Full Comment - England’s ‘strictest headmistress’ on how old-school education saves kids

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00:01:12.740 Catherine Burbalsingh is a radical in the world of education. 0.89

00:01:20.640 She's a radical not because she wants to bring about new ways of bringing up the next generation 1.00

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. 0.69

00:01:34.140 It's an inner-city school that teaches traditional values using a much more traditional curriculum

00:01:39.640 than you'd find in most schools today.

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

00:02:23.540 they want a good education for their children.

00:02:26.140 Catherine joins us from the Michaela School in London.

00:02:28.500 Catherine, thanks for the time.

00:02:30.420 Well, thank you for having me.

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

00:02:47.840 in Canada.

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.

00:03:01.200 We have just over 700 kids.

00:03:04.520 We opened in 2014.

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.

00:03:29.620 We follow the normal admissions code.

00:03:31.780 Unlike the charter schools in the US, we follow the normal admissions code that everyone else

00:03:35.700 follows here.

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

00:03:48.420 would have been considered much more normal.

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

00:03:59.880 challenging intake.

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.

00:04:13.340 We are in inner London.

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.

00:04:30.360 I mean, it can be quite horrible, you know.

00:04:32.560 So that's why we have silent corridors and they walk in single file very quickly to their

00:04:36.040 lessons.

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

00:04:49.140 would be teaching themselves.

00:04:51.140 And that would be what would be called child-centered learning instead of teacher-led learning, which

00:04:55.280 is what we do.

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.

00:05:04.820 You're part of a team.

00:05:05.920 When you get a detention, you don't get a detention just for you.

00:05:08.620 You're letting the whole team down.

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

00:05:57.760 comes from a more traditional knowledge base.

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.

00:06:16.880 I'd say that's across the Western world.

00:06:19.360 Well, that interesting part where you've got to know a lot about something to engage in

00:06:24.780 critical thinking.

00:06:26.320 Yeah.

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

00:06:43.740 what it is they're pushing.

00:06:47.300 Exactly.

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

00:06:59.740 and geography and science.

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

00:07:08.040 necessarily specialize in at secondary school.

00:07:10.760 But in order for them to learn anything in the first place, they need to be behaving themselves.

00:07:14.740 They need to be interested.

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.

00:07:29.580 No, it needs to be ordered.

00:07:30.720 You need to think very carefully about cognitive science, how the brain learns, how children

00:07:36.120 are motivated.

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

00:08:02.620 of their lives.

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

00:08:28.560 with the school.

00:08:29.780 And not all families can do that.

00:08:32.900 In fact, for our families, very, very few of the families we have here would ever be able

00:08:37.880 to do that.

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

00:08:53.640 younger.

00:08:54.120 You don't say, do whatever you want, because if you say that, well, they'll just sit on

00:08:57.840 video games all day.

00:08:58.920 They'll just go on social media.

00:09:00.040 Really?

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.

00:09:13.360 Obviously, they're not going to do that.

00:09:14.760 So we restrict their freedom now, so that later, they can be truly free.

00:09:20.400 The progressives get it the other way around.

00:09:22.360 They decide that when they're children, that's when you're going to have loads of freedom.

00:09:26.220 Do whatever you like.

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.

00:09:33.500 It's the other way around.

00:09:35.040 Kids shouldn't have that much freedom.

00:09:36.800 Adults should have a lot more freedom.

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

00:10:22.920 are.

00:10:23.120 And that's not true.

00:10:24.320 There's a whole variety of children out there.

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.

00:10:36.440 But they deserve to know that stuff.

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

00:10:49.460 illiterate and functionally innumerate.

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

00:11:02.940 the school.

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

00:11:12.140 wonderful.

00:11:13.080 Meanwhile, we are hiring tutors in the background to make sure that our children are one step

00:11:17.460 ahead.

00:11:18.180 We are doing the right things by our kids.

00:11:20.600 I'm not criticizing people for hiring tutors.

00:11:22.740 Well done you.

00:11:23.480 You care about your kids.

