TRIGGERnometry - Katharine Birbalsingh on the Failure of Progressive Education

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00:00:30.160 When they join the school, I tell them, I am the dragon lady.

00:00:34.180 Do not mess with me.

00:00:35.540 And I'm really, I say it like that.

00:00:37.100 I say to them, the day I send my child to your school, I will do what you say.

00:00:46.840 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:48.800 I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:49.840 I'm Constantin Kishan.

00:00:50.900 And this is a show for you if you're bored of watching people on the internet having arguments

00:00:55.080 over something they know nothing about.

00:00:57.400 At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts.

00:01:01.660 Our fantastic expert guest this week is the headmistress of the Michaela Free School here in London,

00:01:07.320 Catherine Burblesing. Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:09.300 Hi there. Hi. Thanks for having me.

00:01:11.380 It's so good to have you here. We know everything about you.

00:01:14.640 We've seen the great interview you did with Dave Rubin and others.

00:01:17.100 Sounds creepy, mate, but anyway, carry on.

00:01:19.360 Wow, that's a good start to the interview.

00:01:22.020 But for anyone who doesn't know who you are, tell us a little bit about your story through life.

00:01:26.420 How are you, where you are, and what brings you to the seat in which you currently sit?

00:01:30.440 Okay, well, Catherine Piper-Belsing is my name.

00:01:33.360 I'm headmistress of Michaela Community School, which is a school in Brent, Wembley Park.

00:01:39.940 We opened in 2014.

00:01:42.360 We now have 600 pupils, and this year is the year we get our GCSE results, so it's really exciting.

00:01:48.620 I suppose people are interested, or you are interested in talking to me,

00:01:52.020 because I'm a bit controversial in the things that I say about education.

00:01:58.140 The stuff I say I think is pretty much common sense,

00:02:00.600 but others find it controversial.

00:02:02.040 I think teachers should stand in front of the class and teach.

00:02:04.900 That is controversial.

00:02:09.260 And I came to prominence, I suppose, in 2010

00:02:12.540 when I gave a speech at the Conservative Party conference.

00:02:16.060 A teacher at the Conservative Party conference?

00:02:19.540 Well, I have to say I didn't really know much

00:02:21.280 about political conferences.

00:02:22.380 Anyway, I went along and I gave this speech,

00:02:24.120 but it was also what I said in the speech.

00:02:25.520 I was kind of condemning the state of state education

00:02:28.280 and saying how lots needed to change.

00:02:32.180 And I now am trying to enact that at school.

00:02:36.860 And we at Michaela, so all of my teachers, my senior team,

00:02:40.980 we all sing from the same hymn sheet.

00:02:42.780 We really believe the same sorts of things.

00:02:44.800 And we now get visitors.

00:02:46.620 I don't know, we get seven to 10 visitors every day.

00:02:49.240 They're all teachers, tend to be, from across the country and across the world who come to see what we do.

00:02:54.860 So it's been really powerful in terms of putting the argument forward because teachers have been able to see the arguments in theory in real life and to see whether or not they work.

00:03:09.160 And I think they do.

00:03:10.380 And I always say to everybody, you're very welcome to come and visit any time.

00:03:13.480 Our doors are open all the time and people come every day and they have lunch with the children.

00:03:17.420 They have a tour.

00:03:18.420 And they're able to judge for themselves.

00:03:20.520 Well, we look forward to coming.

00:03:21.500 You've invited us very kindly.

00:03:22.660 We'll check it out.

00:03:23.600 But let's get into some of the stuff that you do.

00:03:25.640 You've been described as Britain's strictest headmistress.

00:03:30.280 Well, I think they were trying to sell the newspaper at the time.

00:03:32.840 I don't know what being the strictest.

00:03:34.760 I think when people talk about being strict,

00:03:37.900 people imagine this kind of ogre standing over children

00:03:40.720 and it all being really mean and nasty.

00:03:43.020 When, in fact, the number one thing that everyone says

00:03:45.640 when they come to the school is the children are so happy.

00:03:48.300 It's just a really happy place.

00:03:50.000 And the reason why they're happy is precisely because it's ordered and structured.

00:03:54.480 It's when you have chaos that children are miserable and unhappy because children look to us to guide them.

00:04:01.220 It's our duty to show them the way and to allow the shy ones to shine.

00:04:08.100 At Michaela, one of the things teachers visit, they look in the classrooms and they say,

00:04:13.500 it's incredible, all the kids have their hands up.

00:04:15.540 And that's because no one at Michaela feels intimidated.

00:04:18.860 You can find in classrooms that, not with us, but elsewhere,

00:04:23.540 if a child puts their hand up, are they going to get bullied for putting their hand up?

00:04:26.860 Are they going to be laughed at?

00:04:28.200 Oh, you're just the teacher's pet. 0.99

00:04:30.120 You're the nerd. 0.98

00:04:30.900 You know what I mean. 0.93

00:04:31.800 Well, I was that one always.

00:04:32.760 I was the nerd with my hand up.

00:04:34.120 Right, exactly.

00:04:35.080 So you know from your own experiences at school what that was like.

00:04:38.920 That doesn't happen at Michaela.

00:04:40.700 Learning is really admired.

00:04:42.580 And if you're able to answer, that's great.

00:04:44.340 That means you've been listening. And so you'll find 75 percent of hands in the class will go up.

00:04:49.700 And that's what I mean about having the order and the structure. If you have order, everyone's able to listen.

00:04:53.700 If the teacher is standing at the front of the class, they can look in one direction to see the teacher.

00:04:58.240 If the teacher is teaching in the way that we would consider to be excellent teaching,

00:05:02.960 the children have a chance to really grapple with the subject and then be able to put their hands up and answer questions and then feel successful.

00:05:11.960 and then their self-esteem goes through the roof but um we do things the other way around in that

00:05:18.160 sense uh so you might find more modern methods of teaching are trying to address their self-esteem

00:05:23.660 we don't address their self-esteem we think about the learning we make sure they learn

00:05:27.780 and guess what their self-esteem then benefits because they're learning because it's very

00:05:33.200 interesting that you say excellent teaching because i've been on i was a teacher for 10

00:05:37.580 years in primary and secondary and the idea of what good teaching is seemed to change year upon

00:05:44.240 year upon year because education is a political football in the UK so what do you think is

00:05:49.560 excellent teaching for you? Yeah and it's a really good point things do change all the time

00:05:54.460 and to a certain extent there is some value in change because people you don't want to just be

00:06:02.460 stuck in the same way so we change our minds all the time one of the things that people think is

00:06:05.940 oh, well, at Michaela, they just have one way of doing things. Well, that's just not true.

00:06:09.860 We have changed our mind over the years, and we also change our minds daily about things.

00:06:13.980 So change isn't necessarily bad. But some of the ideas, I would say, have been bad over the last

00:06:18.460 50 years in education. So what has changed for the worse is that education has become more

00:06:25.200 child-centered. And what I mean by that is, rather than the teacher leading the learning,

00:06:29.760 it's the child that's leading the learning. And that comes from the idea that learning

00:06:33.200 should always be personalized and that each child is his own self to be able to just discover what

00:06:38.920 he wants. I want to be a dancer. I want to be an artist. I want to be a, you know, I want to work

00:06:43.960 with computers and that's fine. The idea of wanting to do what you want, but the teacher needs, who's

00:06:49.620 the history teacher, needs to teach the history and the child needs to learn from the teacher who

00:06:54.480 knows more than them. That concept has been lost. And to people who aren't in teaching, that seems

00:06:59.820 really odd. Well, obviously the history teacher knows more about history, but you'd be amazed by

00:07:03.640 the number of teachers who say things like, I learned just as much from my children as the

00:07:08.460 children learned from me. And I always think, well, okay, then you must not be a very good

00:07:13.360 teacher and something's wrong there. And I'm not saying that the children can't point out

00:07:17.540 little quirky things and they don't make you laugh. And I love working with children for that

00:07:22.360 reason. But the teacher ought to know more. The teacher ought to stand at the front of the class.

00:07:27.880 the desk should be in rows. The children should look to the teacher. I always say the teacher

00:07:31.940 is driving the bus, right? And the teacher drives the bus because children can't drive.

00:07:38.240 And they can't. They can't drive, right? I mean, the thing is, in teaching, people don't think

00:07:43.440 that. They think, no, no, no, no, no. Children should just do, they should be in groups and

00:07:48.020 they should be looking at each other. So the teacher then moves around the desks as a facilitator

00:07:52.380 of learning as opposed to, no, I'm the teacher. I'm driving the bus forward and all the children

00:07:58.440 are going to jump on the bus with me. And then a really excellent teacher is making sure that

00:08:02.640 children don't jump off on route. You're on your way to Rome. You don't want them jumping off at

00:08:07.060 Paris. You don't want some of them never leaving home. You want to make sure that you are so skilled

00:08:12.080 as a teacher that every time, oh, you're looking out the window, you jumped off the bus. Bing,

00:08:16.480 little Johnny, come back in. Oh, you're doodling. You jumped off the bus. Okay, get back in. And you

00:08:21.020 Keep going, keep going until you get to Rome.

