For most of us, the mention of Jamie Oliver usually conjures up images of quaint kitchens, delicious food and perhaps a campaign to rid school canteens of turkey twizlers. Well now we can add education ambassador to that list as he ventures into the world of teaching in his new experimental documentary for Channel 4.
He started with a vision of revolutionising school dinners but now his dreams have developed into a ‘Dream School’ where youths from all different backgrounds can come to experience a new type of learning. Not only will Jamie be introducing the kids to new lessons but they will be taught by some of the most respected and influential celebrities out there. Whether or not the kids will think they are inspirational is another thing. Somehow we don’t think Jamie is the right person for this programme. It’s definitely no Hogwarts; maybe the title of dream school was a bit over-ambitious for this slightly perplexing show.
Shockingly, 15% of kids in the UK do not achieve the required five GCSEs to allow them to advance to A Levels. So over 300,000 leave school without even their GCSEs under their belts. After admitting he has only two GCSEs, Oliver has decided that he wants to inspire the failing kids of the nation. They’ve all flunked their GCSEs, are totally uninterested in school and come from a mix of backgrounds from private schools to council estates. So will Jamie be the one to reignite their educational zeal or will it be one of his professionals. This week Jamie brought in Robert Winston (science), Ellen MacArthur (sailing), Rolf Harris (art), David Starkey (history) and Simon Callow (english). To give the experiment some weight, a real headmaster has been drafted in to keep control over the situation.
First up to try his luck with the rowdy youths was Simon Callow. Personally I would give my left and right arm (and maybe a leg) to have had the opportunity to be taught english by Simon Callow, instead the class ended up like an episode of Jersey Shore - the school years. While Simon’s aim was to apply the roles of Shakespeare to modern day people, it ended up a complete mockery. When he asked them who they aspire to be like, one unfortunate boy raised his hand and said Katie Price. All is lost for this group. You could just see Callow asking himself, “why did I sign up for this?”
Do these kids really want to learn though? Given the chance, they would probably much rather be anywhere else than in a classroom with ten other disruptive teenagers. It’s extremely frustrating because there are people out there who don’t have the opportunity to learn and these kids are throwing it away, acting up to the camera and constantly trying to get one up on their peers. Common courtesy and respect are among the words that just don’t exist in their vocabulary. Realistically, there are only so many unruly teens you can put in one room. Did this show really think they would succeed in transforming the mindset of a room full of class clowns who are egging each other on? It’s programmes like these that open my mind to the wonderful work some teachers do in the classrooms and at the same time rejoice that I didn’t choose that career.
Things didn’t get any better when Starkey entered the classroom. Equipped with a trunk of ancient gold, the shiny objects couldn’t distract the noisy class and I’m afraid Starkey let the pressure get to him. Out of the blue, he commented that one of the students was fat. Completely inappropriate and surely not how an inspirational teacher should act. But that’s the thing; he’s not actually a teacher. There’s a huge difference between holding great knowledge of a certain subject and actually teaching that subject.
Teaching is a skill that has to be honed for years, how can these celebrities be expected to come in and succeed where countless trained teachers before them have failed? Of course if this were a real school, this incident would be brushed under the rug but not in the dream school. With the headmaster wanting to suspend him and Jamie adamant that he should come back, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next week. The reality is that Starkey and modern methods of teaching will never agree. Jamie’s plan isn’t quite going according to plan. Controlling the teachers is proving nearly as much work as controlling the kids.
Rolf Harris was left gutted at the end of his lesson. He wanted them to get into the spirit of impressionist painting and discover their creative side. Instead he ended up with a group of students more interested in texting and bopping to Nicki Minaj than getting into his questionable skull painting exercise.
Just when it looked like all was lost, Ellen MacArthur came to save the day. Four of the class were chosen to accompany her on a boat and go sailing for the day. Thankfully it worked a treat for the four who even seemed to enjoy themselves (shocker). Professor Winston introduced them to the intestines of rats and then swiftly moved on to pigs. He lost half his class when he unleashed a chain saw on the pig’s stomach. Can they honestly say students would be interested in this?
Do you think all the students will last until the end of the series? With the way it’s going it’s looking highly unlikely. Maybe Jamie Oliver should have stuck to what he knows best and left this kind of stuff to the real teachers instead of undermining some of the incredible work they do.
Sarah Carty
