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The English VS British Identity Crisis Is Burying the Real Problem · Strictly Education

0:00
SPEAKER_15: Ironically, the whole conversation, I think it's a red herring.
0:03
SPEAKER_15: The media loves the question: are you English or are you British?
0:07
SPEAKER_15: This misses the more obvious problem.
0:10
SPEAKER_15: Do our children, whatever their race or religion, feel attachment to the country at all?
0:23
SPEAKER_15: Hello and welcome to Strictly Education with me, Catherine Bierbel Singh, Britain's strictest headmistress.
0:29
SPEAKER_15: In today's episode, I want to talk about national identity, more specifically, Englishness and Britishness.
0:35
SPEAKER_15: Recently, you'll have heard people debating the question, who is English?
0:39
SPEAKER_15: When we say English, do we mean an ancestral identity?
0:43
SPEAKER_15: Or does English refer to where someone is born and that's it?
0:47
SPEAKER_15: Or is it about a legal document of citizenship?
0:49
SPEAKER_15: Does English refer to a set of values uniquely present in England?
0:53
SPEAKER_15: And where does Britishness fit into all of this?
0:57
SPEAKER_15: Now, the reason I think this conversation is fascinating is because it reveals a lot about where we're at as a country after more than a decade of identity politics.
1:07
SPEAKER_15: It's also fascinating because it gets to the heart of what we say to children as parents and teachers.
1:13
SPEAKER_15: And as I intend to explain, I think that the way we talk about identity to our children underpins a lot of our problems.
1:21
SPEAKER_15: I discussed this all in my book, actually, Diversity is not our strength.
1:25
SPEAKER_15: Another reminder for all strictly listeners.
1:28
SPEAKER_15: It's coming out on November the 12th.
1:30
SPEAKER_15: But more on that later.
1:31
SPEAKER_15: So last year there was an interview on the trigonometry podcast, and the comedian and political commentator Konstantin Kissin, who is originally from Russia, was speaking with the journalist Fraser Nelson, formerly editor of The Spectator.
1:44
SPEAKER_15: Let's watch.
1:45
SPEAKER_04: This is something that no one wants to talk about, especially in these kind of places, but I, as an immigrant, can say it.
1:52
SPEAKER_04: At what percentage of the native population does England cease to be England?
1:57
SPEAKER_04: Is it 50%?
1:58
SPEAKER_04: Is it 40%?
1:59
SPEAKER_04: Is it 10%?
2:00
SPEAKER_04: When there are no English people left, is it still England?
2:03
SPEAKER_04: Right?
2:04
SPEAKER_04: That is a thing that no one wants to talk about, but I know millions of people subtly feel, and not just English or British people, my relatives from Russia or Ukraine or Armenia or whatever, they come to Heathrow and they go, is this still England?
2:18
SPEAKER_15: Constantin is saying in recent years there's been very high immigration into the UK.
2:23
SPEAKER_15: And he's saying a considerable percentage of people living in the UK have no ancestry in the country.
2:29
SPEAKER_15: So the question he's asking is: if there were only 10% or 30% or 50% of people in the UK with English or British ancestry, when, in theory, does that country stop being English?
2:42
SPEAKER_15: Now, he's right that people are uncomfortable with this topic.
2:45
SPEAKER_15: Fraser Nelson then gives a different perspective.
2:48
SPEAKER_15: He's going on to say that this is the wrong way to look at it.
2:51
SPEAKER_15: Let's listen.
3:02
SPEAKER_04: We're both British, but we're not English.
3:04
SPEAKER_04: No, you're from you you weren't born here.
3:06
SPEAKER_04: You were an immigrant.
3:07
SPEAKER_04: Well, my son was born here.
3:08
SPEAKER_04: I don't think my son is English.
3:09
unknown: Right.
3:10
SPEAKER_04: He's born to a Russian.
3:12
SPEAKER_03: I give that definition, right?
3:13
SPEAKER_03: I would say that Rishi Sunak is as English as Tizer and Wyfronts, right?
3:18
SPEAKER_03: He is absolutely English.
3:19
SPEAKER_03: He was born and bred here.
3:21
SPEAKER_03: And um I wouldn't say that the color of his skin makes him any.
3:24
SPEAKER_04: He's a brown Hindu.
3:25
SPEAKER_04: How is he English?
3:26
SPEAKER_04: Because he's born and bred here.
3:28
SPEAKER_04: So by being born here, you become English, in your opinion.
3:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
3:32
SPEAKER_15: Okay, so Fraser Nelson is working off of an entirely different definition here.
3:37
SPEAKER_15: He's giving the example of Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, saying he's as English as can be.
3:43
SPEAKER_15: His parents were Indian, sure, but Sunak was born here.
3:47
SPEAKER_15: He grew up in England and went to Winchester public school, for goodness sake.
3:51
SPEAKER_15: He's lived here pretty much his whole life.
3:53
SPEAKER_15: He sounds English, like one of those posh people, you know.
3:56
SPEAKER_15: And Rishi loves England.
3:59
SPEAKER_15: He's there for English, is what Nelson's saying.
4:02
SPEAKER_15: Now, what Nelson is talking about is culture.
4:05
SPEAKER_15: He's saying Sunak is entirely culturally English.
4:09
SPEAKER_15: Whereas Kisson is talking about ancestry.
4:12
SPEAKER_15: Of course, the phrase that made it into the news was the brown Hindu comment, and Kisson has since said that he spoke clumsily.
4:20
SPEAKER_15: But what's interesting is Kisson's explanation that follows, which is that it surely isn't as simple as your identity is wherever you were born, end of.
4:29
SPEAKER_15: Here he is.
4:30
SPEAKER_03: I'm a Scotch, right?
4:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: And now, are are my kids English?
4:34
SPEAKER_03: I would say they are.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: How?
4:38
SPEAKER_03: Because they were born here.
4:40
SPEAKER_03: They're Scottish.
4:41
SPEAKER_03: Nope.
4:41
SPEAKER_03: By blood.
4:42
SPEAKER_03: No, they've hardly ever been to Scotland, unfortunately.
4:44
SPEAKER_04: So what?
4:45
SPEAKER_04: By blood, so give me this.
4:46
SPEAKER_04: I mean the My son is born to a Russian and a Ukrainian, right?
4:50
SPEAKER_04: How on earth is he English?
4:52
SPEAKER_04: Because he was born here.
4:54
SPEAKER_04: Do you think that being born in a country makes you that uh makes you uh of that so if if your children have been born in Japan, would they be Japanese?
5:02
SPEAKER_04: If they were born there, look, you get you get white Caribbean people, for example.
5:07
SPEAKER_04: Hold on.
5:07
SPEAKER_04: Just the Japanese example.
5:09
SPEAKER_04: Would they be Japanese?