00:08:23.080 And you are a brilliant teacher if you've managed to get to Rome

00:08:25.740 and all the kids are still with you.

00:08:27.600 So you're really controversial.

00:08:30.300 I haven't heard anything controversial so far.

00:08:33.260 What's controversial about this?

00:08:35.120 That is really controversial, really controversial.

00:08:37.080 A teacher standing in front of a class and being the leader in that,

00:08:42.020 that's controversial?

00:08:43.300 Why?

00:08:43.540 Right. Because I think it's because too many people in teaching and actually in society nowadays have a problem with authority.

00:08:54.880 They think that if you are in authority, you are authoritarian. And that's not true.

00:09:04.220 In fact, if you're not in authority with children, then the children take control.

00:09:09.140 The children are the ones who run that class.

00:09:11.580 And then the teacher is just running around.

00:09:13.920 Please, please do some work.

00:09:15.260 Silence, everyone.

00:09:16.220 Silence.

00:09:16.760 That's what they say.

00:09:17.420 You stand up in front of the class, 10 minutes.

00:09:19.020 Silence.

00:09:19.940 And anyone who's been in teaching will know what I'm talking about.

00:09:23.700 And that's because the children are running that class.

00:09:27.060 And in fact, the idea of children running things is perfectly acceptable in schools.

00:09:34.540 I mean, they have student panels, for instance, where the students are deciding

00:09:37.480 when a deputy head

00:09:38.860 comes for an interview,

00:09:39.920 the students are deciding

00:09:41.120 whether or not

00:09:42.020 the deputy head

00:09:42.700 should be hired.

00:09:43.780 I mean, now...

00:09:44.860 Really?

00:09:45.240 Yeah, that's common.

00:09:47.200 I've been interviewed

00:09:48.040 by student panels.

00:09:49.180 Yeah, it's perfect.

00:09:49.960 They're not the only ones

00:09:50.940 deciding, obviously.

00:09:51.520 Look at my face, guys.

00:09:54.280 You know,

00:09:54.940 they're not the only ones

00:09:56.720 deciding,

00:09:57.100 but depending on the school,

00:09:58.280 they will give

00:09:58.820 a certain amount of weight

00:09:59.760 to what the children want.

00:10:01.460 And that's mad,

00:10:03.740 as far as I'm concerned.

00:10:04.680 There are lots of things

00:10:05.380 where you want to listen to them.

00:10:06.760 So we have a year 11 committee for the ball, the year 11 ball when they leave and they're telling us where they want to go, which hotel to rent, all that kind of stuff. Great. They ought to be participating in that. We've got future leaders in the school who take our guests around and give them tours and they feed back to us about the school and so on. Yes. You know, are the toilets working? Do you have enough basketball hoops in the yard and all that sort of thing?

00:10:30.600 We need their point of view. But do they know who makes a good deputy head? Do they know what makes a good teacher? Of course not.

00:10:39.180 But that is very common in schools. That's just one example.

00:10:45.180 The idea that the teacher should be the authority is controversial because they jump to the idea that they then must be authoritarian.

00:10:54.140 And what I mean by that is they're mean and they're oppressive.

00:11:00.300 So people often come to the school thinking, well, it must be an oppressive place where children are miserable because the teachers are in charge, literally.

00:11:08.180 But that's exactly the opposite is what you find.

00:11:11.140 Children are thrilled because they're being led by their teachers, which is what they want.

00:11:16.580 I always say children push, we push back.

00:11:19.780 They expect you to give them a detention if they misbehave.

00:11:22.140 If you don't, then you are letting them down.

00:11:24.800 It's very interesting you say that, because especially when you work with kids who come from really difficult backgrounds where there's not a lot of stability.

00:11:33.740 To them, school is the one stable influence in their life where they're going to go in.

00:11:38.340 They're going to be able to sit at the same place. The same thing is going to happen every day.

00:11:41.900 They're going to get fed. And to them, that is their safe place.

00:11:45.020 And if you go in and you have this attitude of, you know, the child takes control, like you said, to a child, especially a young child, that is terrifying.

00:11:53.980 Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's not even just the shy children or the awkward children who are then eaten alive in that kind of system.

00:12:01.300 But children who wouldn't have been bullies become bullies because they have to to survive.

00:12:06.420 Right. Right. You know, there's that film Wonder, which was based on the book about this little boy who's had lots of operations on his face.

00:12:17.020 And he goes he goes back to school. Julia in the in the trailer, you see Julia Roberts and the husband.

00:12:24.060 I can't remember. It's one of the big American actors. And they go to the school gates.

00:12:28.300 and as I say, he's disfigured

00:12:31.020 and they send him off

00:12:32.540 and she hangs on to her husband

00:12:34.360 and says, please God,

00:12:35.880 let them be kind to him, you know.

00:12:37.900 And the whole book is based on

00:12:40.460 can a boy who looks like this

00:12:42.340 survive at school

00:12:43.160 because it's going to be

00:12:44.220 a nightmare for him.

00:12:46.120 That would never happen at Michaela.

00:12:47.400 It just wouldn't happen.

00:12:48.480 In fact, we had a girl

00:12:49.700 who was disfigured in various ways.

00:12:51.620 I mean, she also had,

00:12:52.360 she was severely SEN

00:12:53.760 and in the end her mother

00:12:55.420 decided to send her to a special school

00:12:57.460 But not because she was unhappy with Michaela, but because it was closer to their house and she got a place there.

00:13:03.520 But the girl was crying when she was leaving, saying she was going to miss all her friends.

00:13:07.020 And she loved it. And everybody was kind to her and nice to her.

00:13:10.160 There was no bullying at all. And so I often think that book simply wouldn't exist if all schools were like Michaela.

00:13:18.300 So why aren't all? Sorry, Francis.

00:13:19.780 No, I was going to say, just touching on the bullying element of it.

00:13:22.920 one of the things that i noticed throughout my career and the things that i found actually quite

00:13:27.780 distressing was the way bullying changed and metamorphosis especially when it came to social

00:13:33.600 media bullying on social media and i personally think social media is now one of the most damaging

00:13:38.540 influences on our young children especially on girls than it is on boys because the amount of

00:13:44.200 bullying horrendous the messages that i used to see which i found upsetting and they weren't even

00:13:50.000 directed at me yeah yeah so uh we have a major push at school about social media so that's the

00:13:55.140 one place so bullying in the school doesn't happen but it will happen on social media and um but what's

00:14:01.320 great is that you can not be involved in that if you don't have a smartphone right and we have a

00:14:05.640 huge push we have we give digital detox uh events to the parents where parents are invited and i talk

00:14:11.760 them through the dangers of social media and the smartphones my advice to all parents is do not give

00:14:16.680 your child a smartphone, not until they're 16, possibly even 18. And that, again, is

00:14:20.880 controversial. People think, well, why would you do that? Children are free. They should

00:14:24.120 be able to do what they like. Well, you can do that. There was one young man, not at our

00:14:28.800 school, who was with tech, posting certain things on YouTube, insulted a South London

00:14:34.040 gang. He was knifed to death. There are other children I could tell you about who, they

00:14:39.240 get involved in criminal activity. They get involved in gang activity because they meet

00:14:45.360 these people through unsupervised access to the internet. And that's what the smartphone gives

00:14:49.880 you, unsupervised access to the internet. And we once used to put the porn magazines on the top

00:14:55.680 shelf in the shops. Nowadays, well, you give yourself, give your child a smartphone, they can

00:14:59.520 access porn, they can access gambling, they can do anything they like on there. And parents are

00:15:04.500 a lot less tech savvy than their children. And so children are running rings around their parents.

00:15:12.540 My big advice is do not give them a smartphone.

00:15:15.020 If you do, the iPhone, for instance, has all sorts of controls on there where you can put a password and you can block certain sites.

00:15:21.080 Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, they are toxic.

00:15:24.040 You need to get off there.

00:15:24.960 When you look at the way in which children will talk to each other, the bullying that goes on, the swearing, it's absolutely dreadful.

00:15:32.400 Not to mention the way in which they will use technology just to take pictures of each other's homework, never really do their work.

