England’s ‘strictest headmistress’ on how old-school education saves kids
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
190.47687
Summary
Catherine Burbalsingh is a radical in the world of education. She's a radical not because she wants to bring about new ways of bringing up the next generation of students, but because her wants to do the opposite. Catherine is the daughter of a Guyanese academic and a Jamaican nurse with Canadian roots, who is issuing a direct and successful challenge to what is now considered a normal education in Britain, as well as in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. She discusses the need to instill discipline, why teachers and not students should drive the learning, and why parents must challenge the progressive agenda taken over schools if they want a good education for their children.
Transcript
00:00:06.300
Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision?
00:00:10.620
And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,
00:00:14.060
and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?
00:00:21.360
Choose security solutions from Telus for peace of mind at home and online.
00:00:25.220
Visit telus.com slash total security to learn more.
00:00:40.580
Earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true.
00:00:43.600
Plus, join Tim's Rewards today and get enough points for a free donut, drink, or Timbits.
00:00:48.400
With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more,
00:00:51.960
see the Tim's app for details at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time.
00:00:55.440
Bank more encores when you switch to a Scotiabank banking package.
00:01:05.320
Learn more at scotiabank.com slash banking packages.
00:01:12.740
Catherine Burbalsingh is a radical in the world of education.
00:01:20.640
She's a radical not because she wants to bring about new ways of bringing up the next generation
00:01:26.480
of students, but because she wants to do the opposite.
00:01:29.980
Burbalsingh has been dubbed Britain's strictest headmistress for running the Michaela School.
00:01:34.140
It's an inner-city school that teaches traditional values using a much more traditional curriculum
00:01:42.080
Her students come from lower-income areas of London, and most of them are visible minorities.
00:01:47.600
Yet her school is a roaring success, and this week she is the focus of Full Comment.
00:01:52.560
Hello, and welcome to the Full Comment podcast.
00:01:55.480
I'm Brian Lilly, your host, and this week an in-depth discussion with Catherine Burbalsingh,
00:01:59.480
the daughter of a Guyanese academic, a Jamaican nurse with Canadian roots, who is issuing a
00:02:05.260
direct and successful challenge to what is now considered a normal education in Britain
00:02:10.380
as well as in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere.
00:02:13.460
She discusses the need to instill discipline, why teachers and not students should drive the
00:02:18.420
learning, and why parents must challenge the progressive agenda taken over schools if
00:02:26.140
Catherine joins us from the Michaela School in London.
00:02:32.420
Explain to me, before we get into this discussion of how to push back on this agenda and why you
00:02:38.820
think it's so important, tell me about Michaela.
00:02:42.660
Explain the school to me, because your school system is quite different than what we have
00:02:49.380
Yeah, well, it's a high school, and our high schools start at grade 7, so the kids arrive
00:02:55.120
from elementary at grade 7, and then they stay with us right until they go off to university.
00:03:06.640
It was a school that we, that I set up with a bunch of people.
00:03:10.000
It's called a free school here in the UK, but it's based around the same idea that charter
00:03:16.200
schools follow in the US, although you have some.
00:03:19.300
I know in Alberta you have some charter schools, so it's not totally foreign to Canadians.
00:03:25.980
And it means a group of people set the school up.
00:03:31.780
Unlike the charter schools in the US, we follow the normal admissions code that everyone else
00:03:36.940
And we're just a normal school in that sense, once it's running.
00:03:40.700
We have a very traditional school, so I think in 1953, in Canada and in the UK, our school
00:03:50.380
Nowadays, it's considered quite radical, so we have strict discipline.
00:03:55.180
Our corridors are silent because, well, we're in the inner city, therefore we have quite a
00:04:00.700
And when I say quite challenging, you know, the kind of films that come out of Hollywood
00:04:05.520
about kids, you know, being surrounded by gangs and people carrying knives, you know, kids
00:04:11.080
who get killed on the streets and that kind of thing.
00:04:15.080
And frankly, if you just allow the behavior to go, well, to do whatever they want, you end
00:04:21.960
up with kids being beaten up every single transition in the corridors.
00:04:26.180
You end up with their heads being smashed against the walls.
00:04:32.560
So that's why we have silent corridors and they walk in single file very quickly to their
00:04:37.360
We have the desks in rows in an old-fashioned way, and the teachers teach in a much more
00:04:42.280
traditional fashion, as opposed to desks being in groups, for instance, and the children
00:04:51.140
And that would be what would be called child-centered learning instead of teacher-led learning, which
00:04:56.500
And then I'd say our values are very traditional.
00:04:58.840
We believe in personal responsibility, a sense of duty towards others, an idea of self-sacrifice.
00:05:05.920
When you get a detention, you don't get a detention just for you.
00:05:11.740
So we're trying very much to encourage our children in an ordered and structured environment
00:05:16.340
with ordered and structured learning to be ambitious and determined and to get to the
00:05:23.140
best universities and to go off and do something amazing with their lives.
