School Swap: Korea Style

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Kids in South Korea can rack up a huge 90 hours of learning in just 5 days. In fact, it is even considered the norm. Kids here in the UK spend only 6.5hrs or so at school each day - sometimes less - dedicating themselves to education. Of course there are exceptions, but the differences across the two education systems, are staggering and plain to see.

South Korea is rated at the top of the PISA education rankings table, Wales is (at the time of broadcast) rated 36th. However, if you look at the happiness levels of the same pupils, it becomes increasingly obvious that South Korea falls at the bottom of the table. So why the disparity?

bbc.co.uk

The suicide rate of young men aged between 10 and 30 in South Korea, is the highest in the world. we meet one man, who lost two close friends to suicide along the way, put down to educational pressures and exertion. And with up to 18hrs of studying a day leaving kids sleeping at their desks, it's no wonder that the figures are that bad. In a country that's economy has rocketed over the last ten years, where illiteracy feels almost phased out and where education is embedded as part of religious ceremony, exam results might just be the most important date in the calendar, which is an undeniable achievement, but is also putting an incredible amount of pressure on young people.

bbc.co.uk

In South Korea teachers are respected and education is valued, seeing approx 99% of students continue to study beyond the age of 16, as opposed to around 50% of Brits. As our Welsh students maintain, there is definitely something to be learned from their education system, though perhaps the way forward is to find a middle ground. There needs to be a culture of self-improvement, a desire to be educated in the UK, that simply isn't there at the moment. The 6 kids seemed to unanimously agree that a system somewhere in between the two cultures would be a healthy compromise. A system that allows time for creativity, for free expression for recreation and relaxation but one that also values learning, offers additional support and encourages educational engagement.

dailymail.co.uk

The show couldn't have chosen more polite kids to partake in the 3 day experiment. After 3 days of intense study and lack of sleep, our kids from Wales were definitely pleased to get back to the UK's more relaxed approach to schooling. There may not be roads filled with private tutors open until 10pm, nor schools that are open until midnight but there is an education system that allows us not just to memorise facts but to learn, think, form our own opinions and challenge our knowledge and others. Perhaps trips like this are the way to inform our governments on how to reach a happy medium that will allow us all to better ourselves intellectually but never at the expense of our happiness.

Read more about the School Swap here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-38080752

Professor Green: Suicide and Me

'Suicide and me' does a lot for the image of mental health. Professor Green (Stephen Manderson) brings it within our reach, lets us know that even the best of us have a relationship with a struggle for self-worth and happiness.

sheerluxe.com

It certainly identified with me. I struggled with finding happiness when I first moved to London and even more in telling people how I felt. The day I knew I needed help was when I first self-harmed, which, alongside suicide and eating disorders, is one of the most misunderstood acts of depression, both by those who have inflicted it upon themselves, and by those who haven't. To those who cut, it's a coping mechanism, a symbolic image that separates the pain and channels your negative feelings. To those who don't, it's a sign of weakness, attention seeking, a cry for help. I would never have shown anyone my cuts, it was my way of coping not of seeking attention. Manderson does well to open up these kinds of conversations around suicide and throw away the taboo to discover the reality of what's going on inside. He discovers that although these acts are too often seen as selfish, to the sufferer, it is often the opposite. A way to make things better, to relieve the burden on their families, to end the negative cycle.

Stephen explores what happens when we are unable to speak up about our troubles and share them, as well as exploring the negative thought processes that can lead to suicide. Spaces like the Maytree play integral roles in changing the way we approach conversations around suicide and mental health issues. Showing approaches like this, is why this programme, among others, is so important. (http://www.maytree.org.uk/)

mirror.co.uk

There has to be change in the way we, as a society, tackle the hard times, talk about depression, about ill mental health, about suicide. Only by doing this, can we go any way towards preventing it. I've learned not to set the bar too high, not to expect anything and be happily surprised when good things come. I work hard, dedicate myself to projects, to my career, to my family, friends and my partner, who was the first person to really understand. I also allow more time for the things that I enjoy, like playing football and photography. I learned that 'It's ok to cry, it's ok to talk about it' as Manderson's relatives echo. Everyone has bad days, but the good days will come.

tv.bt.com

This isn't a review on the quality of the programme, but instead a view on the issue at hand. We can't keep quiet about suicide, keep suppressing our feelings, swallowing our words. The fear is that when we are exposed to self-harm and to suicide, we're more vulnerable to it. But with discussion, needs to come education on how to cope. I suffered for longer than I needed to because I'd convinced myself that I could cope, when actually, I needed to talk things through to escape the blurred vision I had of life and find the beauty in it again. I did, but only because I found a way of talking, before it was too late. Sharing how we feel with family, partners, friends or even strangers, can do wonders for taking the weight off our shoulders.