00:15:38.340 you are undermining your child massively if you give them a smartphone it's really really

00:15:44.080 interesting that you say that because you know like we were talking about with the bullying

00:15:47.740 element of it and the gangs how big a problem is gangs at the moment in london because the average

00:15:53.600 person picks up their copy of the evening standard and they will see you know another boy stabbed to

00:15:58.380 death tragic where do you see the gang problem in london how bad is it and is it worse than we

00:16:04.600 actually think it is uh i don't know if it's worse i mean of course we do a very good job i'm not the

00:16:11.380 best person to talk to in a way because our children we do such a good job of protecting

00:16:16.120 them that they are they don't necessarily have the the typical experience of of children elsewhere

00:16:22.800 we're persuading parents to give up smartphones we're persuading parents to pick them up after

00:16:27.660 school or etc etc now sometimes you know we have issues but um i don't know if it's worse i mean

00:16:34.580 there is a problem. There's a problem. There are so many problems. There's so many issues

00:16:39.900 that children come up against. Like you were talking about girls, for instance, on social

00:16:43.020 media. If you allow your child to have a smartphone and she's a girl, all she understands 1.00

00:16:48.700 about her self-worth is you've got to make yourself look five years older. You've got

00:16:52.820 to pout your lips and stick your bottom out and make yourself look really sexy because 0.68

00:16:56.780 that's all you're worth. The idea of being a powerful woman one day and running your 1.00

00:17:00.720 own business or being a lawyer or whatever it is they that doesn't exist in that world um it's

00:17:07.480 really it's it's really frightening and what i'm always trying to get across to parents and i do

00:17:12.080 the same on twitter and so on is uh don't fool yourself parents they some people who argue with

00:17:18.560 me say i trust my child like okay you know fine i could tell you about poor brett bednar who at 14

00:17:25.460 years old was gaming with his friends there was one boy in the gaming ring that uh his mother

00:17:29.760 didn't know. She was a wonderful mother. You know, she used to do baby swimming with him when he was

00:17:33.960 a baby and all this. And then there was this other boy. And over two years, he was gradually groomed,

00:17:40.280 you know, and he loved this boy and thought he was so brilliant. And one day this boy sent him

00:17:44.200 money to get into a cab, went to his house, was tied to a chair with duct tape and had his throat

00:17:48.840 slit. Now, if his mother had not allowed him unsupervised access to the Internet, that boy

00:17:55.500 would be alive today. And what happens? I could tell you about Kaylee. I could tell you about

00:17:58.980 Molly the other day who sadly committed suicide because of all the self-harm images she was sent

00:18:04.600 by via Instagram and via, it may have been Snapchat actually, I don't want to, I don't know

00:18:10.100 which one it was, it was one of them. And Pinterest kept on sending these images. And even though you

00:18:17.460 try and get off these images, you can't because the algorithms are such that the more you click

00:18:20.780 on them, the more they keep sending you. And parents don't know, Molly's parents didn't know.

00:18:25.800 and then they say, every time this happens, parents make a video. They make some video

00:18:30.680 to warn other parents. They say, please listen to me. Listen to what I'm saying. Nobody watches

00:18:37.280 these videos, right? So I show this to my parents and I say, listen. Listen to what I'm saying.

00:18:44.560 You're putting your child's life in danger. Now, that's the worst end of it. Then there's just the

00:18:48.700 point of, well, what about their GCSEs? So many of them are addicted, so they can't get off their

00:18:54.320 smartphone when they're working at night. And they're saying to us, please, miss, help me.

00:18:59.320 My mom isn't home because she's working three jobs. So she can't take the phone away from me.

00:19:03.480 What do I do? I'm addicted and I can't get ready for my GCSEs. It's a major problem. And I genuinely

00:19:09.600 think that the smartphone will increase the division between the poor and the rich because

00:19:15.140 it's the rich who argue with me and who constantly say to me on Twitter, oh, but my child is fine.

00:19:19.280 what are you talking about? And I'm telling you because they're at home. They have the nannies

00:19:24.360 and the tutors and they're able to monitor their child's use of social media. And what they don't

00:19:29.200 understand is that those ideas filter through, especially when journalists. So I spoke to Toby

00:19:34.720 Young recently and I was telling him off for saying that Fortnite was OK because he writes

00:19:38.860 about these things. And I said, you are a talking head and you have responsibility. You cannot talk

00:19:44.300 about this stuff because actually your boy is probably going to be fine. But what happens is

00:19:47.640 those ideas trickle down to my families and we at school are struggling on the ground. The people

00:19:53.800 who support me 100% on Twitter when I say this stuff are teachers because the teachers get it,

00:19:58.160 they see it. And I'm telling you in 20 years, there will be controls on these things. They

00:20:02.100 will be giving out warnings just like they do for cigarettes and alcohol and driving and getting

00:20:07.320 married and having sex. All of these things are banned to children. And I'm telling you,

00:20:11.280 I was just thinking about it on the tube on the way here today. I was watching all these people

00:20:15.540 on their phones. And I was thinking, isn't it interesting how Steve Jobs has given this

00:20:20.400 extraordinary thing to people and he's not here to see just how damaging it is.

00:20:45.540 dot ca slash real estate it's an incredible point because i remember when i before i left my job i

00:20:51.680 was a year six teacher so for overseas uh viewers and listeners that's 10 and 11 it's the last year

00:20:56.620 of primary education in this country and we used to run sex ed lessons in the last year and i had

00:21:02.600 quite a few parents come in going i don't want my child learning about sex i don't want them

00:21:07.080 learning about anything and i said your kids got an iphone 6 exactly they know more about sex than

00:21:12.520 you do. Exactly. They don't realise. That's it. People don't realise. And people say,

00:21:18.420 why am I anti-phone and then I'm on Twitter? Because I'm an adult. I can make decisions

00:21:22.300 about how I'm going to spend my time, of course. But children are children. It's one of the biggest

00:21:26.360 mistakes we make in teaching and generally in society these days is that we treat children

00:21:30.820 as experts. We think that children are like us. They're not. They need guidance. They need us

00:21:37.160 to make decisions for them, right?

00:21:39.420 We do.

00:21:40.300 People say to me,

00:21:41.500 so at 10 years old,

00:21:42.480 when they're looking for a school,

00:21:43.600 a secondary school,

00:21:44.740 often families will say,

00:21:46.180 well, you know, it's up to him.

00:21:47.380 He should decide.

00:21:48.800 And I say, so when he was four,

00:21:50.440 did you choose his primary school or did he?

00:21:53.180 They say, oh no, we chose his primary school.

00:21:54.680 I say, so why is it any different?

00:21:56.360 Why is it any different?

00:21:57.420 You need to choose him for his school now.

00:21:59.760 He will choose his school

00:22:01.160 according to where his friends are going.

00:22:02.420 Is there a big sports hall?

00:22:03.960 I mean, he's not going to think about things

00:22:06.760 that matter. And that is what's key is that we need to recognize that children are children and

00:22:11.960 it is our duty to look after them. Do you think that this discomfort with authority that you

00:22:17.580 talked about is a broader issue in society? Because it seems to me that it's not just

00:22:22.360 education. Like I'll go play basketball in my local park and I'll see these parents

00:22:26.280 chasing their child who is determining where they go, what they do, what kind of food the family

00:22:32.920 leads, it's all determined by a five-year-old. That's right. That's right. And that becomes

00:22:37.240 standard. And in fact, as a parent, if you try and take a harder line with your child,

00:22:43.580 your friends look at you as if you are the unreasonable one, right? And if you're made

00:22:48.380 to feel like that, then the social pressure that you feel around you is to let the child

00:22:55.860 lead things. And I mean, of course, children need to have choices about things, you know,

00:23:00.360 do you want to catch up with your food or not? That's fine. But what school do you want to go to?

00:23:05.520 Clearly, it's the parents who should be making that decision.

00:23:09.720 And it's interesting that the points that you raised there were fascinating. I wanted to talk

00:23:14.240 to you because I wanted to get your opinion on this. We've got a crisis in this country with

00:23:18.260 teaching and teacher retention rates. People qualify. They do the PGCE. We spend hundreds

00:23:23.520 of thousands, if not millions, getting teachers through this system. The Postgraduate Certificate

00:23:28.700 of education. They stay, what is it, maximum something like five years? They drop out of the

00:23:32.560 system. What are the problems with teaching in this country? Well, the two big things are behavior

00:23:38.200 and workload. Those are the two big things. So the behavior, I mean, look, if you're being told

00:23:42.020 to F off every day, people don't want to do that, right? Well, we're comedians. I have us all the

00:23:47.900 time. Yes, I suppose. And it takes a particular type of person. But most people don't want to

00:23:53.220 be told to F off. Don't want that adrenaline having to pump all the time because you feel

00:23:57.620 like you're going to war that shouldn't be happening right um and so teachers will leave

00:24:02.060 for those reasons uh but they'll also leave because of workload and um the workload of course

00:24:08.380 is caused in part because of behavior and it's also caused because um if the teaching methods

00:24:14.520 and i keep referring to these teaching methods if you're having to move amongst the desks and

00:24:19.460 you're doing all of this uh so-called creative work which isn't creative at all uh it actually

00:24:24.940 stunts learning, there's then a lot of pressure on you for the children to achieve. But the only way

00:24:30.160 to make them to achieve is to teach them properly. So it can be very confusing for a teacher. Well,

00:24:34.840 you want me to teach this way? And that's what senior team keep telling me to do. But if you

00:24:38.560 want me to get the results, then, well, I have to do that. So I have to teach in a traditional manner.

