Taking a break from feeding the monster...

It’s that time of the year when I want to close down schools – for at least a month - force them to shut so that teachers, students and parents can take a break from the relentless preparation for SAT’s, GCSE’s, AS and A levels.  Sadly I don’t have that kind of power so instead I am forced to watch the young people of YTYT buckle under the pressure of excessive assessment and unreasonable demands.

What does that look like?  Well some people choose to step back from things they enjoy – like YTYT – until their exams are over – essentially putting their life outside of education on hold.  There are some that ring in sick more often that they have ever done – because they feel horrible and are trying to claw back any time they can to sleep, recover, run to ground.  Others manage to get out on an evening to drama club - looking tired and overwrought when they arrive but a little more nourished by the time they leave.  All of them spend our opening to sessions of Best and Worst with some sort of story about how education is testing them in ways that are impossible to balance.

I find all this so utterly depressing especially because year on year it is getting worse – this was always going to be a trickier year for us as we have a 16 year old and an 18 year old and so exams are playing a pretty large role in our summer term.  I was prepared for that…but I am constantly surprised in such a negative way by how increasingly brutal this time of the year is.  Universally brutal for both the students and the teachers having to guide them through the whole barbaric process.

The questions that keep turning over and over in my head are: Whatever became of doing your best?  When did it become not good enough to achieve your potential? When did it become necessary to try and make learners into something they aren’t cut out to be? And finally when did it become ok to say it’s not good enough to build on your strengths, excel in your chosen field – that you have to be exceptional at everything?

The idea that everyone has to be brilliant at everything has become pretty much embedded in our education system and it is taking it’s toll.  Young people who come to Yew Tree are turning up with the visible scars of constantly being told they are not good enough, that their work is not good enough and it’s leaving them defeated and demoralised.  This is not the fault of teachers who when I talk to them are feeling much the same – it’s the result of an impossible education system – which, in the hands of people who should know better has turned into a monster that no matter how much you feed it can never be satisfied.  This system is not only sabotaging childhoods and youth, it’s setting a dangerous culture for their adulthood - the victim of which will be the compromising of this generations mental health.

Despite all of this it is not in my power to shut down schools so I’ll do what I can.  Here at Yew Tree Youth Theatre we’ll do our best to redress that balance in whatever way we can – I’m not in a position to help the teachers as much I’d like to - but exam takers and learners in general come to Youth Theatre when you can and we’ll give you a place to play, to be creative and to remind yourself who you are when you’re not trying to feed the education monster – we’ll show you that learning is actually a brilliant thing to be enjoyed and valued and we’ll tell you as often as you want to hear it how brilliant you are!