Jon Von Stein's article “Students, Meet the Real World” seems to target the very basis of our system of education, which he deems to be outdated in the digital age. He says that schools should prepare us for the real world through applied sciences so we will be ready once we are thrust into the dark and scary abyss of adulthood.

He goes on to say that English class should cease to be an outlet of creativity and interpretation of literary works and instead ­become a place for writing formal business letters, proofreading documents, and reviewing the work of other people. He even thinks that art classes (formerly a way for us to tap into our souls with the flick of a paintbrush) should become a place to do work assigned by others, to fit our flourishing minds into a plaster mold. I disagree on all counts.

What would our society be like if such systems of schooling had been implemented in the past? Would Picasso have been able to stray from conventional art to something entirely new through his mind? Would geniuses of literature like Edgar Allan Poe and e.e.cummings have been able to let their ideas flow if they had not been exposed to other literary works, instead only writing business letters?

The system of schooling that Jon describes is setting young people up for failure by not teaching them to express creativity. Is this getting us ready for the real world? There is no harm in exposing young minds to great literary works in the hopes of bettering them and inspiring them to pen their own masterpiece. There is no harm in giving us a paintbrush and leaving us to let our ideas flow. This is not “time wasted,” it is the glue holding our society together.