00:24:44.360 So you move between the two, not quite sure what to do. Sadly, people think about traditional

00:24:49.380 teaching. They think it just means rote learning. And yes, there are some things you want to rote

00:24:53.500 learn. So you do want to rote learn your times tables. You do want to rote learn your dates

00:24:57.320 and history. But that doesn't mean you're rote learning everything. You're still having class

00:25:01.060 discussions. We do pair work with the children where they discuss, turn to your partner, we say,

00:25:05.200 and then they discuss quickly. And then we say, hands up. And then they all have a bit of a class

00:25:08.440 discussion on it. They obviously do independent work as well, where they're writing out essays

00:25:12.580 and they're analyzing things. You don't not have analysis when you do traditional teaching. In fact,

00:25:18.980 It's at the heart of traditional teaching. Sadly, people can interpret traditional teaching to mean everyone's just sat there, wrote learning something and repeating stuff back to the teacher.

00:25:30.320 That is certainly not the case. All of our visitors at Michaela would testify to say, obviously, that is not the case at Michaela.

00:25:36.780 But it's unfortunate that it can be an interpretation of that. And I think that's why traditionalism has had a bad name.

00:25:43.800 And over the last 50 years, gradually it has disappeared from our schools.

00:25:47.060 And do you think it's because parents have had a bad experience at school with certain teachers and then they come into school with their prejudices intact going, well, I had a bad experience at school. Therefore, I don't like teachers. Therefore, I don't like the education system. So I'm not going to want to engage with it.

00:26:02.400 Yeah, I mean, that is certainly the case for a number of families in the inner city and so on. You'll find that. But I'm talking more about the politicians, the people with voices out there who talk about what works or even the teachers themselves. They are seduced.

00:26:18.980 So Ken Robinson, for instance, who has the largest number of views for a TED Talk of all TED Talks.

00:26:26.820 Right. I mean, there's five million or something mad.

00:26:29.420 I mean, it's just so many people love him and they love him despite the fact that ninety nine percent of what he says is wrong.

00:26:37.720 It really is. I say ninety nine percent because the stuff he says on ADHD is actually correct.

00:26:42.200 But the rest of it is all wrong. He mistakenly thinks that traditional education is bad for children when it's what teaches them. And he promotes progressive education, which is about supposed creativity.

00:27:00.480 and I say supposed creativity because the only way in which you can be creative is through gaining

00:27:05.760 lots of knowledge. You cannot be creative with your artwork unless you have been taught the

00:27:12.540 basics in drawing. You cannot be creative with your music as a musician unless you have been

00:27:18.100 taught the basics in your instrument to be able to learn and move forward. You cannot be a creative

00:27:24.060 French comedian, for instance, because you've learned French and you're being a comedian in

00:27:29.720 France, well, you can't pull out those jokes and be really at ease in the French language unless

00:27:35.140 you have learned the basics from the beginning and then moved up. Those are obvious, really,

00:27:41.720 to anybody who understands teaching properly. Sadly, Ken Robinson and the whole progressive

00:27:46.440 movement is very seductive. What he says is, oh, I know you had a bad time at school. It's because

00:27:53.780 people didn't recognize that you were really talented underneath it. And you wanted to be a

00:27:58.840 answer didn't you and if if somebody had recognized but instead they forced you to learn those awful

00:28:03.580 times tables when we should have ignored those and we should have gone with your passion and

00:28:08.120 people listening adults go yeah that'd make a great marks and spencer's ad but i just say

00:28:13.440 but but it's interesting that you know that you talk about this because

00:28:17.120 having been a teacher for so long i agree the one thing where i find is that more and more

00:28:24.540 especially in primary is we've become data factories where we get kids to learn something

00:28:30.680 by rote and then they regurgitate it in a test and then a few weeks later that knowledge is gone

00:28:36.160 okay so what you're saying there is because they've been taught so badly in a progressive

00:28:40.720 fashion for so long all teachers remember i said they were confused right they're confused on the

00:28:45.580 one hand you want me to teach in this trendy way which isn't really teaching but we're having fun

00:28:51.340 And then, on the other hand, you want me to get exams.

00:28:53.460 So what happens is, for years, they're taught in this trendy way,

00:28:56.860 facilitating the learning, let's all write on sugar paper,

00:29:00.440 I'm going to stick things up on the wall, and you're all going to get up,

00:29:02.980 and you're going to find them, I'm going to blindfold one of you,

00:29:04.840 it's all going to be fun, and it is fun, it is fun.

00:29:07.320 The children are learning about that much content.

00:29:09.340 And then what happens is you get closer to the exams,

00:29:11.340 whether it's the year six SATs or it's the GCSEs at 16,

00:29:14.460 the teachers all go, we've got to do something, we've got to teach them,

00:29:17.900 we've got to learn a whole load of stuff, because we've got to get it,

00:29:20.320 we've got to get through this exam and so that's what so that is when you bring in the boom boom 0.98

00:29:24.620 boom we got to do it got to do it and then people say ah you see there's too much traditional rote

00:29:29.400 learning in the classrooms but actually had they way back at the beginning of year seven or way

00:29:34.340 back at the beginning of year one been doing the rote learning of timetables had been doing the

00:29:38.860 rote learning of of phonics and so on if they had learned that stuff properly and really built on

00:29:43.820 the basics so that you're always building on the basics building a little bit more a bit a little

00:29:47.100 bit more then by the time they get there to those exams see you're not teaching towards the exams

00:29:52.000 anymore you're just the exam is there but you know so much so you know this much stuff and you get

00:29:58.080 examined on that but what ends up happening in schools because they haven't really been taught

00:30:02.140 properly for so long you're then gosh we've got to get through this exam so let's just rote learn

00:30:06.760 and get through that exam and then that's all they're really taught properly that's what ends

00:30:10.040 up happening um that that's where the confusion is so Catherine explain this to me then as someone

00:30:14.880 who doesn't know anything about education none of what you're saying sounds controversial to me

00:30:19.240 at all right and given you know i've seen videos from your school about how the kids behave and

00:30:25.260 we'll as i said we'll look forward to coming and seeing it live but it seems like a great thing

00:30:29.800 that you've created right so why why are people calling you a nazi why why why all this stuff

00:30:35.920 obviously i do look like yeah well me too right um yeah because as i say the authority and the

00:30:43.480 authoritarian thing then uh we have lots of small c conservative values at the school uh and people

00:30:50.480 don't like those values uh even the word you know small c conservative makes people go you know uh

00:30:56.960 and what are those values things like our belief in personal responsibility children are responsible

00:31:01.820 for themselves um if you don't get your homework done well then that is your responsibility often

00:31:08.680 in the more progressive world,

00:31:11.700 they will want to say,

00:31:13.480 well, it's not his fault.

00:31:14.960 He has a difficult home background.

00:31:16.940 His brother was beaten up last night.

00:31:19.040 He has a long journey to school.

00:31:21.800 Whatever the reason is,

00:31:22.960 there's always excuses that are made

00:31:24.700 for children,

00:31:26.520 especially children who are poor,

00:31:28.340 who have difficult backgrounds.

00:31:30.040 And so that's why he misbehaved.

00:31:32.060 Often, well, it's because

00:31:32.580 he's having a difficult home life.

00:31:33.620 That's why he's beating up

00:31:35.340 his friends in the yard.

00:31:36.460 You know, I often think,

00:31:37.400 I don't see why the two

00:31:38.060 are even connected. And they're not connected at all. But the excuse-making mechanism just goes

00:31:44.220 into play automatically in schools. So that's personal responsibility. We believe in duty and

00:31:51.060 obligation. So what I mean by that is we have a duty. You notice how I kept saying we have a duty

00:31:56.740 to children as adults. In the school system, we have a duty to educate children properly.

00:32:02.620 The word duty often has just disappeared from our language. So children have a duty to each other.

00:32:07.980 I have a duty to behave, not just because I want to make sure I'm staying in my lesson, but because I don't want to disrupt for everyone else.

00:32:14.000 I have a duty to be kind to my to my fellow classmates because that that's just that's put upon me by the world.

00:32:22.860 You know, I believe in the whole and the team and I am a team player as opposed to it's all about me.

00:32:29.800 So that's something we believe. Another thing that we believe, we believe that there should be some relation between effort and reward.

00:32:37.280 So what I mean by that is in the progressive world, everybody gets a prize.

00:32:42.120 So all must have prizes, right?

00:32:44.180 Everybody gets a prize because they feel sad for the ones who don't get the prize.

00:32:47.900 And it comes from a good place, they're thinking, which is that, oh, what about poor little Johnny who is a nice kid and we don't want him to lose out.

