Transcription
The progressive schools, what they say. Go on any website, you'll see. We want your child to be creative, to be unique, to discover who he really is. That's what they're going to say, right? This is ridiculous. Everybody needs to learn some algebra. This business of "I'm going to discover who you really are." No, you need to learn some algebra. You need to learn some trigonometry. You need to learn some history. You need to learn how to write an essay. Once you've been taught all of that, then you can go to university and discover who you are.
This idea that we need to be teaching kids how to think. It's just silly. You need to teach them what to think. You need to give them loads and loads of knowledge. And then it's not like they don't do anything with the knowledge. So if you come to our school, you will see children learning at speed. I mean, the pace is incredible. They learn so much. And then if you were to sit with them at lunch and have chats with them about history or geography or science and so on, they will impress you to no end. You won't believe everything that they that they know and think and so on. And then they'll be able to give you differing opinions at the table about what they think about 1066 or whatever it is, you know, whatever historical battle you want to discuss. They will have different opinions about it because they know it inside out. And that's because their teacher knew more than they do. The teacher gave them the knowledge, allowed them to do some exercises, which meant that they would remember the knowledge, and then once you've got that knowledge in their long-term memories, they can use that knowledge and develop it to come up with their own ideas about that knowledge. That is what creativity is.
And sadly, everybody, um, doesn't understand, uh, how to get creativity. They have a traditional education. Somebody gives them lots of knowledge, or they find the knowledge themselves by reading loads. They become creative and then they say to their own children, or to the children, often poor children in the inner city, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to do something brilliant for you. Let's do something creative with you." And then because they haven't been told what to think, right? And they don't know anything, they are ripe for Tik Tok because they don't know any history.
>> Yeah.
>> The only history that they're then going to learn is what they're taught on Tik Tok. So Tik Tok, you can't put a video for more than 30 seconds on there, otherwise you lose people's attention. So via 25-second, 28-second videos pushing a particular woke agenda, children are going to learn their history. So they are then being taught what to think by Tik Tok instead of being taught what to think by their teachers who should be, now this is the problem, the teacher should be sensibly minded, small-c conservative, slightly fuddy-duddy people who in 1955 there were loads of them. Nowadays, all of our teachers are very woke and believe that, um, the way children should be taught is to radicalize them and make them into adults who are going to reject the the establishment. We believe as teachers that our job is to get children to be radicals and overthrow that establishment that's so evil. Um, whereas I actually think our job is to teach them algebra and to teach them some history and some geography and some science and some French. Um, and if you teach them all of that stuff, they then have an armor that they can go out into the world in and be able to interpret the world and understand what's happening and be creative and think for themselves. But if you haven't really taught them very much, then the only thing they can learn is off Tik Tok and they are easily manipulated. They are vulnerable. Any extremist group out there, any anybody who wants to teach them whatever they want, they'll just learn it then because they haven't got any. I always call them coat pegs in your head. The knowledge begets knowledge. You have you you have some coat pegs and then you learn some more knowledge and it sits on those coat pegs and then you learn more knowledge again and more on those coat and the more more and more coat pegs are being developed and you're just gathering more and more and more knowledge and you're becoming more interesting. That's the goal is to be an interesting person.
Uh, let get you have a bunch of, um, actions that what is the what is the formula of Aristotle that action begets habit begets character begets who you are as a person?
>> Yeah.
>> That seems like the architecture of your school in a lot of ways. Is that a fair, is that a fair way to put it?
