Latest / Strictly Education / Why I Don’t Let My Students Play the Victim

Transcript

Why I Don’t Let My Students Play the Victim · Strictly Education

0:00
SPEAKER_06: When you're looking for evidence that someone is out to get you, you're gonna find it, even when it doesn't exist.
0:05
SPEAKER_06: This is why it's dangerous to tell children all the ways the world might be unfair to them.
0:10
SPEAKER_06: It means they'll see unfairness everywhere.
0:12
SPEAKER_06: And if you see unfairness everywhere, you will stop focusing on what is in your control to make the most of your life.
0:25
SPEAKER_06: Hello and welcome to Strictly Education with me, Catherine Bribble Singh, Britain's strictest headmistress.
0:31
SPEAKER_06: Today I want to talk to you about victimhood.
0:33
SPEAKER_06: Victimhood is the idea that for some people, the hard things they've experienced literally become their identity.
0:41
SPEAKER_06: And they define themselves by these labels of victimhood.
0:45
SPEAKER_06: And so their expectations of themselves and the world around them change as a result.
0:50
SPEAKER_06: There are loads of different labels: poverty, gender, race, sexuality, neurodiversity, mental health, a bad relationship with your father, and so on.
0:58
SPEAKER_06: I could give you a million different examples.
1:00
SPEAKER_06: Victimhood culture, well, it's kind of everywhere.
1:03
SPEAKER_06: And victimhood culture is seriously toxic for children in particular.
1:08
SPEAKER_06: I'll give you a trivial example from earlier on in my teaching career.
1:12
SPEAKER_06: I remember when it became fashionable to diagnose kids with disorders rather than say, well, they're just being badly behaved.
1:19
SPEAKER_06: So kids who were disruptive would have anger management.
1:23
SPEAKER_06: Or I suppose nowadays we'd call it oppositional defiant disorder.
1:27
SPEAKER_06: And well, we started using these terms openly in front of the kids, right?
1:33
SPEAKER_06: And so, slowly but surely, children who did bad things stopped saying stuff like, sorry, miss, I lost my temper, sorry, miss, I was shouting too much.
1:43
SPEAKER_06: And instead, they started saying things like, I have anger management, i.e., I'm a kid who doesn't need to behave.
1:51
SPEAKER_06: What happened isn't my fault.
1:52
SPEAKER_06: I have a disorder.
1:54
SPEAKER_06: In other words, I have an excuse for any type of poor behavior.
1:59
SPEAKER_06: That's a good example of victimhood.
2:01
SPEAKER_06: You have a label, and now you have something that justifies your actions, like shouting at someone.
2:07
SPEAKER_06: Your very identity then helps to explain who you are and what you do, and it reduces your personal responsibility.
2:15
SPEAKER_06: Which, let's face it, everyone likes.
2:19
SPEAKER_06: Now, that example is a slightly funny one.
2:22
SPEAKER_06: You know, kids trying to get out of trouble.
2:24
SPEAKER_06: But there are other examples of victimhood where someone might genuinely experience something hard, and the effect can end up the same.
2:32
SPEAKER_06: It becomes a label that changes what they expect of themselves.
2:36
SPEAKER_06: It also definitely isn't just children who do this.
2:39
SPEAKER_06: You see this in celebrities all of the time.
2:41
SPEAKER_06: I used to think, way back in the early 1990s, that the African-American actor Terence Howard was the bee's knees.
2:49
SPEAKER_06: I think every young black woman in those days will have thought the same way about him.
2:53
SPEAKER_06: And here's what he's been saying more recently.
2:55
SPEAKER_03: Just recently, a judge in Philadelphia ordered actor Terence Howard to pay nearly a million dollars in back taxes.
3:04
SPEAKER_03: Sounds like he had been owing taxes from like 2010 to 2019.
3:10
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's a lot of money, right?
3:12
SPEAKER_06: It means you're super rich, but you've not paid your fair share of tax.
3:17
SPEAKER_06: So you'd think it'd be a simple case of him saying something like, Well, you know, whatever, I made an error.
3:23
SPEAKER_06: Let's see if how we can put this right.
3:25
SPEAKER_06: But instead, here's his response.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: Terris Howard left this on the lead tax attorney's voicemail last November.
3:33
SPEAKER_03: 400 years of forced labor and never receiving any compensation for it, now you have the goal to try and prosecute and charge taxes to the descendants of a broken people that you are responsible for causing the breakage.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: Then they said in the second message, he says, in truth, the entire United States should, by default, become the property of the descendants of slaves.
3:58
SPEAKER_03: But since you do not have the ability or the courage to do it, let's try this in court.
4:03
SPEAKER_03: We're gonna bring you down.
4:05
SPEAKER_06: We're gonna bring you down.
4:06
SPEAKER_06: I mean, somehow he's managed to make himself into a victim because his ancestors were enslaved.
