INTO THE WILD

Recently I turned 25. I'd set aside 3 days around my birthday, to do something, go somewhere, meet anyone. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I had 3 days. The time came, the forecast was bright, and none of my friends were available at such short notice. So I dusted off my touring bike and hopped on the 5.10am train from London Euston to the coastal town of Whitehaven, which straddles the land between the Lake District and the Irish Sea.

When considering my motivations behind taking those 3 days to conquer the coast to coast, I suppose it ticks a few boxes; getting out of the big smoke, going on a bike ride, but most importantly and most difficult to define - it was satisfying a hunger for adventure, the wild outdoors, the exploration of a place that I've never seen before. I wanted to see lakes and hills and people with unusual profiles and accents, turn corners not knowing the landscape, animal or vehicle that lay beyond. That's what I found, within a pebble's throw of the bullet-shaped Virgin train, which turned into a rickety coastal carriage leaning worryingly close toward the water, which turned to me dipping my back wheel in the Irish Sea, soon peddling without a map (but with a packed lunch) towards the grassy peaks and rocky shores of the Lakes.

Last Summer when living in Brighton I tried to make it to Penzance by bicycle (I made it to Dartmoor and decided I'd had enough), and I've cycled hundreds of miles in England, Wales, France and even Cuba. Each time the process becomes more streamlined. My kit evolves, now never missing essentials such as a portable stove, emergency bin-bag, emergency hat (interestingly, a beret), and inner tubes - despite a concerning incompetence in changing tyres. Fortunately I've not yet had the bad luck of encountering a puncture - an inevitable probability that I tried very hard not to think about whilst cycling through the Northumberland moors.

What good have these trips done me? Aside from the obvious benefits of health and happiness in the outdoors, they've taught me many things about myself and other people. Resilience, resourcefulness, patience, how-to-make-friends-in-a-pub-car-park's-questionable-“campsite”, how that even if things get really bad, and I mean, sitting on the hard shoulder of the A35, exhausted and woefully stuck betwixt junctions, in the rain, 10 miles from the nearest train station kind-of-bad, I will survive, and get out of the hole I've rather unhelpfully dug and pushed myself into, and hopefully next time I'm cycling from Bournemouth to Bridport, I won't take the motorway but instead take a map.

The people I've met in hostels and roadside cafes have offered me generous insights into the unpredictability and kindness of strangers, whose faces and names I can't remember, but whose offer to do my washing up because my legs were so sore, I'll never forget. The unique and exquisite jams and honeys that you can only buy from little pensioners on the side of the road, the home-grown plums you can buy for 5p from a delighted 7 year-old boy, the honesty-box eggs, the ice-creams, all gratefully inhaled in order to fuel the 13% incline that follows the next bend in the road. And I'm not a sporto. These majestic hills aren't graced with the sprightly dash to the top that I rather naïvely imagine whilst sat bleary-eyed on that rickety coastline train. Realistically, an energetic sprint to the top of any incline is an unlikely scenario when carrying side panniers filled with tent pegs and berets. Those nasties have taught me a thing or two, I'm now proficient at reciting the alphabet backwards - but above all, I've learned that it's not shameful to stop and walk every now and again.

My experiences in the wild have fed into my attitude to some significant moments with work and friendships. Once you've prepared the essentials, you just have to turn up and bring positivity to the equation, the rest is often blissfully beyond your control.

PROFIT VS NON-PROFIT IN TACKLING EDUCATIONAL DISADVANTAGE

Since becoming a fellow of Year Here in March 2014, I've been scaling a steep learning curve in order to understand educational disadvantage and all of its causes, effects and catastrophes whilst on my frontline placement - an academy school in South London. The ascent reached new heights last week when I attended a debate questioning the advantages of profit vs. non-profit in tackling educational disadvantage, held by the Innovation Unit at Teach First.