5:11
SPEAKER_04: If they were born there and lived their life there, then yeah.
5:13
SPEAKER_15: Nelson is saying you're English if you're born in England and live your life in England.
5:17
SPEAKER_15: Same for Japan, same for anywhere really.
5:20
SPEAKER_15: Kissin says that his children can be British, so they can still belong to Britain.
5:25
SPEAKER_15: But he's thinking of English as an ancestral identity, which his own children evidently don't have.
5:31
SPEAKER_15: And you'll notice that the conversation about national identity has become about children.
5:37
SPEAKER_15: Both Kisson and Nelson are saying, What identity do I give my kids?
5:42
SPEAKER_15: British or English?
5:44
SPEAKER_15: Fraser is Scottish and his wife is Swedish.
5:47
SPEAKER_15: So what are his children?
5:49
SPEAKER_15: Can they be English?
5:50
SPEAKER_15: Nelson thinks yes.
5:52
SPEAKER_15: From his point of view, he's thinking they don't sound Scottish or no Scotland.
5:58
SPEAKER_15: Scottish people will see them as English for sure.
6:01
SPEAKER_15: Kisson thinks no for both of their sets of children.
6:04
SPEAKER_15: And notice these children are white.
6:07
SPEAKER_15: This isn't strictly a race question.
6:10
SPEAKER_15: Now the nuances of the conversation were quickly lost in the reporting.
6:13
SPEAKER_15: First, you had a number of progressive commentators accuse Constantin Kisson of being a racist.
6:19
SPEAKER_15: Here's one headline.
6:21
SPEAKER_15: Of course, Rishi Sunak is English.
6:23
SPEAKER_15: In his comments on English identity, Constantin Kisson was giving voice to a racial essentialism dangerously prominent on the right.
6:33
SPEAKER_15: Some on the right, on the other hand, made the point that it isn't true that ancestry is considered irrelevant.
6:39
SPEAKER_15: In fact, when Sunak became Prime Minister, the significance of Sunak's Indian ancestry was extensively commented on in India.
6:49
SPEAKER_15: Here's some of the reporting from within India.
6:54
SPEAKER_13: Yeah, we are very proud about it.
7:19
SPEAKER_15: And you know, that makes sense, doesn't it?
7:21
SPEAKER_15: They feel proud because he's ancestrally Indian.
7:24
SPEAKER_15: But what's interesting is that there was no reporting, from what I remember, from progressive newspapers, at how racially insensitive it was for the Indian press to associate Rishi Sunak with India.
7:37
SPEAKER_15: The Indian press were fine to think Sunak is ancestrally connected to India, yet Kissin was treated very differently for making that same point.
7:46
SPEAKER_15: Here's Constantin Kisson on Question Time, where a government minister is essentially going to accuse him of being racist live on television.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: Because Constantin, we have a fundamentally different view.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: Clearly.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: So um Ritchie Stunuk is no political friend of mine.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: He was the conservative leader of the country, as you know.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: When Fraser Nelson put it to you that Ritchie Stunak is absolutely English, what did you reply?
8:11
SPEAKER_02: You said he's a brown Hindu.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: No, that's not what I said.
8:14
SPEAKER_04: I said he's British.
8:15
SPEAKER_04: I said he's British like me.
8:16
SPEAKER_04: I'm not excited.
8:17
SPEAKER_04: Those are the words you use.
8:18
SPEAKER_04: What I said We can hear the code.
8:19
SPEAKER_04: There's a difference between British and brown Hindu.
8:22
SPEAKER_04: May I be allowed to say what I still have?
8:24
SPEAKER_15: So that's Douglas Alexander, the Secretary of State for Scotland and Labour MP, saying to Kissin that he should be ashamed.
8:30
SPEAKER_15: Why?
8:30
SPEAKER_15: Because what Kissin is saying is racist, in his view.
8:33
SPEAKER_15: There's another comment that Douglas Alexander makes in there.
8:36
SPEAKER_15: We can hear the code.
8:38
SPEAKER_15: So what he means by that phrase, I assume, is that Britain has a large number of racists in the country who know that they can't express their views openly, and here is Kissin doing it for them.
8:50
SPEAKER_15: It seems like a double standard coming from the left, yes.
8:53
SPEAKER_15: Ah, but not so fast.
8:55
SPEAKER_15: There's a difference between what the Indian press were saying and what Kissin said, or at least what some people think he said.
9:03
SPEAKER_15: The Indian press were simply celebrating Sunak's ancestry as an Indian boy who has become Prime Minister of Britain.
9:11
SPEAKER_15: And given that Britain once ruled India, we can all see the significance of this.
9:17
SPEAKER_15: The difference with Kissin's comment is that he was saying that an ethnic minority cannot be English.
9:24
SPEAKER_15: So it was perceived by progressives as an attack on ethnic minority identity.
9:29
SPEAKER_15: They were thinking, well, wait, this shuts out ethnic minorities from being part of the British identity.
9:37
SPEAKER_15: It means that ethnic minorities don't really belong to the country.
9:40
SPEAKER_15: But I don't think Kisson was saying that at all.
9:43
SPEAKER_15: He himself is an immigrant who is proudly British and thinks of his own children as British.
9:48
SPEAKER_15: He just thinks that Britishness is enough to allow an immigrant or their descendants to belong to the country.
9:55
SPEAKER_15: The conversation escalated relatively quickly after this, and ever since, ethnic minority public figures in Britain have been asking, are you English?
10:04
SPEAKER_15: And what that means is, yes, you might be British, but are you English?
10:10
SPEAKER_15: And for some of us, perhaps those of us that are more progressive, we genuinely think that ethnic minorities ought to call themselves English, whether they like it or not.
10:20
SPEAKER_15: But I can tell you that no one ever used to ask this of ethnic minorities back in the 1980s or 90s.
10:27
SPEAKER_15: Here's Labour Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood being asked the same question.
10:33
SPEAKER_15: Let's look.
10:34
SPEAKER_17: Do you personally, without reservation or hesitation, call yourself English?
10:38
SPEAKER_16: Yes, that's why I put that in the speech, because it's never occurred to me that I'm not.
10:43
SPEAKER_16: I very much identify with being somebody who's a bromie.
10:46
SPEAKER_16: You know, I think Birmingham is one of the best of the English cities, and I consider myself English as well as British as well.
10:53
SPEAKER_15: So she's saying she's English because she was born and raised in England.
10:55
SPEAKER_15: She's from Birmingham and it's her home.
10:57
SPEAKER_15: She's referring to a cultural identity, not an ancestral one.
11:01
SPEAKER_15: It's very much the same as the position Fraser Nelson outlined earlier.
11:06
SPEAKER_15: Also, politically, it's now suddenly become this huge, risky topic.
