they’re not just taking what they see online at face value.’ He looks at the class for a moment. His expression is indecipherable. ‘Sometimes, I think that’s the best thing I can teach them – never believe anything you see until you’ve dug a little deeper.’
‘That’s a bit heavy for eleven-year-olds, isn’t it?’ Nadia replies, looking a bit disturbed.
Sean nods. ‘We live in a heavy world.’
The grave look on my brother’s face is almost as shocking as the depth of knowledge that’s been arrayed in front of me this morning. Sean is an optimist at heart. I’m the one who’s supposed to be the cynic. Hearing him talk like this is quite dismaying – especially when it’s about the children he teaches, and the world we’ve created for them.
Sean gives his class another couple of minutes to think of some questions, before bringing their attention back to him. ‘So, anyone thought of a question to ask Miss Cooke?’ he says.
Once again, every hand in the room shoots up – as does my heart rate.
I’m about to be put on the spot – and I have a feeling I’m woefully inadequate for the task.
‘Aiden? What would you like to ask?’ Sean enquires.
Ah. The nose-picker. Surely the nose-picker will go easy on me.
‘Do you think we should all stop eating meat?’ he asks me, the nose remaining clear of finger throughout, thankfully.
‘Well . . . um . . . I guess it’s important to . . . to . . .’
What the hell do I say? Even though I’m doing meat-free Mondays, a Sunday roast is never something I turn down. But about ten minutes ago, Sadie at the back of the class – her of the neat hair and prim expression – was telling me all about how awful it is for the animals before they get killed. How do I stand here and say it’s fine to eat meat, when these kids have a more-than-passable working knowledge (at eleven!) of what goes into getting that meat on to the table?
‘. . . make your own decisions about it,’ I eventually say, taking the coward’s way out. I can almost see Mordred’s beard shaking with disappointment and fury at my cop-out of an answer.
‘What about petrol?’ Aiden then immediately asks. You get the impression Aiden is the type of boy whose thoughts wriggle around almost as much as his finger does when it’s in its favourite place.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Do you think we should be driving petrol cars still? Only they do loads of damage, don’t they? Especially the big ones.’
‘Erm . . . that’s also a difficult one, Aiden,’ I flap. ‘We need to get around, but we could also do with driving less. And maybe we should have more electric cars. It’s bad that we still use petrol too much. But we need to . . . to get around . . . so . . . you know.’
When I say nothing else of any merit, Aiden looks extremely disappointed, and sits back, his finger starting its inexorable climb back towards its favourite frontal orifice.
‘Jade? How about you? What would you like to ask?’ Sean says, trying to ignore the upward trajectory of the digit.
Jade is the type of girl who will be wearing too much make-up in a couple of years, and constantly asking her friends if they have boobs yet. ‘Yeah, well, what I reckon I want to know is what’s the main reason we’ve got, you know, lots of people who want to come here from other countries? Is it because they’ve, like, lost their homes ’cos it’s got too hot, and they haven’t got enough water and stuff? And that’s ’cos we’ve been burning lots of fossil fuels, and like, messed up their homes?’
Jade there, probably doing a better job of summing up the growing and worrying refugee and migration crisis across the globe than any dissembling politician I’ve heard speak for the past couple of decades.
But again . . . what the hell do I answer? What do I tell her? I’ve become the de-facto expert on climate change and the environment, simply by coming here today, and yet I have formed absolutely no opinion around this kind of question. These kids think I know what I’m talking about. But I don’t. I really, really don’t.
I just wanted to keep my job, damn it.
‘It’s . . . possible, I guess,’ I tell Jade. ‘There are lots of . . . factors to take into consideration, but