00:05:28.140
Now, that doesn't mean, you know, I recognize that some of our kids might become dentists,
00:05:33.560
but some of them might become revolutionary radicals.
00:05:36.940
You know, I think it's a mistake that we often make in thinking that wanting children to be
00:05:42.320
creative or wanting them to think outside the box, we imagine that that means just letting
00:05:49.040
them go free to do whatever they want, when actually radicalism and out-of-the-box thinking
00:06:03.520
You cannot think independently about something unless you know lots about it.
00:06:07.720
And I think it's our role as teachers to teach children, really, and to teach them lots.
00:06:12.640
And sadly, I'd say in 2023, there isn't much teaching that goes on in schools.
00:06:19.360
Well, that interesting part where you've got to know a lot about something to engage in
00:06:26.840
I appreciate that because quite often what you hear is people don't actually know an awful
00:06:33.940
lot about the subject, but they think if they ask questions that they sound smart by questioning
00:06:39.180
things, but they're questioning them and their questions show, they don't quite understand
00:06:48.280
And the thing is, school is about giving children a basic knowledge about things.
00:06:53.920
So I expect our children to leave with a basic knowledge of math and English and history
00:07:01.620
And then, of course, they'll go off and specialize later.
00:07:03.740
And of course, at university, they might do a whole variety of things that you wouldn't
00:07:10.760
But in order for them to learn anything in the first place, they need to be behaving themselves.
00:07:16.420
They need to be putting their hands up and being excited about learning.
00:07:20.180
And again, I think progressives make the mistake of thinking that the way you get children excited
00:07:25.760
about learning is by just peppering them with a whole load of stuff.
00:07:30.720
You need to think very carefully about cognitive science, how the brain learns, how children
00:07:37.560
And of course, if you actually spend time becoming knowledgeable about this stuff and reading
00:07:41.940
books on this stuff, you realize the best way is to do so in an ordered environment.
00:07:45.860
So that's especially the case for children who are coming from more chaotic backgrounds,
00:07:51.320
more disadvantaged backgrounds, because they depend entirely on their school to be able
00:07:56.860
to give them the knowledge and the skills that they need to go out there and make something
00:08:03.620
You see, the thing is, is that if you look at a school that has more middle class kids,
00:08:07.640
the parents will often make up for the deficits of the school.
00:08:11.180
So what I mean by that is, the school might not be that great, but the parents take them
00:08:16.720
to museums and watch documentaries with them and read books with them.
00:08:20.540
And because the parents are doing such a good job, it looks like the school is doing a good
00:08:24.340
job, when in fact, it's not the school, it's the parents that are making up for the problems
00:08:32.900
In fact, for our families, very, very few of the families we have here would ever be able
00:08:38.300
The children here depend entirely on us to give them the knowledge and the skills that
00:08:42.880
they need to be able to keep doors open to them in terms of choices for their lives.
00:08:47.820
And what people don't get is, you need to restrict the freedom of children when they're
00:08:54.120
You don't say, do whatever you want, because if you say that, well, they'll just sit on
00:09:00.160
So you need to, exactly, you need to restrict their freedom now, and you have them learning
00:09:05.860
Shakespeare and Dickens and so on, which they wouldn't normally, they wouldn't pick up
00:09:10.000
Macbeth and think, oh, I'll just have a look at Macbeth on my own here.
00:09:14.760
So we restrict their freedom now, so that later, they can be truly free.
00:09:22.360
They decide that when they're children, that's when you're going to have loads of freedom.
00:09:26.940
And then later, we're going to remove your freedom of speech.
00:09:30.300
We're going to remove various freedoms that you think you ought to have.
00:09:38.620
And if we've done our job as adults with the kids and properly molded them and given them
00:09:46.180
an understanding of the difference between right and wrong, then you have a bunch of adults
00:09:51.500
who are truly free to understand what is happening around them in the world.
00:09:56.100
Because they have not just knowledge, they also have values.
00:10:00.200
And, you know, they have more traditional values.
00:10:02.480
And those traditional values will take you through life, really.
00:10:05.660
However clever you are, however talented you are.
00:10:09.300
And that's the other thing to remember, is that I think people often just think, often
00:10:13.180
the people who are writing in the media and who are just in clever positions, politicians
00:10:18.340
and that kind of thing, they think to themselves wrongly that everyone's just as clever as they
00:10:26.740
And there are some children who are going to go to Oxford and Cambridge.
00:10:29.220
And there are other children who are really going to struggle, you know, and they're going
00:10:32.920
to struggle to get a basic knowledge of math and English.
00:10:38.980
And if we're not teaching them properly, those kids simply won't learn it.
00:10:42.540
And I know in Britain, we have, you know, around about 20% of children are leaving school functionally
00:10:51.120
In Canada, you know, for those poorer children, you will find a similar situation.
