Art Education in Schools

I truly believe in my heart that art education stole my creativity in school. During high school, my teachers would force us to draw things that really weren't our style and criticized our artwork by the way we made it. My junior year, my art professor saw the real potential in me. Before I had gotten into her class, I was drawing pictures of anime characters and simple "doodles." Now I like to draw pieces of art that include real human figures. My favorite art piece that I had done during high school was a dry pastel of the chest of a black man. I didn't honestly think my pastel art would be as amazing as it had been. But since high school, I haven't really been able to do art because I'm sick of being told what to draw or what to draw with.