Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #59 Prep Kids Suspended

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#59 Prep Kids Suspended · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: This is the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Kilson.
0:07
Speaker 1: We're Luck and Susie, our husband and wife radio team
0:10
Speaker 1: with three young boys. This is the podcast for the time,
0:12
Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants the answers now.
0:15
Speaker 2: So just One of the things that he's been talking
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Speaker 2: about recently is about prep kids. Aren't they cute, Susan, beautiful?
0:22
Speaker 2: They're the most lovely and adorable little children.
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Speaker 1: Though, so cute in their little uniforms.
0:26
Speaker 2: Yes, but apparently they're little monsters. More prep kids being
0:30
Speaker 2: suspended now than in previous Occasionally, this behavior seems to
0:35
Speaker 2: be getting worse. From Happy Families dot com dot au.
0:39
Speaker 2: He is the man behind twenty one Days to a
0:41
Speaker 2: Happier Family, Doctor Justin Kilson, Hello, how.
0:43
Speaker 3: Are you good?
0:44
Speaker 2: I'm super and you yeah, Well, we're very scared about
0:47
Speaker 2: prep kids. What is going on?
0:49
Speaker 4: Well, look, I think this is pretty scary. In Queensland,
0:53
Speaker 4: suspensions of prep students have gone up one hundred and
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Speaker 4: thirty percent in just five years. And we're not off
1:00
Speaker 4: the lowest of baselines either, I should say, because well, look,
1:04
Speaker 4: kids are kids are crumbling when they get to school.
1:07
Speaker 4: They're they're Some people are saying that they're too soft
1:10
Speaker 4: these days, that they've been molly coddle, that they've been
1:12
Speaker 4: bubble wrapped, that they've been spoon fed, And the numbers
1:16
Speaker 4: are pretty amazing to have to listen to this. Prep
1:18
Speaker 4: suspensions leapt from three hundred and seventy nine in twenty ten.
1:22
Speaker 4: Now you think about it, across all of Queensland, prep
1:25
Speaker 4: is like four and a half to five years old. Thereabouts.
1:29
Speaker 4: Nearly four hundred kids in twenty ten were suspended at
1:33
Speaker 4: the age of four. Yeah, I mean, what does a
1:37
Speaker 4: four year old do or maybe a five year old
1:39
Speaker 4: do to get suspended? They went up to five hundred
1:41
Speaker 4: and seventy two and twenty thirteen, and last year eight
1:45
Speaker 4: hundred and seventy three kids across Queensland have been have
1:50
Speaker 4: been suspended, and in almost every case it's because it's
1:56
Speaker 4: they're being told that they've been behaving inappropriately. So they've
1:59
Speaker 4: been aggressive, they've been bullying, they've been treating others poorly,
2:04
Speaker 4: they've been refusing to do what the teacher asked them
2:06
Speaker 4: to do and really acting out and so the schools
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Speaker 4: are sort of saying, well, we've worked with this family,
2:11
Speaker 4: we've worked with these kids.
2:12
Speaker 3: It's not working they're out.
2:14
Speaker 2: Is it possible, though, because I mean I can see
2:17
Speaker 2: a case where maybe the kids are behaving worse. Is
2:19
Speaker 2: it possible that maybe the schools have made a determining
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Speaker 2: factor to say this is a non compulsory year, this
2:24
Speaker 2: is the first year. It's where we get to draw
2:26
Speaker 2: a line in the sand and teach kids and families
2:30
Speaker 2: about what to expect in the years ago. I do
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Speaker 2: it in prep. Don't wait till grade one, two and
2:34
Speaker 2: three have to do this.
2:36
Speaker 4: I work with school teachers and school principles all around
2:38
Speaker 4: the country all the time, and I don't get that feeling.
2:41
Speaker 4: I don't hear primary school principles and primary school teachers
2:44
Speaker 4: saying we've got to teach them early.
2:46
Speaker 3: We've got a disciplee them hard.
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Speaker 4: I mean, usually there's a great deal of compassion, there's
2:50
Speaker 4: tremendous care and concern. In some cases, perhaps there are
2:55
Speaker 4: some who might be saying that, and look, I think
2:57
Speaker 4: that there is an argument for suspension at any age group.