00:10:58.160
So I'm talking about the children where the families cannot make up for the deficits of
00:11:03.480
And I think sometimes we can be somewhat dishonest with ourselves, especially those of us who
00:11:09.200
are more middle class, because then we say, oh, isn't it wonderful, school system is just
00:11:13.080
Meanwhile, we are hiring tutors in the background to make sure that our children are one step
00:11:24.480
But we do need to give thought to those children who do not have access both to the financial
00:11:32.880
means to be able to do that, and also the thinking around that.
00:11:37.460
Their parents don't realize that there are even options.
00:11:40.180
You know, they just, they give their kids to school and imagine that the school is going
00:11:44.220
And I would say too often in Britain, but I'd say, you know, very often in Canada, I'd say
00:11:49.600
Canada is actually further down this road than we are in terms of being far too progressive.
00:11:54.480
Um, I'd say that the schools are letting the kids down.
00:11:58.540
We have had, um, never ending debates, it seems on the basics of education here in Canada.
00:12:05.380
And I'll speak primarily from Ontario because that's where I live.
00:12:09.880
That's the school system that, um, I went through, my kids went through and it's the one I cover
00:12:15.620
as a journalist, but you know, everything from, should there be any rote learning in math?
00:12:21.240
Well, that was considered controversial and we had to get rid of that.
00:12:24.560
And they brought in a whole new math system, um, more than a decade ago that failed miserably
00:12:31.900
Although teachers in this province don't like standardized tests.
00:12:35.980
Um, and then recently the education minister had to step in and tell them to remove from the
00:12:42.600
curriculum, all these statements that math is actually just a tool of white supremacy.
00:12:50.120
And that's the, that's how deep the identity politics have gotten that inside the math curriculum,
00:13:00.760
And it was more controversial in our media that the minister stepped in to take that out
00:13:15.160
I am in Canada twice a year because my parents live in Toronto.
00:13:19.820
And, um, I listened to the radio when I'm there and I find it very difficult to listen to,
00:13:24.840
to be honest, because it is so woke and so out there.
00:13:28.000
Uh, I find myself just shouting at the radio and, um, it is.
00:13:34.040
I mean, math is, uh, I don't understand how it can be, uh, how it can be filled with white
00:13:43.900
Black children need to learn that two plus two is four just as well as white kids do.
00:13:48.580
And if you don't teach them that, then you are going to put them in a position where they
00:13:53.860
And frankly, I feel that that kind of talk is, is, is, is pushed by a whole bunch of
00:14:01.320
progressive people who feel very guilty about the fact that they themselves feel privileged.
00:14:05.660
So there are some people, some of them are just white privileged people who feel guilty.
00:14:10.260
Some of them are black privileged people who, um, are benefiting from pushing that kind
00:14:15.980
of agenda because it gives them, you know, more social, uh, you know, um, uh, kudos, you
00:14:23.180
know, it just, it gives them something to talk about at dinner parties and everybody looks
00:14:28.220
You know, I'd like them to come and join me in the inner city.
00:14:30.520
What, what I'd always like to say to anyone who has opinions on these things is how long
00:14:34.300
have you been working with children and what have you done for them?
00:14:37.660
Because I can give you 25 years of always having worked in the inner city and having transformed
00:14:42.800
the lives of black and brown children in the inner city.
00:14:45.600
So my position is always, look, you can criticize me, but look at what I've done for these kids.
00:14:52.840
And if that person is able to show me how they've brought out hundreds upon hundreds of children
00:14:57.920
of these, the very children they say they're trying to help and that those children are
00:15:02.340
now experts at math and English and geography and history and so on, and that they get great
00:15:06.620
grades and they go off to the top universities.
00:15:11.140
But if they can't do that, then you need to question their motives in them speaking like
00:15:15.800
this, because to anybody who has any common sense, it is obvious that black children or
00:15:24.600
If you're not a racist, then you see all children as being the same.
00:15:28.040
And to all of those children, two plus two is four.
00:15:34.180
The idea that there shouldn't be any rote learning in maths is crazy.
00:15:37.260
You cannot learn your times tables if you're not rote learning them, right?
00:15:41.800
And I'm not saying that doesn't mean that you can't put two Ps and two Ps and do, you
00:15:49.300
But in the end, you are going to have to rote learn them.
00:15:52.980
And the thing is, once you've rote learned those type timetables, it gives you access
00:16:00.540
If you never learn your rote, your times tables like that, and rote learning means they're
00:16:05.000
then at your fingertips, you can just, you know, two times two is four, two times three
00:16:11.220
You're just able to go boom, boom, boom quickly.
00:16:13.800
And the fact that that then becomes automatic means that you can then do more.
00:16:20.580
So when you first learn to drive a car, you're holding, you know, 10-2 and 10 past, and you're
00:16:28.880
on the steering wheel, and you're looking out the rear-view mirror, and you're really
00:16:34.020
And then after a while, you find that you can do it so easily that you can have a conversation
00:16:40.040
And that is because the skill of driving, the various skills, the things that you are
00:16:44.220
doing in that moment, have become automatic to you.
00:16:47.380
When you rote learn your times tables, they become automatic to you.
00:16:51.120
And then that means that your working memory is able to hold on to more maths, and you're
00:16:56.460
able to push your mathematical thinking further.
