Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / When Schools Get Culture Right, Everything Changes - with Adam Voigt

Transcript

When Schools Get Culture Right, Everything Changes - with Adam Voigt · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:00
Speaker 1: Adam Vot is a repeat visitor to the Happy Families podcast.
0:04
Speaker 1: Why because he's one of the most sensible, one of
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Speaker 1: the most interesting, and one of the most pragmatic voices
0:10
Speaker 1: when it comes to how we engage with schools as
0:14
Speaker 1: parents in Australia. If you are a parent or a teacher,
0:18
Speaker 1: this is one of those must listen interviews. Stay with us,
0:27
Speaker 1: good day and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real
0:29
Speaker 1: Parenting Solutions every Day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
0:32
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Justin Coulson and I'm absolutely wrapped
0:35
Speaker 1: to have the CEO and founder of Real Schools operating
0:39
Speaker 1: in more than three hundred schools around the country. Now,
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Speaker 1: Adam vod with me to talk about the things that
0:44
Speaker 1: apply to us as parents, but also the stuff that
0:46
Speaker 1: affects teachers. We're going to be talking about phone bands
0:48
Speaker 1: in schools, overt sexual behavior in schools, teacher burnout, and
0:53
Speaker 1: also a new book that he's got out that is
0:55
Speaker 1: available for every teacher in the country. I think you're
0:57
Speaker 1: going to want to listen to this conversation. There's so
0:59
Speaker 1: much good stuff to discuss. Adam, Thanks for being with me.
1:02
Speaker 2: My pleasure, Chastam, we have an injury like that, mate,
1:04
Speaker 2: I'm happy to talk for hours.
1:06
Speaker 3: I'll try and keep it.
1:07
Speaker 1: Sure, you're a tvcifer, stay, You've been on all of
1:09
Speaker 1: the big shows, and people keep on ringing you because
1:11
Speaker 1: you've got so many sensible things to say. Let's start
1:14
Speaker 1: with what I think is probably a bit of a
1:15
Speaker 1: softball one, but it's worthy of conversation because not every
1:17
Speaker 1: school system is on board yet, but essentially state run schools,
1:23
Speaker 1: government run schools around the country have unanimously over the
1:26
Speaker 1: last year or two gotten on board with banning telephones
1:30
Speaker 1: in school settings. So from nine to three, no telephones
1:35
Speaker 1: if you're at school in a public system. What have
1:38
Speaker 1: you seen in terms of the results around this.
1:41
Speaker 2: First of all, the results are undoubtedly a win. So
1:45
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that it's one hundred percent win, and
1:46
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that it's without problem being able to
1:50
Speaker 2: tackle something like this. But when you consider where we
1:52
Speaker 2: came from, but almost universally across the country, we thought
1:56
Speaker 2: it was impossible to.
1:57
Speaker 3: Ban mobile phones.
1:58
Speaker 2: I actually write an article that was published in the
2:00
Speaker 2: Age about six years ago where I said, I think
2:02
Speaker 2: that we just have to accept that every kid's going
2:04
Speaker 2: to walk around with technology in their pocket, And then
2:07
Speaker 2: had to write another one about twelve months ago where
2:09
Speaker 2: I confessed my wrongness, where I had to say that
2:14
Speaker 2: this is actually the evidence is it's just having too
2:17
Speaker 2: much negative impact on our young people. The evidence is
2:20
Speaker 2: that they need a break and that school is a
2:23
Speaker 2: great time to be able to get that break. So
2:26
Speaker 2: the challenge is how do we do it? And I
2:28
Speaker 2: think if we looked at the spectrum of where it's
2:31
Speaker 2: worked and where it hasn't.
2:32
Speaker 3: We would see that there are schools that it's worked.
2:35
Speaker 2: Okay, there's a handful of schools where it hasn't worked,
2:39
Speaker 2: and there are schools where it's worked exceedingly well and
2:44
Speaker 2: exceedingly well in terms of it being reported positively by
2:49
Speaker 2: all stakeholders, especially the kids. And so you know, when
2:53
Speaker 2: I look at schools that have done this really well,
2:55
Speaker 2: I think about one of our partner schools in Western
2:58
Speaker 2: Sydney whose principal really clever guy. And when the directive
3:03
Speaker 2: came through, because that's how it landed, we will ban
3:05
Speaker 2: mobile phones. His first step was to bring in his
3:08
Speaker 2: student leaders and he asked them to all bring a
3:11
Speaker 2: friend who they considered to be one of the cool kids.