11:10
SPEAKER_15: If Makmood gives any other answer, people will tell her that she's backing the racists, like they did to Kissen.
11:18
SPEAKER_15: Then last week, Soella Braveman, the former Home Secretary, who used to be a conservative but is now an MP for Reform UK, she was on Question Time.
11:28
SPEAKER_15: Soella wrote an article a year ago entitled, Why I Will Never Truly Be English, essentially agreeing with Kissin, and she described herself as British.
11:37
SPEAKER_15: And on Question Time recently, she made the same point as she did in her article.
11:42
SPEAKER_15: Here she is.
11:43
SPEAKER_06: I've always considered myself British, of Asian ethnicity, and that's never been something that I would question.
11:52
SPEAKER_06: Of course I'm not English.
11:54
SPEAKER_06: I'm not uh, you know, I'm not I'm not an English person.
11:57
SPEAKER_06: I am an of Asian origin.
11:58
SPEAKER_06: Some of my ancestors come from India, via Mauritius and Kenya, all over the world, but they're not English.
12:04
SPEAKER_06: And so it would be misrepresentative of me to co-opt Englishness as an ethnicity.
12:10
SPEAKER_06: Just in the same way, it'd be absurd that if someone like me were born in Japan, I would never call myself Japanese, or if I was born in China, I would never call myself Chinese.
12:20
SPEAKER_06: Why are the English peoples the only seem the group of people on the earth who cannot have a distinct identity?
12:28
SPEAKER_15: That baffles me.
12:29
SPEAKER_15: So Brahman's really saying that she has an ancestral identity, which is basically Asian, but she has a cultural identity, which is British.
12:38
SPEAKER_15: It's the same as what Constantine Kisson said about his own identity and that of his children.
12:43
SPEAKER_15: The problem is that by now the conversation has become even angrier than it was when it began nearly two years ago.
12:50
SPEAKER_15: Here's James O'Brien talking directly about Braverman after that question time appearance we just saw.
12:56
SPEAKER_15: Let's have a look.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, I said, I'm not going to speak for anybody else here, I was explaining to white colleagues how sorry I felt for her.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And so this is now a tragedy.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: This is now a tragedy.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: This is now a story of a woman brought so low by her desperation for approval from people who despise her for the color of her skin that we're watching the media 21st century equivalent of a bearded lady on our television screens.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: She is like Liz Truss, a freak show who people queue up to gaw at.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: And again, because these people are doing it to themselves as well as having it done to them, the temptation to ignore is big.
13:44
SPEAKER_15: So James O'Brien actually calls Suella Braverman a freak show.
13:49
SPEAKER_15: I mean, she's a politician.
13:51
SPEAKER_15: He says that she's a bearded lady.
13:54
SPEAKER_15: That's referring to the Circus Act, where a woman who has a beard will be on display in a circus for people to laugh at.
14:01
SPEAKER_15: What James O'Brien is saying is: in the same way that a lady shouldn't have a beard and was betraying her very nature as a woman by having something so masculine as a beard, an ethnic minority born and raised in Britain shouldn't view themselves as not English.
14:20
SPEAKER_15: To do so makes her a freak.
14:22
SPEAKER_15: She should be fighting for her Englishness against the races, or she just isn't a real ethnic minority, just like the bearded lady was not a proper lady.
14:33
SPEAKER_15: Now, I should point out that if you ask ethnic minorities whether their older relatives would use the term English or British, you will find that many would not say English.
14:42
SPEAKER_15: Certainly in the 80s and 90s, very few ethnic minorities would have self-described as English.
14:49
SPEAKER_15: Here's Trevor Phillips and Shabana McMood discussing this exact point.
14:53
SPEAKER_15: Let's look.
14:54
SPEAKER_17: I mean, in minority homes, generally speaking, uh, English usually means white.
14:58
SPEAKER_17: But from your point of view, it's it's you've gone past that.
15:01
SPEAKER_16: I think so.
15:02
SPEAKER_16: I think definitely when when I was younger, everybody would have said if you're it if you're saying someone is English, what you really mean is they're white.
15:08
SPEAKER_15: So McMood is saying that her relatives would not have said they were English.
15:11
SPEAKER_15: It's a bit weird, isn't it?
15:12
SPEAKER_15: That opinions that were once normal amongst ethnic minorities are now considered deeply offensive to white progressive political commentators.
15:20
SPEAKER_15: So that brings you, dear viewer, up to date with this endless debate around national identity.
15:26
SPEAKER_15: Are you British or are you English?
15:28
SPEAKER_15: Unlike the 1980s, when almost everyone felt considerably more relaxed about this, in 2026 the discussion is explosive.
15:37
SPEAKER_15: And so the question, of course, that we at Strictly Education care about is what should we be saying to our children?
15:44
SPEAKER_15: Is our discussion of national identity helping our children belong to the country and feel a sense of duty to their country?
15:51
SPEAKER_15: Or is something else happening on the ground?
15:55
SPEAKER_15: So, what I want to explain is that on sections of both the left and the right, too many of us are making this conversation intolerable.
16:03
SPEAKER_15: And actually, both sides of the conversation have had an impact on what we say to our children in schools.
16:09
SPEAKER_15: And what we say to our children, both in our home and in our schools, has huge impact on the entire country.
16:16
SPEAKER_15: Okay, so I'm going to address how the left has actually made race relations worse when it comes to our discussion of national identity.
16:23
SPEAKER_15: But before I do this, I want to explain why they're so uncomfortable with what's been said.
16:28
SPEAKER_15: From the point of view of the left, they're thinking to themselves that whenever an ethnic minority is excluded from an identity, racism must be at play.
16:38
SPEAKER_15: So back in the 1970s and 80s, white football hooligans in England used to sing, There ain't no black in the Union Jack.
16:45
SPEAKER_15: This small minority of people were saying black and brown Commonwealth immigrants or their descendants shouldn't be in England or Britain.
16:53
SPEAKER_15: So, because of that memory, a lot of white progressive political commentators feel that this must be just the same conversation happening again when we talk about Englishness.
17:03
SPEAKER_15: Those progressives are saying bad white people did not include ethnic minorities as being part of England.
17:10
SPEAKER_15: And I'm a good white person, and so I want to make sure that ethnic minorities are always included.
17:15
SPEAKER_15: So when they hear what Constantine Kissens says about Rishi Sunak not being English, they're hearing something different.
17:22
SPEAKER_15: They assume he's appealing to that idea, there ain't no black in the Union Jack.
17:27
SPEAKER_15: So it becomes about stopping racism and not engaging with the nuance of national identity.
17:34
SPEAKER_15: There'll be some ethnic minorities who have the same instinct as their fellow progressive whites.
17:38
SPEAKER_15: And I sort of get why they think the way that they do.