00:16:59.520
So in order to be creative with your maths and out of the box in your thinking, unless
00:17:04.580
you have a knowledge base there, think of it as coat hooks in your head, where you can
00:17:10.680
just hook on more knowledge each time you're being taught.
00:17:13.560
And every year you go through, you hook on more, you hook on more.
00:17:19.260
If you think about me, I'm very creative with education, right?
00:17:23.340
I'm doing things that other people don't dare do.
00:17:28.220
Um, now why am I so creative and out of the box, uh, out of box thinker with education?
00:17:37.660
If you asked me to be really creative with cars, right?
00:17:43.600
So you'd give me a car, you know, you can leave that to Elon Musk.
00:17:48.760
And if you asked me to be about creative about frankly, anything else, I wouldn't be able
00:17:52.200
But I can do it about education with education because I know it inside out.
00:17:55.580
You have to have loads of knowledge about something before you can twist it and turn it and do
00:18:02.380
And frankly, before you can have a real opinion about it that matters.
00:18:05.680
And that's why I say to you or to your listeners that, um, when somebody starts talking to them
00:18:11.180
about what black children need, you need to ask them, how much work have you done with
00:18:17.660
How long have you been working in that school down the road or as a social worker or something?
00:18:24.120
And most of the time you'll find that they're just talking heads and that actually what they're
00:18:27.480
interested in is their own careers and, um, and the advancement of those careers, as opposed
00:18:31.940
to dedicating an entire life to working with these children and helping them succeed.
00:18:36.900
You talked about the, the discipline that you bring to the school, including silent hallways.
00:18:43.420
I remember, um, the elementary school that my children went to early on, there were discipline,
00:18:50.320
discipline problems and the school wasn't functioning right.
00:18:54.180
And then there was a change in the principal or headmistress, as you would call it.
00:19:02.960
It wasn't as strict as, as what you're describing.
00:19:05.640
They didn't have to have silent hallways, but the students were told that they were expected
00:19:11.380
to speak to teachers in a certain way, that as soon as you walk through the door, your
00:19:18.480
Even, even the UPS and FedEx driver showing up with deliveries were told at the front door,
00:19:28.220
And these small changes brought about dramatic improvement in the school.
00:19:37.180
So Giuliani did the same thing in New York and trying to, in turning it around.
00:19:40.240
And he turned it around, uh, by removing the graffiti off the subway cars.
00:19:45.640
Um, and by making sure that everyone who got on the subway paid their fare.
00:19:52.160
Why would it be the case that you, you take graffiti off the subway cars and suddenly the
00:19:58.060
Why is it that you get kids to take off their baseball caps and they're, and not true gum.
00:20:02.560
And suddenly they're getting really great grades.
00:20:05.940
It's because of broken windows, which I'll explain.
00:20:08.380
You, uh, you know, you have a house in a, in an abandoned area.
00:20:12.760
Uh, and if all the windows stay intact, um, they will remain intact and they'll never get
00:20:22.740
And within a couple of days, all of the windows will be broken.
00:20:28.500
And if you look after the small details, the bigger things will take care of themselves.
00:20:33.080
So I think people imagine that I'm the strictest headmistress in Britain and all this, they
00:20:37.200
imagine that I'm walking through the corridors with whips and chains and I get some kind of
00:20:41.180
weird, you know, I have a weird fantasy about, you know, putting kids in detention or something.
00:20:46.080
When in the actual fact is most of the time, I'm not even out of my office.
00:20:48.620
I'm meeting with staff in my office and things.
00:20:51.140
Um, but the fact is that people imagine it has to be this horrible place to all of our
00:20:59.480
They come and they say, Oh my goodness, the children are so happy.
00:21:06.560
Just like you said, we have a uniform, the shirts have to be tucked in, the ties need to
00:21:18.620
When they're naughty and, um, and they're attend detentions every day.
00:21:21.440
And that happens, uh, you know, regularly and it's not a big deal.
00:21:25.120
And the thing is the kids don't mind and they don't mind because they know they're learning
00:21:29.720
a lot and they feel really clever in comparison to their friends who are at other schools.
00:21:34.800
I mean, isn't it a good thing that kids coming from poor families then know a lot and are
00:21:39.200
Wouldn't we want that for all the kids as opposed to saying that math is white supremacy?
00:21:43.420
I mean, it is, you know, that, that, and it's not just math.
00:21:48.180
I mean, that, you know, you use that as an example because it's more extreme, but the
00:21:51.100
fact is this has been happening in subjects like history and geography and English for,
00:21:56.080
You know, it's only more recently that it's moved into the area of science and math.
00:21:59.540
Um, and it prevents the saddest thing is that it ruins the lives of the very children.
00:22:12.120
And when people talk, they say, Oh my goodness, you're so passionate.
00:22:16.300
I get angry about it because I've spent 25 years working with these kids, seeing what
00:22:21.280
And the thing is, everybody says what they're up against is white supremacist, racist.
