As we all know, Einstein was a genius. However, those who unsuccessfully tried to mold him into a product of the typical assembly line, education system found that he was impossible to control. He was impertinent, a nonconformist and especially had a distaste for dogma. These are all the things that would ensure failure in our current “No Child Left Behind” education system. I dare say that if Einstein had been required to take the TAKS test during his time, we might be surprised as to what the result would have been.

Not only would Einstein in all likelihood flunk the TAKS test due to his being pegged as “slow”, but it would have turned him off so much that he probably would have dropped out altogether. However, somehow even over the protests of his schoolmasters who he used to frustrate, he finished school and proceeded with trying to get his doctorate. According to an article in the April, 07, Wired magazine, he alienated so many of his professors that he was unable to actually attain his doctorate, much less an academic job. So the genius of Einstein found employment with the Swiss patent office in Bern which turned out to provide a better launching pad for his ideas than any university.




What does this mean to educators today? It means that our education system tied down by dogma doesn’t create an environment that encourages breakthroughs in science, math or health care. Creative thinking does not incubate in such a stifling, assembly line environment. Einstein’s most famous theory of relativity was born of his ability to think “outside the box” in order to solve the mystery of time. Through his insight, he was able to theorize about time as not being absolute but relative. In order to do that, he had to step outside of conventional thinking and outside of conventional dogma.

Other scientists had come close to his insight, but they were too confined by the dogmas of the day. Einstein, being the obstinate, creative thinker he was, proved to be impertinent enough to discard the notion of classical physics. Einstein himself later proclaimed that “imagination is more important than knowledge.”

This makes me wonder where Einstein would have been today with our current education system so lacking in creative thinking and original thought. And, how many more Einsteins are out there but have given up on education? It certainly is something to think about.