Honestly, I needed someone to explain the ideas behind the debate several times. It seemed like common sense – surely profit equals money, which equals quality, growth and sustainability? In UnLtd's latest report Pushing Boundaries, I interpreted it as fact: “If you have more flexibility on the making money side, and can make the organisation sustainable financially, you can make more money and create more change”.

But the panel, including Brett Wigdortz (founder and CEO of Teach First) and Tom Ravenscroft (founder and MD of Enabling Enterprise) were keen to argue that profit should not be a driving motive behind the organisations trying to tackle the problems behind educational disadvantage. Indeed, Teach First is an exemplary successful organisation, now well known outside of its own social and educational circles. This, combined with the statistic that 10% of teachers in low-income schools in London will be Teach First ambassadors or participants already having reached over a million primary and secondary students, make it difficult to argue with the impact they are making.

When you look at the great scale of impact, it's matched by the scale of funding, with £19 million of income from grants and contributions in 2013. Teach First has a number of friends – something that, along with collaborating, Brett argues is easier to do as a NFP – as well as generous supporters with deep pockets and a big social interest, including the Department of Education and the Prince of Wales. Not that I mean to imply that it's always been this easy to for Teach First, Brett took the executive decision to decline a great deal of funding as it meant growing at a scale he couldn't maintain, as well as entering the territory of being beholden to the wishes of a large donor pushing the company forward at a pace he felt was unsustainable.

Making money isn't the driver behind their success, and members of the audience were keen to point out the questions is never “what's going to maximise profit” but “what will change the world?” in the realm of start-ups. So if the motive isn't profiteering but maximising educational progression in whatever form this must be in – whether it is through better quality infrastructure, resources or staff, undeniably these things cost money.

So, back to basics, not-for-profits still need money in order to pay for service costs, resources, wages – the service isn't provided for free and so funding needs to come from somewhere. From impact investments to grants and loans, applying for funding as a non-profit start-up is a lengthy process that needs to be carried out intermittently and often, and not always successfully. Organisations with great social potential are limited in their potential for growth and development because they're dependant on unreliable external funding.

Some advantages of generating your own profit are being able to use income as a measure for success and impact. Furthermore being constrained by money controls the experience and (existing and development of) skills of the people you employ, and the ability you have to grow, sustain and innovate the organisation, which impedes the people you can reach and the social impact you have. Jan of EmergeLab made the key point that the amount of innovation in the profit-motivated sector is far greater than that in the charitable sector, for example tech entrepreneurs choosing to invest nigh on $500 million worth of their skills in the field.

Ultimately, the motive that closes the gap of educational disadvantage and maximises progression for children in education is the quality and reliability of the service provided. In my opinion, if this means profit is necessary, then making money also needs to be a key target for the organisation providing the service.

As always - thoughts and suggestions are welcome - please feel free to comment below.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY

"I'm never gonna call you teacher,"

"OK."

"Cos you're not a teacher."

"No, I'm not."

"What are you then?"

"A student."

"Why you here?"

"To learn."

"About what?"

"People."

I'd been sitting on a picnic bench in the playground for about ten minutes, waiting for ideas to come to me (number one way ideas don't happen), when a boy with a backpack diagonally strewn uncomfortably across his front using one strap rather than two, came up behind me, asked what I was doing, and took a look at my notebook. I told him that I was writing a list of people I admire for my teacher. This confused him. I'd assumed he was special educational needs (although I'm certainly not qualified to make that distinction) because he was out of class, with a supervisor, and both of them held a ping pong bat and looked ready for fun. 

"Put down Jack Bagum."

"Who's Jack Bagum?"

"Me!"

My teacher, who's actually my mentor, had set me the homework of coming up with a golden list of people I admire and would like to meet. I've thought about it almost every day since she asked, and couldn't come up with anyone. I don't mean to sound cocky, but when I want to meet someone, I usually find a way to meet them. From waiting outside the Astoria to get an autograph from Punk singer Brody Dalle (admittedly unsuccessfully) to becoming a 'journalist' in order to meet Jeremy Deller - if I think I'd have something to talk about with someone, I talk to them.