00:22:26.200
Well, actually the biggest thing they're up against are the progressives.
00:22:28.980
Those are the people that are ruining their lives, right?
00:22:32.140
And the progressives think they're doing them good.
00:22:34.880
And what I would say to the progressive is, look, are you actually helping these people?
00:22:40.980
Look at the outcomes from what you're doing, or are you making yourself feel better?
00:22:46.020
Is what you're doing, making yourself feel like you're a good person?
00:22:51.320
Because I can tell you all of my teachers, they don't want to give detentions.
00:22:56.220
I have to teach my teachers that, in fact, you are helping the kids by giving them detentions.
00:23:02.280
You're making them better and ensuring that they will have successful lives by holding
00:23:06.880
your standards high and by holding the line for them.
00:23:09.840
And once teachers come to see that, they realize that the best way of being compassionate
00:23:17.280
But if you're on the outside and you're a politician or you're in the media or you write
00:23:21.560
books or whatever, then you don't have any idea because you've never met my kids.
00:23:27.560
You have no idea what it is to be on the ground, you know?
00:23:31.000
And so you keep doing what you're doing and it makes you feel better about yourself.
00:23:34.240
And those of us who are on the ground, we're fighting against all the stuff, all the hardship
00:23:40.420
And you actually make our lives much more difficult in trying to help these kids have successful
00:23:45.880
You said the claim of math being white supremacy was the most extreme, but that's gone through
00:23:52.160
And I watched one of your speeches recently to the National Conservatism Conference in the
00:23:57.360
UK, and you talked about reading the poem If by Rudyard Kipling.
00:24:05.600
I think it would be banned in most schools, along with all of his other works.
00:24:11.200
Yeah, well, I do remember the Sunday Times once journalists came to the school.
00:24:15.020
And he heard them, well, I think I say this, and he heard them talking about, you know,
00:24:21.700
And he said to me, Catherine, are you trying to be deliberately controversial?
00:24:36.020
And this particular poem speaks to what, you know, our values.
00:24:45.980
So if the kids are going off for a football match or something, we always say, triumph and
00:24:52.220
You know, you've got to keep your, you know, you've got to keep your head.
00:24:58.960
You've just got to be, you've got to be calm about it.
00:25:05.060
We refer to that all the time because, because it just has so many different pieces of wisdom
00:25:14.600
So, I mean, I haven't spoken that much about our values.
00:25:21.720
And I would argue that many big C conservatives are not small C conservative.
00:25:26.500
And I also argue that, indeed, and I would argue that old school lefties are also small
00:25:33.600
It's just that many of them are now dying out because they're quite old these days.
00:25:37.640
And so, but it used to be the case that I'd say many people on the left were definitely
00:25:46.420
So, you know, belief in a sense of personal responsibility and, you know, you're always
00:25:59.820
As opposed to always just blaming somebody else, you know?
00:26:06.840
You know, we don't want our children to say, well, I can't make it because I'm black.
00:26:11.360
You know, the establishment is going to be against me.
00:26:15.260
Well, there's a lot of point, actually, because you want to be responsible for yourself.
00:26:19.920
I'm not saying that there aren't obstacles, but concentrating on those and encouraging
00:26:25.400
children who are coming from more disadvantaged backgrounds to concentrate on what the obstacles
00:26:31.800
are in front of them instead of thinking, how do I gain the knowledge and the skills
00:26:36.020
that I need in order to make a success in my life, whatever the obstacles may be in front
00:26:40.880
That is just the wrong way of going about things.
00:26:44.580
So as I say, our kids will have obstacles in front of them.
00:26:49.000
But they're obviously much stronger and much more likely to succeed in their lives if we've
00:26:53.420
taught them properly and given them the kinds of values that mean that they will be resilient,
00:26:58.180
that they will have a sense of discipline, that they will understand the idea of hard
00:27:08.560
And your listeners may notice, if they know about education, that we sort of half stole
00:27:18.480
So KIPP, their motto used to be, work hard, be nice.
00:27:22.640
The two guys who set it up in the early 90s actually had a book called, their book about
00:27:27.520
KIPP and how they set it up was called, work hard, be nice.
00:27:30.160
And that was what they wanted for all their kids.
00:27:31.960
And the idea was, if you can get kids to do at least those two things, to work hard and
00:27:42.300
And then, most recently, since George Floyd's death, they came under a lot of pressure in
00:27:54.780
the US to change their motto because it was said that white teachers teaching black children
00:28:02.820
to be nice was racist because they were being taught to be subservient.
00:28:08.940
And now, being kind or being nice is lending a pen to your friend, opening up the door,
00:28:15.980
being friendly to them when they're down, making sure they don't get bullied, that kind
00:28:21.640
The idea that this is somehow teaching children to be subservient to white people is just mad.
00:28:28.800
You know, and so KIPP had to abandon this motto.
00:28:32.060
They no longer have the motto of work hard, be nice.
