methods compared to most other kids, but more often than not I was punished for it with lower grades and teachers insisting that, even though it was a good product, I didn't go about it in the way they wanted me to and thus deserve a lower grade. So I learned to just follow the instructions of the teachers to a T, because that's what got me higher grades. I figured that this was preparing me for the work environment, where doing more than the 'minimal requirement' isn't always considered better. Because the tasks weren't a 'minimal requirement' at all, they were simply 'the requirement'. Nothing more or less was desired. So I went with it, thinking I'd learned a valuable lesson.

Frustratingly enough though, many professors in my university and bosses in work environments now expect creative and independent approaches. Everybody in my university does the exact same thing, every written paper or presentation for example follows the exact same structure and generally has extremely comparable content as well (even though the topics usually differ quite a bit). I can understand that having to evaluate the same thing over and over again for years on end is incredibly boring for professors, but this is what the education system has encouraged. You can't expect people to suddenly tap into their creativity once again after years of not having practiced/developed that part of themselves. Yet, that's what is now expected and rewarded all of a sudden. I almost feel like I was fooled, which is not a great feeling. And yes, I'm very much cynical about it. Something tells me allot of my fellow students feel the same way, judging by the awkward silence that always follows whenever a professor complains about the lack of creativity in our approaches.

I'd consider myself a relatively creative person (in terms of problem solving, coming up with innovative ideas and the like, though I'm also an artistic person). But I'm currently at a point where I feel stuck, much like the prison example that was given at the end. So much so that I don't dare to call myself a creative person in public anymore. I recently realized that I don't know how to properly tap into my creative side anymore, plus I struggle to get to work independently without exact instructions. I've become a 'by the book' type of person, which isn't necessarily a bad thing...but I don't enjoy it. I enjoyed working on tasks when I was being creative though, even when it lead to lower grades in the past. I've also noticed that I'm afraid to take risks now, I haven't taken a risk with really anything for years. It's hard to explain how it makes me feel really. It feels kind of limiting and I have a hard time feeling proud of most of my work, even if I was highly praised for it. I only feel proud of the few things where I was able to get a little bit creative. I wish to learn to be creative once more, if that's possible. But I honestly have no idea how. I'd appreciate it if anybody has some tips or has any other insights on this.

translation: indoctrination makes useful idiots.

Austrain painter thinks like this also

I'm really imaginative, I can draw really well, and I like to do comics with my own storyline and characters. But ever since I was a little child, I hated school, and I'm struggling at the courses I'm currently doing. I wanted to do graphic design and animation, but my own parents told me that otherwise.

I failed 1 course already, and I see myself bailing out of this one. I just want to do what I'm good at.

Thank you so much man! As an artist, back in grade school my teachers doesn’t accept creativity and art at all, all we did was full of academics and pressure, my whole life I was broken by teachers saying I won’t have a future if i’m not smart enough, I remember being humiliated by my one teacher that hated me alot for being creative and easily distracted, or annoying all the time, she was so irritated of me that she often enjoys me getting embarrassed on public, she would often throw away or crample my drawings, other teachers as well, I also never knew that I actually had adhd on my whole childhood which caused me to burst out on conversations all the time or have a wide range of imagination, I was diagnosed with that condition late at my teenage years, I have grown to have depression and anxiety, but fortunately I’m doing great so far, although i’m still learning to accept my true self that i am enough.
Also update i’m finally going to an art school I hope and pray I’ll do well tho.

So- if we are looking at the “business world”, and everything is based on a “one-size-fits-all” mentality, of which I find more true in all governmental bureaucratic rules of law… then everything is based on… “do what you are told and follow “our” guidelines of what we believe is the right way”.
Which is more like conformity to a dictatorship.

As a very creative person, school is like hell for me

m

Boom 💥 Truth 💣

All people do something well . Me in school was I board with everything except mathematics. Had the teacher found something to capture my interest may risen to something other than engineer ?
❤❤❤❤
I am what I am spinach

Very true

When I was a creative teenager, my parents always told me to "have something to fall back on" like a business degree...even back then I knew that was not an option for me.

it took me to be 42 years old to not only find out i’m originally left-handed (i was forced to be a righty, but didn’t know until a few days earlier) and since there is a high correlation between that and being creative, it finally makes sense now. I’ve ALWAYS been the crewtive type in technologies but always downplayed it as a mere hobby. Indabbled in music where i performed very well… but downplayed it as a mere hobby. In school i struggled immensely until later in my academic years when i was given chances to come up with my own concepts.

My world is technically now turned upside-down and i’m re-tracing everyting

I'm failing in life too

And then there are the engineers they are on an entirely different spectrum...

Yeah, I've done projects that were outside of the typical way projects or lectures should be done in college and I never could grasp how a college presentation should be done. It took me awhile to get how to write academically because I was so used to creative writing.

When i get an idea for someones business i send them an email and so far they accepted every one of my suggestions.

I dont do it for the money or glory because i know i wont get it.

I do it to make society (and consequently my own life) BETTER.

Thats enough reward for me.

But sure yea.I could use a lot of money so i can have a comfortable life and contribute more to the world.

Perfect video i have ever seen.

Lets go buddy

The schooling systems drains creativity. It actually motivates “box-thinking” styles. I hate the system. You won’t see me in academia because it destroys the soul. I’d rather learn on my own. I don’t need teaching because I’m not stupid; and autodidact.

I think that maybe conscientious people can learn creativity through the practice of improvisation.

YET IT TAKE CREATIVE PRESENTATION TO MAKE IT MEMORABLE
If Not? You Yourself Would Be TOO BORING To Engage Your Students. i.e This Is A VIDEO not A Pod Case - HELLO! Nice Animation Keeps ALL of Us ENGAGED! lol

maybe I'm a creative person

Beautiful. Well done.

I’m reading economics at the university but all I want to do is to write music fml.

I’m an artist in every sense of the word. I hated school, as a child because I thought it’s was ridiculous and absurd because most people attending school were stupid. Some kids were ignorant and violent and would only serve themselves and never family or society. But schools were designed to create a behaviour not successful people. So stupid.