3:14
Speaker 2: And he told this group of kids in his office,
3:17
Speaker 2: none of the communication around this mobile phone band which
3:21
Speaker 2: we have to do, none of it is going to
3:23
Speaker 2: come from me or from our staff.
3:25
Speaker 3: It's all coming from you guys.
3:28
Speaker 2: So you tell me how do we get this done
3:30
Speaker 2: with parents, with staff, and with kids in a way
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Speaker 2: that has us all feel like we've got ownership of it.
3:37
Speaker 2: And he's one school. That's one school that I would
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Speaker 2: say is like at the very pointy end of schools
3:42
Speaker 2: where this has worked well and where his students are saying,
3:45
Speaker 2: we love it.
3:47
Speaker 1: That's such a great story. I love the student led
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Speaker 1: empowerment there. Adam, My read of whatever research has been
3:54
Speaker 1: released indicates that there's been a seeming reduction in bullying.
3:59
Speaker 1: There's more more high quality concentration happening, and better learning
4:03
Speaker 1: happening in classrooms. Academic achievement appears to be on the up.
4:07
Speaker 1: All of these things are being pushed onto this school band.
4:10
Speaker 1: What else have you seen in the data? And is
4:12
Speaker 1: there anything that's sort of really worth celebrating across the
4:16
Speaker 1: board even though it's not a resounding success everywhere.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the thing that's worth celebrating is the
4:21
Speaker 2: first steps. So I don't think we should think that
4:23
Speaker 2: this is going to dramatically improve naplan or ATR results
4:27
Speaker 2: or anything like that. But I think that what we
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Speaker 2: can do is say that we can have real confidence
4:31
Speaker 2: given the research. Why people are Jonathan Hyde and Sherry
4:34
Speaker 2: Turkle and Genequenji and people who have all been saying
4:37
Speaker 2: for years that this is actually changing young people in
4:39
Speaker 2: the wrong direction. That I think what we should be
4:41
Speaker 2: excited about is what happens to the students who say,
4:44
Speaker 2: in year seven now and when they get the next
4:48
Speaker 2: six years of practice being in the company of other
4:52
Speaker 2: people face to place, rather than staring downwardly at a phone,
4:56
Speaker 2: when they have postures in their life that they practice
4:59
Speaker 2: that don't look miserable. If you think about the way
5:00
Speaker 2: we look justin when we look at a phone, we
5:03
Speaker 2: actually strike a pose of kind of putting our chin
5:06
Speaker 2: down to our chest, which is the pose you make
5:10
Speaker 2: with your body when you're miserable, when you're sad. But
5:13
Speaker 2: when you think about what you look like when you're
5:14
Speaker 2: actually talking to another person, we take a more happy
5:17
Speaker 2: disposition when we're doing that. And so I think there's
5:20
Speaker 2: incredibly while yes, I think we're seeing some green shoots now,
5:24
Speaker 2: which we should be happy about. I think what we
5:26
Speaker 2: should be happy about is the kind of young people
5:29
Speaker 2: that will develop in six years time if they get
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Speaker 2: all the practice they need about being in that awkward
5:34
Speaker 2: argie bargie sometimes uncomfortable, often happy conversation space with other people,
5:40
Speaker 2: the kind of young people they'll turn into, which is
5:43
Speaker 2: that's what I'm more excited about.
5:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I want to pick up on
5:46
Speaker 1: another tech issue here. In fact, there's a couple of
5:48
Speaker 1: different places we could go, but I want to talk
5:50
Speaker 1: about sexualized behavior in schools. This is in the news
5:53
Speaker 1: every other day. It's kids from let's say grade six
5:57
Speaker 1: through usually to about grade ten, and it's unfortunately almost
6:02
Speaker 1: always boys. Collective Shout and Advocate Organization for Women and
6:07
Speaker 1: Girls released a report recently called the Sexual Harassment of
6:11
Speaker 1: Teachers Report. Teachers across the country are saying that they're
6:14
Speaker 1: being subjects to explicit and inappropriate comments and groans and
6:20
Speaker 1: moans from boys as young as grade four and grade five.