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

00:11:43.440 to do right by them.

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

00:12:30.280 on any standardized tests.

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,

00:12:55.900 uh, it, it, math is a tool of white supremacy. 0.99

00:13:00.760 And it was more controversial in our media that the minister stepped in to take that out

00:13:08.300 than it was that it had ever been in there.

00:13:12.400 Yeah.

00:13:13.080 And that's my worry about Canada.

00:13:15.160 I am in Canada twice a year because my parents live in Toronto.

00:13:18.820 So does my sister.

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.

00:13:32.600 So what you just said is crazy.

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 0.99

00:13:40.420 supremacy. 0.98

00:13:40.860 It's just insane.

00:13:42.260 That's just an insane idea. 0.98

00:13:43.900 Black children need to learn that two plus two is four just as well as white kids do. 1.00

00:13:48.580 And if you don't teach them that, then you are going to put them in a position where they

00:13:52.100 will never be able to have successful lives.

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 0.67

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

00:14:26.460 to them like they're some kind of expert.

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.

00:14:51.720 What have you done?

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.

00:15:08.960 If they can do that, then listen to them.

00:15:11.140 But if they can't do that, then you need to question their motives in them speaking like 0.66

00:15:15.800 this, because to anybody who has any common sense, it is obvious that black children or

00:15:20.860 white children are, they're all the same. 1.00

00:15:23.200 They're kids.

00:15:23.900 That's the whole point.

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.

00:15:30.600 And they should be taught this.

00:15:32.040 It's wrong for them not to be taught it.

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

00:15:46.200 know, and show it in other ways.

00:15:47.900 Do all of that, fine.

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

00:15:57.800 to huge amounts of maths out there, right?

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

00:16:10.240 is six, and so on.

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.

00:16:17.900 It's like when you are driving a car.

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

00:16:33.060 frightened.

00:16:34.020 And then after a while, you find that you can do it so easily that you can have a conversation

00:16:38.700 at the same time.

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.

00:17:17.220 That's how you become creative in the end.

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.

00:17:25.360 I'm a real radical, right?

00:17:26.680 That's why you're interviewing me.

00:17:28.220 Um, now why am I so creative and out of the box, uh, out of box thinker with education?

00:17:34.320 Because I know education inside out.

00:17:36.180 I've been doing it for 25 years.

00:17:37.660 If you asked me to be really creative with cars, right?

00:17:41.460 I wouldn't know what to do.

00:17:42.420 I don't know anything about cars.

00:17:43.600 So you'd give me a car, you know, you can leave that to Elon Musk.

00:17:46.480 He knows about cars.

00:17:47.380 I don't know anything about cars.

00:17:48.760 And if you asked me to be about creative about frankly, anything else, I wouldn't be able

00:17:51.780 to do it.

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

00:18:01.100 fascinating things with it.

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

00:18:14.960 black children? 0.69

00:18:15.820 How much success have you had with them?

00:18:17.660 How long have you been working in that school down the road or as a social worker or something?

00:18:23.340 What have you done?

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.

00:18:58.880 And the new principal brought in simple rules.

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

00:19:15.760 ball cap came off.

00:19:16.880 There were no hats allowed in the school.

00:19:18.480 Even, even the UPS and FedEx driver showing up with deliveries were told at the front door,

00:19:24.300 they had to take their hats off.

00:19:25.960 No gum.

00:19:27.160 Yeah.

00:19:27.760 Yeah.

00:19:28.220 And these small changes brought about dramatic improvement in the school.

00:19:34.000 Exactly.

00:19:34.960 Exactly.

00:19:35.360 So that's broken windows.

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.

00:19:50.560 And it's the same idea.

00:19:52.160 Why would it be the case that you, you take graffiti off the subway cars and suddenly the

00:19:56.200 murder rate goes down in New York?

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.

00:20:04.480 How are the two connected?

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

00:20:19.980 broken.

00:20:20.580 All you need to do is break one window.

00:20:22.740 And within a couple of days, all of the windows will be broken.

