Owen Temple

I spent the whole day today at Consett Community Sports College, though it felt like a return to Blackfyne as I walked the corridor to the classroom where I once taught and talked to ex colleagues and pupils.

The reason for my visit was to attend the day-long seminar the school was running in collaboration with the Anne Frank Trust.

The day was moving, harrowing, challenging and yet filled with hope. What made the day especially hopeful was the fantastic band of young teenage “peer-educators” who took us through the exhibition, elaborating on the detail and clearly having taken the subject matter completely to heart. All week they had been showing the material to classes from their own school and local primary schools, as well as the public at Christchurch Hall, but their motivation and enthusiasm was undimmed.

We also heard the account of Ruth Barnett, one of the young Jewish children who was transported to England before the war to escape the persecution, but whose whole life had so clearly been terribly affected by it. She built an excellent rapport with her large young audience who asked her lots of questions.

I came away challenged in many ways. Watching the slide that leads from “labelling” people who are different into brutality and injustice, or just indifference, was a powerful challenge to anyone involved in politics

Another challenge is to resist any stereotype that labels our young people as somehow “worse” than previous generations, or suffering from short attention spans. Not that anyone would ever do that!