3:01
Speaker 4: I'm not big on punishment, you know that. I'm begon teaching.
3:04
Speaker 4: I don't think we need to hurt our kids to
3:06
Speaker 4: make them better. I think we need to help them
3:09
Speaker 4: so that they can be better. And when I talk
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Speaker 4: with sorry, and when it comes to suspensions, if there
3:16
Speaker 4: are people who are at risk, if there are other
3:18
Speaker 4: students who are at risk and safety is a concern,
3:22
Speaker 4: or if we're trying to help the person be better
3:24
Speaker 4: and nothing else is working, then maybe in some cases
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Speaker 4: a suspension or an expulsion is appropriate. But we're not
3:29
Speaker 4: talking about this with four and five year olds. We're
3:32
Speaker 4: talking about that's it. We can't deal with it. And
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Speaker 4: you know what, I think the biggest problem here is
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Speaker 4: is when we suspend kids at this young and age,
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Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, they have such a negative feeling about
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Speaker 4: school that it really casts a long shadow through the
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Speaker 4: rest of their lives, at least through their childhood and
3:53
Speaker 4: adolescent years. They look at school as a horrible place,
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Speaker 4: as a prison.
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Speaker 1: And it's a tough call because we can't. And also,
4:02
Speaker 1: there needs to be support for the teachers in this
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Speaker 1: in this circumstance, because they have a lot of children
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Speaker 1: at the same age that they need to cater for
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Speaker 1: and if one is disabling learning for the others, that
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Speaker 1: needs to be addressed. But how do we support the parents,
4:16
Speaker 1: how do we support the student, how do we support
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Speaker 1: the teachers and the deputies and principles responsible to navigate that.
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think you're asking the wrong question.
4:28
Speaker 3: I think we take that.
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Speaker 4: I think we need to ask how do we support
4:32
Speaker 4: our children because they're the ones that are struggling. And
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Speaker 4: you know, this is a terribly politically incorrect thing for
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Speaker 4: me to say. And before I say it, I want
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Speaker 4: to preface it by saying, not everybody gets to choose.
4:44
Speaker 4: Some people are in situations where they're just stuck and
4:47
Speaker 4: they've got to send their kids off to school. But
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Speaker 4: the reality is our society has become structured so that
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Speaker 4: there is an expectation that mum and dad, well, well
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Speaker 4: sometimes there is only mum, sometimes there's is only dad.
5:01
Speaker 4: Again I'm speaking generically, but the expectation is that we
5:04
Speaker 4: have double income families now and that the kids get
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Speaker 4: farmed out to daycare and then they get farmed out to.
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Speaker 3: School as early as possible. Kids are hard work.
5:12
Speaker 4: They do cramp our opportunity to save up the money
5:15
Speaker 4: to have the new car, or to have the holiday,
5:17
Speaker 4: or just to live in a nice suburb near the
5:18
Speaker 4: in laws.
5:19
Speaker 3: I mean, let's face it, it's not all about materialism.
5:21
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's just being able to put food on the
5:23
Speaker 4: table and not even live in a nice suburb. Just
5:25
Speaker 4: pay the rent for your mistakes. But we've created this
5:29
Speaker 4: structure in our society now where we're shoving our kids
5:32
Speaker 4: into formalized education at younger and younger and younger ages.
5:37
Speaker 4: In Tazzy, they're making it compulsory for kids to be
5:39
Speaker 4: at school by the age of four.
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Speaker 3: That's the plan. I don't know if it's gone through.
5:42
Speaker 4: At four that's the cutoff now. And you know, there's
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Speaker 4: a second thing that's working against our children, and that's this.
5:51
Speaker 4: We have got what we call a push down effect
5:55
Speaker 4: on academic rigor and standardized testing. So once upon a time,
6:00
Speaker 4: you did your standardized tests in year twelve and year ten,
6:03
Speaker 4: and maybe there was a bit of testing in high
6:05
Speaker 4: school as well, but primary school was pretty relaxed. And
6:08
Speaker 4: those first couple of years of school, my goodness, that
6:11
Speaker 4: was all about play, you know, playing in the water,
6:13
Speaker 4: playing with paints, playing with drawing, playing with reading, just
6:16
Speaker 4: playing and creating and being a kid and learning how
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Speaker 4: to navigate relationships.