6:24
Speaker 1: We're seeing stories constantly about grade five, grade six, grade
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Speaker 1: seven boys, eight and grade nine boys who are setting
6:31
Speaker 1: up chats and they're sharing racist and misogynist and anti
6:35
Speaker 1: semitic memes, and sharing child abuse material and hardcore pornography.
6:40
Speaker 1: I mean, the stuff is it's toe curling, it's breath taking,
6:44
Speaker 1: that the world's gone this way and that our kids
6:47
Speaker 1: so young are being so affected by it. In terms
6:50
Speaker 1: of this sexualized behavior in school, what are you seeing? Firstly,
6:55
Speaker 1: to the degree that you're comfortable sharing, But secondly, and
6:57
Speaker 1: perhaps the bigger part of this question, what are we
7:01
Speaker 1: supposed to do about it?
7:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that's that's second part of it is probably
7:07
Speaker 2: the big question, because I think, like you justin I'm
7:09
Speaker 2: seeing I'm seeing big problems, and I worry not only
7:13
Speaker 2: like you said, boys are overrepresented in this data, and
7:17
Speaker 2: also boys who you know, the boys that are not
7:19
Speaker 2: they're not They're not just our kids who typically struggle
7:21
Speaker 2: at school.
7:22
Speaker 3: There are our kids in those you know, what we.
7:24
Speaker 2: Might call exclusive or elite schools, you know, who have
7:27
Speaker 2: all the advantages but still falling for this kind of
7:32
Speaker 2: I guess moral decay in the way that they're in
7:36
Speaker 2: the way that they're being built. So I get concerned
7:38
Speaker 2: for them because I think, what kind of young man
7:40
Speaker 2: do you turn into? If you think early that that
7:44
Speaker 2: at a formative stage that that's okay, or that it's
7:47
Speaker 2: not only okay, but it's advantageous. And then I systemically,
7:51
Speaker 2: if we don't do some take some action on this,
7:55
Speaker 2: then I think that we put our workforce in schools
7:58
Speaker 2: at enormous risk. So we will already have a national
8:00
Speaker 2: teacher shortage crisis in the vicinity of thousands of teachers
8:04
Speaker 2: that were short to run the program. Seventy five percent
8:08
Speaker 2: of Australia's teachers are female. And if we create a
8:11
Speaker 2: situation where we're driving them out of the profession at
8:14
Speaker 2: a time that they have options, they can go and
8:17
Speaker 2: do something else, you know, where they're not going to
8:19
Speaker 2: be attacked by this.
8:20
Speaker 1: I've got to jump in on this for just a sec,
8:22
Speaker 1: just on that workforce issue. Writing this book about boys
8:24
Speaker 1: at the moment, and the latest start that I've seen
8:27
Speaker 1: coming out of the universities is that now for every
8:30
Speaker 1: ten girls who graduate with a degree in education, there
8:33
Speaker 1: are only between two and three boys men graduating with
8:38
Speaker 1: degrees in education. So the numbers are getting worse, not better.
8:41
Speaker 2: Yep, on both sides of the gender of the gender equation.
8:45
Speaker 2: Because the one thing about this kind of whether you
8:46
Speaker 2: call it toxic maxculinity or anything else, is that. What
8:49
Speaker 2: it does is it sexualizes the workforce. So it means
8:53
Speaker 2: that we see teaching as a female job. So our
8:56
Speaker 2: males don't want to get the barbs at the pub
8:58
Speaker 2: about you know, what, are you a kiddy? Or you know,
9:01
Speaker 2: when you're working with women all day and all that
9:04
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. They don't want to get that, so
9:05
Speaker 2: they're discouraged. But on the reality side of it, we
9:08
Speaker 2: can get women entering the workforce as teachers who very
9:12
Speaker 2: very quickly go hey, this isn't a workplace I'm safe in,
9:16
Speaker 2: This isn't a workplace that's good for me on out
9:19
Speaker 2: And so as parents, I think we're going to go, okay,
9:21
Speaker 2: ask your question justin what are.
9:22
Speaker 3: We going to do about it?
9:23
Speaker 2: You know, and which for me is about going all
9:26
Speaker 2: the way back to saying how do we raise better kids?
