Jobs for the Boys (and Girls)

I have just spent the morning at my son's school - at a Careers' Fair. This is the second year the school has run this. It's a primary school, not a high school. Running a Careers' Fair.

The school is really actively engaged with the children. There are creative arts and music programs, dance and sport programs, breakfast club, a homework club, a choir. Plenty of support for children and parents, the school garden is back under way after several years' hiatus. The school is in a low socio-economic area and also draws from new estates, so there are a range of lived experiences in our student population. Like all good public schools, it teaches inclusion, acceptance and equality of opportunity.

We have an amazing Deputy Principal. Not everyone likes her (I do, very much. Our school needs her) - she does not suffer fools, she is forthright sometimes to the point of bluntness. She doesn't gild the lily (and some parents don't take kindly to being told the truth about their child, but that's their problem). But she knows her school, the students, the families inside out.

When I was asked to take part last year, I did ask her why we, a primary school, were having a Career's Day. Turns out there are children in our school who do not have a single adult in their family with a job. Going back generations. There are children who do not know an adult in regular employment, or an adult who is happily employed. Some know only that work is where parents go to earn barely enough to keep them all together, and the work is hard and the workplace is unhappy. There are some who only see work as a miserable burden. How can a child have aspirations for themselves if this is all they know?

So we have a Careers' Fair. So children can meet adults who love their job. So children can meet adults who have a job.

All sorts of people come: electricians, fire fighters, vets, pilots, engineers, personal trainers, musicians (we didn't have one this year, which was a shame), people from the university, kids from the high school agricultural department to talk about farming, nutritionists, doctors, the guy who runs the local supermarket (he's popular - he gives away lollies), bakers, scientists, more. All sorts. And me.

Last year I felt like a fraud. I was asked to come along and talk to the kids about being an artist. Having been ill for so long, nothing much was going on for me. What was I supposed to tell them? No one buys anything, if you get sick you don't get paid, don't do it if you want to eat (unless you happen to be married to someone with a regular job)?

No, I didn't say that. I talked about all the things artists can do. I had design drawings from cartoons, films, computer games, some of David Landis' excellent Desktop Gremlins, Rob Ives' paper automata. There were some of my own things, but I kept the focus on other people's things, vocational paths, that sort of thing.

My little display this year.

It was pretty much the same speil this year. Although this year I didn't feel like a fraud, and I had more of my own work on display, and less of other peoples', and I talked about what I have been doing (two exhibitions do a lot to bolster confidence). Some of the children already knew me as I did a series of workshops earlier this year with my son's class. And I felt I could really say "find what you love and don't let anyone stop you".

Last year I had a violinst next to me, so I had the most glorious music for the day. This year it was dancers. Well, acrobats really, regardless of what they said. They threw each other around and bent over backwards. It was like being next door to Cirque de Soleil. Lots of fun.

... while on the other side of the room...

Some of the kids are pretty venal. When they realised I didn't have freebies to give away they walked off. Which suited me fine. Others actually wanted to know what I do, how I do it. They were fascinated to think that their computer games and films NEED artists. Some loved the idea of drawing comic books. Two children spent most of the time looking through my Escher book and talking about how art lets people see impossible things.

There was one girl who questioned that art can be anything more than a hobby. She got directed to the Hobbit art and design book and the Assassin's Creed concept art book.

At the luncheon afterwards one of the teachers came up to me and said she had asked her children what they liked best. The answer came back "the dancers and the artist".

How could I ask for more?