6:20
Speaker 3: And now we expect so much of our four year olds.
6:24
Speaker 4: If they're not writing their name and reading in Mandarin,
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Speaker 4: by the time the four years and three days.
6:30
Speaker 3: What's the matter.
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Speaker 4: We need to get them in the extracurricular activities and
6:33
Speaker 4: they've got to be in the soccer team and they've
6:34
Speaker 4: got we're.
6:35
Speaker 3: Expecting so much of them and they're just kids.
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Speaker 4: We do need to support the staff, the principles, the parents,
6:43
Speaker 4: but my goodness, we're got to support our kids to
6:46
Speaker 4: be kids.
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Speaker 2: It's such an interesting climate these days because academia has
6:51
Speaker 2: been seen and getting the right grades and achieving the
6:54
Speaker 2: right results in so many ways is a big pressure.
6:58
Speaker 2: And it's almost like we had a parent teaching interview
7:00
Speaker 2: just recently and I'm jokingly in my head thought it's
7:02
Speaker 2: almost like we're going there to get our results, like
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Speaker 2: we're being.
7:06
Speaker 3: Tested, pressure off.
7:08
Speaker 2: And so if our kids aren't doing well, we think
7:10
Speaker 2: about what we're letting them down with. And yet we're
7:13
Speaker 2: so focused by the report card because that's our key measure,
7:16
Speaker 2: that's our KPI. But there's not the KPIs for how
7:19
Speaker 2: they're doing emotionally as much, and some of the social
7:23
Speaker 2: stuff is not as marked.
7:25
Speaker 4: And I think there's a couple of problems here. Number One,
7:28
Speaker 4: we're measuring the wrong things, especially in the early years,
7:31
Speaker 4: which is what we're talking about right now. But number two,
7:34
Speaker 4: the broader thing is we're measuring and I don't think
7:38
Speaker 4: we should be. Why are we measuring a four year
7:41
Speaker 4: old's capacity to this or a five year old's capacity
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Speaker 4: to do that.
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Speaker 3: You know a lot of parents will say, but my
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Speaker 3: child is ready for school, and you're right.
7:48
Speaker 4: At the age of four, age of five, they are
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Speaker 4: usually ready for school, but they're not ready for the
7:56
Speaker 4: pressure that comes with the way school is now. And
8:00
Speaker 4: it is just like you said, you constantly as parents,
8:03
Speaker 4: as teachers, as children, constantly under pressure to perform and
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Speaker 4: show results, and everything's being measured. You know, the countries
8:12
Speaker 4: that are doing education best globally are the Scandinavian countries,
8:18
Speaker 4: and you know we're talking about I don't know, if
8:20
Speaker 4: I'm not good at geography, it might be the Nordic countries.
8:23
Speaker 3: The place were over there in Europe where it's really cold.
8:26
Speaker 3: So we're talking.
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Speaker 4: About Finland and Denmark and Switzerland, and you know all.
8:31
Speaker 1: That they start school later, don't they.
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Speaker 3: Well, they start school later.
8:34
Speaker 4: They have institutionalized care at a young age. But it's
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Speaker 4: all play based and it's all about creativity and learning
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Speaker 4: and feeling comfortable and generating good social relationships. They don't
8:45
Speaker 4: even bother teaching kids to read till they're seven. They
8:48
Speaker 4: don't do standardized tests, they don't do homework. They have
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Speaker 4: a really nice integrated curriculum where you don't just sit
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Speaker 4: down and do maths.
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Speaker 3: You actually sit down.
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Speaker 4: And solve problems that involve maths but also involve social
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Speaker 4: interactions and also involve geography or involve agriculture.
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Speaker 3: You know what I mean. Like they learn all sorts
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Speaker 3: of things, all integrated together, and the kids enjoy being
9:12
Speaker 3: at school. They love being at school. Ossie kids.