>> Yes. We recognize that success comes through habit building because if you go to the, if you get on the treadmill every morning, it then just becomes who you are. And we have a pyramid and at the top of the pyramid, it says it's who you are. And at the bottom of the pyramid, you do the right thing because you want to avoid demerits and you want to avoid detentions. Now, that's where the kids start. They start at the bottom. Oh, I'm going to get into trouble. I don't want to get into detention. I better do my homework. Oh, I'm going to get into trouble. I need to be on time. Oh, I need to be polite. I need to do whatever because otherwise I get into trouble. And then they move up the pyramid. Next step is you want to get a merit. Step after that, I want to impress my teachers. So if you know you're in the middle of the pyramid, it's better you're doing the right thing not just because you want to avoid a detention. You actually want the respect of your teachers. That's better. Then the next step after that, you want a great future. So then you're connecting. You want kids to go, okay, this is my future. I could have a bad future and be somebody who's always late and never does my homework, etc., etc., or I could have a good future because I develop certain habits and become that kind of person. I am owning my own development. So, when you're at the bottom, you're not owning your own development because you're just doing it because you might get in trouble. I don't want detention. When you're in the middle, you're doing it because you want to impress somebody. Okay, that's better. But when you're on that fourth rung, you understand, wait a minute, what I'm doing now is going to enable me to be to have a certain kind of future. I'm going to be a certain kind of person who people will respect and admire and I want that for myself and I am going to take control of my own life. So that's where you are in the fourth rung and that's what you want. You get there through habit formation. Right? When you get to the top, it's just who you are. So my thing is, our kids, we'll either have them five years, the end of GCSE or A-level, that takes us seven years, when they go off to university. And my thing is, lots of them will start at the bottom of the pyramid. I need to, by the time they leave us, they need to be at the top. I want them to leave us as the kinds of people who naturally, without thought, can sit on a chair, can look you in the eye, can shake your hand, will always remember to bring a pen, would always go to an interview and walk in and make a good impression, shake your hand, look at you in the eye. They're not going to forget their pen. They'll have done the preparation for the interview beforehand because they've been doing their homework for seven years without fail. And they're going to turn up and they're going to impress, just like they impressed their teachers on that third rung. And they're going to do that because they understand that this is good for their future. But it's now who they are. They're at the top and that's just the person who they are. And because it's who they are and they can sit up straight and they can shake the hand, they can look you in the eye and they can speak articulately. When they're doing all of that in the interview, their working memory is freed up to be able to think about the content that they have to provide to the interviewer to say, "I'm the person, the right person for this job."
If, on the other hand, you're a typical inner-city kid who hasn't been taught any of those habits. He's going into that interview thinking, "Remember to pull my trousers up. Remember that I have to sit down? Oh, I have to shake the hand. Oh, I didn't look him in the eye. Oh, did I even know that I was meant to look him in the eye? Oh gosh. Uh, oh god, I didn't bring a pen. No, and I didn't prepare for the interview either. And I don't actually know what I'm doing. And my working memory is completely overloaded because there's nothing in my long-term memory because I was never taught what. I was only ever taught how, or I was actually just messing around and pushing people in the corridor and bullying other kids and so on. And so I'm now turning up to this interview and I've got nothing. Whereas if the school on the other hand is teaching them what to think, is building those habits in them over and over and over again until you get to the top, you are creating human beings, adults who are then able to do it on their own. You want the kids who are able to be creative, to be independently minded, to to to to own their own development and so on. You only get there by teaching them what to think and by instilling those good habits over years through correction over correction. You were late again today. You were late again today. Detention. Detention. Right. Merit over here. Merit over there. That was brilliant work. Wow. Five days straight. You beat on time. Well done. Constant correction. You're doing that praise and punishment.
At the beginning, I didn't say actually. So, punishment is a dirty word these days. When I first started my career, punishment was fine. Then they said, "No, no, no. Children shouldn't be punished. That's a terrible thing. We need to turn to sanctions." And so then we moved to sanctions. You couldn't never say punishments. You had to use sanctions. Then they said, "Oh my goodness."
>> Sanctions.
>> Yes.
>> What is this, the UN?
>> It was crazy. So they told us it was all sanctions. Your sanction was a detention. But you never talked about detention. You talked about a sanction. Then they said, "No, no, no, no, no. We have to move now to what was it? Um, correction." So then you started talking about corrections. Then we moved to consequence.