00:20:26.120 And that's because details matter.

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

00:20:57.460 guests.

00:20:57.760 And we get 800 visitors a year here.

00:20:59.480 They come and they say, Oh my goodness, the children are so happy.

00:21:01.880 They're so engaged.

00:21:02.700 They're learning so much.

00:21:03.720 This is amazing.

00:21:04.500 How do you do it?

00:21:05.480 Well, we look after the small things.

00:21:06.560 Just like you said, we have a uniform, the shirts have to be tucked in, the ties need to

00:21:10.560 be at the top.

00:21:11.420 They need to be on time to school.

00:21:12.900 They get homework every day.

00:21:14.360 We have high expectations of them.

00:21:16.440 And of course they get detentions.

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.

00:21:33.620 And isn't that a good thing?

00:21:34.800 I mean, isn't it a good thing that kids coming from poor families then know a lot and are 0.92

00:21:38.280 then going to succeed?

00:21:39.200 Wouldn't we want that for all the kids as opposed to saying that math is white supremacy? 0.79

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,

00:21:55.520 for decades.

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.

00:22:07.980 These people say they want to help.

00:22:09.800 And I've been part of this my whole life.

00:22:12.120 And when people talk, they say, Oh my goodness, you're so passionate.

00:22:14.760 Why do you get so angry about these things?

00:22:16.300 I get angry about it because I've spent 25 years working with these kids, seeing what

00:22:20.500 they're up against.

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. 0.81

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?

00:22:49.480 And is that why you're doing it?

00:22:51.320 Because I can tell you all of my teachers, they don't want to give detentions.

00:22:54.840 Nobody likes giving detentions.

00:22:56.220 I have to teach my teachers that, in fact, you are helping the kids by giving them detentions. 0.99

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

00:23:15.160 is by holding the kids to account.

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.

00:23:26.040 You've never worked on the street.

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

00:23:39.200 that you cause us.

00:23:40.420 And you actually make our lives much more difficult in trying to help these kids have successful

00:23:45.020 lives.

00:23:45.880 You said the claim of math being white supremacy was the most extreme, but that's gone through

00:23:49.740 everything, all the subjects.

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.

00:24:03.500 Beautiful, beautiful poem.

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,

00:24:20.820 reciting it here.

00:24:21.700 And he said to me, Catherine, are you trying to be deliberately controversial?

00:24:26.340 And I just thought, no, Kipling is British.

00:24:29.920 And Kipling is a great author.

00:24:33.260 And we want to celebrate him.

00:24:36.020 And this particular poem speaks to what, you know, our values.

00:24:44.940 You know, we often refer to it.

00:24:45.980 So if the kids are going off for a football match or something, we always say, triumph and

00:24:51.040 disaster.

00:24:52.220 You know, you've got to keep your, you know, you've got to keep your head.

00:24:55.620 It doesn't matter if you win or if you lose.

00:24:57.600 It's okay.

00:24:58.960 You've just got to be, you've got to be calm about it.

00:25:01.280 Don't go crazy if you win.

00:25:02.640 And don't be too upset if you lose.

00:25:05.060 We refer to that all the time because, because it just has so many different pieces of wisdom

00:25:12.300 in it.

00:25:12.740 And we want our children to carry those.

00:25:14.600 So, I mean, I haven't spoken that much about our values.

00:25:16.520 I always call them small C conservative.

00:25:18.220 I'm not a big C conservative.

00:25:20.040 I'm not a member of any political party.

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

00:25:32.660 C conservative.

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

00:25:42.080 small C conservatives.

00:25:43.480 And what is that?

00:25:44.660 It's a more social conservative.

00:25:46.420 So, you know, belief in a sense of personal responsibility and, you know, you're always

00:25:57.160 thinking, how am I responsible?

00:25:58.740 What can I do better?

00:25:59.820 As opposed to always just blaming somebody else, you know?

00:26:03.520 We don't believe in victimhood.

00:26:06.840 You know, we don't want our children to say, well, I can't make it because I'm black.