00:32:55.560 We don't want him to feel bad.

00:32:56.460 So we're going to make sure everybody gets a certificate.

00:32:58.480 Problem with that is that it stops everyone from working hard and from trying to achieve.

00:33:02.200 And our big motto is work hard, be kind, right?

00:33:04.440 We want them to work hard.

00:33:05.460 And one of the things that motivates children to work hard is to know, well, I'm going to get I'm going to get rewarded for this.

00:33:11.400 And somebody else hasn't got rewarded for that because I've done the work for it.

00:33:15.000 So we believe there ought to be some kind of relationship between effort and reward, whereas others, more progressive people will think that that's just mean.

00:33:24.580 You're being mean to little Johnny. But we think they're being mean to little Johnny because Johnny is going to stop working because it doesn't matter.

00:33:32.500 Everybody gets, and not only will Johnny stop working, but, you know, little David, who does work hard, will also stop working because he thinks, well, I'm the same as Johnny, so who cares?

00:33:41.140 And then it all goes out the window.

00:33:43.000 What horrifies me about just that particular thing is there is a real world out there, Catherine, isn't there, where these kids are going to go out into and they're going to very quickly find out that you don't get a prize for being you.

00:33:54.560 You get a prize for working hard, for achieving, for creating.

00:33:57.900 That's what you get rewarded for.

00:33:59.420 That's right.

00:33:59.760 That's right.

00:34:01.660 That's right.

00:34:02.500 I don't know. I mean, this is people in the world where they they do this.

00:34:07.200 They do think they're helping the children.

00:34:08.700 I always say, sadly, with many of these so-called virtues that contradict the ones that I'm talking about, it's not really about the children.

00:34:19.120 It's about the people who are who are doing this feeling good about themselves.

00:34:23.400 They want to be able to sit at a dinner party and say, I'm a nice person.

00:34:27.280 I feel really good, you know, and they they want in the moment.

00:34:31.400 Of course, it's not nice handing out a detention.

00:34:33.920 Nobody likes that.

00:34:35.580 And the progressives who accuse us, they like to paint this picture of they are sadistic and they love hurting children and they want to stand over them and make them be quiet and then say, ha, you're in detention.

00:34:47.780 But actually, the reality is what will happen in the lesson is the teacher will say, now, Johnny, turn around.

00:34:55.860 That's a demerit.

00:34:57.020 Now, it's a warning, essentially.

00:34:58.600 Johnny, you turn around.

00:34:59.400 That's a demerit.

00:35:00.600 We need to make sure we're focused.

00:35:01.960 And then when Johnny turns around again, the teacher will say, Johnny, come on.

00:35:06.600 You're leaving me with no choice here.

00:35:08.000 I've got to give you detention.

00:35:09.660 Johnny says, yeah, you're right.

00:35:10.740 You know, I did.

00:35:11.700 I did turn around again.

00:35:12.720 I've got the detention.

00:35:13.700 What did he do?

00:35:14.480 He does a 30 minute detention.

00:35:15.880 He does some work in that detention.

00:35:17.420 Great.

00:35:17.900 I mean, he's actually benefited in some way.

00:35:21.300 But if people continually see that as the teacher somehow getting pleasure out of giving the detention,

00:35:27.920 as opposed to doing their job and doing their duty, right?

00:35:31.440 It's our duty to make sure that we give them order.

00:35:36.000 And what I always say is that you cannot run a school on detentions.

00:35:42.960 You just can't do it, right?

00:35:44.060 Like you put on all these detentions, there's 600 of them

00:35:46.700 and there's like 50, 60 odd of us.

00:35:48.400 I mean, you know, they'll just rebel.

00:35:51.060 You need the tipping point, right?

00:35:53.120 You need the majority of them to be with you.

00:35:55.700 The 10% on the edges are kept in line with detention.

00:35:58.700 But you need 85, 90% of them to get what you're doing and understand it and love it.

00:36:04.260 And so they get a detention.

00:36:05.840 They go, you know what?

00:36:06.620 But I get a great education.

00:36:07.820 So I don't care.

00:36:08.600 I'll sit my 30-minute detention.

00:36:09.980 But I know I'm going to come out brilliant out of this school.

00:36:13.160 Whereas if I was elsewhere, I wouldn't have this education.

00:36:15.820 Now, you talk about the 10% on the edges, and I agree with you. 1.00

00:36:18.320 But what about the 0.5% who don't respond to detention, don't respond?

00:36:23.480 the kids that we've all dealt with, who you can't seem to get through, the ones who go to the PRUs,

00:36:29.920 those are the pupil referral units, which when a kid can no longer be attending mainstream school,

00:36:36.680 what do we do with those kids? Because there's a problem with expulsion rates,

00:36:40.180 and then those kids getting involved in gangs. Yeah. And again, what I would say is that

00:36:44.840 wrongly, schools that are like ours are accused of filling up the peruse when it's exactly the

00:36:50.640 opposite. It's the schools that are chaotic, that are constantly having to expel kids because

00:36:54.560 there's chaos. You have far fewer kids leaving the schools with order because those kids,

00:37:00.720 the kids who are bad, but not that bad, don't ever become that bad because of the order that

00:37:06.440 keeps them in line, right? It's the schools that have total chaos. Their decent kids become worse

00:37:15.580 and worse remember i said earlier about um you end up having to become a bully in order to survive

00:37:22.140 because your reputation matters you know and you have to be super cool you see that in like greece

00:37:27.860 for instance but you know and it's not it's it's still like nice you know white middle class kids

00:37:33.080 in greece whereas obviously when you're in the inner city it becomes a lot more you know when

00:37:37.000 he's saying i have a rep to protect and all that kind of thing and you want to be a t-bird and you

00:37:40.640 want to be super cool and you want to not be in lessons you know that kind of behavior uh is

00:37:46.300 because the t-birds are are in control they're running things that happens far less in a school 1.00

00:37:52.200 with order but yes i mean there have to there ought to be proves and and if a child gets uh

00:37:57.160 excluded they need to go there although i have to say children never stay permanently in a prue

00:38:01.280 what 10 what always happens is that they're moved to another secondary school to give them another

00:38:05.260 start so people outside of education think oh my goodness isn't this terrible well actually

00:38:10.500 they go there and the idea is, well, they go to that crew and then they'll go to a different

00:38:14.520 secondary school and hopefully have a better start. The problem is, is that if the secondary

00:38:19.340 school that they go to is chaotic, then they just go back to being a chaotic kid, right?

00:38:24.100 Well, you know, I was thinking when you talk about discipline and how you kind of keep that

00:38:28.980 10% in line, I probably would have been when I was a kid at school, I was quite rebellious.

00:38:33.660 What I always found is I kind of, like you say, I always knew where the line was.

00:38:37.720 Exactly. And so if I was called out and appropriately punished for a misdemeanor of some kind, that restricted me from becoming more rebellious.

00:38:49.740 Exactly. That kept me very much in check. That's exactly right.

00:38:53.060 So what I always say is you don't see the kids taking their clothes off and running around the corridors naked, do you?

00:38:57.820 Because they know that that's just like completely unacceptable. They just don't do it. Right.

00:39:02.000 They could do it. I mean, they could, but they don't do it. I once had an autistic boy do that. 1.00

00:39:06.240 Okay, so there is the extreme.

00:39:08.260 But in all your years of teaching, you have one example.

00:39:11.000 In my 25 years of teaching, I don't know any.

00:39:13.060 I've never seen that.

00:39:14.140 So the fact is that there are certain things that children will not do, right?

00:39:19.060 And that's because it's just obvious you don't do that.

00:39:23.520 So at Michaela, it's obvious that you wouldn't walk away from your teacher

00:39:26.220 if your teacher was talking to you.

00:39:27.480 Often teachers come and they say,

00:39:29.080 what do you do when a kid just gets up and walks out of the lesson?

00:39:33.280 And we're like, well, I don't know.

00:39:35.000 well, that doesn't really happen here.

00:39:37.020 Well, what do you do

00:39:38.160 when the child just swears at you

00:39:40.220 and marches off?

00:39:41.340 Well, it doesn't really happen at Michaela, right?

00:39:43.840 The point is that it's what you said.

00:39:47.300 Children will go to the boundary.

00:39:49.620 They know how to play the game.

00:39:50.720 They know how far they can push it.

00:39:52.440 And the cool ones will push it that far

00:39:54.420 because they're saying to everybody,

00:39:55.580 look at me.

00:39:56.620 So you know what our kids do?

00:39:57.760 It's really funny.

00:39:58.820 In our silent,

00:40:00.640 because we have silent corridors.

00:40:01.620 Again, people say,

00:40:02.180 oh my goodness, that's so oppressive.

00:40:03.480 Well, they happily move very quickly from one lesson to the other, as opposed to having their heads bashed in, which is what happens when in schools with challenging intakes.