9:30
Speaker 2: How do we raise kids with this capability to understand
9:32
Speaker 2: that their behavior has impact positively and negatively on other people,
9:38
Speaker 2: which means building for them a healthier relationship with the
9:41
Speaker 2: shame of that comes when they do something wrong. So
9:44
Speaker 2: what we see in kids typically is is kids who
9:47
Speaker 2: respond four ways negatively when they do the wrong thing.
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Speaker 2: They often either attack other people, so they not my fault,
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Speaker 2: I blame someone else, They attack themselves. I think every
9:56
Speaker 2: teacher's heard a kids say I'm stupid. Way of making
10:00
Speaker 2: it static and they can't improve, Yes you can. We've
10:02
Speaker 2: got to hold that optimism for them. Sometimes they withdraw.
10:06
Speaker 2: So we see this in all the stakeholders in schools.
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Speaker 2: Every teacher's seen a kid who makes a mistake throws
10:11
Speaker 2: their book on the ground and storms out of the
10:12
Speaker 2: classroom because they just can't handle the shame of falling short.
10:16
Speaker 3: You know.
10:17
Speaker 2: But every teacher also was thought about chuck and asiki
10:19
Speaker 2: after a bad day, and a lot of parents have
10:22
Speaker 2: thought about not shown up for a parent teacher interview.
10:24
Speaker 3: Absolutely, in shame, we just go like a puff of smoke,
10:28
Speaker 3: We disappear.
10:30
Speaker 2: And there's this avoidant behavior which goes to this overly
10:32
Speaker 2: sexualized behavior that we're seeing in young people a lot
10:34
Speaker 2: of the time as well. They just don't want to
10:36
Speaker 2: feel the shame, so they do something else that kind
10:39
Speaker 2: of distracts them or numbs them from that feeling. They're
10:43
Speaker 2: all counterproductive. So what we need at a very early
10:47
Speaker 2: age is for young people to see and recognize that
10:50
Speaker 2: feeling of falling short, you know, either by their own
10:53
Speaker 2: doing or just for who they are, and to respond
10:56
Speaker 2: to it productively. So teaching young people to resolve the
10:59
Speaker 2: shame of all in short, rather than to do something
11:01
Speaker 2: negative with it. It's the long handser, but for me,
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Speaker 2: it's the only way we build kids who are capable
11:07
Speaker 2: of resisting the urges that they're currently falling for.
11:17
Speaker 1: Adam, let's switch this to teachers for a moment. For
11:20
Speaker 1: the last several years, there's been a lot of noise
11:22
Speaker 1: made about teacher burnout, more teachers wanted to leave the
11:24
Speaker 1: profession than ever before. I'm not seeing this receding in
11:27
Speaker 1: the data. I'm actually seeing it accelerating. Teachers being sexually harassed,
11:32
Speaker 1: teachers being exhausted, more demands being placed on teachers in
11:35
Speaker 1: terms of the system, the curriculum, the schools, and parents
11:38
Speaker 1: expecting more of them as well. Number one, what are
11:41
Speaker 1: you seeing? And again the follow up is how do
11:45
Speaker 1: we arrest this decline?
11:47
Speaker 2: Really interesting when you look at the teacher well being
11:49
Speaker 2: data out that's out there that there's nothing all that
11:53
Speaker 2: new in it. We've known for probably twenty years or so.
11:58
Speaker 2: The top three it begins pacts on teachers. Number one
12:02
Speaker 2: is student behavior, so how they can handle young people
12:05
Speaker 2: who are changing and their strategies aren't working anymore. The
12:08
Speaker 2: second one is workload. We made teaching so much about
12:11
Speaker 2: compliance and less about actually just creating a young environment
12:14
Speaker 2: where young people grow. We've even't teachers no time to
12:17
Speaker 2: just talk to and get to know their students. And
12:19
Speaker 2: then the third thing that stresses them is issues with parents,
12:24
Speaker 2: and it's driving them out of the profession. Teacher's got
12:27
Speaker 2: a brief window at the start of COVID where, due
12:30
Speaker 2: to lockdown's parents were going, oh my goodness, I didn't
12:33
Speaker 2: know teaching was this hard. I really appreciate the teachers,
12:36
Speaker 2: but when the kids went back to school, it got worse.