00:26:09.660 Well, I can't make it because I'm poor.

00:26:11.360 You know, the establishment is going to be against me.

00:26:13.740 So what's the point of getting my grades?

00:26:15.260 Well, there's a lot of point, actually, because you want to be responsible for yourself.

00:26:18.700 And there may be obstacles out there.

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 0.58

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

00:26:40.420 of me?

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.

00:26:47.340 I'm under no illusion of that.

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

00:27:03.400 work.

00:27:04.860 Our motto was, work hard, be kind.

00:27:08.560 And your listeners may notice, if they know about education, that we sort of half stole

00:27:14.060 that from KIPP, the charter school in America.

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

00:27:36.380 to be nice people, you've succeeded.

00:27:38.300 Now we needed it to be a little different.

00:27:39.800 So we call our motto, work hard, be kind.

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

00:28:21.020 of thing. 0.97

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.

00:28:34.920 And you can see it on their website.

00:28:36.060 They explain it.

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 1.00

00:28:53.440 things, which is to work hard and be nice. 0.97

00:28:55.620 So the idea that we should only teach white children to be nice, but we can't teach black 1.00

00:28:58.820 children to be nice.

00:28:59.780 Don't we understand how racist this is?

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 0.98

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.

00:29:22.280 We teach them to be kind to 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

00:29:53.040 on.

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

00:30:07.700 classmates.

00:30:08.680 And I just, I don't see why that's not a nice thing.

00:30:12.480 Why wouldn't we want that for all children?

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,

00:30:25.880 but we have to take a quick break.

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.

00:30:39.860 But that doesn't mean you can't fight back.

00:30:42.080 So we'll get to that when we come back.

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

00:30:58.980 taught in a prestigious private school.

00:31:01.800 A lot of people think, well, I just put my kids in private school, and that'll solve the

00:31:06.560 problem.

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

00:31:19.920 there.

00:31:20.600 And he tried to get other parents involved, and he just couldn't.

00:31:25.540 They weren't interested.

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

00:31:38.300 like that.

00:31:38.840 Well, we should do something about it.

00:31:40.420 Oh, really?

00:31:43.200 And most just wouldn't care.

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

00:31:52.240 system in this country.

00:31:53.520 But you say that's the wrong way to go about it, that parents should get engaged.

00:31:59.580 Why?

00:32:00.160 Why is it so important?

00:32:02.640 Well, actually, I don't say you shouldn't homeschool.

00:32:07.180 That is getting involved.

00:32:09.300 So when you homeschool, you are making an active decision to say the school system is not right.

00:32:14.980 There's something wrong with it.

00:32:16.360 And if everybody homeschooled, then actually you'd see some impact.

00:32:20.080 Something would happen.

00:32:20.960 Something would change.

00:32:21.760 So I strongly encourage people to homeschool, actually.

00:32:26.060 One, I think it's great for your kids.

00:32:28.000 I think it's great for the families.

00:32:29.600 Now, families will say they can't afford it.

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.

00:32:52.540 You can also speak differently about things.

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.

00:33:06.780 Say something.

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.

00:33:24.820 They're worried about losing their friends.

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.

00:33:38.660 I get it.

00:33:39.000 Not everybody wants to do that.

00:33:40.900 But you do need to complain to the school.

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.

00:33:59.120 He tried to find other schools.

00:34:00.920 The people at his kid's school in New York, the parents there, they just didn't care.

00:34:06.580 And he couldn't believe it.

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.

00:35:53.600 Don't just be interested in the superficial.

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.

00:36:20.540 He must be very smart.

00:36:22.260 And you say, oh, yeah, you know, he's a chip off the old block.

00:36:25.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:25.860 And it's also brilliant.

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.

00:36:45.880 They never do.

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.

00:37:34.280 That's right.

00:37:34.860 It's not wood rot.

00:37:35.720 It is rotting right now.

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.

00:37:43.320 And we're in the middle of it.

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.

00:37:52.520 They don't know anything.