It's great to see the BBC tackling these issues first hand, especially with young talent. It was all too familiar to watch as Stephen looks to camera and frustratedly exclaims, 'I'm crying again!' I s'pose filming these things is a form of therapy in itself, you spend enough takes talking about your feelings. I hope Manderson finds peace following this journey and that the programme will encourage others to travel a similar path.

I hope to see more programmes bringing the issues around mental health to the surface and encourage debate and conversation around mental health issues in the near future.

Lippy

broadwayworld.com

It's taken me a while to put finger to keyboard on this one. At first I was unsure if there was something I'd missed or if actually, The Young Vic's 'Lippy' was just surrealist at the core with no real statement about the world worth finding. On pondering upon it for over a week, I feel I may finally be able to write something. If I was to draw sentiment at all, it would be that our words define us. Those left without a voice, are given to others who speak for them, but who are we to put words in other people's mouths and say that we understand their plight? Now I'm getting it.

theartsdesk.com

The play begins in a light-hearted format, with a well-staged Q&A where the 'presenter' has no qualms about breaking the forth wall. He engages us with uncertain laughter and hints towards things we are unsure of holding any meaning. Our director speaks of his days as a lip-reader for the police, in a case involving four women and a suicide pact. He explains how he'd had to read their lips from CCTV and recreated the last existing images of them, filling their pictures, with his words. He had been used to lip-reading, raising a deaf daughter, but even so, we are let in on the fact that no lip-reading is easy. Words have many meanings, and as our presenter demonstrates, as he talks and our director lip-reads, the conclusions we draw and the things we THINK have been said, are in fact, often wrong. 

heraldscotland.com

newyorkirisharts.com

Beyond this set-up, we then transition into a dream-world where as an audience we are unsure of what really happened within our story within a story, or what was assumed to happen - essentially putting words into the mouths of our victims. With clever staging, intriguing set-design and audio/visual effects that left us searching through the dark for an end to the rise in noise and  in atmosphere, we were thrown into a pit much like a nightmare, where the only thing to emerge were few words that made us feel any better. I enjoyed the UV outlines of the victims, 4 bodies each holding a balloon made from the plastic bag that contains their paper lives - credit card bills, rental payments, payslips - their entire identity, on paper, shredded into a million pieces in an attempt to sever the tether to this world.

theguardian.com

There were a lot of unanswered questions:

What was the significance of the third person not showing up to the Q&A?

What was the deeper relationship, if any, between our writer and the women?

What was it that the two youngest girls saw with their father, 'what she saw, I saw'.

Why was he in the room with them, when it was the scenes at the shopping centre that he had lip-read for. Why did the other characters interact in the scenes with the women?

All of the answers to these, we can only guess at answering, as there is no commitment to exploring any of these eventualities.

whatsonstage.com

It was a piece filled with stand alone sentiments, with surrealist non-linear elements, like a table being turned on its side to reveal a birdseye view. Holes in the side of set to allow objects to be passed through for use. A leaf blower to clean up shredded paper during the scene, allowing yet another character to invade the women's realm. Rainfall, inside the house. And a rather lengthy spiel to conclude, from a video of a mouth, close-up. We watch the imperfect mouth as it moves and works up saliva at the creases, as it tells us the story of the women, speaking in-depth but somehow not telling us anything at all. 'What she saw, I saw', BUT WHAT?!

It is sad at times, allowing time in silence to reflect upon the women's actions. Like the trip to the shopping centre, where one sister returns with a chocolate bar. The women are starving themselves to death and you can almost feel their desperation, their longing for just that one bite. We watch as they sit at the table yet do not eat, as they destroy their possessions, as they distract themselves with television, as they continue to feed the cat, as they struggle to stand, as the flowers die, as they sit and stare, as they turn to harm to find some distraction from their hunger, as they no longer travel to the toilet, just use a bucket. And as they die. But we are pulled from these narratives that humanise our victims, and we are instead thrust back ever further into the nightmare.

theupcoming.co.uk

stagebuddy.com

And so, yes, there are many moments to pick out from the piece, but moments is all it was. There was intentionally no linear story pulling it all together. It is suggested but not explained, toyed with but not explored. It is up to you as an audience member to do the hard work. As an audience we felt unsure of whether the performance we'd seen had told us anything profound at all. As the lights came up I tried to think about it, before hearing the lady behind me exclaim, 'What the hell just happened?' - so it clearly wasn't just me then. But then, wasn't that the point? We can never really know the story of these women as it played out, we don't even know if the lip-reading from the shopping centre was correct. As an audience, we are once again thrust into the role of giving these women a voice, of giving their final moments a narrative - because we can never know for sure, we can only imagine, and what is born from that, is a scene as surreal as the one placed in front of us here.

A play full of clever yet non-sensical moments, you're a better man than me if you can pull it altogether but upon reflection, there is meaning in all of it. In fact I can't find a better way to describe the play than this, from TimeOut's Andrzej Lukowski:

'This strange, visceral play isn't an explanation of their mystery, more a monument to it'.