>> Back to prison. Okay.
>> Well, and then we went to consequences. Okay. Like we moved from punishment, sanction, correction, consequence. We've now got to a point where even consequence, they say, you know what, detentions are just terrible. What about their mental health? What about their anxiety? This is what they say. And I say, if you don't give children praise and punishment, that's when you get anxiety. Okay? If a child leaves school functionally illiterate and functionally enumerate, that's when they're anxious for the rest of their lives. So the thing is is that we've all lost our minds. Um, we have no idea how to hold standards high anymore for children and the children are then going to university and then Jordan Peterson comes along and Jordan Peterson says, "Oh my goodness, look at what's going on in universities. Oh my goodness, look at what's coming out." And he's absolutely right. But where he's wrong is that he doesn't understand that this already happened at school.
>> And the reason why all of these guys are wrong is that none of them care about what's happening in schools. And I feel like I'm the only person running around like a, you know, um, a salesman with my little suitcase going around trying to say to people with my flag, "Listen to me. Listen to me. You don't understand. It's all about what's happening in schools." But nobody's listening.
>> Well, I'm listening, uh, very much so. I mean, I, um, gosh, there's so many things I can, I can places I want to go together with you that, uh, so I think one of the things that, um, one of the things that I am struck by in this conversation is that the, the process you're describing, the kind of leadership that you're talking about, is very hard to replicate in a when the culture as a whole and the institutions of our society,
>> have lost their mind and gone into suicide death cult land.
>> That's right.
>> And and I know, like I try to be reasonable sounding because I'm not necessarily reasonable by today's standards, but I try to be reasonable sounding for the benefit of people who find harshness off-putting and therefore don't get to hear things that they they would actually like to hear. But when it comes to some of this, it's like, look, the West, and particularly England and its child America, produced the most full flowering version of human potential this planet has ever seen. And it did so for reasons that are worth looking at because it actually happened. And we are in this sort of ridiculous debate in our educational institutions trying to claim that the places that created the best environment for, uh, the marginal in all of human history, the best environment for women, that actively ended slavery in the case of Britain and America, are somehow like these disgusting patriarchal colonialist imperialist disasters and actually the worst of all the possible worlds and we should land back, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can recite their creed. Their creed is stupid. It is ahistorical nonsense. But we are in increasingly the minority in that belief among this type of people. Average Joe hears woke stuff and says, "Well, that's a bunch of nonsense."
>> Well, I mean, look, I feel like we all need to fight the good fight. You know, I'm doing it in my way. You're doing it in your way. All of us, you know, who are sensible are doing our best to to keep us all grounded. Um, it is very difficult. Uh, but, but that is what gives you purpose in life, you know.
>> Well, this is this is the question now. So you call yourself traditional, and at some point the tradition you're talking back talking about is far enough in the past that it isn't traditional anymore.
>> What does that mean? It's not tradition meaning that no one remembers the tradition.
>> Oh, I see.
>> Because it's been gone so long.
>> So, how, what is your north star? You know, one of my favorite thinkers is Friedrich Hayek. He has a paper called "Why I'm Not a Conservative." And at the heart of it is essentially the the notion that look, to to be a conservative is to simply want to conserve the past. And that doesn't provide a a normative framework for what I believe because sometimes the past is bad. So how do I know what part of tradition is worth preserving and what part of tradition is worth abandoning? How do you think about that? How do you know what is your north star? Cuz what used to work, or knowing that it worked, takes a discernment that isn't the same thing as "I am just going to do what my grandmother said." But maybe it is. Help me understand what your north star is that's discerning which tradition is worth preserving and which parts of tradition, or you know, aren't good and aren't worth preserving.
>> Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a really good question. So like the, I suppose what people would say, you know, I'm not a Christian, but the fact is the West was built on Christianity. The reason why we all, um, uh, think the way that we do is because of Christianity. We take it for granted the idea that we might treat our neighbor like ourselves. Uh, that we might want to, um, put others, you know, the sense of duty towards others that I just spoke about, all those small-c conservative values, they they come from Christianity. Um, you know, in Roman times,
>> Human dignity is a completely radical non-materialist claim that requires a metaphysics.
>> Exactly that. Exactly. The inherent human dignity that you have a dignity that is just inherent to who you are, just in being human, as opposed to obviously the rich are better than the poor, or obviously, um, you know, a slave is below, you know, a, a non-slave. I mean, in Roman times, you know, you had a child and you didn't want the child, you just went and put him out on the rocks to die, and that was perfectly normal. He would just die outside and nobody thought anything of it. It was Christianity that changed the way in which we view, uh, the sanctity of human life. Um, now we've been doing that for so long that, um, we've forgotten that actually it's Christianity we owe this to. And, and I put myself in that bracket as well because I am not a Christian. And so I, my values, however, are probably very close to Christianity. I say probably very close because I can't say exactly. They are things that I believe, I feel instinctively. But, you know, that quote about how people think that they are all brilliant and, um, unique in their thoughts, but actually everything they think is from some defunct economist. You know, there's a
>> That's John Maynard Keynes.
>> Oh, is it? Keynes? Right. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes.
>> A brilliant man. Mostly wrong. But that quote, which I know quite well, is, uh, spot on.
>> Right. Well, exactly.
>> London School of Economics, uh, the ultimate, uh, technocratic planner type.
>> Right? Okay. Well, and so in in that vein, you know, we all think that we're just brilliant, but I recognize that my thoughts are essentially stemming, probably in the most part, from, uh, a Judeo-Christian, uh, viewpoint that we have all inherited, and that's just what we take for granted. And, um, and the problem is, of course, is that we've all abandoned Christianity. So when you just said, you just did what your grandmother did. Well, everybody just went to church and everybody treated their neighbor like themselves and whatever, all that stuff just happened because you went to church every Sunday and everybody inherited those values and that that way of thinking from their parents, from their grandparents, from their church visits. Now that we've lost Christianity, it's true that we're still running off the vestiges. So the fumes are still there in the ether, and we are still,
>> we're we've still got those fumes somewhat, but we're losing more and more as time goes by. The further we get, as you say, we've forgotten what the traditional is, we've forgotten what it is to live that sort of life, and so things are getting worse and worse and the end of the West is nigh. I mean, I, you know, I sound like some kind of crazy person with a placard standing outside, um, a subway station, um, but
>> Well, we have the, um, we have a, aren't those beautiful flowers cut in a vase that will soon be dead problem. And so we can't replant the cut flowers.
>> But we can plant seeds in new soil.
>> Yeah. Well,
>> That's what I'm trying to do.
>> What choice do we have? That's what I think you're doing. Are you not? You are planting new seeds in fresh soil.
>> That's that's exactly right. And, and my thing is is what you just said. We don't like, so when the right-wingers say, "But we need this, we need that, etc." I always think, "Listen, mate, we're not in 1955. We've got where we are. We are where we are. We we need to deal with the realities of now and do what we can." And that is what I'm doing every day. I'm dealing with the realities of now and trying to do the best that I can. Um, obviously the woke left crazies, well, they're just crazy. I mean, I don't, I don't know what to do with them, but
>> They'll anti-breed themselves into non-existence because, um, political ideology tracks to some extent with genetics, and they don't want to have kids. So, we just have to survive and we will win.
>> Yeah. Right. Well, maybe. I mean, um, nobody's having kids. I mean, you know, they're not having kids.
>> If you're if you're sensible, have more kids. This is another theme of this show, but
>> Having kids is the greatest thing in the world. It is what we are built to do. It's why we're here.
>> Yes.
>> Have kids and send them to a school like Michaela. And if there isn't one, uh, make it in your home, is what I say.
