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

It’s not easy being young. Dae-Jaun lives in “a complicated area” of south London. What “complicated” means in this instance is that on his way to play basketball, he was jumped on and threatened with a knife. He started carrying a knife of his own, for self protection. He was caught when it fell out of his school bag. Dae-Jaun is only 14 years old.

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.

Politically speaking, Arkansas is – as Mena’s high school principal puts it – “a very conservative state.” We meet student Jayla, a quiet girl who describes herself as bi-racial. When she wore a Black Lives Matter Bracelet, people would try to cut it off.

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.

Dae-Jaun is staying with Waylon’s parents in Mena. They have crossbows, drawers full of knives and don’t always lock up their many, many guns. The walls of Waylon’s bedroom are decorated with the skulls of the animals the teenager has killed. Small wonder that on his arrival, Dae-Jaun takes a look around and, very quietly, bursts into tears.

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.

With its cheerleading and multi-generational whole-town sporting events, Mena High has a tremendous school spirit, so much so that at one point we are even shown it on a graph.

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.

By the end of the first of three episodes, Dae-Jaun is out on some spectacularly beautiful water learning to fish (“the only fishing I’ve done is in a video game”), while Sailor is vowing to be more aware of what is going on around her. I’m never sure whether it’s OK to film teenagers – even with their full consent – and this programme’s interest relies solely its subjects’ vulnerability.

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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