12:38
Speaker 2: So it's like we PopEd that bruise, and that worries me. Well,
12:42
Speaker 2: worries me just as much now is that. I had
12:45
Speaker 2: a conversation with the politician recently. You said, I just
12:48
Speaker 2: think that when it comes to solving the teacher shortage crisis,
12:51
Speaker 2: we're probably going to have to.
12:52
Speaker 3: Rely on AI.
12:54
Speaker 2: And for me, removing the social realm from what we
12:58
Speaker 2: view quality learning to should be something that frightens everyone
13:02
Speaker 2: with a kid. So we need to actually take on
13:07
Speaker 2: this monumental task. And we talked about mobile phone bands.
13:10
Speaker 2: We can do monumental tasks. We need to take on
13:14
Speaker 2: this monumental task. Say, how do we create an environment
13:17
Speaker 2: where we value education in our country for our kids,
13:21
Speaker 2: not just my kid? How do we take the competitive
13:24
Speaker 2: nature out of it? How do we get it focused
13:27
Speaker 2: on building good young people for the community, and thereby,
13:30
Speaker 2: how do we make it a job that is aspirational
13:34
Speaker 2: to young people in is ten or eleven and twelve
13:37
Speaker 2: who are making decisions about what they want to do
13:39
Speaker 2: at YUNI.
13:40
Speaker 1: So I'm serving you up an opportunity to plug what
13:42
Speaker 1: you do at real schools on a platter. Here it's
13:45
Speaker 1: an unscripted, unplanned question. But as I'm listening to what
13:47
Speaker 1: you're saying, so much of this feels like it comes
13:50
Speaker 1: down to culture, and culture really does come from the top.
13:52
Speaker 1: It comes from the leadership. Your work is all about
13:54
Speaker 1: changing culture. It's all about leadership. Do you see the
13:57
Speaker 1: same levels of staff attrition, same levels of b and out,
14:00
Speaker 1: the same stresses in teachers who are working on culture
14:05
Speaker 1: through the work that you do, all the work that
14:06
Speaker 1: others do in terms of building stronger cultures and making
14:09
Speaker 1: schools feel safer and better for people.
14:12
Speaker 3: Almost a silly answer, nap.
14:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, the schools that do the culture piece right get
14:19
Speaker 2: benefits for all three stay colder groups. So we've got
14:23
Speaker 2: a school that we work with, Clarence High School, don't
14:25
Speaker 2: mind mentioning them in Tasmania, and they've been working with
14:28
Speaker 2: us for about eighteen months now, so they have not
14:31
Speaker 2: they had an issue around they wanted to work on
14:33
Speaker 2: student engagement. One of the outputs that they thought they
14:36
Speaker 2: could get around it was improved student conduct and behavior
14:38
Speaker 2: in the school and they thought that one of the
14:40
Speaker 2: measures of that could be their student suspension data. Now
14:44
Speaker 2: they've done nothing about changing the threshold for suspension in
14:48
Speaker 2: that school, so the kind of a watermark for what's
14:51
Speaker 2: a suspendable offense in the school has not changed. But
14:54
Speaker 2: eighteen months down the track, sixty percent drop in suspensions, right,
14:59
Speaker 2: So this is a clear indication that they haven't made
15:03
Speaker 2: it harder to suspend. They have a sixty percent better
15:06
Speaker 2: behaved student cohort because they said it's time to work
15:09
Speaker 2: on the culture and to actually think about the way
15:12
Speaker 2: that we're interacting with young people and working with parents
15:14
Speaker 2: to try and get somewhere on it. Then I think
15:16
Speaker 2: about a school that we've got a new South Wales
15:18
Speaker 2: called Bermer Public School, so primary school, and the work
15:22
Speaker 2: that's been done there on building a culture that benefits
15:25
Speaker 2: the teachers is outstanding in this school. So they now
15:31
Speaker 2: have a situation where the National School Improvement Partnerships and
15:35
Speaker 2: Curtin University researched and studied the school and the data
15:39
Speaker 2: that came back to them about how eighty seven percent,
15:42
Speaker 2: ninety seven percent, one hundred percent of the staff making
15:46
Speaker 2: statements about the fact that they feel safe, nurtured, comfortable
15:49
Speaker 2: at the school that they have no intention to leave
15:52
Speaker 2: the school. Now comparative to the profession as a whole,
15:57
Speaker 2: anything that is above ninety percent, and typically for that
16:01
Speaker 2: is so far above the standard curve, it's ridiculous. You know,
16:06
Speaker 2: they're not hunting around for teachers. They've got teachers.
