Senior school was a horror for me from the moment of my first registration, until they spat me out five years later with a perfectly healthy mind ruined by secondary education. Like every other teenager I had a penchant for self-harm, so I returned to the same school for three more years to get my A-levels. I now have a degree in film.
Not everyone in my year school with was as fortunate as I was: I have parents who have worked hard all of their life to support me, but if I was applying to study today I could not have afforded to leave my nest.
There is just no way of describing the place I am from, namely Benwell in Newcastle. It is commonly known among Geordies (a generic term used to describe people from Newcastle) that Benwell is one of those places you only end up in if you are lost, and it is recommended that you leave quickly: like the local shop in Royston Vasey, non-locals rarely feel welcome.
There is a community centre, but that is just a building next to the rent hall that kids drink behind on a Friday night. As you walk through the streets in daytime (it’s a completely different experience at night) it is not uncommon to see young mothers handing twelve-year old sons cigarettes to chuff on (after lighting their own first). It is common to see gangs of youth taunting police horses, while their fathers hurl profane abuse at them for not being indoors (the kind of language and behavior that would mean instant dismissal for a teacher).
This used to be a beautiful place once; a place my mother and father felt proud to call home when they were growing up in the fifties/sixties. Now, litter blows around the streets like tumbleweed, most are so used to it they simply add to it. One man put a sign by a bin that read: “In the event of a nuclear holocaust hide under here, nothing ever hits it.” (A testimony to the Geordie sense of humor.) Dogs bark relentlessly from square foot backyards, some even go to the lengths of cementing broken shards of glass to the top of their walls to stop burglars getting in (and also, by default, train some of the most agile cats I have ever seen.)
Homes have been left to rot in some empty streets, whereas in others, streets of homes have been leveled to leave eerie gaps in the landscapes; reminders that people here were once living normal lives.
A large percentage of the shops in the main street have been closed up with shutters down for many years; a metaphor for the residents of the area who push their buggies around like over weight zombies on their way to shop at the local Asda. It is common to overhear people talk to each other at bus stops with distrust in their eyes and spite in their tongues, to see fighting and all forms of anger, but sadly to me, it is most common to see people who are two steps away from giving in. There is an air of despair that I always felt growing up there, but in the 17 years since I left it has got far worse as there has been very little done to tackle the rising drug problems or the huge issues concerning racism, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism and violence (both domestic and public).
This is a troubled area, and what do we do with troubled areas? We send in the police. The police are simply antagonists in Benwell; their constant presence (on horseback, in cars, and looming over the horizons in their helicopters like damaged insects) makes the streets feel as marshaled as Tombstone, and twice as likely to kick off.
I once took a boyfriend home for Christmas, and while me and my mother were settling in to watch whatever dross the tube was feeding us, he simply stared out of her 13th floor window.
Three local lads, none of them over 13 years old, had been wandering the streets getting drunk together (it had been snowing for three days and they were all wearing T-shirts.) The events were heating up when a fight broke out between two of them, and then the third threw his bottle at a car setting the alarm off.
The owner of the car entered the scene, and before five minutes passed an almighty scrap erupted including all of the neighbors, and their children, and some grandchildren. Meanwhile the police arrived, upon their arrival the three lads that started the fighting fled with officers in hot pursuit. The community argument continued while more police arrived, and continued way into the early hours of the morning. My boyfriend summed it up in one sentence: “Shit, it’s like North-Eastenders, but this is worse than telly.”
How do we tackle this problem that we have in this country? The divide between the have’s and the have-nots has nothing (really) to do with money, politics, location or class: it has to do with education.
My old school has now been closed down and replaced with another school that resembles a correctional facility (local children that don’t attend the school call it the Jail); it has swipe card entry gates that will not permit you access if you are late , and soon as the kids are in at 9pm they are not permitted to leave the premises until the last bell has rung. Is locking children into a secure unit really tackling the problem of why they aren’t being educated? Or is it getting them used to another kind of future? Children who are raised in Benwell are not raised to learn how to think for themselves; they are raised to learn how to cope with this life.
There is very little hope in Benwell; most parents know they cannot afford to send their children to University, no matter how bright they are. And the children know it to.
Education spending in England could be cost by as much as 25% over the next four years, and universities and colleges are already grappling with £1.4bn worth of cuts. On top of this, more than a third of English universities will charge £9,000 as their standard fee next year.
The sad truth is that the kids of Benwell do not face a bright future; I am one of the very, very lucky ones. But we cannot let this go unnoticed – a failure to invest in educating all of our nations children is a failure to invest in our countries best interests.
We cannot simply leave our children to wander the streets believing that they are never going to make anything of themselves. It is our responsibility to see why the symptoms of violence amongst the youth in our community are being caused by their frustrations. Frustrations we should all share.
With education your mind opens, it becomes interested and craves growth. In the pursuit of what you are interested in, your esteem grows; there is pride in doing something that you love well. If we fail to teach and pass on even these most simple lessons to our children, then we will be forced to suffer their reaction more. And we will deserve it until we listen.
The kids are bored in Benwell, they are restless, and they want more opportunities to rise out of the poverty trap, snared by a government that believes education should only be available to those who can afford it.
If I was saved by education (and I still am), the other kids of Benwell have a right to be too.
No comments:
Post a Comment