17:41
SPEAKER_15: If you're an older black man who remembers some of the harder edges of racism back in the 1980s, you might look at the modern conversation and assume it's exactly the same situation: minority identity being excluded from belonging to the country.
17:56
SPEAKER_15: However, from my point of view, there's a huge problem with this interpretation.
18:01
SPEAKER_15: The first problem is that in this entire conversation, no one is saying ethnic minorities don't belong.
18:07
SPEAKER_15: Kissin, Bravaman, all of them are saying there's a civic identity that matters.
18:13
SPEAKER_15: And they call that civic identity British.
18:16
SPEAKER_15: And there's an ethnic or ancestral identity that is English.
18:21
SPEAKER_15: But neither Constantin Kisson nor Soella Bravaman is saying that being British means you don't belong.
18:29
SPEAKER_15: I'm not saying that everyone has to agree with them, but they aren't saying that ethnic minorities cannot and should not belong.
18:36
SPEAKER_15: Both Kissin and Bravaman are either immigrants or the children of immigrants, and both talk about being proudly British.
18:45
SPEAKER_15: The next problem is that the left has been so eager to call everything racist that they don't actually understand how identity politics, pushed by the left in schools, has literally undermined multicultural Britain.
19:00
SPEAKER_15: The left has spoken about ancestry and ethnicity relentlessly for a decade.
19:04
SPEAKER_15: I've seen this in schools.
19:06
SPEAKER_15: We constantly talk about race and ethnicity, and we do so in a very distinct way.
19:11
SPEAKER_15: White equals privileged, supremacist, a moral problem to be warned against.
19:16
SPEAKER_15: Non-white equals to be celebrated, lifted up, embraced.
19:20
SPEAKER_15: Here are some examples.
19:23
SPEAKER_03: Things like whether I'd get hired for a job, how people perceive me, how much they trust me.
19:29
SPEAKER_20: It's really pushed me to check my privilege.
19:33
SPEAKER_07: As a white person, I was overwhelmingly represented.
19:36
SPEAKER_07: Textbooks were filled with white children, television programmes were filled with white children.
19:41
SPEAKER_19: I'm very privileged when I think about it.
19:43
SPEAKER_19: A white male living in England.
19:46
SPEAKER_19: I've had a position in the whole of my life that not something that I really thought about when I was younger.
19:52
SPEAKER_19: It was just my life.
19:54
SPEAKER_19: And though I worked hard for these things, those opportunities were there in front of me to take advantage of.
19:59
SPEAKER_15: Okay, so we've told young people who are white to think about the privilege their ancestry and ethnic identity have given them.
20:06
SPEAKER_15: We've also been very clear that if someone is uncomfortable with any of the conversations around their white ancestral identity, that's further evidence that their white identity is even more of a problem.
20:19
SPEAKER_15: A big change I've seen in schools is the importing of American thinkers like Robin D'Angelo.
20:25
SPEAKER_15: She's extensively used as part of training teachers and widely read here in the UK.
20:30
SPEAKER_15: Here she is explaining and analyzing white identity.
20:33
SPEAKER_15: Let's have a look.
21:04
SPEAKER_15: Okay, this is the same Robin D'Angelo whose instruction for educators includes all white people benefit from racism.
21:12
SPEAKER_15: And also, the question is not, did racism take place, but rather, how did racism manifest in that situation?
21:19
SPEAKER_15: D'Angelo is saying white people are racist by definition of their ethnic heritage and privilege.
21:25
SPEAKER_15: The question is not if, but how.
21:28
SPEAKER_15: If you go on to a university website, you'll notice that you get modules like this from the University of Sheffield: whiteness, power, privilege.
21:37
SPEAKER_15: Or try the module from the University of Durham, the White Man's World.
21:42
SPEAKER_15: We've discussed white identity on programs like the BBC.
21:44
SPEAKER_15: For example, I remember the following some years ago on a webpage designed for children.
21:49
SPEAKER_15: Here, a mixed race couple are explaining the ways in which the white woman herself is privileged as well as all white people being privileged.
21:57
SPEAKER_15: Let's have a look.
21:58
SPEAKER_12: Put a finger down if you have had feelings.
22:00
SPEAKER_12: In your heart when being stopped by the police.
22:02
SPEAKER_12: Put a finger down if you have never been given a pass on a citation that you deserved.
22:07
SPEAKER_12: Put a finger down if you have been stopped or detained by police for no valid reason.
22:12
SPEAKER_12: Put a finger down if you have been bullied solely because of your race.
22:16
SPEAKER_12: Put a finger down if you have been denied service solely because of the color of your skin.
22:20
SPEAKER_12: Put a finger down if you've ever had to teach your child how not to get killed by the police.
22:25
SPEAKER_12: Any fingers left?
22:27
SPEAKER_12: That's privilege.
22:28
SPEAKER_15: Right, so even though it's talking about America, the BBC put it online for our children under the assumption that the same white privilege applies here.
22:36
SPEAKER_15: It's showing how black people are threatened by the police.
22:39
SPEAKER_15: Black people get turned down for jobs.
22:41
SPEAKER_15: Black people are mistreated by society, basically.
22:44
SPEAKER_15: And that's the point the video is trying to make for the children who are watching it.
22:48
SPEAKER_15: And in terms of what we tell children directly in schools, we've been telling them to consider the issues with whiteness.
22:55
SPEAKER_15: We have lessons on white privilege.
22:57
SPEAKER_15: We tell children to look out for their white teachers or classmates and see how they behave.
23:02
SPEAKER_15: Here's an example of a teacher trying to teach children about white privilege.
23:07
SPEAKER_11: We are going to be running a race.
23:12
SPEAKER_11: However, your starting position in this race will be decided by the answers to questions that we are going to be asking you.
23:25
SPEAKER_11: Okay, what?
23:26
SPEAKER_11: It's a joke.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: This activity is intended to explore how society favors one race over others.
23:34
SPEAKER_15: Okay, so this activity is designed to explore how society favors one race over another.
23:41
SPEAKER_15: So it's telling the kids your society is about racial identity groups and power.
23:46
SPEAKER_15: The teacher's going to make them run the race, but deliberately make it unfair so the children can see how unfair Britain is.
23:54
SPEAKER_15: Let's watch some more.
23:56
SPEAKER_11: If the question applies to you, you will take a big step forward.
24:04
SPEAKER_11: If the answer to the question doesn't apply to you, you stay where you are.
24:11
SPEAKER_11: If English is your parents' first language, take a step forward.
24:17
SPEAKER_11: Oh yeah.
24:19
SPEAKER_11: If you have ever been the only person in the room of your race, take a step backward.
24:28
SPEAKER_15: So the teacher goes on further like this.