00:40:13.400 I understand that schools without challenging intakes, you don't need this.

00:40:16.380 So it depends on the level, what kind of intake you have.

00:40:19.620 But our kids move along happily in silence.

00:40:22.020 And because they're in silence, their way of rebelling is to go, mmm.

00:40:30.540 And that's what they do, right?

00:40:32.520 And then somebody will come to me and say,

00:40:34.020 we've got an issue, Catherine.

00:40:35.300 We're hearing mmm in the corridors.

00:40:37.480 And I always laugh and think, isn't it great

00:40:39.420 that that's what they've had to do?

00:40:40.700 That's the issue, yeah.

00:40:42.160 Yeah, and that's where my staff are going,

00:40:45.060 oh my goodness, we've got an issue.

00:40:47.820 You know, and I laugh.

00:40:49.860 I think it's hilarious.

00:40:50.720 So what do you do at the school?

00:40:51.740 You have the boot camp, which you do before,

00:40:54.520 which is kind of teaching kids how to behave.

00:40:56.300 And that's really key.

00:40:56.980 You have the silent corridors.

00:40:58.580 Like, talk us through the whole system.

00:41:00.540 But the boot camp thing, the boot camp is really important.

00:41:02.140 Because the thing is, you can have all these rules, but you must support the children in achieving the rules.

00:41:07.720 You can't just say, right, you've got detentions, you've got detentions.

00:41:10.180 To get your 85%, 90% of kids to really buy in, and to be honest, I think we've got 100%.

00:41:15.540 Even the naughtiest kids in the school, they'll all say to you, yeah, but you know what, at least I learn here.

00:41:21.580 They'll all say that.

00:41:22.740 But they're still only being kept in line because they've got detentions.

00:41:25.200 Whereas the 80% to 90% there, they're really bought in.

00:41:29.360 They really get it.

00:41:30.140 And when you talk to the kids, come and have lunch, you'll see, you'll be on mixed tables and you'll see them all saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do get detention, but we really like it. 0.97

00:41:36.860 We like that. You know, they'll even thank the teachers for giving them detention.

00:41:40.160 They will actually do that. And people say, oh, that's really weird.

00:41:42.700 Well, yeah, but our kids understand that it's through detentions that having those detentions manages to keep order.

00:41:49.600 Now, why do they get it? We spend six days at the beginning of every September.

00:41:53.700 The rest of the school doesn't come back. We only have the year sevens arrive and we teach them how to behave in the Michaela way.

00:41:59.240 So it's unfair to expect behaviors of children where you haven't taught them how to do it.

00:42:03.820 We also heavily support them.

00:42:05.580 So we expect them to bring certain equipment every day.

00:42:07.940 We have an equipment shop that's open every morning in the school.

00:42:10.940 The kids run it, right?

00:42:12.160 So you can turn up in the morning with your 10p and buy a pen,

00:42:15.400 and then you don't get into trouble.

00:42:16.460 You don't get into detention for not having one.

00:42:17.920 So you have got to have the support mechanisms around them

00:42:21.360 in order to enable them to meet the standards that you want.

00:42:24.240 And as long as you do that, your children will meet their standards.

00:42:27.860 And do you ever have an issue with parents, which is what I sometimes used to have,

00:42:31.500 and I know a lot of teachers have, well, you kid give a kid a detention and the parent comes in

00:42:35.880 and goes, why have you given my child a detention? You know, how dare you? Blah, blah, blah, blah,

00:42:41.600 blah. I've heard my child's version of events. They said it was X's fault.

00:42:45.580 Yeah. I mean, sometimes, although I have to say it's quite rare with us, and that's because at

00:42:48.780 the beginning, when they joined the school, I tell them I am the dragon lady. Do not mess with

00:42:54.780 me and i'm really i say it like that i say to them the day i send my child to your school i will do

00:43:00.220 what you say you are now sending your child to me and he's mine and i'm very i'm very very serious

00:43:06.740 about that so they get it they get it and they just kind of think oh you know um when it comes

00:43:10.960 to me and that's quite good because i want to have this kind of wizard of oz effect you know

00:43:14.360 and um and so they they don't really do that um as much i mean now and again they do but generally

00:43:21.020 speaking, they get it. Not only that, but obviously if the kids are getting a great education and the

00:43:26.660 parents know it, they then just accept it. They too go, you know what? I'm really annoyed about

00:43:32.960 the fact that he got that attention, but the school's really good. And he has learned his

00:43:37.860 time as disabled and he didn't know them the whole way through primary school. And now he knows them.

00:43:42.280 So actually, I'm just going to put up with it, essentially.

00:43:47.780 We've talked about the education side of it for a long time.

00:43:50.640 I want to move a little bit onto the political side of this

00:43:53.520 because it's something that you've talked about in the past

00:43:55.720 and just where the opposition to what you're doing comes from.

00:43:59.360 Because, you know, if everything that you're saying is true, which it is, right,

00:44:04.840 then you would want every school in the country to be like that, wouldn't you?

00:44:09.180 Yeah.

00:44:09.460 And yet it seems to be that you're getting a lot of pushback

00:44:11.720 rather than, you know, people coming in and going,

00:44:13.760 yeah, we need to transform the education system along these lines.

00:44:16.540 Yeah, that's right.

00:44:17.060 Why is that?

00:44:18.800 Well, I suppose it's the same idea.

00:44:20.340 You know, they're anti-authority.

00:44:21.880 They're anti-responsibility for kids.

00:44:23.640 They want them to be, we want to make excuses for them.

00:44:26.300 So all of those standard issues,

00:44:29.460 oh, it's racism that stopped me from having the life I wanted.

00:44:31.740 It's sexism. 0.72

00:44:33.500 It's because I came from a single parent family.

00:44:35.980 It's because I grew up on that estate.

00:44:37.060 There are always these reasons.

00:44:38.100 And you know what?

00:44:38.700 I'm not saying that none of that stuff is true, right?

00:44:41.060 But the fact of the matter is that

00:44:42.780 if you don't take responsibility yourself and say,

00:44:45.300 okay, you know what?

00:44:45.780 There's racism in the world,

00:44:46.700 but I'm going to negotiate my way around it because I have to.

00:44:49.520 Because otherwise, what am I going to do?

00:44:51.020 Sit on my deathbed and say, well, I could have had this great life,

00:44:53.500 but, you know, I was black, so here you go.

00:44:55.260 I mean, what kind of madness is that? 0.84

00:44:57.680 And what people don't seem to understand is if you keep telling a black child, 0.93

00:45:00.920 well, the world is racist, you can't possibly ever succeed, he gives up, right?

00:45:05.020 You have got to have a can-do mentality, you know?

00:45:09.020 And it's the business about wanting to sit around the dinner table

00:45:14.020 and feel good about yourself.

00:45:15.560 I think a lot of people in positions of power and influence

00:45:19.760 like to feel that they are the knights in shining armor

00:45:22.700 who are swooping in to save the poor children.

00:45:27.000 And they swoop in with all the wrong ideas

00:45:30.160 and they ruin these children, right?

00:45:31.860 They have blood on their hands, as far as I'm concerned.

00:45:33.780 They really do, some of these people.

00:45:36.200 Politicians who just push all the wrong ideas

00:45:40.460 and ruin these children's chances in life.

00:45:43.480 But then they get to sit around at dinner parties and say, oh, but aren't I wonderful?

00:45:47.640 Look at me.

00:45:48.820 I've just, you know, standards is, you know, we need to just give more money, just give more money.

00:45:53.360 And I'm not going to say no to more money.

00:45:54.720 I'd love more money at school.

00:45:56.320 But I wish somebody was talking about in positions of power.

00:46:00.440 I wish somebody was talking about the right kinds of ideas.

00:46:03.580 And sadly, often the people who are talking about more money are also pushing the wrong ideas.

00:46:07.440 Um, and, um, and that's, that is upsetting for me because I have known thousands, tens

00:46:13.840 of thousands of children in my lifetime who I think have been failed by the system.

00:46:17.560 Um, and, and, and we could have, we spend 90 billion a year on education, more than

00:46:23.740 some countries in Eastern Europe who will beat us in Pisa, like Lithuania.

00:46:27.780 There, there are various countries in Eastern Europe who beat us in, in the international

00:46:32.240 tests. And they spend 20% what we spend on our education system. And as I say, I want more money.

00:46:43.080 So I'm not saying I don't want more money. But over the labor years recently, they doubled the

00:46:49.980 expense on the education system and results are flatlined. So it is not about spending more money.

00:46:55.880 It is about the ideas in the education system.

00:47:00.360 But what I'm really happy about is that people are coming.

00:47:04.240 They come every day to our school.

00:47:06.580 People are changing.

00:47:08.160 I do feel like we are winning.

00:47:10.100 I do.