16:09
Speaker 3: Ringing up and saying can we come and.
16:11
Speaker 2: Work at this school because you know, we've heard the stories,
16:13
Speaker 2: this is a productive place to work. At the same time,
16:18
Speaker 2: their NAP plan results are through the roof. You know,
16:21
Speaker 2: their parents satisfaction data is amazing and their kids but
16:26
Speaker 2: when surveyed are telling us that the number one thing
16:29
Speaker 2: that they value about this school is rule clarity. So
16:33
Speaker 2: this isn't This is a school that basically said, forget
16:35
Speaker 2: the lists of rules, forget the control stuff. This is
16:39
Speaker 2: a school that said, let's create an environment where kids
16:41
Speaker 2: innate goodness can kind of come out of them.
16:44
Speaker 3: And it does.
16:46
Speaker 2: And so this system of control and prevention that we're
16:51
Speaker 2: constantly asking teachers to take on. You know, when I
16:55
Speaker 2: saw another statement of the paper the other day from
16:57
Speaker 2: politicians saying it's time for us to crack down and
17:00
Speaker 2: claim the classroom, I.
17:01
Speaker 3: Was like, it's going on here.
17:04
Speaker 2: You know what, are we some tyrannical leader of a
17:08
Speaker 2: authoritarian leader of a country trying to take territory off
17:11
Speaker 2: an enemy.
17:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, one.
17:14
Speaker 2: We need to reclaim the way we work, not the ground.
17:17
Speaker 2: You know, work the right way. All benefit, all stakeholders
17:20
Speaker 2: will benefit. We've got to support teachers to find that
17:23
Speaker 2: way working.
17:24
Speaker 1: So when you say this, here's what I'm hearing. You
17:26
Speaker 1: said that the three biggest challenges that have been consistently
17:29
Speaker 1: showing up for the two decades student behavior, workload and parents,
17:33
Speaker 1: and by working on culture, students start to behave better,
17:36
Speaker 1: which is it's not going to get rid of all
17:38
Speaker 1: workload issues, but it's going to free up more capacity
17:41
Speaker 1: so that you can do the work that needs to
17:42
Speaker 1: be done. And parents aren't going to be on your back.
17:44
Speaker 1: Why because the kids are actually having a good time
17:45
Speaker 1: at school. They're glad to be there. So by working
17:48
Speaker 1: on culture, you get a positive outcome. And yet it's
17:51
Speaker 1: just so hard to shift culture for so many.
17:53
Speaker 2: Schools because I guess they don't realize. First one, they
17:58
Speaker 2: don't know how what culture is. So when they know,
18:01
Speaker 2: I asked school leg I ask a room full of
18:03
Speaker 2: five hundred principles, you know, who thinks the culture of
18:05
Speaker 2: their school is important?
18:05
Speaker 3: Everyone puts their hand up.
18:07
Speaker 2: And then I'll say, put your hand up if you'd
18:08
Speaker 2: like to come out in the stage with me and
18:10
Speaker 2: tell everyone what school culture is.
18:12
Speaker 3: And so a lot of go down.
18:16
Speaker 2: So we've got to get clear on what it is,
18:18
Speaker 2: you know, and we just call it a we just
18:19
Speaker 2: call it a collective now for behaviors.
18:21
Speaker 1: I just keep on coming back to this idea of culture.
18:23
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole conversation really is centered around creating culture,
18:26
Speaker 1: whether it's around technology, whether it's around sexualized behavior, whether
18:29
Speaker 1: it's around teachers feeling good or feeling burned out, and
18:32
Speaker 1: even dealing with parents who can sometimes be pretty demanding
18:36
Speaker 1: and add a lot of pressure to the lives of
18:38
Speaker 1: teachers and principles. Let's wrap this up with your treatise
18:43
Speaker 1: on culture. The new book is called Restoring Teaching, How
18:46
Speaker 1: working restoratively unleashes the teacher within Adam. You've generously made
18:51
Speaker 1: an offer to every teacher in Australia. Walk us through
18:54
Speaker 1: the offer about the book and how it can help them.