24:30
SPEAKER_15: And the point is to make sure that the children can feel how unfair their society is.
24:35
SPEAKER_15: And of course it works.
24:36
SPEAKER_15: The ethnic minority children start to feel more resentful on the basis of race.
24:40
SPEAKER_15: They're left thinking more about identity, ancestry, and ethnicity.
24:44
SPEAKER_15: Let's watch some more.
24:46
SPEAKER_10: I'm not worried about if people ask me to stop and search.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: The divide widens and the inequality of their position becomes clear.
24:55
SPEAKER_09: This is just like not fair now.
24:57
SPEAKER_09: Far on.
25:07
SPEAKER_11: The last question.
25:10
SPEAKER_11: If your parents have ever warned you about racism, take a step backwards.
25:17
SPEAKER_11: Is this a fair starting show for us all?
25:22
SPEAKER_08: Nice.
25:24
SPEAKER_08: I'm just a bit a bit frustrated and annoyed that society nowadays really isn't fair.
25:30
SPEAKER_08: And I just wish everybody could be equal.
25:34
SPEAKER_09: It's kind of frustrating that like me and Sarah are just standing at the back here while like the majority of people who may be white are like standing right at the front.
25:43
SPEAKER_09: That just frustrates me a bit because it's almost as if what society is today.
25:48
SPEAKER_09: I what I don't want this to be how it is, but it is.
25:51
SPEAKER_09: So it just gets a bit frustrating.
25:55
SPEAKER_11: Henry, how are you feeling being right at the very front?
26:00
SPEAKER_10: Um it feels quite weird because if you think about it, um I think all of us should be at the same point.
26:08
SPEAKER_10: But sadly, the questions, um, the ways that they were put didn't favour some people, which I think is quite unfair.
26:18
SPEAKER_15: So, at the beginning, these children all seem perfectly happy.
26:21
SPEAKER_15: By the end, the teacher has got one of the girls nearly crying.
26:24
SPEAKER_15: The boy is saying, none of us are white.
26:26
SPEAKER_15: The girl is saying, I guess that's how society is.
26:29
SPEAKER_15: It favors white people.
26:30
SPEAKER_15: She's angry at the white kids.
26:32
SPEAKER_15: They've been told to resent white people and told that they're being discriminated against.
26:37
SPEAKER_15: So, what about other identities?
26:39
SPEAKER_15: How do we speak about ancestry, ethnicity, or race when it comes to people who are not white?
26:45
SPEAKER_15: Well, similarly, progressive media and schools have made a big effort to have the opposite approach when it comes to anyone who isn't white.
26:54
SPEAKER_15: So here's the BBC when it comes to Nottinghill Carnival, the traditional celebration of Caribbean identity in London.
27:01
SPEAKER_15: Carnival is about carrying the ancestral presence of the Caribbean communities.
27:07
SPEAKER_15: So notice that word ancestral.
27:09
SPEAKER_15: It's about Caribbean ancestry.
27:12
SPEAKER_15: Here's the BBC coverage from this year.
27:15
SPEAKER_15: Let's look.
27:31
SPEAKER_07: Carnival is my culture.
27:34
SPEAKER_11: I'm here to represent Jamaica!
27:36
SPEAKER_15: Okay, so that girl there, who sounds like she's probably from London, is saying, celebrate my culture.
27:42
SPEAKER_15: She means her ancestral culture in having Caribbean heritage or Jamaican heritage.
27:48
SPEAKER_15: Now, my point isn't that you shouldn't feel that.
27:51
SPEAKER_15: I love Brixton.
27:52
SPEAKER_15: I lived many years in Brixton precisely because of the Caribbean influences there.
27:56
SPEAKER_15: The point is the double standard.
27:58
SPEAKER_15: If the ancestry is not white, we celebrate.
28:02
SPEAKER_15: If the ancestry is white, we think there's a problem.
28:06
SPEAKER_15: Here's a verbatim quote from a teacher training textbook about how to make a school anti-racist.
28:13
SPEAKER_15: The aim of a unit of study when teaching ethnic minority pupils is to celebrate the heritage of our families.
28:20
SPEAKER_15: It also says to instill pride in pupils about where they have come from and the contributions of that country to the world.
28:30
SPEAKER_15: Now, notice the assumption in that textbook is that heritage means ancestry.
28:36
SPEAKER_15: When it says instill pride with regard to the countries where the children have come from, it doesn't mean Britain.
28:43
SPEAKER_15: It's saying that we teachers should make the children proud of their ancestral heritage, which is from a different country.
28:52
SPEAKER_15: It's implicitly saying these children belong to somewhere else.
28:57
SPEAKER_15: Now, what does this mean for the identity of our young people and for our country?
29:02
SPEAKER_15: Well, some ethnic minority children will just believe that their identity is their ethnic ancestral identity instead of a British or English cultural identity.
29:12
SPEAKER_15: And quite a lot of white children will feel guilty and therefore dislike Britain or England because they'll be convinced that the country is really racist.
29:21
SPEAKER_15: But you'll also get some young people who resent the whole thing.
29:26
SPEAKER_15: And those mostly young white males, well, they're getting angry.
29:30
SPEAKER_15: So let's turn to those moving to the hard right who I think are a problem too.
29:35
SPEAKER_15: It's true that in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, there were skinheads who were genuinely violent against ethnic minorities.
29:42
SPEAKER_15: No question there.
29:44
SPEAKER_15: Now, over most of my adult life, I saw a lot of that die down and slowly fade away.
29:48
SPEAKER_15: There was real progress.
29:50
SPEAKER_15: But one of the problems of making everything about identity, ethnicity, and race, as of course those on the left have done, is that you now have a group on the right who are applying the exact same logic as those on the left.
30:04
SPEAKER_15: What group are you in?
30:05
SPEAKER_15: What's your lineage?
30:07
SPEAKER_15: What's your ancestry?
30:08
SPEAKER_15: We've made that the focus of our conversations about belonging over the last couple of decades.
30:14
SPEAKER_15: Now, what this ends up meaning is that you get conversations like this.
30:17
SPEAKER_15: Montgomery Toms is a political activist.
30:19
SPEAKER_15: He's the white guy who's sitting down in this conversation.
30:22
SPEAKER_15: Let's have a look.
30:23
SPEAKER_18: What people qualify as your people?
30:25
SPEAKER_18: The native people of this land.
30:26
SPEAKER_18: Okay, so explain what you mean by native.
30:28
SPEAKER_20: It's a collective ancestry of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the U.S.
30:33
SPEAKER_20: England.
30:33
SPEAKER_18: I was born here.
30:34
SPEAKER_18: I was born in Salford Rome Hospital.
30:36
SPEAKER_18: Um, am I part of you know your definition of your people?
30:40
SPEAKER_20: Tell me your lineage.
