Young People: canaries in our cultural coal mine

When I look at what’s going on in schools, for families and young people in Australia, my heart hurts.

The canaries in our cultural coal mine: young people are facing plague-like proportions of mental health problems. This includes increased loneliness, with the latest annual University of Melbourne HILDA survey sharing that,

42% of people aged 15-24 are psychologically distressed, an increase of 23% over 10 years.

Our young people reflect back to us what is actually happening in our world. Looking globally, The World Health Organisation has declared loneliness as a public health threat, founding the Commission on Social Connection in 2023.

Teachers are overworked, at the mercy of an overstuffed syllabus and administrative requirements out the wazoo. In this environment, parents have become the enemy, as they demand more and more for their children, and speak up, loudly, when their children are not thriving. It is not that teachers have forgotten how to teach, it’s that the systems in which they find themselves have distorted the picture.?

On my son’s first day of school, I watched severe psychological distress of some of the new school starters. I watched one child vomit with anxiety, and the teachers grab a bucket and wash it away, with a false cheer, chirping that this was perfectly normal, and the child would adjust in time. It was some months before it was my turn to drag my own son, kicking and screaming through those school gates, locked for the children’s protection. I was told they can’t leave the gates unlocked, because some of the children with more complex needs might escape. I imagine these children’s parents, heading off to work, relieved that they could finally escape the isolation created by having a “problem” child, who cannot mix within the ordinary structures of our world. Perhaps they would praise the locked gates for finally giving them space to breathe.?

As time passed, I became one of the parents who would gather near the school gate, attempting to prise their child off their legs in fits of tears. Like a cultural bell tolling I heard Kurt Vonnegut’s words:

“A sane person to an insane society must appear insane”.

I saw other parents give me knowing smiles, saying “he’ll get used to it”. And the parents of the anxious children drifted towards me with a kind of magnetism powered by trauma. Sometimes I feel trauma has its own gravitational pull: trauma attracts trauma, leaving the untouched blissfully unaware.

In Australia it may be considered wise to turn towards the cultural wisdom of our Indigenous Elders, looking for ways that Indigenous thinking can change our lives , and the structures of our colonial world. However, Australians can’t even agree to a simple ‘Yes’ vote to offer a minimum standard of dignity for our Indigenous cultures. So here we remain, left alone in our nuclear family homes, flipping through self-help books and playing podcasts at double speed, experiencing a variety of individualism and cultural isolation that would make Margaret Thatcher proud.

I sit here now with all the pieces of this complex puzzle and wonder how I can make a positive impact on the future of this world, and our young people. I have worked with young audiences for over 20 years, and in this last year, I’ve been gifted with a few experiences that offer me hope...

Case Study #1

Hothouse Theatre

"I haven't giggled so much in the theatre for ages. Pure joy."

-Karla Conway

In January I was invited by HotHouse Theatre to perform my solo family clown show Holiday Island for the people of Albury Wodonga. I was met by the pure warmth of this regional venue. On a walkthrough Artistic Director Karla Conway tells me that the internal walls of the theatre were hand rendered by artists in the late 90s. I could literally feel love pulsing in this space.?

In her tenure I learnt Karla has responded to the needs of her very vocal and dedicated community. She recognises intergenerational experiences are necessary and also sees the integral value of artist development from the ground up. During my visit, I observed the young artists in training for the Launch Pad program, and met one of the venue techs who is now making his career in sound after spending his teenage years in the young artist program.?

Karla has learnt that getting school groups into the theatre right now is no longer possible, so she’s found a way for children to arrive: vacation care groups. Over the course of three days, I met over 700 children who were alive with the visceral, tangible possibility of live theatre. I worked for audiences who raised the roof; apparently they made noise louder than the venue’s production manager had ever heard.

Learning about this remarkable regional theatre and the magnitude of their cultural imprint has been a wonderful start to 2024. I will never forget the chants of those theatre hungry children as they realised I was alert and responding: “Open It! Open it! Open it!”

Case Study #2

Sydney Opera House Creative Leadership in Learning

Looking towards Creative Australia’s Revive Policy , I am thrilled to see Pillar 2 includes bringing Artists-In-Residence to schools. My hope for this policy announcement is based on my experience in 2023 when I became an Artist-In-Residence at a public primary school. This placement in the Southern Highlands of NSW was part of Sydney Opera House’s Creative Leadership in Learning program where students study the performing arts under the guidance of an artist, culminating in their own performance at the House.

At this school I saw a kind of Utopia: where children regularly lit fires at ‘bush school’, rolled down hills in tyres, and were encouraged to play imaginary games in secluded bushland. Where the entire syllabus in Term 2 was taught through the lens of the Creative Arts. Where a parent volunteered in the school’s own commercial kitchen to make barista coffee for the teachers on Fridays. I witnessed Growth Circles in action, used to support expectations around behaviour, and support student wellbeing by offering structured and responsive emotional tools.?And if you know much about public primary schools in Australia, you'll know this is all very unusual.

But I also learnt more about what goes on behind the scenes for a Year Six teacher, dealing with young people who have missed crucial years of schooling to Covid lockdowns. Children suffering with anxiety, absenteeism and fear of the future.?

As I worked with these children, I learnt most of them had never seen live theatre, and had no concept of what it would be like to devise and perform their own theatre show on the Opera House stage. Despite their ignorance, I watched them sidestep social awkwardness, and slip bravely into a world where the unconscious language of metaphor gave them newfound freedom of expression. Where looking outside of the boundaries of their own world gave them perspective. And where they could understand the same power struggles play out in both the playground and the global stage of politics. We grew together and made our own 15 minute theatre show about power, control and freedom, which we performed at the Opera House in 2023.

My big question..

So right now I’m looking for an opportunity to take these moments of hope and transmute them into a real-world program. I want to make a real impact on a community and improve outcomes for their young people, using creativity.?

If you have read this and someone or something pops to mind, please let me know. Who needs my help?

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