18:58
Speaker 2: So it's a second edition of something that I wrote
19:00
Speaker 2: a few years ago. We've definitely upgraded and updated it
19:03
Speaker 2: to reflect some of these modern challenges that teachers are
19:06
Speaker 2: facing at the moment.
19:07
Speaker 3: We've given it a lay to ten thousand teachers.
19:10
Speaker 2: And at the moment you can get a print copy
19:13
Speaker 2: at cost for us. But there's also an audiobook and
19:16
Speaker 2: there's nothing weird a justin I don't know if you've
19:17
Speaker 2: done this then, sitting in a booth and reading your
19:19
Speaker 2: own book for three.
19:20
Speaker 3: Days and nine times. I've done it nine times.
19:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you find all the typos that you were
19:25
Speaker 1: convinced weren't there.
19:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's an audio book on audiobook and e
19:30
Speaker 2: book available completely for free online for any teacher who
19:34
Speaker 2: wants to read it. We've got Our mission as an
19:37
Speaker 2: organization at real schools is to transform education in Australia,
19:41
Speaker 2: which means that we need to be there for any
19:43
Speaker 2: teacher and this is our way of being there for
19:46
Speaker 2: them without.
19:46
Speaker 3: Them having to put their hands in the pocket.
19:48
Speaker 2: And I get emails all the time from teachers who
19:51
Speaker 2: say that one a had recently the teacher who told
19:54
Speaker 2: me that reading it kept during the profession, and.
19:58
Speaker 3: I'll take that. So the big aim of the book.
19:59
Speaker 2: Is to to teach teachers this restorative way of working.
20:04
Speaker 2: And then the second big aime of the book is
20:06
Speaker 2: to restore the respect that we have for the teaching
20:08
Speaker 2: profession through giving teachers access to exemplary practice.
20:12
Speaker 1: Okay, and if parents want to have a look at
20:14
Speaker 1: it because they're fascinated by the idea of a sortive
20:16
Speaker 1: practice or what you're talking about, it's available on your website.
20:18
Speaker 1: So we'll link to that in the show notes and
20:20
Speaker 1: hopefully some teachers can take advantage of what I think
20:22
Speaker 1: is an extraordinarily generous offering. I wish, I wish I
20:25
Speaker 1: could give my book away to every parent in the country. Unfortunately,
20:29
Speaker 1: my publisher would not.
20:31
Speaker 3: Want of the joys it.
20:33
Speaker 2: I'm one of the joys of going self published on
20:34
Speaker 2: something like that, Justin is that we get to we
20:36
Speaker 2: get to make these kinds of decisions. So yeah, and
20:40
Speaker 2: it's really important to us. And so for any parent
20:42
Speaker 2: out there who might be interested, they can feel very
20:45
Speaker 2: free to go and get themselves a free copy and
20:49
Speaker 2: to even drop it into at their local school and
20:51
Speaker 2: ask if they'd like to have a look.
20:53
Speaker 3: That's a great way for a parent to be generous. Adam.
20:55
Speaker 1: Every time we talk, I walk away feeling real short
20:58
Speaker 1: and hopeful about what education can be and how things
21:01
Speaker 1: can work out really well in schools. It's such a
21:04
Speaker 1: mixed bag in some ways. It just feels like a lottery,
21:07
Speaker 1: a principal lottery, a teacher lottery on a day to day, months, month,
21:10
Speaker 1: and certainly a year to year basis for so many families.
21:13
Speaker 1: And I feel as if you bring a lot of
21:14
Speaker 1: sense and sensibility to what is often considered the impossible profession.
21:19
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for the chat, my pleasure, Thank you
21:22
Speaker 3: very much.
21:23
Speaker 1: Adam Voyd is the founder and CEO of Real Schools
21:26
Speaker 1: and the author of Restoring teaching. Like I said, we
21:29
Speaker 1: will link to that in the show notes. I always
21:31
Speaker 1: find these conversations so valuable and so helpful. The Happy
21:34
Speaker 1: Families podcast is produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media.
21:37
Speaker 1: Like I said, check the show notes for everything we've
21:39
Speaker 1: talked about in relation to Adam and his work. If
21:42
Speaker 1: you'd like more info about making your family happy, I
21:43
Speaker 1: have visitors at happyfamilies dot com, dot a u