There are of course people I want to meet, but I don't know they exist yet, and one of those people is called Jack Bagum. They're the extraordinary ordinary people, who've faced difficulties and overcome them, human beings living normal lives, finding joy and happiness in things I didn't realise held them. Sometimes I think of the human race as a species, which if I saw in a zoo, I'd find so captivating. People all over the world, in so many shapes and sizes, with so many strong opinions and ideas and battling them out, often against each other. And then they do funny little things like clap in big groups to show appreciation, or say ha loudly to express joy, or creep up behind me and read over my shoulder, then tell me who to admire.

"Your Mum, obviously."

"Woops, she won't be happy I forgot her."

"Your Dad, obviously."

"Obviously."

"Your Brother?"

"Him too."

"Yourself."

"I like that."

"Social workers."

"I do admire them."

"Counsellors."

"Them too!"

"Because without them, you wouldn't be here."

Jack probably has no idea how much of an impact that conversation had on me. It made me think about my Dad, who died suddenly when I was 16. My Mum, who emigrated from Russia during the Cold War and has recently had her citizenship taken away. My Brother, who was born with a physical disability. Social workers and counsellors, who clear up the mess and make you feel like the most important person in the world. And how without those people I wouldn't be here today, and from the sounds of it, neither would Jack. 

All that, and he gave me at least 7 names to put on my golden list. His name is at the top (because he made me), which is where it should be. Now to me, that name represents all the people I want to meet that I don't know exist yet, the extraordinary ordinary.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

My first few days at School felt like trying to feel my way through the dark. I didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing. I was friendly nonetheless, to the staff, the students, and my fellow Fellow Sarah Johnson, who is also placed here.

I felt simultaneously closer and further away from the rest of the group. We’d had an incredibly intense boot camp week, where we were collectively thrown into unfamiliar and humbling situations (from the Cabinet Office to the North London YMCA with a hop, skip and a jump off the 91 bus) to ‘safe’ periods of reflection, during which we analysed our performance, behaviour and purpose. A lot came out, and very quickly, I’d gone from feeling like an outsider (a fraud from an Art school who thought Eton is primarily a type of pudding – what’s all this fuss about puddings Gove?) to part of a fellowship, specially selected, a comforting and inspiring feeling, even if I did have to be Hagrid.

But then, at my placement, I felt quite detached from the momentum and morale of the first week. It had felt like a dream, and it felt absurd that I’d become so involved with a group of strangers, who were now all off being their best possible selves - friendly and pro-active like me - doing what they could on the frontline they’d been thrown into.

As for the school, I turned up on my first day with a sore nose (I’d been instructed by the principal to remove my studs after meeting him at the launch event – back to school indeed) and a pair of eyes as wide open as I could make them, hoping to witness and document every detail, every problem that needed to be solved and every cry for help from students and staff alike.

I had the idea in my head that I needed to seek out the flaws, the poor disadvantaged, the gaping holes in the curriculum or education system. As a result, there’s been a delay in me writing a blog. After a few days with nothing to report, (with the help of my Mentor Sophie Howarth) I realised that’s probably something worth writing about in itself.

So far, my first impressions of this school are that it’s pretty amazing. The staff are engaging and friendly, from notifying colleagues of their students successes in extra-curricular activities during staff briefings (and bursting into proud applause) to deploying a highly-advanced teaching technique that combines criticism, discipline and praise, which I currently cannot imagine ever being capable of mastering.

The students are inquisitive, bright, cheeky and I've found my students a delight to work alongside. But admittedly, I was pretty shocked with the language and behaviour of my first class. It was a Physics cover lesson, with a cover tutor who had never taught Physics before - I was wondering why so many of the kids needed the toilet, turns out they were taking advantage of the newbie. It's been better since then, and I feel happy saying so far, so good. I'm interested to see more and as week 2 rolls on, I'm looking forward to getting to know the students better.