>> Well, I say the same thing. You know, people are always, it's funny, if I ever meet homeschoolers, they're always apologizing to me, and I always say, don't apologize. I think you're doing the best thing you can do for your child. Because if you don't have a school like Michaela to send your child to, then it's absolutely your duty to homeschool. Because if you send your child to some awful school, your child will be unrecognizable. You know, it, it's so interesting. The other day when we had that open event and the families came and I was talking to them, this black woman came up to me and she said, um, she had her her her year nine, grade nine child with her. And our children start here in year seven, your equivalent, grade seven. And, um, she said, "Oh, do you remember me? I came here three years ago with my daughter when she was in year six and we came to the same open event then." And I said, "Yes, yes, I sort of remember. Yes." And she said, "And I asked you all about the school and you'd spoke to me and d" and she said, "But we didn't, in the end, I didn't send her here. I I sent her to this other school and I'm really regretting that now. I wish I'd sent her here because look at her now. She used to be this quiet, lovely child and she isn't that child anymore. She's changed." And I said, "Yeah, well, you know, teenage years, that tends to happen." And she said, "But I didn't know. I didn't know what was going to happen. And now I wish I'd sent her here." And the girl was sort of there looking a bit surly. And I said, "Do you want to change schools?" And she said, "No, I'm happy where I am. I want to be there. That's where my friends are." And I said to her mom,
>> I was just going to say, it's all about the friends.
>> Well, this is it. I said to her mom, listen, you know, if you move her, she'll be so angry. I don't know if she would ever settle here. And frankly, there aren't any places in that anyway, but I mean, even if there were places, that it's too late, you know, and I said that to the mom. I said, "You should have listened to me. I I can't tell you the number of times I have conversations with people, not necessarily about the school. It could be friends of mine with kids, people I've met who I tell them what to do. They don't listen to me. And then years later, they say to me, "I should have listened." And I say, "Well, yes, but you know, all I can do, like my traveling salesman self, is go around the world and go around Twitter and give advice and tell people what I know and hope that they listen to me. That that's all I can do. I don't know what else to do. I mean, uh, you know, we all have our cross to bear. We we all try and do what we can to make the world into a better place. That's what I'm doing. And, um, you know, there are a lot of people that don't like me for it. But I, everything I'm doing, I'm trying to do good. You know, I'm trying to do right by people. I'm not telling people they have to listen to me. I'm trying to persuade people. You know.
>> If you want to see more from Katherine, make sure to check out our new channel with her, Strictly Education. She's often called Britain's strictest head teacher.
>> Britain's strictest head teacher.
>> Britain's strictest head teacher, Catherine Burbles. She's quite the force of nature, Katherine Burbiling. That's for sure.
>> Why am I doing this podcast? Look at our kids. It, it's pretty obvious that the stuff that we're doing is not working. Just bear with me. Just come with me, because after a while, you're going to be convinced. A new report card is out on student test scores and the news isn't good.
>> We all think, what's wrong with Gen Z? Oh, they seem to be thinking me, me, all the time, sort of self-obsessed and a little bit snowflakey. And we're wondering, well, what's going on? I don't wonder what's going on. I know they went to school.
>> Punishment is not the answer.
>> You are in the corridors misbehaving. I am so disappointed. That's Strictly Education. We're talking about what matters in terms of culture, not just at school, but in the home. You're going to listen to some of the things that I say and you're going to think, gosh, that seems a bit strange. Please forgive me for what white people have done. You know, oh my goodness, can white people just get over the guilt? I say things that are quite conservative, and then people say, oh, she's such a prude, and oh, she's such a strict headmistress. But I mean, in 1985, nobody would have thought that of me. Everybody would have just thought I was normal. The traditional ways of bringing up children that our grandmothers knew. That is what this podcast is about. And I'm looking forward to welcoming you to Strictly Education.