00:28:36.720
And I find it really sad that a successful charter school, you know, there's hundreds
00:28:42.280
of them across America, should have been prevented from teaching black children the two most important
00:28:55.620
So the idea that we should only teach white children to be nice, but we can't teach black
00:29:01.880
Don't we understand that, you know, seeing this difference between children is part of the
00:29:06.280
problem when it comes to racism, that black children, of course, they should be taught
00:29:10.500
how to be nice to their friends and to their, and to strangers.
00:29:13.940
You know, we teach our children to stand up when they're in the subway and give up their,
00:29:18.200
or on the bus, give up their seats for other people.
00:29:24.240
You know, like in our dining hall, so all my life working in the inner city, and I say,
00:29:30.340
so always in challenging schools, when children would drop a plate in the dining hall, what
00:29:38.180
the other children would do, and as I say, this is most of my career, what would happen
00:29:43.060
is that all the other children would go, that's what they do.
00:29:47.200
Basically humiliating the kid who's just dropped his plate, and everybody's laughing and carrying
00:29:53.700
At our school, if a child drops his plate of food, five or six children will run to help
00:29:58.580
him pick it up, pick up the food, even, I've seen children even putting their hands into
00:30:02.880
wet lasagna on the ground, trying to pick it up just to help their, you know, one of their
00:30:08.680
And I just, I don't see why that's not a nice thing.
00:30:14.040
But apparently that is to teach subservience and is therefore white supremacy.
00:30:20.760
Want to get into how to fight back against this, because you speak extensively on that,
00:30:27.020
But when we come back, that's where I want to go, is how can we fight back?
00:30:31.760
Because we can't easily set up our charter school like you have, not in Ontario anyway,
00:30:36.800
in Alberta, but in much of the country, it can't be done.
00:30:45.620
Catherine, in your speech to the convention a few weeks ago, or a few months ago now,
00:30:51.380
you told the story of an American father who was so upset at what his daughter was being
00:31:01.800
A lot of people think, well, I just put my kids in private school, and that'll solve the
00:31:06.860
But he was in the most prestigious school that he could get his daughter into in New
00:31:12.360
York, and this political agenda of identity politics first, learning second, was even
00:31:20.600
And he tried to get other parents involved, and he just couldn't.
00:31:27.700
That was my experience in pushing back against this sort of thing years ago, trying to get
00:31:32.740
other parents to realize that there was a problem.
00:31:35.520
And then once you told them, oh, here's what they're doing, they say, oh, well, I don't
00:31:47.080
I'm at the point where if I had young children today, I wouldn't put them in the public school
00:31:53.520
But you say that's the wrong way to go about it, that parents should get engaged.
00:32:02.640
Well, actually, I don't say you shouldn't homeschool.
00:32:09.300
So when you homeschool, you are making an active decision to say the school system is not right.
00:32:16.360
And if everybody homeschooled, then actually you'd see some impact.
00:32:21.760
So I strongly encourage people to homeschool, actually.
00:32:31.680
And people who do homeschool will say, yes, well, you do have to take a financial hit.
00:32:35.260
But in many ways, in so many ways, it's worth it.
00:32:38.880
Now, you could do even more than that than just homeschool.
00:32:41.280
You can write letters to your local political representative.
00:32:47.860
You can write articles in the newspaper about how outrageous X, Y, and Z is, and so on.
00:32:55.540
So what I mean by that is when you run into your friends at dinner parties and things, and certain things are said in conversation, and you know that they're wrong, speak up.
00:33:07.380
You know, we need to make it okay to have the opinions that I suspect most of your listeners have.
00:33:13.420
And the only way we can make it okay is if all of us say what we think.
00:33:17.460
There are too many of us who think what I think, and they don't say so because they're worried about losing their jobs.
00:33:26.240
And so they just keep quiet, and they just do whatever they have to do to have a quiet life.
00:33:32.760
Now, the other thing is if your child is in school, and let's say financially you need to do that.
00:33:36.680
I'm not saying everybody should go homeschool their kid.
00:33:43.180
You do need to complain loudly about what's going on.
00:33:46.140
And the reason, I would just say, the underlying reason why people don't complain and why they don't care,
00:33:52.720
you found this, Brian, I mean, this guy, Andrew Guttman, who you said, you know, he went across America.
00:34:00.920
The people at his kid's school in New York, the parents there, they just didn't care.
00:34:09.080
What I've come to realize over the many years that I've been doing this is that people care what university their child is going to.
00:34:15.740
And they care what job their child is going to get.
00:34:18.280
But if they're going to get that by sending their kid to X school, and if the X school is teaching them stuff about race and gender and all kinds of things that they don't agree with,
00:34:30.940
or not even teaching them any history and teaching them that math is white supremacy and so on, they don't really care.
00:34:37.340
As long as they can get to the best universities and get a good job, because that's what they think school is.
00:34:43.000
It's a kind of stepping stone to getting to a good university and getting a good job.
00:34:46.680
And I find that a lot of people don't really care if the kid doesn't know much math and doesn't know much history.
00:34:52.800
The value that used to be placed on knowledge has disappeared.