4:12
SPEAKER_06: I mean, Terrence, if you're watching, I think you're a great actor, but this is insane.
4:17
SPEAKER_06: He's turned the whole thing upside down, and there are people actually defending his ludicrous position.
4:23
SPEAKER_06: I mean, we've lost our damn minds, frankly.
4:26
SPEAKER_06: But it's a good example of how victimhood works.
4:29
SPEAKER_06: You're part of a victim group, and that sort of makes you innocent.
4:32
SPEAKER_06: And everyone else then is guilty.
4:36
SPEAKER_06: So Terence Howard is actually flipping it.
4:39
SPEAKER_06: He's saying that asking him to pay his taxes is wrong.
4:44
SPEAKER_06: He's saying my victimhood group gives me the political power to not pay my taxes, i.e., I'm black, so I don't have to pay my taxes, no matter how rich I am.
4:58
SPEAKER_06: This is victimhood culture 101.
5:01
SPEAKER_06: You have the label, you're therefore innocent.
5:04
SPEAKER_06: So you have reduced agency.
5:07
SPEAKER_06: Things that would be your fault stop being your fault once you have the innocence of victimhood.
5:13
SPEAKER_06: The kid who says, I can't behave well, I have my label.
5:17
SPEAKER_06: So the shouting isn't my responsibility is the same as Terence Howard saying, I'm black.
5:24
SPEAKER_06: So paying my taxes isn't my responsibility.
5:28
SPEAKER_06: Now, the thing about people is we're kind of selfish and we're all happy, all of us.
5:34
SPEAKER_06: We're all happy to dodge responsibility, right?
5:38
SPEAKER_06: So once you have established a culture where victimhood equals innocence, people will be influenced by that.
5:46
SPEAKER_06: You can't help that's just what's gonna happen.
5:49
SPEAKER_06: You'll get more labels and more victimhood over time.
5:53
SPEAKER_06: It becomes a quick way to have power because it isn't just dear Terence who does this.
5:59
SPEAKER_06: Watch any celebrity fall from grace and you'll hear all about their anxiety, their sex addiction, how they're a victim of the press, how their scrutiny is hurtful to their family.
6:09
SPEAKER_06: You'll find the victim identity is used to dodge responsibility and wrongdoing all of the time.
6:15
SPEAKER_06: The thing about culture is that if our big celebrities, who we admire, can use victimhood as an excuse, so can everyone.
6:23
SPEAKER_06: It trickles down until you see it everywhere.
6:27
SPEAKER_06: So in a minute, I'll show a video, which is kind of funny, where a woman has basically been drunk driving and the police officer pulls her over.
6:36
SPEAKER_06: Notice her instinct.
6:37
SPEAKER_06: Miss Perry?
6:39
SPEAKER_09: Am I Well, I'm non-binary, so.
6:42
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
6:42
SPEAKER_07: I need to know if you have any injuries or anything that would prevent you from doing a standard walk or a turn tonight.
6:47
SPEAKER_09: Mental health.
6:51
SPEAKER_07: You and me both.
6:53
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
6:54
SPEAKER_07: So just focus on my finger.
6:56
SPEAKER_09: Well, as you know, as an indigenous person and there's a bunch of going around.
7:02
SPEAKER_09: You guys are scary!
7:04
SPEAKER_07: There's nothing to be afraid of.
7:06
SPEAKER_09: Yes, it is!
7:07
SPEAKER_06: It's called generational trauma.
7:10
SPEAKER_06: Okay, so we've got indigenous, non-binary, anxiety, we've got intergenerational trauma.
7:19
SPEAKER_06: Do you see the pattern?
7:20
SPEAKER_06: Do you see how it works?
7:22
SPEAKER_06: Now look, I don't know the lady and she's clearly got issues, but this stuff spreads.
7:27
SPEAKER_06: This is how culture works.
7:29
SPEAKER_06: If it's valid to highlight victimhood in order to be let off, then people are gonna do it, right?
7:36
SPEAKER_06: There's also a related thing, which is that in a culture that really deifies the victim experience, some people will announce their labels as if they're virtues.
7:45
SPEAKER_06: So in the UK, we had some elections in 2026.
7:49
SPEAKER_06: These are the first words of one of our politicians after being elected to the Scottish Parliament.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: My name is Dr.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: Q Manovan.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: I am a transgender Tamil immigrant.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: My pronouns are they them.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: I am to sum in this country everything that the hateful despise, and I'm standing here as your MSP now with care.
8:09
SPEAKER_06: So this young man has just been elected to be a politician in Scotland, and what he mentions is queer, Tamil, immigrant, and his pronouns.
8:20
SPEAKER_06: He mentions his identities, all of them victim identities.
8:25
SPEAKER_06: Think about it.
8:27
SPEAKER_06: Why is he announcing these things?
8:28
SPEAKER_06: What does this tell us about our culture?
