How Does Busan Grow People?

What Schools Kill

Ken Robinson left one sentence in 2006 in the most-viewed TED talk: we don't grow into creativity, but education cultivates us out of creativity.

Schools make us afraid of making mistakes. They place subjects with right answers at the top and subjects without right answers at the bottom. They grant qualifications to those who have followed standardized paths and drop those outside those paths. Robinson's diagnosis is from 20 years ago, but it's sharper now. This is because what he called 'what has been cultivated out'—the power to ask questions yourself, start things yourself, and hold onto problems without answers until the end—has become the scarcest thing today.

The proposition of this article is simple. In an era when teaching has become common, what a city should cultivate is not teaching but the will to do things oneself. And will cannot be taught—there must be space for it to grow.

An Era When Teaching Has Become Common

Teaching is now almost free. If you ask something you don't know, an answer comes within seconds. A person's knowledge, skills, and history are instantly analyzed and scored by machines. The work of transmitting knowledge, the very work schools have done for a hundred years, is rapidly losing value.

So what has become scarce is on the opposite side. The power to decide for yourself what to ask, the power to start work no one has assigned, the power to hold on until the end even when no answer is visible. The more common teaching becomes, the more valuable what cannot be taught becomes.

Busan Doesn't Fail to Cultivate Talent

Busan doesn't fail to cultivate talent. Busan has produced actors and singers, baseball players and combat sports athletes, corporate executives and university professors. In some fields, it has produced so many names it's hard to believe they came from one city.

One thing becomes visible here. The fields where Busan has excelled are generally those schools don't teach. Acting, singing, sports, combat. Domains with no answer keys, unreachable unless you dig into them yourself. Busan didn't create these people through teaching. It simply didn't prevent people who wanted to do things themselves. In spaces where they weren't prevented, people with will grew on their own.

Then the question becomes clear. If talent emerges in domains that aren't taught, why doesn't this happen in the realm of building and making—that is, in entrepreneurship, technology, and industry? It's not because Busan's youth lack ability. As with acting and sports, people who want to do things themselves definitely exist in those domains too. It's just that there's no space for them to grow in Busan. So they leave the city in search of that space. The fact that people who have been cultivated can't stay in Busan is not a problem of ability but a problem of space to grow. (The problem of leaving itself will be addressed separately later.)

They Grow Without Being Taught

There's a case that created such space. A school in Paris called École 42. There are no teachers. No textbooks, no set class hours. Projects are given daily, students must figure things out themselves, and peers do the evaluation.

The founder looks at only two criteria in admission: logic and motivation. Criminal records or poor math skills don't matter. Even without teaching, about 80% of this school's students get jobs before completing the program. The key is simple. When teaching was reduced and space to do things themselves was increased, people grew.

Of course, this isn't a panacea. Will alone doesn't make everything happen. But one thing École 42 has proven is clear. What a city, or a school, can do is not to create people through teaching but to build spaces where people who want to do things themselves can grow.

Spaces Where Will Grows

Then what can Busan do? Will cannot be taught. Will is not injected. But spaces where will can grow can be built.

Spaces where self-started work is welcomed. Spaces where you can try again even after failure. Spaces where holding onto problems without answers isn't seen as strange. Spaces where people who have deviated from the path are accepted rather than sidelined. If Busan, just as it produced talent in acting and sports by not preventing them, also doesn't prevent in the realm of building and making, and furthermore builds spaces for growth.

This is difficult to measure. It's not captured by number of lectures, number of graduates, number of certifications. But in an era when teaching has become common, this is the only thing a city can cultivate. Spaces where people who want to do things themselves can grow without having to leave Busan.

And people who want to do things themselves can't last long alone either. There must be another person with will beside a person with will. How do they meet? That's the next question.