30:40
SPEAKER_20: I don't know.
30:41
SPEAKER_18: My depending on I look Irish to you.
30:42
SPEAKER_18: Obviously, my family doesn't go back.
30:44
SPEAKER_20: Well, I'm I'm being respectful and not basing it on any form of race, because I'm not a racist.
30:48
SPEAKER_20: So let's have a conversation which is actually respectful.
30:50
SPEAKER_20: What is your lineage?
30:51
SPEAKER_18: Well, I'm from Nigeria.
30:53
SPEAKER_18: Your parents are both from Nigeria.
30:54
SPEAKER_18: My family are from Nigeria, but I was born here.
30:56
SPEAKER_18: So you're Nigerian?
30:57
SPEAKER_18: Yeah, I would I would identify as Nigeria, but I'm also British.
31:00
SPEAKER_18: I have a British passport.
31:01
SPEAKER_15: So Montgomery Tom says, your parents are from Nigeria, you're Nigerian.
31:04
SPEAKER_15: And this young man is saying, Well, yeah, but I was born here, and I don't really call anywhere else home.
31:10
SPEAKER_15: This is home for him, even though his parents are Nigerian.
31:13
SPEAKER_15: He's trying to explain his point.
31:14
SPEAKER_18: Let's listen to him.
31:15
SPEAKER_18: I support England when it's the Euros.
31:17
SPEAKER_18: Um I'm I'm quite a patriotic person to this country.
31:20
SPEAKER_18: I care about this country, you know.
31:21
SPEAKER_18: I've just voted in the Manchester Mayor elections.
31:23
SPEAKER_18: Like, I'm a British person at heart, just because I don't look like you doesn't make me any less British.
31:27
SPEAKER_20: Well, I I don't want to have a conversation about the way people look, because I really don't care how people look.
31:30
SPEAKER_15: Now you can see what the young black man speaking on the microphone is trying to say.
31:34
SPEAKER_15: He's saying, Look, I was born in England, I sound English, I love England, I support England, I don't really belong anywhere else.
31:40
SPEAKER_15: Here's what Montgomery Tom says in response.
31:43
SPEAKER_20: How many Nigerians do you know?
31:44
SPEAKER_20: When you go to Whitechapel, when you go to certain areas of London and you ask them if they're British, they laugh in your face, they think it's hilarious, and they say, just because I'm born in a stable, does that make me a horse?
31:56
SPEAKER_20: No, it doesn't.
31:57
SPEAKER_20: If I was born in a stable, I wouldn't be a horse.
31:59
SPEAKER_20: If I was born in Nigeria, I wouldn't be Nigerian.
32:01
SPEAKER_20: It's not complicated.
32:03
SPEAKER_20: They would look at me and say, you're English.
32:05
SPEAKER_20: They'd look at my child and say, You're English.
32:07
SPEAKER_20: I'm done here.
32:08
SPEAKER_20: I think all I can do is tell you the truth.
32:10
SPEAKER_15: So Tom says, if I was born in a stable, I wouldn't be a horse.
32:13
SPEAKER_15: What he means is that a child of Nigerian immigrants who was born in Britain cannot become British.
32:19
SPEAKER_15: Forget the idea of becoming English.
32:21
SPEAKER_15: According to Tom's, anyone whose ancestral heritage is from outside England, they're not English, and they aren't even British.
32:30
SPEAKER_15: This extreme position leaves no room for anyone to belong in this country without it being all about ancestry.
32:38
SPEAKER_15: Here's another example, Charlie Downs on GB News.
32:41
SPEAKER_15: Let's have a look.
32:42
SPEAKER_05: If you want to go down this uh route, then I'm happy to do so because it is an important question.
32:47
SPEAKER_05: It's just a question.
32:48
SPEAKER_05: But it is an important issue about what it means to be British.
32:51
SPEAKER_05: What does it mean to be British, then okay?
32:53
SPEAKER_05: Well, but I mean, we have made it very clear, Restore Britain have made it very clear that our position is that Britishness is not just defined by having a British passport.
33:01
SPEAKER_05: It is not just defined by believing in a set of abstract corporate-style values like democracy and the rule of order.
33:07
SPEAKER_05: Is it defined by the presentation?
33:08
SPEAKER_05: Well, let me finish.
33:09
SPEAKER_05: So the position is defined by not what it is.
33:11
SPEAKER_05: The position of every mainstream party from Reform UK right the way through to the Greens is that Britishness is defined by having a passport or believing in democracy, right?
33:20
SPEAKER_05: In our view, that is an absolutely ridiculous definition.
33:23
SPEAKER_05: Because Britain and the constituent nations that make this country up, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, are ancient peoples.
33:29
SPEAKER_05: These are ancient nations that have uh been existed continuously for over a thousand years.
33:34
SPEAKER_05: And so there is a difference.
33:36
SPEAKER_05: So between there is a difference.
33:37
SPEAKER_05: So am I British?
33:38
SPEAKER_05: There is a difference between somebody I British.
33:40
SPEAKER_05: I'm born in Newcastle, I'm a Geordie, am I British?
33:44
SPEAKER_05: Well, look, it you're you're born in Britain, you you know, and all the rest of it.
33:47
SPEAKER_05: So in that sense, yes, you are British.
33:49
SPEAKER_05: But there is a bit of me, isn't then?
33:51
SPEAKER_05: Well there is a spec there is obviously a spectrum.
33:53
SPEAKER_15: Now notice that the discussion that's being had there is whether an ethnic minority born and raised in Britain can even be British.
34:00
SPEAKER_15: Not English, but British.
34:02
SPEAKER_15: That shows you how the ground has moved.
34:05
SPEAKER_15: And it has moved because we have made everything about identity and ancestry.
34:10
SPEAKER_15: And a lot of people are becoming very resentful of this.
34:13
SPEAKER_15: Look at the age of both of those guys, right?
34:16
SPEAKER_15: They're young men.
34:17
SPEAKER_15: Now I feel like I've been screaming about this for years.
34:20
SPEAKER_15: If you make everything about race, ethnicity, and identity, then you'll get a politics on the left and right that focuses on ethnicity.
34:29
SPEAKER_15: And the problem is that most people on the left, and I sort of understand why to some extent, when they hear views that shock them, for example, British identity is about ancestry alone, what then happens is that those left-leaning people decide to call more things racist.
34:45
SPEAKER_15: And they don't realize that calling everything racist is a very big part of the problem.
34:51
SPEAKER_15: Now, the sad irony is that those voices from the hard right are saying something completely different from what Constantin Kissin was arguing right at the beginning of this episode.
35:02
SPEAKER_15: But notice how on the left people were reacting as if Kissin had an identical position to those on the hard right.
