Suppression of creativity in education

Today is the 8th of February 2022 and this is my individual oral in English A HL language and literature
where I will be discussing the global issue of education. More specifically, my field of inquiry will be about
the suppression of creativity in education systems, which can be found at the root of a lot of unhappiness,
discontentment and even mental health issues around the world ever since the beginning of
industrialization.

I will be examining how this suppression is presented and criticized both in the infancy of the industrial
revolution as by William Blake in his poem The Schoolboy from the 1789 illustrated poem collection Songs
of Innocence and of Experience and in the modern day as by Sir Ken Robinson in his 2006 TED talk Do
schools kill creativity?

First, let’s examine the literary text. Blake was an artistic polymath who fiercely opposed all types of
repression of human nature and freedom in the 18th century Britain, exercised mainly by organized religion
but also by other institutions such as schools, which was a rather idiosyncratic view for the time. The
purpose of Songs of Innocence and of Experience is to criticize and condemn many of these artificial,
counterproductive and unnatural limitations on human potential, such as the suppression of creativity in
education, which it does through the juxtaposition of the two sets of poems Songs of Innocence and Songs
of Experience.

The Schoolboy from Songs of Experience establishes freedom as the natural state of being through the use
of pastoral imagery, which is a motif present throughout the Songs of Innocence, emphasizing how humans
are a part of nature and in harmony with it, being free before being subjected to the arbitrary rules of
society. In the poem, this natural unity with nature is expressed on line 4 in the form of a metaphor: “the
skylark sings with me”. As singing is a creative act, this highlights how creativity flourishes when a person is
in tune with nature.

Mirroring the dual structure of the collection, this is juxtaposed with metaphors for suppressing that
creativity in lines 21 to 23 such as “buds are nipped / And blossoms blown away” and “tender plants are
stripped”. The pastoral imagery of plants represents children and buds and blossoms represent ideas and
manifestations of their innate creativity, which are juxtaposed with the plosive verbs “nipped” and
“stripped” that have connotations of force and oppression so portraying school as an unnatural, tyrannical
and violent force extinguishing that creativity. The results of this are seen in the poem London, where the
metaphor of “mind-forged manacles” is used to expose the artificiality of the restrictions imposed by
society.

Their counterproductive and oppressive nature is highlighted by the authentic and relatable sounding first-
person persona’s powerlessness and desperation in the face of distress caused by school, which is
communicated through the diminutive adjectives such as “little”, “youthful” and “tender” that highlight his
innocence and vulnerability, gaining the sympathy of the reader. This is further elaborated upon by the
metaphor “droop his tender wing”, which uses zoomorphism to frame the child as small, sad and fragile but
also full of natural potential of which flying is a symbol of. Another device widely employed by Blake, such
as in “Holy Thursday”.

The criticism towards formal education is expressed in the form of metaphorical rhetoric questions
spanning the last two stanzas: “[I]f the tender plants are stripped / Of their joy in the springing day […] How
shall […] the summer fruits appear?” This questions both the goals and methods of schooling by using
“springing day” as a symbol for youth and “summer fruits” as a symbol for the positive contributions to
society or themselves achieved by a well matured, creative and free child, not corrupted by formal
education. Through this juxtaposition of nature and school, the poem frames school as unnatural and
makes an emotional appeal about the suppression of creativity to the reader condemning both the goals
and measures of formal education in favor of children’s natural curiosity.

Moving on to the non-literary text. Sir Ken Robinson was an educationalist advocating for localized,
individualized, diverse and creative education in his various books and engaging speeches, mainly aimed at
educated western people with the purpose of inspiring an education reform. He was deeply concerned with
the suppression of creativity in the education system, which he claims not to adequately prepare children
for an uncertain future.

In his captivating and widely resonating speech, judging from its rank as the most viewed TED talk of all
time, Do schools kill creativity? Robinson argues that modern education produces homogenous,
unbalanced individuals, which he expresses through the humorous hyperbole on lines 1 and 2: “as children
grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And
slightly to one side.” The allusion to the popular theory of the brain hemispheres with the left side of the
brain being logical and the right side being creative creates a humorous metaphor for the single-minded
pursuit of sciences that, through its excessive accuracy, criticizes the current overemphasis on STEM
subjects and the neglecting of other, more creative subjects such as arts, crafts and physical education.

He highlights the absurdity of this by inviting his audience to a hypothetical thought experiment about
“visit[ing] education as an alien” by means of direct address that concludes with “the whole purpose of
education […][being] to produce university professors”. The pun of professors, the epitome of education,
being literally disembodied creates humor through absurdity, presenting the question of if this is really a
sensible goal for us to pursue. This absurdity is taken a step further with the hyperbole: “They look upon
their body as a from of transport for their heads”, which combined with a strategic pause, a chuckle and
the rhetorical question: “Don’t they?” prompts a laugh from the audience, making them more receptive to
his argument.

Once a rapport with the audience has been established in the earlier half of the speech, the shift in his tone
from playful to serious on line 19 signals of the importance of what he is about to say next. He then further
leverages the dynamic nature of a speech via the direct address from line 22 onwards, with which he
prompts listeners to recall their personal experiences about being told to abandon all creative pursuits,
illustrating how they too have been affected by the system, highlighting the scale and prominence of the
issue. Contrasting the quality of this advice to not focus on, for example, arts through history reveals the
antiquity of the current education system that has not changed during the two hundred years to keep up
with the ongoing change in the world, so criticizing it for its outdatedness, rigidity and in relation to the
rapidly evolving modern world, absurdity.

In conclusion, both texts agree on the issue although they are over two centuries apart, which seems to
reveal a major, structural fault in our education. Whereas the poem exclusively uses pathos through the
use of pastoral imagery, metaphors and rhetorical questions, asking the readers to sympathize with it, the
speech, due to its more dynamic nature engages the audience through the use of humor and direct address
to make them relate to it personally, while also using logos to persuade the audience. In terms of the global
issue of suppression of creativity in education, possibly the biggest difference between the texts is that the
persona in The Schoolboy, a student in the system, thinks of school as irredeemable by condemning it as
unnatural whereas Robinson, an educator himself, advocates for a reform or a revolution rather than
abolition as he still sees tremendous potential in the institution that, unfortunately, has yet to reach its full
potential. Thank you.