Training the Next Michelangelos by Lisa

Training the Next Michelangelos by Lisa - September 2025 Scholarship Essay

Michelangelo was arguably the greatest artist of all time, credited with the work of painting the Sistine Chapel. He was also a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. By the age of 20, he was already emerging as a famous sculptor, with his work from his youth still on display at the Vatican today.
In today’s world, by the age of 20, we are still in college, working jobs to pay tuition, not to grow in our skills and passions.
While Michelangelo was a remarkably talented man, he had the opportunity to cultivate, craft, and fine-tune his skills and passion for the arts at an early age. He trained under well-known painters, and by the age of 13 was already an apprentice. Imagine if we had the opportunity to do the same—we could have many more Michelangelos in today’s world.
Our education today is a privilege, but it also keeps us thinking within the four walls of the corporate world. Instead of learning who we are and what talents and capabilities we have, we are all learning the quadratic formula, which none of us, besides engineers and scientists, will remember after the ninth grade. I believe that the best change we could make to the education system today is to let children find out who they are, what they are talented at, and then train them in that area from an early age.
A man named László Polgár had a similar thought. He believed that geniuses are made, not born. To prove his theory, he trained his three daughters in chess from childhood. The three of them grew up to be champions, one of them being the greatest female chess player of all time, Judit Polgár. She became a grandmaster at the age of 15. How was that possible? She was trained from a young age. Children are the most moldable, teachable, and eager people, willing to learn. Yet, we teach them generic things that don’t fit their exact needs.
The change I would like to see in the education system is the opportunity for children to learn by seeing and experiencing from a real-life person—as an apprentice, so to speak. To be taught by someone who is excellently skilled in one area. For example, a young girl wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. In today’s education system, she won’t have a chance to start seeing or practicing until she is nearly done with medical school, maybe by the age of 20. Before that, maybe she volunteers by age 16. Think of how much better a veterinarian the girl could have been if she were allowed to see and learn at the side of a veterinarian at the age of 8. Yes, it is impractical, and can be a distraction to the vet working. She will have questions and may not sit still. But she could be the next Michelangelo in her field, if we would just take the time to train her in her skill, instead of the quadratic formula.