School Swap is a Channel 4 ‘experiment’ that might actually do some good ...Middle East

But is it any easier to be young in the small town of Mena, in rural Arkansas? That’s the question Channel 4’s new “experiment”, School Swap: UK to USA, hopes to answer by sending a group of British teens to school in the mostly white, Christian Arkansas, while their American counterparts attend Elmgreen School in multicultural Lambeth.

Mr Maxwell, Principal of Mena High School, calls Arkansas ‘very conservative’ (Photo: Channel 4)

Jayla and outgoing blonde Sailor, who is “very close to God”, are travelling 4,500 miles to London, to live with Zoe, a teacher at their new inner-city comprehensive, and her wife Kate. “You don’t see a lot of that type of thing in Mena,” says Sailor, after being told her new guardians share a bedroom. “But I’m glad.”

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If the two American girls settle quickly into their new environment, the same cannot be said for the most extreme of the American boys. Waylon shoots deer after school, and has never been on an escalator. When introduced to his UK family’s pet snake, Pistachio, he says: ‘I catch snakes. Or if they’re by my house, I kill them.” He goes on to tell a story about how he once roasted a racoon, and then chattily and repeatedly abbreviates the word. He has to be told that this is not acceptable.

Back in London, Jayla is flourishing. “I don’t feel judged by anyone any more and it’s awesome,” she says. Jayla’s unfurling is wonderful to watch. So, too, is her housemate Sailor’s increasing understanding of what her hometown has done to her friend, how it has crushed her spirit, how, as Jayla puts it, her “light has died”. It’s a useful lesson – for the teenagers, and for us – in just how easy it is to ignore suffering, even when it is close enough to touch.

Jayla flourishes in London (Photo: Channel 4)

Dae-Jaun joins Mena High’s basketball team and loves going to see the school’s American football team play. Then, both he and another UK student, Richae, are subjected to racist abuse – Dae-Jaun by a student from a neighbouring school, Richae in the corridor of Mena High. Richae has already learnt to downplay the event – a lesson she learned here in the UK.

That said, it makes for a compelling and often unhappy picture of what it is like to be young, both in America and here in the UK. These children are funny and sweet, clever and, in so many cases, carrying great burdens of sadness. I am rooting for them all.

‘School Swap: UK to USA’ continues next Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 4

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