00:34:58.060
And there's something quite sad about that, that as a country, you know, Canada or Britain,
00:35:04.500
we don't have any sense of pride in knowing about our own country, knowing about the world,
00:35:11.960
wanting our children to be able to get excited about forests and about the seas and about, you know, the animals.
00:35:20.340
And I'm just thinking science, but they could get excited about Shakespeare or they, you know, and Dickens and so on.
00:35:25.500
Wanting to go and see an opera, wanting to play an instrument and so on.
00:35:29.260
I mean, I could go on and on about the different things that make life interesting.
00:35:32.860
Now, I find it odd that we, as people, as adults, aren't wanting our children to know lots and to really engage with the world with that knowledge.
00:35:48.480
And parents, I would ask you all to be more interested in that.
00:35:55.240
I find that parents often as well, they don't just care about what university they go to and what job they get to.
00:36:02.040
They might care about getting them into a top prestigious school, but that's because they get to go to dinner parties and say,
00:36:08.260
my child goes to this school, you know, school in Upper Canada College in Toronto, for instance.
00:36:15.820
They get to be able to say, well, my boy, he's at UCC, you know, and it's always at UCC.
00:36:22.260
And you say, oh, yeah, you know, he's a chip off the old block.
00:36:26.980
And meanwhile, your boy is being taught a whole lot of craziness at school, but you don't care because you get to go to dinner parties and say, are your kids at UCC?
00:36:33.800
And, you know, anytime I've tried to, people complain to me in the U.S., in Canada, in England.
00:36:41.940
And my advice is always to people, we'll take your child out of the school if you don't like it.
00:36:46.700
They never, ever take their child out of the school.
00:36:48.460
And that is because the name of the school is more important to them than their child's education.
00:36:53.500
But that's, and I get that for the people at the top, but that doesn't help lower, even middle class families that don't have those opportunities.
00:37:05.160
And you're teaching kids who come from families that would never be able to do that, would never be able to have those options.
00:37:16.720
So do you, you know, in that case, the school system, if just left to go the direction that the folks writing the Ontario curriculum would have it go, well, it would rot.
00:37:27.820
And we would just write off a whole section of the population in terms of education.
00:37:37.500
And those of us, like me, because I'm not the only one, obviously, who are fighting it, we're fighting that rot.
00:37:44.460
Um, and what is unfortunate is that, uh, the people who are fighting us, they're not in the school system.
00:37:53.600
They just, they, they, they're ruining the lives of children who they say they care about.
00:37:58.940
And, um, I mean, look, all any of us can do, uh, we're only on here for a short period of time on earth.
00:38:05.400
You know, you want to be able to get to 85 and look back at your life and say, I did something, you know, I contributed and tried to make the world into a better place.
00:38:13.480
Um, and so my contribution is in the world of education.
00:38:18.180
And, you know, I've contributed in the sense that I've established Michaela.
00:38:22.100
Uh, thousands of teachers have been through here.
00:38:24.580
Some from Canada come, they come over on planes to come and see us.
00:38:28.020
And your listeners will be welcome to come as well.
00:38:31.720
Um, and, uh, and it helps to change, uh, the minds of teachers about what's possible.
00:38:37.840
What teachers always say when they see our lessons is my goodness, I can't believe how much the kids know and how excited they are about learning and how resilient they are and how ambitious and determined they are.
00:38:49.100
It's just that you need a more traditional approach and the more progressive approach.
00:38:53.360
It might make us feel better about each other and make us feel like we're compassionate people, but we're not actually helping anybody.
00:38:59.200
So that's, that's the key thing that we all need to kind of understand.
00:39:03.300
And once we get that, then, um, we can change lives.
00:39:07.180
And, uh, you, you see this, you know, like we, we, um, we play, uh, a, a film for the kids or a reward event called coach Carter.
00:39:16.880
And it has Samuel L Jackson in it plays, um, a basketball coach with these kids in the inner city.
00:39:24.100
And, you know, if you want to hear what my, like my understanding of things, like watch coach Carter, cause he and I, Samuel Jackson's character in that.
00:39:31.080
And I are exactly the same, you know, he, he, he, he takes these boys and he makes them work, you know, and when all they want to do is play basketball, he says, no, you're going to get the grades and you're going to work for it.
00:39:44.340
And if you're not going to work for it and his job is on the line and everybody's fighting him, the parents are fighting him.
00:39:50.620
And the reason why everybody's fighting him is because there's nothing in it for them.
00:39:56.940
They just care about what it looks like for them.
00:40:00.220
He actually cares about those boys and wants them to succeed.
00:40:03.620
And there are people like him all over the world trying to do that.
00:40:08.580
Uh, and we're all very similar, you know, and our enemies are very similar.
00:40:12.360
You know, I have given talks in New Zealand and Australia and, um, in, in the U S and, uh, and all over Britain, uh, various different schools and so on.
00:40:26.920
Everywhere I go, it's the same issues and the same madness that we're all fighting.
00:40:37.120
It doesn't matter what language I was in Sweden, uh, recently, same issues.
