Personal Narrative: My Writing

I got a C on my first chemistry research paper. ‘It’s awkwardly written,’ my teacher scrawled on the paper in red ink.‘Most of your information is correct but it’s hard to read and harder to understand.’ I was furious. My writing was great as far as I was concerned. I aced all my English essays and she thought she could tell me my writing was awkward? The problem was clearly her. In my anger, I showed the paper to my brother- my brother the math and science whiz- and complained endlessly. “Well,” he said delicately “It is awkward. You’re writing too rigidly. You need to change the way you think.We all know you’re artistically creative. Now it’s time for you to be scientifically creative.” He went over it with me slowly. He explained how

I always thought of creativity in terms of the arts. How could my brother, someone with no interest in dance or music or art, ever be considered creative? I didn’t think school science and math were creative. What’s unique about learning concepts other people have already discovered? My brother completely changed that idea for me. His academic writing explores ideas in such new and unusual ways that they have to be considered creative. Most people crumble under the strain of trying to make research papers get their idea across when, really, they barely understand the topic themselves. My brother excels at them. His skill made me question the way most high school STEM classes are

It means encouraging students to come up with new ideas in every class. STEM fields have potential to be just as creative as humanities and arts. It’s just a matter of teaching students to see it in a different light. Schools make STEM classes too rigid. They should be flexible. One of the most creative classes I took in high school was AP Computer Science. Coding is like doing a puzzle, all the pieces have to fit together perfectly. The only students who succeeded were the ones with unique points of view, the ones who could look at all the coding techniques we learned and put it together in surprising ways. Other STEM classes have just as much potential to be creative. Students should be encouraged to experiment (safely, of course) in science classes. Math classes have so many opportunities for creative application. Even the most rigid math classes require an unusual point of view to see how to solve the