When the University of Cambridge’s vice-chancellor Stephen Toope told the Times that students’ gap year projects abroad can build less resilience than the everyday lives of students from modest backgrounds, he was of course right. In today’s culture, the three months I spent attempting to teach English in southern Malawi in the late Noughties now feel like a dirty secret of over-privilege; something that’s deserving of the same discretion as having a childhood pony or the fact that you spent the Easter holidays in the Alps. Actor Matt Lacey’s three-minute You Tube sketch ‘Gap Yah’, that went viral in 2010, cemented the cliché: the pashmina-clad Orlando braying about chundering his way around ‘Tanzanah’, ‘Burmah’ and ‘Perah’ on a quest for “spiritual, cultural and political” enlightenment.
It swiftly became clear that my contribution in the classroom would have limits, even if my enthusiasm was plentiful
It’s a spoof certified by the Urban Dictionary’s definition of a Gap Year Tragedy (GYT): ‘the average student enlightened by the insight afforded by global travel to the extent of cringeworthy personality renovation.’
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