00:47:10.660 I mean, look, it's a very slow win,

00:47:13.260 and I feel like I'll be doing this for the next 50 years, you know.

00:47:17.040 And to be honest, I'm not sure the real change will come in my lifetime.

00:47:20.360 but you as a you know as an individual we all have a duty to contribute to society and to make

00:47:27.320 the world a better place and and when i get to my deathbed i will hand the baton on to someone else

00:47:32.400 well it's interesting that you say that because not to compare what we do with obviously the great

00:47:36.840 work that you do but we feel like the reason we started the show is we wanted to start to have

00:47:41.420 some of the more honest conversations about different topics and the pushback we've had

00:47:46.340 is exactly the pushback that you've had and uh you know i understand from particularly what

00:47:50.900 francis tells me that the the kind of the teaching world is very left-wing and dominated by that

00:47:55.740 strain of thinking same with comedy you know and we're now finding that we're being ostracized in

00:48:00.580 our world and we're nazis and we're right wing and all this crazy stuff and it's just amazing to

00:48:05.720 me like with us though we were talking uh earlier before we started the show about how you know we

00:48:10.000 just talk right at the end of the day we're just comedians or we're just doing the show but you

00:48:14.040 actually have results to prove the merit of what you're doing and somehow people are still able to

00:48:20.940 ignore you ignore that to criticize that that's what doesn't make sense to me well of course those

00:48:26.760 most of those people haven't been to school right so uh they make stuff up about the school and they

00:48:33.540 say how miserable it is and so on they have no idea but why why would they do that because they

00:48:37.780 need to feel good about themselves at the dinner party i mean it really is about and they're

00:48:42.920 ideologues. I mean, they refuse to change their minds. I mean, the irony is they say we don't

00:48:47.380 change our minds. I mean, I am somebody who has completely changed my mind over the years. You

00:48:51.400 know, I used to be a progressive teacher. I would try out these methods in my classroom and I'd

00:48:56.680 think, well, they don't really work. And so over the years, I have developed my ideas about things

00:49:01.560 and I'm constantly developing them now. Six months ago or a year ago, you never heard me talk about

00:49:06.480 social media at all. And the reason was because we only had the little ones at school. We've now

00:49:10.760 got year seven through to 11. So we've got up to 16 year olds. And it's only become really apparent

00:49:16.080 to me in the last six months or so just how dangerous social media is. And so I've now

00:49:20.800 started my whole campaign about that. And we've got digital drop off and digital detox happening

00:49:25.300 at school. I didn't explain digital drop off where the kids, they can drop off their phones at school

00:49:29.500 from Monday to Friday, for instance, and have a bit of a break so that their brains can start

00:49:32.880 working again. I never did that before. There's a big change in my thinking. There are so many

00:49:38.400 massive changes. The turn to your partner stuff, we didn't used to do until maybe a year and a half,

00:49:43.140 two years ago. Ruth Miskin, she does the read, write, ink phonics for schools, and she's an

00:49:49.860 incredible woman. She came to visit. So she was a guest, right? A guest visited the school and said,

00:49:54.420 I really like it, Catherine, but I wish you'd do more turn to your partner. I said, well, we do do

00:49:58.360 it because we did do it then. And I said, well, she said, yeah, well, you know, you don't do it

00:50:04.020 very often. And I said, well, how often would you want to see it in a lesson? And I said, we probably

00:50:07.880 do it about five or six times. And she said, well, Catherine, actually, I would expect to see it

00:50:12.720 maybe 25, 30 times. And, um, yeah. So, and the reason, so she explained, and the reason is you,

00:50:19.200 you're, you're, instead of cold calling the kids, cold calling, meaning you're just asking the kid

00:50:23.820 to give an answer and they give the answer cold, right? You, you do, you do warm calling and warm

00:50:29.820 calling. You do the, the turn to your partner first. So you've kind of practiced your answer

00:50:33.480 with your friend and you, you've checked, is it right? Yeah, I think so. Okay. And then you put

00:50:37.680 your hand up afterwards, you are more likely to feel confident in answering than you would do if

00:50:42.900 you were cold cold. She explained all of that to me and so on. So I said, you know what, let's try

00:50:47.320 this. So we started doing it more and more. And it really, it was fantastic. So now we do it across

00:50:52.140 the school and it's really great. Now that was a guest who visited, let alone what my teachers

00:50:57.720 say to me and say, you know, Catherine, this isn't working. Let's try and do this. And then I talk

00:51:01.320 about it with my senior team and we say, okay, everybody. And I stand up on briefing on Monday

00:51:05.480 morning and I say, we're going to try this way now. We're going to try that way. We are constantly

00:51:09.440 changing our minds. When I talk to headteachers, I always say the thing that you need to do as a

00:51:15.280 headteacher is constantly be questioning what you're doing and thinking, am I doing this because

00:51:20.660 that's what's always been done? Or am I doing this because this is what works? And I think sadly in

00:51:25.500 education, there's far too much of doing stuff because that's what's always been done.

00:51:31.080 I think it's a really exciting time in education.

00:51:35.840 It's really exciting because people are starting to change their minds.

00:51:43.940 Fifteen years ago, the conversation between knowledge and skills and traditionalism and progressivism just didn't exist.

00:51:50.700 Before Michael Gove, it didn't exist.

00:51:52.300 Michael Gove changed the game in education big time.

00:51:56.500 And free schools changed the game in education because coupled with him doing the political stuff, free schools then like ours, for instance, a few of them have done things differently on the ground.

00:52:09.240 And and other teachers now are able to benefit from from seeing that.

00:52:13.640 I mean, we had an event last night. There were all these languages teachers.

00:52:16.920 My languages department ran it about the kinds of methods that they use in their classroom.

00:52:20.720 And all these teachers came and could look and see and learn from us and could privately say to me, I really like what you're saying on Twitter, but I would never say that out loud.

00:52:30.640 the thing that really annoys me is when somebody who is not white comes out and espouses a 0.54

00:52:39.340 conservative value of whatever it may be and they're accused of being a traitor to their own

00:52:44.820 race or having internalized racism or all this kind of stuff have you experienced that have you

00:52:50.320 had people accuse you of that yes yes um definitely i mean it is interesting because i often wonder

00:52:57.700 why, on the whole, I don't wonder, but I think about the fact that the black left often leave

00:53:06.620 me alone. They do. So they'll attack Sean Bailey, or they'll attack Tony Sewell, or they'll attack,

00:53:13.700 they attack various people. They tend to leave me alone. And I think that that's because over the

00:53:19.260 years when I was working in schools, I used to know a lot of these people. And they know that

00:53:27.040 i'm doing good work they've known me throughout my career and i'm you know i'm 45 years old i've

00:53:31.400 been doing this a long time and they've seen me work with children and they've seen how committed

00:53:35.960 i've been you know i'm at school 6 15 6 30 in the morning every day and i've done this all my life

00:53:41.400 you know um they've seen the commitment to the children who they want to see succeed

00:53:46.080 and i think they give me a bit of a break actually um but i know exactly what you mean and i do have

00:53:52.620 people who will attack me I have to say it's mainly been from the white left not so much from

00:53:59.640 the black left and I and I do think that's because the black left really understand what I'm doing 0.94

00:54:04.920 they get it and they they they have to respect it and they they respect me although they probably

00:54:11.480 find some of the things I say uncomfortable and what particular things do you think they find

00:54:16.980 uncomfortable with what you say um what is it so lee jasper for instance is an interesting guy

00:54:23.700 like i know him and you know we follow each other on twitter and um you know i i disagree with much

00:54:29.840 of what he says and and i often wonder to myself actually is he just muted me on twitter because

00:54:34.540 how can he stand to read my tweets you know i don't know i mean i do i wonder this um i think

00:54:43.220 And I think he just gives me a pass.

00:54:44.920 I think he gives me a pass.

00:54:45.940 And why?

00:54:46.680 And what would upset him?

00:54:48.100 It would upset him that I'm not being more critical of the right, probably.

00:54:56.260 That I am, that I like, I don't know, Michael Gove, for instance.

00:55:02.360 That I, you know, I don't think, though, that he would have a problem with me saying that children need to be responsible for themselves.

00:55:08.900 I know.

00:55:09.360 I've heard him say this to black kids myself.

00:55:11.580 You know, so I've heard him say these things. It's just there's this kind of war between the right and the left all the time.

00:55:18.220 And what's really sad is that the left have convinced themselves that the right only think what they think because they want to hurt people.

00:55:25.820 You know, they want to get rich. They want to play golf. And you know what? There are some right wingers like that.

00:55:30.360 So that's fine. But there are a bunch of people on the right who want the same things as the people on the left.

00:55:36.800 They just think that they're going to get those things through different methods.

00:55:41.180 And if the left are convinced, that's what I mean about I think the black left are not don't think I'm evil. 0.90

00:55:48.340 They don't. They think I'm a good person and they think that what I'm doing is good.

