School trips are for teachers not the kids

The idea that a class of students needs to visit NYC for an economics trip at 1200 pounds is a bit much when really the products of our global economy are all too apparent to see in our city or in any city really. The student in this article

 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/14/school-trips-new-york-educational-arms-race-parents

would have done just as well to have visited the M&M store in Leicester Square if he wanted to see how an essentially useless economy can be generated around a chocolate with a crispy shell. How does visiting Wall Street really help the student understand how the world works? Perhaps it would have been better to have arranged a trip to the factories in China, Malaysia and India that produce most of our high street clothes. Or perhaps a school trip to an oil field in the South Sudan where oil companies and lawyers squabble over a war torn country to make as much money for us as possible. Or even just a visit to their local Starbucks. This would offer a better education on how the economy works, but I somehow feel the teachers might not have gone for any of those.

The truth is that most school trips remain a jolly for the teachers. Yes, they have to keep an eye out for the safety of their kids but, generally, very little education takes place on these excursions. Perhaps for some students there is something to be learned in being away from home, but at a cost of over a thousand pounds, it is hardly fair to the poorest families.

If state schools and academies intend to ape private schools there will be a lot more of these added extras and some parents simply can't afford to pay it. They should not be made to feel guilty. When I was a kid we had a three day trip to the local coast and explored the history, geography and local economy. I think the total cost was 65 pounds. Even that cost can be prohibitive for some, but at least the school had funds to help.

When education is tied up so closely with business funding, the smell of money is never far away. An academy in Bethnal Green has the mantra: 'we're climbing the mountain to university together'. Perhaps we need to stop everyone focusing on the mountain and look at the rest of the horizon. After all, not everyone wants to climb Everest.

Feb 24th

According to his mother Samuel is a stoner. Oh, and his father also found ecstasy in his coat pocket. He's not even clever enough to hide his drugs. Although his lassez-faire approach may have been encouraged by a speaker who came to his school (Westminster) and apparently said ecstasy was less dangerous than smoking. 

It seems Sam and his mother are at loggerheads. He doesn't listen and he has basically checked out as far as his education is concerned. Samuel is the youngest of five kids and, boy, he doesn't half live up to it. He can't make his own breakfast. Apparently he asked his mum: 'how do you make fried egg?' 

This is a kid who managed to get himself 8 A* grades at GCSE but now there is nothing that interests him. Although I know that there is something more going on. He has become infatuated with another boy at his school. A kid who regularly spends a couple of thousand pounds every weekend.

Samuel also explains to me how he wants to have power when he grows up. 'I'd be a good mafia boss,' he says, 'accept the mafia aren't as glamorous as they used to be.' To which I reply: 'you mean they don't kill people as elegantly as they used to?' 'Whatever brings in the...' And he rubs his fingers together in the universal gesture of money. 

I tell him about a woman I know who is not only suffering from cancer but is also waiting to hear about her asylum case. She is from Zimbabwe and has been terribly abused. I wonder if this will shake him up, awaken some kind of emotional response but he just shrugs his shoulders: 'nothing to do with me.' 

The trouble is that he knows how easy he's got it and so is making a decent attempt at destroying his future. At some level I think it's about a lack of identity. A vacuum of testosterone he looks to his rich friend as a role model. It makes me think, more than ever, that we need more diversity in our schools.