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Speaker 4: Well, the Australian systems following the American system, and America
9:20
Speaker 4: is not doing particularly well globally, but in the push
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Speaker 4: that politicians and parents have for transparency and you know more,
9:28
Speaker 4: let's just get more productive and get more bang for
9:30
Speaker 4: our buck, where we're focused on measurement, where folks on
9:33
Speaker 4: all these things that are actually hurting our children.
9:36
Speaker 2: It's fascinating. As someone who has worked with young people
9:39
Speaker 2: at various different ages, through churches and through schools, especially
9:43
Speaker 2: at risk kids. I was working with these kids justin
9:46
Speaker 2: that the system said were at risk and were struggling
9:49
Speaker 2: academically that they basically they are not up up to
9:53
Speaker 2: the grade.
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Speaker 3: And it's almost always boys by the way.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah it was. It was interesting. This is
9:57
Speaker 2: particular group I'm about to refer to. It was group
10:00
Speaker 2: of girls who were told basically, they're stupid, not capable.
10:03
Speaker 3: Thank you proving me wrong.
10:06
Speaker 2: I would agree with you, but just this story just
10:09
Speaker 2: a highlight. I'm not disagreeing with you. This just happens
10:11
Speaker 2: to be a story about girls. But they were sitting
10:13
Speaker 2: in a bus with them, We're going somewhere, and for
10:15
Speaker 2: about seven or eight minutes, they word for word re
10:18
Speaker 2: enacted scenes from these movies that they've just been watching,
10:21
Speaker 2: and then they sung every single lyric of a song.
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Speaker 2: And I sat there and I thought, there is no
10:25
Speaker 2: problem with their ability to learn, because if you have
10:28
Speaker 2: a look at what they've done in music and movies
10:31
Speaker 2: and entertainment, they are learning. They are learning the computers
10:35
Speaker 2: and Facebook and social media, and they are learning every
10:38
Speaker 2: single moment of every day. School doesn't help them learn
10:42
Speaker 2: at that particular tape. And I'm not having to go
10:43
Speaker 2: on any school but that those kids just didn't fit.
10:46
Speaker 3: Well, No, it's not about the school.
10:47
Speaker 4: It's about the system, and it's about this issue where
10:50
Speaker 4: we are just pushing so much pressure on them, where
10:53
Speaker 4: we're drawing them from childhood and we're turning them into
10:56
Speaker 4: little robots.
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Speaker 3: We're expecting them, sorry, to be little robots.
11:00
Speaker 4: You know, you can't step out of line otherwise you're
11:02
Speaker 4: on detention or we're going to have to We're going
11:05
Speaker 4: to have to hurt you so that you know what
11:07
Speaker 4: our expectations are. They're just little kids, you know what.
11:11
Speaker 4: My two cents worth of advice, go and send your
11:15
Speaker 4: kids to schools where they don't worry so much about
11:17
Speaker 4: testing for at least the first six or seven years
11:19
Speaker 4: of school, and where they just encourage them to explore
11:22
Speaker 4: themselves and explore their friendships, and explore the joy of
11:26
Speaker 4: learning and the joy of creating and the joy of discovery.
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Speaker 4: That's the sort of stuff that childhood should be about.
11:31
Speaker 4: That's the sort of stuff that education, especially in the
11:33
Speaker 4: early years, needs to be about. And that's the sort
11:36
Speaker 4: of stuff that ensures that we don't have to start
11:38
Speaker 4: suspending kids because they're behaving badly.
11:43
Speaker 2: I'll give you one point. With ryd and Asun who
11:46
Speaker 2: was behind everything, we didn't even know whether we should
11:48
Speaker 2: send him to school. It's been a great decision. The
11:50
Speaker 2: school has been wonderful with him, but needs work in
11:53
Speaker 2: almost every category. He suddenly he's now significantly above average
11:58
Speaker 2: in maths. One year in into school. He's just thrived
12:01
Speaker 2: on the environment for him. But what's what's hilarious for
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Speaker 2: me is that his strongest point in maths is his
12:07
Speaker 2: six times table Grade one?
12:10
Speaker 3: Where does that come from?
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Speaker 2: AFL? He loves the footing and every time someone scores,
12:17
Speaker 2: he's adding and subtracting.