00:55:52.540 And so they let me get on with it. I think too often on the white left, they just can't process the idea that that I might be doing good because they they are very uncomfortable with some of the things I said.

00:56:07.240 And you said, what are those things?

00:56:08.400 I mean, that's what I was saying.

00:56:09.840 The relationship between effort and reward.

00:56:11.660 The idea that duty to the team and all of that.

00:56:15.860 The personal responsibility.

00:56:17.580 Not making excuses for kids.

00:56:19.560 The idea that we ought to give out detentions.

00:56:22.780 There's lots of people on the left who think that we should give out detentions.

00:56:25.260 But they'll make excuses for some to not get that detention. 0.93

00:56:30.820 Yeah, I mean, you're looking at me like, I don't understand.

00:56:33.780 It's not that controversial.

00:56:35.180 They sounded like all solid Nazi values to me. 0.92

00:56:37.240 Exactly. Yeah, I mean, yeah, what is it? What is it? OK, dead white men. That's a big one, right? Dead white men. So I believe that we should be teaching Shakespeare and, I don't know, Dickens and so on. And what people will say, people will often say, so this is something I think Lee Jasper would take issue with me, is that unless children can see themselves in the novel, then they can't identify with it and they're unable to get as much from it.

00:57:06.240 So why are black children misbehaving? It's because they're having to read about white characters as opposed to black characters. That might be an argument that would be put forward. And I would say that life isn't just about race. Shakespeare speaks to everyone.

00:57:22.880 In fact, Maya Angelou would say that she said that she when she first read Shakespeare, that she thought that he was a black woman because there was no way that anyone could understand the plight of black women so well in the way that he did.

00:57:40.220 It's universal. And you as a person can transcend. You're not just black, like you're a whole bunch of different things.

00:57:47.180 you're a person. You can read Dickens and get something out of it, whatever color you are.

00:57:52.120 And it's those, it's identity politics where people can only understand you as, well, I'm,

00:57:57.840 what are you? Right. Well, I'm a woman and I'm black and I'm a mixed race and I'm, I don't know,

00:58:02.340 whatever. But actually I'm somebody who's a little bit crazy and I'm, I'm a real radical

00:58:07.040 and a rebel and I, and I want to change things. Those things that I just said are far more

00:58:11.360 important actually to who i am than me being black and female right so i i just i'm not saying i'm

00:58:18.300 not black right i'm not saying i'm not female but but it's it's not all consuming and um i think

00:58:26.020 many people on the left are consumed with that they can't see past it uh and i just don't see

00:58:33.720 the world in the same way well we've got time for a couple of quick questions the good work that you

00:58:39.280 do it's obviously you know there's been times when that's been difficult for you right and you've

00:58:43.280 continued to do it and you've built this great school and i'm sure you will keep going from

00:58:46.720 strength to strength and we hope it will uh but what i'm always curious about the personal element

00:58:50.960 of what is it inside of you people always say that that makes you want to have that battle

00:58:57.260 yeah people always say that it's all those children it's all those children over the years

00:59:02.160 who i have known thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of children who i've seen

00:59:06.760 not just the children I've taught, children I've seen in schools that I've visited all around the

00:59:10.580 world. I just, for me, I can see that education is the number one thing that is going to allow

00:59:16.280 them to change their stars. And the reason why I went into teaching and the reason why I do what I

00:59:20.500 do is because I want to enable disadvantaged children to be able to change their stars.

00:59:26.500 You know, when I gave my speech at the Conservative Party conference and I was told I would never work

00:59:30.720 in the state sector again, I did consider for about five minutes going to work in the private

00:59:36.260 sector. But then I thought, well, I don't want to do that because the reason why I'm motivated to

00:59:41.120 wake up in the morning is to change the lives of these children. And, you know, I'm all for private

00:59:46.540 school and I'm quite happy that there are private schools. It's just not where I want to work. Yeah,

00:59:50.420 I don't have a problem with them. They're fine. But I want to work with disadvantaged kids and I

00:59:54.740 want to change their lives. And what is very sad is that these well-meaning people, I say they're

01:00:00.200 well-meaning, but they also want to be sitting around dinner parties and feeling happy about

01:00:03.240 themselves, have created a culture of low expectations for the children who I teach,

01:00:11.780 you know, those tens of thousands of children. And their stories, the many children I have seen

01:00:18.560 bullied in my life and so on, they're the ones who motivate me because I just want to reduce

01:00:23.460 the numbers of them. I want all children to be given a chance at equality of opportunity,

01:00:30.500 right that's what i want i want them to have the chance right um and most of them do not have the

01:00:35.620 chance and and that's that's where um that's where the left is right in that sense too many children

01:00:43.000 are do not have a chance at equal opportunity but what the left don't understand is they are the

01:00:48.480 ones who are taking that chance from them spoken like a true nazi all right our last question um

01:00:55.920 so what is the thing this is the way we wrap up all our interviews katherine what is the thing

01:01:00.200 that we're not talking about as a society,

01:01:02.760 but we really should be talking about?

01:01:05.480 Yeah.

01:01:06.100 Okay.

01:01:06.500 I need to think about that one.

01:01:10.160 I mean, because there's loads of things

01:01:11.720 that I just spoke about

01:01:12.460 that I don't think we're talking about

01:01:15.120 and we should.

01:01:20.380 Well, I suppose it's the,

01:01:22.260 it's the small C conservative values

01:01:24.380 that I was referring to before.

01:01:27.520 That I think people on the left

01:01:29.780 and the right often don't have. Certainly, there are many big C conservatives who are not small

01:01:35.440 C conservatives. And I know left wingers who, you know, often Catholics and who are very much

01:01:43.860 small C conservatives. And I think people see small C conservatives as judgmental and as bad

01:01:52.360 people. And actually, judgment isn't always bad. And the more we lose those values in society,

01:02:02.620 the more society crumbles away. The reason why the West has been so successful is because those

01:02:11.540 values, we used to have religion that brought us together, which has fallen away. Those values

01:02:16.940 gave us order and structure, because it's not just children who need order and structure,

01:02:22.360 society needs it too. And when you have a free-for-all where everybody just gets to do what

01:02:27.500 they want and everybody can just, I can want to be me and I have to discover me and so on.

01:02:32.240 And they have no sense of duty and obligation. They have no sense of how they can give to others,

01:02:38.940 you know, throughout life. That's what I'm doing. I'm doing something with my life so that I can

01:02:43.580 pass the baton on at the end. It's what gives your life meaning. It's what gives, it is what

01:02:50.180 holds a society together and and sadly i think we've lost that well katherine burble sing the

01:02:55.720 dragon lady thank you very much for coming on trigonometry uh you're on twitter at yes at

01:03:02.080 miss underscore snuffy which i have to explain because that sounds a bit odd for a headmistress

01:03:08.000 snuffy being s-n-u-f-f-y um because when i used to write a blog called to miss with love uh i was

01:03:14.660 Miss Nuffalapagos, the big mammoth elephant in Sesame Street who could never be seen.

01:03:20.620 So the elephant in the room.

01:03:21.860 And eventually it got shortened to Miss Nuffy.

01:03:23.900 There we go.

01:03:24.660 Well, so follow Catherine on Twitter.

01:03:26.180 She's always posting great and very interesting stuff.

01:03:28.180 I follow her with great interest.

01:03:29.680 As always, follow us at TriggerPod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

01:03:33.580 Subscribe to us on YouTube.

01:03:35.320 Click that bell button next to subscribe button.

01:03:37.940 And as Francis always says, do give us a review on iTunes.

01:03:41.060 We've got like 40 now.

01:03:42.520 We can use a few more.

01:03:43.400 and that's it

01:03:44.700 thank you very much

01:03:45.360 for tuning in

01:03:45.940 we will see you

01:03:46.720 in a week

01:03:47.180 from now

01:03:47.800 with another

01:03:48.220 brilliant episode

01:03:48.940 take care guys

01:03:50.040 thank you very much

01:03:50.700 bye bye

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`witch hunt`	Both words, anywhere in the episode.
`"witch hunt"`	The exact phrase.
`witch OR hunt`	Either word.
`"alpha male" -"high value"`	The first phrase, but not the second.
`(feminist OR feminism) AND (marriage OR divorce)`	Parentheses group alternatives.
`"decline civilization"~5`	Both words within 5 words of each other.

`misogyn*`	Any word starting with "misogyn": misogyny, misogynist, misogynistic…
`feminizm~1`	Words one letter off: catches typos and transcription errors.

`person:"Andrew Tate"`	Episodes where they host, guest, or are mentioned.
`host:"Glenn Beck"`	Episodes they host.
`guest:"Jordan Peterson"`	Episodes they appear on as a guest.
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TRIGGERnometry - March 17, 2019

Katharine Birbalsingh on the Failure of Progressive Education

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