35:10
SPEAKER_15: Kissin's position is totally different from that.
35:14
SPEAKER_15: The truth is that the difference in opinion between Constantin Kisson and Fraser Nelson is actually quite small.
35:20
SPEAKER_15: Kisson is saying there's a cultural and civic identity which is more flexible.
35:25
SPEAKER_15: And he calls that Britishness.
35:27
SPEAKER_15: There's also a distinct ancestral description, which he prefers to call English.
35:34
SPEAKER_15: Nelson, on the other hand, is saying that, yes, there's an ancestrally English people, but there's also a civic English identity, too.
35:43
SPEAKER_15: His son has that identity.
35:45
SPEAKER_15: So even though his son has Scottish ancestry, Scottish people will see his son as English.
35:51
SPEAKER_15: But notice where they're both in agreement.
35:54
SPEAKER_15: They're really in agreement.
35:55
SPEAKER_15: It isn't that Nelson doesn't believe there's such a thing as ethnic identity.
35:59
SPEAKER_15: He just doesn't think it matters that much when compared to a civic identity.
36:05
SPEAKER_15: Kisson also thinks there's such a thing as an ancestral identity, but he calls our civic identity British, not English.
36:14
SPEAKER_15: They're both saying that what matters is the existence of a shared civic identity.
36:20
SPEAKER_15: They just have different names for it, that's all.
36:22
SPEAKER_15: Now, do I understand why some children of immigrants who are born and raised in England love England and call it home and would say that they're English?
36:31
SPEAKER_15: Well, of course I do.
36:33
SPEAKER_15: People often refer in these conversations to various footballers like Saka or Frank Bruno, the boxer, both of whom see themselves as English.
36:41
SPEAKER_15: Well, of course they do.
36:42
SPEAKER_15: They play for England.
36:43
SPEAKER_15: So, well, of course they're gonna see themselves as English and more power to them.
36:47
SPEAKER_15: But I also see why some people say British to mean exactly the same thing.
36:52
SPEAKER_15: It makes sense because that's what most people, all of us ethnic minorities, used to say.
36:58
SPEAKER_15: And because of my age, which is getting up there these days, but let's not talk about that, I call myself British.
37:04
SPEAKER_15: That's the culture I grew up in, and it wasn't a big deal then.
37:08
SPEAKER_15: Frank Bruno was English, and the rest of us called ourselves British, and no one cared.
37:12
SPEAKER_15: These days, race in Britain is far more problematic.
37:16
SPEAKER_15: And it's sad, if you ask me.
37:19
SPEAKER_15: The only reason this conversation even exists is because we have the term British in the first place.
37:25
SPEAKER_15: Britain is weird.
37:27
SPEAKER_15: We have four nations: Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, all part of one country, the United Kingdom.
37:34
SPEAKER_15: And on top of that, the United Kingdom once had the largest empire in the world with the British flag flying over a quarter of the globe.
37:42
SPEAKER_15: So you have a bunch of other countries where they've felt a British connection without being specifically Scottish, English, Welsh, or Irish.
37:51
SPEAKER_15: And if we were in America, it wouldn't be a debate.
37:53
SPEAKER_15: Kisson's children would just be American.
37:56
SPEAKER_15: So would Nelson's.
37:57
SPEAKER_15: If we were in France, same thing.
37:59
SPEAKER_15: Their children would be French.
38:00
SPEAKER_15: Why?
38:01
SPEAKER_15: Because that's the only term that makes sense in those countries for immigrants or their descendants if we want them to belong to their country.
38:11
SPEAKER_15: In Britain, we have the option of calling ourselves either British or English.
38:16
SPEAKER_15: And that's where the disagreements then distract us from what really matters.
38:21
SPEAKER_15: Ironically, the whole conversation, I think it's a red herring.
38:25
SPEAKER_15: The media loves the question: are you English or are you British?
38:28
SPEAKER_15: This misses the more obvious problem.
38:31
SPEAKER_15: Do our children, whatever their race or religion, feel attachment to the country at all?
38:39
SPEAKER_15: Most of our children are taught not to like the country.
38:42
SPEAKER_15: They don't like Englishness or Britishness.
38:45
SPEAKER_15: It isn't just ethnic minorities who we explicitly tell to only celebrate their minority heritage and identity.
38:51
SPEAKER_15: It's also about white British children too.
38:54
SPEAKER_15: We tell them how awful the country has been, and, like those teachers in that video, how racist it is still today.
39:01
SPEAKER_15: Here's one news report from recent polling.
39:04
SPEAKER_15: Among under-25s, net pride in British history fell from 54% in 2011 to negative 4% in 2026.
39:13
SPEAKER_15: Something has changed.
39:15
SPEAKER_15: And it isn't about whether we say English or British.
39:19
SPEAKER_15: It's whether our younger generation like either of those things.
39:24
SPEAKER_15: Here's another.
39:30
SPEAKER_15: What was it 20 years ago?
39:32
SPEAKER_15: 80%.
39:34
SPEAKER_15: 80% dropping to 40%.
39:36
SPEAKER_15: So how has that happened?
39:37
SPEAKER_15: Well, remember those white privilege lessons we saw earlier?
39:41
SPEAKER_15: Let me tell you, that's the tip of the iceberg.
39:44
SPEAKER_15: Imagine that stuff for 13 years in school, and this is what you'll get.
39:47
SPEAKER_15: White, brown, and black kids all feeling ashamed of the British identity.
39:52
SPEAKER_15: The truth is that the media classes spend a lot of time and energy having this explosive conversation.
39:58
SPEAKER_15: Are ethnic minorities English or are they British?
40:01
SPEAKER_15: This misses that in our schools we are uncomfortable with both.
40:05
SPEAKER_15: And if we want different races to be able to live together in harmony, then the reality is that we need a shared British civic identity because it's the only identity that can actually bind us together.
40:18
SPEAKER_15: So what do we do?
40:20
SPEAKER_15: I mean, are we pushing a sense of shared British identity?
40:23
SPEAKER_15: Are we giving children something unifying for all of us?
40:27
SPEAKER_15: No.
40:28
SPEAKER_15: The British flag is treated with suspicion.
40:30
SPEAKER_15: Here's an example.
40:32
SPEAKER_15: Last year, a primary school had a culture day dedicated to celebrating the rich cultural heritage within our school community.
40:39
SPEAKER_15: And your attire must reflect your nationality or family heritage.
40:44
SPEAKER_15: When one girl who was white turned up looking like this, she was sent home because it was considered offensive.
40:50
SPEAKER_15: The point is not just how awful that poor 12-year-old girl must have felt.
40:55
SPEAKER_15: The point is that this shows what our schools think of British identity.
40:59
SPEAKER_15: They think it's a problem when it isn't.
41:02
SPEAKER_15: It's the solution.