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Speaker 1: And he's doing the other day and I said, Roydy,
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Speaker 1: tell me you six times that. They don't even do
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Speaker 1: times table in grade one.
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Speaker 3: Of course, I said, tell me, tell.
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Speaker 1: Me six times table And he got to one hundred
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Speaker 1: and two counting in sixes.
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Speaker 4: Doesn't that just highlight though, what I mentioned before about
12:34
Speaker 4: that whole You know the Finn, the Fins, the way
12:37
Speaker 4: they're they're integrating different subjects.
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Speaker 3: And I say this to staff all.
12:42
Speaker 4: The time when I'm doing my workshops in schools and
12:45
Speaker 4: I'm talking professional development with staff, I said to them,
12:49
Speaker 4: if you can give your subject meaning, if you can
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Speaker 4: make your subjects seem purposeful to your students, they will
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Speaker 4: love it. And You've given a beautiful example there of
13:00
Speaker 4: how if you can find kids that love AFL and
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Speaker 4: teach them they're six times tables.
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Speaker 3: You've got it made. You don't even have to try.
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Speaker 4: They will do it because they're so into it. Now,
13:10
Speaker 4: that's obviously not going to be every student, but there's
13:13
Speaker 4: so many different things that we can do where we
13:14
Speaker 4: see this is important because you could use this here.
13:17
Speaker 3: Let's pull this.
13:18
Speaker 4: Out of life and pull that out of life, and
13:19
Speaker 4: let's explore these ideas. It's a totally different process to
13:23
Speaker 4: let's memorize the six time tables by.
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Speaker 2: Rote exactly right, and that the thing is right from
13:29
Speaker 2: the word go. We have never once got him to
13:32
Speaker 2: do maths through AFL, because that's what we wanted. He
13:35
Speaker 2: just did it. But now the actual application is not
13:38
Speaker 2: by Rote. He's applying it and it's a skill he
13:41
Speaker 2: has now.
13:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, as you know what research tells us,
13:44
Speaker 4: Luc and Suzi, when our kids are having good learning experiences,
13:47
Speaker 4: they like school and they look forward to being there.
13:49
Speaker 4: When they're having negative learning experiences, they hate school and
13:53
Speaker 4: they don't want to be there.
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Speaker 1: And I think that's why I've been sitting here. I
13:56
Speaker 1: felt very detached from what you've been talking about with school,
13:58
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's not been our children's experience
14:02
Speaker 1: at all. They haven't felt the pressure. Our teachers have
14:04
Speaker 1: always said, we're going to give homework, but you don't
14:06
Speaker 1: have to do it.
14:07
Speaker 2: Read I love. We sat there and they said, do not.
14:10
Speaker 2: If you get to suddenly go oh we haven't done it,
14:12
Speaker 2: then just don't. Don't worry about it.
14:14
Speaker 3: Make sure you read. I've got to put that in that.
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Speaker 1: Make even our teachers even said with us with reading,
14:19
Speaker 1: start them, but if they get halfway through and they're
14:21
Speaker 1: just done with it, you read the rest of the book.
14:24
Speaker 1: Just said, our job is to teach them. Your job
14:26
Speaker 1: is to help them enjoy it.
14:27
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
14:28
Speaker 4: If they don't want to read it, you read it
14:30
Speaker 4: to them and help them to fall in love with
14:31
Speaker 4: hearing you read. Yeah.
14:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well there's I mean there are, but we
14:39
Speaker 2: might just we might wrap it up there. What an
14:41
Speaker 2: incredible big thing to get a head around the behavior
14:44
Speaker 2: of prep kids, the suspension of prep kids, and the
14:46
Speaker 2: difference between the fun education and schooling. It's a big topic,
14:50
Speaker 2: but Dr Justin Goilson, thank you so much for exploring with.
14:53
Speaker 3: Thanks Luke, Thanks Suzzy.
14:54
Speaker 1: For more info in all of Justin's books, podcasts, and programs,
14:57
Speaker 1: you can jump online to Happy Families dot com. Are
15:00
Speaker 1: you to find out how to have Justin speak at
15:02
Speaker 1: your school or you can come along to your organization
15:04
Speaker 1: as well. Go to Justin Coulson dot com