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.

00:38:16.480 That's what I'm trying to do.

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.

00:38:30.080 Not just teachers, all kinds of people come.

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.

00:38:47.400 You know, it can be done.

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.

00:39:49.300 The school board is fighting him.

00:39:50.620 And the reason why everybody's fighting him is because there's nothing in it for them.

00:39:54.980 They don't actually care about those kids.

00:39:56.940 They just care about what it looks like for them.

00:39:59.180 That's all they care about.

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.

00:40:23.820 Everywhere I go, it's the same problem.

00:40:25.860 Okay.

00:40:26.920 Everywhere I go, it's the same issues and the same madness that we're all fighting.

00:40:31.800 Right.

00:40:32.340 And it doesn't matter where you are.

00:40:33.840 Like I went to Spain last year.

00:40:35.380 It was the same issues there.

00:40:36.360 It's the same everywhere.

00:40:37.120 It doesn't matter what language I was in Sweden, uh, recently, same issues.

00:40:41.560 Right.

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.

00:40:51.760 And I, how do you fight back?

00:40:54.140 Well, I, I get stronger.

00:40:56.040 Like I have a number of Twitter followers, for instance, and they come out and fight for me sometimes.

00:41:00.820 And that helps me.

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.

00:42:01.360 So, um, we, we have to fight.

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.

00:42:17.940 We will be dead.

00:42:19.020 And if we care about our countries, we've got to fight for it.

00:42:22.400 Um, and that just means speaking up.

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.

00:42:39.100 You may have heard about it.

00:42:40.340 Uh, yeah.

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. 0.96

00:42:56.880 And people did speak up though.

00:42:59.060 But the school system was too afraid the, the, the, the board administrators and the trustees to actually do anything.

00:43:07.620 That's true. 1.00

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. 1.00

00:43:15.360 And I agree with your position on that, but he's just one guy. 1.00

00:43:19.460 School system is on fire. 0.99

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. 1.00

00:43:29.440 Right? 1.00

00:43:29.860 So parents notice that one guy, and it's absolutely right to be critical of him.

00:43:34.000 I'm not saying that's not right.

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.

00:43:53.700 Children react to both of them well.

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.

00:44:10.720 The world went crazy.

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.

00:44:18.060 People are so outraged.

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.

00:44:25.820 Now, they don't understand.

00:44:28.320 There's loads of right-wingers there, uh, because they're not progressive, who are saying this. 0.86

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. 0.52

00:44:42.000 That, that, they don't get the connection.

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.

00:45:18.200 The child knows less than the parent.

00:45:20.340 The child knows less than the teacher.

00:45:21.760 And the adult is meant to be an authority leading the way for the child.

00:45:26.340 Once you've lost that, then you have chaos.

00:45:29.540 And so that guy in Hamilton is just an example of the chaos that is everywhere. 0.94

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. 0.65

00:45:44.440 And everybody goes, oh, look at that. 0.90

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.

00:45:55.420 This is going to be the final stage.

00:45:56.980 We're now at the final stage.

00:45:58.420 We're at the 11th hour.

00:45:59.580 Can everybody look at that and then think, oh, but it's not just about stopping him.

00:46:03.980 He isn't the problem.

00:46:05.380 He's just a symptom of the problem.

00:46:07.040 All these things that I've been talking about over the last hour are the problem.

00:46:10.780 Does that make sense?

00:46:11.280 It absolutely does.

00:46:12.700 And so I encourage everyone to listen to you, Catherine.

00:46:14.820 And if not, well, detention.

00:46:18.020 Thanks.

00:46:18.780 Thanks so much for the time today.

00:46:20.320 It's been wonderful.

00:46:22.020 Thank you for having me.

00:46:23.040 All right.

00:46:23.340 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:46:25.560 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:46:27.020 This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:46:31.160 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

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.

00:46:43.120 Thanks for listening.

00:46:43.980 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - October 02, 2023

England’s ‘strictest headmistress’ on how old-school education saves kids

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