Inspiration, Inspiration, Inspiration

Tony Blair said recently, that we can’t expect to live in a no risk society. Yet it feels increasingly as if we are all Gullivers, pinned down by a myriad of edicts, laws, targets, assessments and strategies, dominating every aspect of our lives – starting in the cradle – reducing us to mere commodities to be rolled off a production line – denying us risk; the risk to think independently; the risk to enter our own inner world, our own individuality, and discover our own sense of creativity. It seems that we are all being denied the right to take risks, to be wrong, fail and, as Becket famously said, “try again and fail better,” in case it risks the government not achieving its targets. What if there had been a law saying don’t sit under apple trees in case one drops on your head?

Everything must have a quality seal on it by virtue of having been tested. The testers too have to be tested, so children comply with teachers (or not), teachers comply with Heads, Heads comply with school inspectors, and school inspectors comply with….well – government edicts. Ditto in the NHS and most other aspects of our lives.

“Creativity” is the buzz word. Everyone knows that to be creative is the essence of being human. So it goes into the National Curriculum to be taught, assessed and ticked off. “Imagination” is the companion buzz word; something to be judged, evaluated and ticked off in a box. But like the word “choice”, they have become devalued, misused and misunderstood. They have become words of manipulation and deception, to make us believe we are both giving and receiving something of quality.

But we have entered through the Looking Glass into a topsy-turvy world. We destroy a wilderness, build a city of structures and then say, “imagine a wilderness.” Children enter this world with a glorious wilderness of imagination and creativity. The adult artist is often desperately trying to claw back those first wondrous experiences of childhood and discovery; that wild, imaginative world – often secretive, extraordinary beyond the adult’s wildest imagination. What we should be seeking is to till the child’s rich imagination, not destroy it with production values and killer pesticides of an overly prescriptive curriculum, whose sole aim is to meet a government target.

This is not to say that there shouldn’t be any targets. The child may be born a noble savage, but it has to face the reality of a highly structured and complex world – so of course it must achieve literacy and numeracy at the very least, but further, and vitally, must learn to think constructively, critically and philosophically. Children must learn the craft of learning, and have the tools of acquiring knowledge and articulation at their disposal.

We have a society now, which is at odds with family life; often with both parents working the highest number of hours in Europe, most infants shunted off into nurseries, with lack of bonding, into early school, and testing from the cradle to the grave. No wonder they have fractured role models, that in far too many parts of our society there is exhaustion, lack of creativity and inspiration. No wonder we have soaring truancy rates and teenage pregnancies.

Study after study after study has shown that if every child, – not just the so-called gifted child – but every child - had of right, access to the things which inspire and stir the imagination and creativity, then this would actually cause them to perform better all round. Philip Pullman calls it play; playfulness; things such as music, drama, dance, art, poetry, reading and writing. Play is the life force of creativity – it’s the life force of a healthy society and feeds like a healthy diet through every other aspect of their lives – not just the arts – but the sciences too. They say we have a dearth of children going into science. Could this be exactly because there is a failure to stir their imagination? To be scientific is to be creative, imaginative and playful too. This is why I passionately believe the arts must be part of every child’s healthy diet, and must continue to be the soul of every society. They inspire us to learn with a purpose, gain confidence, articulacy, and have a dynamic and inter-active regard for the world around them. True education is having faith in the human condition; that people are born curious and thirsting for knowledge; that when they see something which can nourish and benefit them, they will reach for it. But we have devised a system that amounts to force feeding – and far too many of our children are sick.

This is where I come back to risk. It surely starts in the teacher training colleges. If the teachers are trained well, and given the confidence to go out and contribute their individual talents and skills, the government could risk being less prescriptive, have a more flexible curriculum, and allow for more imaginative ways to keep our children – and teachers - engaged with the education system.

Children first hear the words “creative” and “imaginative” from teachers, asking them to write a poem or a story – as though it’s the prerogative of the English lesson. English and its handmaidens, creativity and imagination, should be in attendance at every lesson. Many children believe books are written to order – if only you learn the right formula. They don’t grasp that for the 90% perspiration, you have to have that 10% inspiration – at the very least. Take them outside, up a mountain, to a theatre or a concert, then ask them to be creative. Show them how life, nature, and raw human experience has inspired the most marvelous works and inventions, so that they too can be inspired.

You can’t be creative to order. No one can. Not unless you can move freely through that wilderness of curiosity, discovery and resourcefulness – the way children can put two chairs together and create a train or a space ship; the way a blanket over a table becomes
a house, or an underground world of other beings; the way a wander through an orchard, sitting under an apple tree can lead to the discovery of gravity. What are our equivalents? No longer can even a primary school teacher respond to a sunny day and say, “Let’s go out and see how many trees we can identify, or frog spawn we can spy!” I visited a city academy specializing in science, who therefore saw no necessity for providing their children with the experience of putting on a school play, or playing in an orchestra.

So what am I asking for – realistically – not as an impossible pipe-dream?
In our highly diverse society with literally thousands of stimuli whirling around us, I’m asking that we are more selective with what we give our children in school. We should recognize that, for a vast majority, it may be the only opportunity to give them contact with the finest achievements of many civilizations. I think a fear of “elitism” has meant that generations of children aren’t hearing the finest music, reading the finest literature, or being given access to the best of human achievement. I want, on the one hand, to allow children to show us what it is to be creative and imaginative, but on the other hand for us to give them shining examples of the best we know ; to learn the best grammar and vocabulary because we have given them the best books to read; have encouraged them to learn by seeing and doing; that possibly less is more; give them a less but more selective best, but with more time to absorb what they’re given. If there is a literacy hour on the timetable, let there also be a silent, reading hour; an hour to listen to good music, an hour simply to think – and hours to take on a whole rather than extracts.

The AS Level exams have destroyed the year between GCSE and A-Levels, when previously, it could have been a year of consolidation, reflection and personal preparation. For many children, they reach overload by fifteen.

In talking to some children recently, I realised that they had not put any value on their own thoughts. They woke up listening to music, went to school to be talked at, did their homework listening to music, watched other people doing things for them on television, and probably went to bed and fell asleep listening to music.

I believe that if we can restore to our children time, trust, and emotional safety – so that they can go outside over there, where the wild things are, they will return inspired, creative and confident; people ready and willing to take on the world.

Why don’t we take the risk?