00:40:41.840
Um, I tell you, it, it doesn't matter where you are.
00:40:45.580
We're all fighting the same craziness that is, is against common sense.
00:40:56.040
Like I have a number of Twitter followers, for instance, and they come out and fight for me sometimes.
00:41:02.320
So there are those of us who are kind of louder like me and, and the coach Kata types, and we are out there fighting the battle.
00:41:09.980
And if there are a number of just normal, ordinary people out there saying the same things at their dinner parties and at their swim clubs and so on.
00:41:18.820
And if they're on social media saying this stuff and, and we're growing and growing in number, rather than us all being cowed into being quiet because we're worried about being seen to be a bad person.
00:41:31.320
If we all stand up for what's right and speak out, um, we might be able to turn things around because things are only going in one direction at the moment.
00:41:40.560
And five years ago, life now is unrecognizable.
00:41:45.340
If somebody who had died five years ago came back to life now, this is just five years.
00:41:49.660
I'm talking, they would be in shock at what 2023 looks like in comparison to 2018.
00:41:55.320
When I think about when we set up the school in 2014, the Western world was very different in 2014 to the way it is now.
00:42:04.940
We have to, because otherwise the world that we know and have known, it's going to disappear.
00:42:10.400
And the kids who are coming through the school system, remember children are the future, right?
00:42:15.400
They are the ones that are going to be carrying this later.
00:42:19.020
And if we care about our countries, we've got to fight for it.
00:42:24.480
That means saying something about your child's education, saying something to the teachers, saying something to your friends, and not keeping your mouth shut when everybody says something that you know is wrong.
00:42:34.860
Last year, we had a teacher in Oakville, and this made international headlines.
00:42:41.480
Well, uh, that teacher who, uh, made all kinds of claims about why he had to dress with giant prosthetic breasts and a blonde wig is now teaching in Hamilton, Ontario.
00:42:52.400
Um, dressed as a man, completely punked the school system.
00:42:59.060
But the school system was too afraid the, the, the, the board administrators and the trustees to actually do anything.
00:43:08.580
But the thing is, what I would say is that one guy with silly breasts, I mean, yes, it's outrageous and ridiculous.
00:43:15.360
And I agree with your position on that, but he's just one guy.
00:43:21.220
So the fact that we're all squabbling over some stupid guy, um, is like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic while the whole boat is going down.
00:43:29.860
So parents notice that one guy, and it's absolutely right to be critical of him.
00:43:35.080
And I totally agree with the people who are critical of him.
00:43:37.600
But I'm trying to say that this, the stuff that I'm talking about, child-centered learning, adults no longer being the authority in the classroom or the authority at home, uh, feeling bad about punishing your children.
00:43:50.620
Uh, there should be punishments and there should be praise.
00:43:55.400
And that's how you raise a child, both in the school and in the home.
00:43:59.780
Um, all of these ideas that used to be normal in 1953, in 2023 are totally abnormal.
00:44:06.560
I tweeted the other day about doing an hour's worth of homework every night.
00:44:12.200
I just saw this morning, three million views for this tweet.
00:44:15.560
I mean, I'm like, because it was so outrageous.
00:44:19.280
And this is both on the left and the right, politically, who are outraged at the idea of their child doing an hour's worth of homework every evening.
00:44:28.320
There's loads of right-wingers there, uh, because they're not progressive, who are saying this.
00:44:33.520
And what they don't get is their position on not doing any homework is why that guy is in that, that school with his breasts.
00:44:44.460
They don't get that when the adults are no longer in authority, when we're not trying to get the most out of kids and pushing them and expecting them to do homework and expecting them to drill things and to rote learn some things.
00:44:54.020
Obviously, you're not rote learning everything.
00:44:55.640
You might rote learn historical dates and French verbs and times tables, but you wouldn't rote learn Macbeth because that would be really weird.
00:45:03.900
Obviously, you pick and choose what you need to rote learn according to what you're learning, right?
00:45:08.420
Now, the fact that we are fighting all of those things that used to be normal, that has completely undermined the normal basis for learning and for structure.
00:45:21.760
And the adult is meant to be an authority leading the way for the child.
00:45:29.540
And so that guy in Hamilton is just an example of the chaos that is everywhere.
00:45:35.360
It's just that the parents have only reacted now at this last 11th hour when it's obvious that there is chaos because of this guy with his breasts.
00:45:46.780
Look, I mean, yes, I looked at that and thought, what on earth?
00:45:49.120
And yes, but I've been saying this for decades, right?
00:45:52.660
I've been saying this is where we're going to end up.
00:45:59.580
Can everybody look at that and then think, oh, but it's not just about stopping him.
00:46:07.040
All these things that I've been talking about over the last hour are the problem.
00:46:12.700
And so I encourage everyone to listen to you, Catherine.
00:46:27.020
This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:46:33.140
Again, remember, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Amazon, what have you.
00:46:37.880
Help us out by giving us a rating or leaving a review and telling your friends about us.