41:03
SPEAKER_15: All children and all people want to belong.
41:05
SPEAKER_15: If you tell them to belong to somewhere else, they will.
41:08
SPEAKER_15: If you tell British children that Britain is a bad place, they will want to identify with somewhere and something else.
41:15
SPEAKER_15: That's exactly what we've been doing for years.
41:18
SPEAKER_15: And what gets missed in all this?
41:20
SPEAKER_15: Well, the question we started with right at the beginning.
41:23
SPEAKER_15: What should we be saying to our children to help them belong, be respectful, and contribute?
41:29
SPEAKER_15: So if you read my book, Diversity is not our strength, you'll find out all about that.
41:33
SPEAKER_15: It comes out on November the 12th.
41:34
SPEAKER_15: And one of the things I talk about is what it is to be British.
41:38
SPEAKER_15: Because it's true that democracy, equality, you know, rule of law, and all that.
41:44
SPEAKER_15: There's a lot more to Britain than all that.
41:46
SPEAKER_15: Until next time, thanks for listening to Strictly Education.
41:53
SPEAKER_15: Now I get to answer a few questions from all of you.
41:55
SPEAKER_15: If you have a question you'd like answered, put it in the comments below.
41:58
SPEAKER_15: And subscribe, of course, to the channel while you're there.
42:01
SPEAKER_15: You can also find me on X at Miss underscore Snuffy.
42:06
SPEAKER_15: Okay, so question number one: Koenick asks, Katherine, I have a two and a half year old and he's really struggling with nursery drop-off.
42:13
SPEAKER_15: He's crying every day and it's devastating for me.
42:16
SPEAKER_15: Any tips, please?
42:17
SPEAKER_15: Just keep going, you know?
42:19
SPEAKER_15: He'll he'll stop crying eventually.
42:21
SPEAKER_15: He will.
42:22
SPEAKER_15: And don't be so devastated.
42:23
SPEAKER_15: It's okay.
42:24
SPEAKER_15: Children cry.
42:25
SPEAKER_15: It's fine.
42:26
SPEAKER_15: It means he loves you.
42:27
SPEAKER_15: Soon you're gonna be crying because he's not crying when you drop him off.
42:31
SPEAKER_15: So enjoy it while it lasts.
42:33
SPEAKER_15: Okay, second question.
42:34
SPEAKER_15: Petit asks, what are your thoughts on teacher workload and the retention crisis in teaching in Britain?
42:41
SPEAKER_15: Yeah, well, I mean, in any Western country, frankly, there is always a teacher workload problem and a teacher retention crisis.
42:47
SPEAKER_15: And that is because we get everything wrong.
42:49
SPEAKER_15: We don't prioritize behavior in our schools.
42:52
SPEAKER_15: And I'm known as the strictest headmistress precisely because I care about behavior and getting it to be top-notch.
42:58
SPEAKER_15: And that reduces teacher workload by 50% or more.
43:03
SPEAKER_15: Because most of the time, teachers are running around about ringing parents, giving out loads of detentions.
43:09
SPEAKER_15: It's all just a complete nightmare.
43:10
SPEAKER_15: If you get the kids behaving, teacher workload reduces.
43:14
SPEAKER_15: Um, and also teachers stay in the profession, frankly.
43:17
SPEAKER_15: I mean, most teachers leave education because um the the the behavior is just so awful.
43:23
SPEAKER_15: I mean, who wants to go to work every day and be told to F off?
43:25
SPEAKER_15: I mean, that's a nightmare.
43:26
SPEAKER_15: So obviously they leave.
43:28
SPEAKER_15: Or it's the workload.
43:29
SPEAKER_15: So it's those two things it's behavior and workload.
43:31
SPEAKER_15: You you deal with the behavior, you reduce the workload, and you keep teachers in the profession.
43:36
SPEAKER_15: So that's my solution.
43:38
SPEAKER_15: Everybody should just be more strict.
43:39
SPEAKER_15: And the last question is from Alessandra, who asks, I'm a parent of two young boys and I would like to become an English teacher.
43:46
SPEAKER_15: I'm an Italian listener.
43:47
SPEAKER_15: Oh, hello, Italians out there who are listening to Strictly Education.
43:52
SPEAKER_15: Are there any books you would recommend to become a better teacher?
43:55
SPEAKER_15: Okay, so the books I she says, um, the books I normally find about raising kids are full of victim ideology.
44:02
SPEAKER_15: How funny that, and harmful pop psychology.
44:05
SPEAKER_15: Thank you for your example and wisdom.
44:07
SPEAKER_15: Well, thank you, Alessandra, and thank you for your interest.
44:10
SPEAKER_15: So, yes, um, books recommended uh to become a better teacher.
44:14
SPEAKER_15: So, one book is from someone I know, Daisy Christadulu.
44:17
SPEAKER_15: She has a book called Seven Myths About Education, which is great.
44:21
SPEAKER_15: That's really well worth reading.
44:23
SPEAKER_15: Uh, also, a lot of people talk about Edie Hirsch, who's American.
44:26
SPEAKER_15: Uh, he has lots of books about how knowledge is um is what we should be teaching our children.
44:31
SPEAKER_15: That might seem odd, but uh when you read, so his first one of the books I would start you off on is the schools we need and why we don't have them.
44:39
SPEAKER_15: Um why knowledge matters, you could also do you do.
44:43
SPEAKER_15: Um I mean, he's got a number.
44:44
SPEAKER_15: Try those two.
44:45
SPEAKER_15: And then uh there's Dan Willingham.
44:47
SPEAKER_15: He's also written a book called Why Students Don't Like School.
44:50
SPEAKER_15: All of these are really looking at the idea of prioritizing knowledge in the classroom.
44:54
SPEAKER_15: Uh here in Britain, we have um someone, again, who I know called Tom Bennett.
44:59
SPEAKER_15: Uh, he writes books about behavior, which will help you with behavior management, which is great.
45:03
SPEAKER_15: On the values that we should be teaching our children, I have to say I don't think there is much out there.
45:07
SPEAKER_15: But you have strictly education, and at strictly education, we talk about values and we will keep on talking about values, and um you will learn a lot here as a teacher.
45:17
SPEAKER_15: So I hope when I'm talking to all my teacher viewers out there, keep on listening.
45:23
SPEAKER_15: Um over a long time, I think, but it it'll be a while, but you keep watching those values, you'll you'll come to understand them bit by bit.
45:31
SPEAKER_15: All right.
45:32
SPEAKER_15: Well, that's all we have time for today.
45:33
SPEAKER_15: I've got a school to run, you've got things to do.
45:36
SPEAKER_15: Until next time on Strictly Education, hold the line, strength and honor.
45:40
SPEAKER_15: Thanks for stopping by.