8:31
SPEAKER_06: It's because that's the source of his power and his identity and basically his virtue.
8:37
SPEAKER_06: He's saying, Look at me, look at these different forms of hardship I've experienced that define me.
8:44
SPEAKER_06: Now, he isn't using it to excuse any behavior, it's instead being used as a shorthand in this instance for his superiority.
8:54
SPEAKER_06: He's saying, You should admire me because I'm such a big victim.
8:59
SPEAKER_06: He spoke about how he grew up hungry and was starved as a child.
9:05
SPEAKER_06: But then it turns out that he went to private school and has an expensive house in India while living in Scotland.
9:13
SPEAKER_06: Why would he present himself as this martyr who has suffered so much?
9:18
SPEAKER_06: Because of victimhood identity.
9:20
SPEAKER_06: That's why.
9:20
SPEAKER_06: That's his identity.
9:22
SPEAKER_06: That's what gives him power in the culture that he lives in.
9:24
SPEAKER_06: He knows he has to push that he's a victim.
9:28
SPEAKER_06: Now the thing is, claiming to have experienced hardships gives you power and influence.
9:34
SPEAKER_06: But it can get seriously dark.
9:38
SPEAKER_06: So in 2015, you may remember there was an awful Islamist terrorist attack at the Bataclan Theater in Paris.
9:45
SPEAKER_06: So just to remind us all, this was when gunmen killed about 90 people.
9:51
SPEAKER_06: It was terrible.
9:52
SPEAKER_06: And in the end, there were loads of cases where people publicly claimed to have been there who hadn't been there.
10:01
SPEAKER_06: One woman even had to go to prison.
10:03
SPEAKER_06: She went to prison because of how badly she lied.
10:07
SPEAKER_06: She even printed fake tickets to pretend that she had been at the Batterban.
10:12
SPEAKER_06: So this isn't a standalone thing, right?
10:15
SPEAKER_06: After 9-11, where thousands died in New York, one woman claimed to have been in one of the towers as it was hit.
10:26
SPEAKER_06: She even claimed her fiance had died, and she went on to become the president of the victims group and gave tours at ground zero.
10:37
SPEAKER_06: But it was a total lie.
10:39
SPEAKER_06: She was in Barcelona at the time.
10:41
SPEAKER_06: My point is there's a culture here of victimhood that these people are playing into.
10:48
SPEAKER_06: And as a society, I sometimes feel that we've moved from admiring the person who overcomes hard things to viewing hardship as the same as virtue.
10:58
SPEAKER_06: That's why that Scottish politician speaks like that.
11:01
SPEAKER_06: He's listing his victim identity labels.
11:04
SPEAKER_06: That's why these people lie and say they were present in these tragedies.
11:08
SPEAKER_06: It's the same thing.
11:09
SPEAKER_06: Okay, so so far, I've just focused on victimhood as a form of identity to gain power.
11:16
SPEAKER_06: But it's much bigger and much more complicated than that.
11:19
SPEAKER_06: One consequence of a culture of victimhood is people they start thinking they don't need to behave well if they feel like a victim.
11:28
SPEAKER_06: Now, the reason I hate this is that instead of helping people, it actually robs people of the possibility of being stoical and virtuous.
11:36
SPEAKER_06: So I'm gonna go off topic for a second here, but it'll be relevant to victimhood in the end, so stick with me.
11:42
SPEAKER_06: I love the film Cinderella Man with Russell Crowe.
11:44
SPEAKER_06: I just love it.
11:45
SPEAKER_06: And I recommend you all go and see it.
11:47
SPEAKER_06: Well, not go, but you know, watch it at home.
11:49
SPEAKER_06: Crow's character is this out-of-work dad in the Great Depression, and he's very poor.
11:55
SPEAKER_06: His family are very poor, life is really hard for them.
11:58
SPEAKER_06: You know, there are no jobs, and it's just it's just really bad.
12:02
SPEAKER_06: And um, there's this one beautiful scene where Russell Crowe's character comes home and he finds that his son has stolen meat from the butcher.
12:13
SPEAKER_06: Um, and it turns out that his son has stolen the meat uh because he's scared that if his dad can't feed them all, uh the children will be taken away from the family.
12:25
SPEAKER_06: And then that that's what happens in those days.
12:27
SPEAKER_06: You couldn't feed them, right?
12:28
SPEAKER_06: Well, we're taking taking you away.
12:30
SPEAKER_06: And in your heart, when you watch it, your heart breaks for the family.
12:33
SPEAKER_06: Because, you know, he he he it's just terrible.
12:37
SPEAKER_06: And and you and you get it from the boy's point of view.
12:39
SPEAKER_06: You know, you think, well, he's just really worried about being taken away from his parents.
12:44
SPEAKER_06: But Russell Crowe's character, the dad, he marches his son back to the butchers and makes his boy give back the food.
12:54
SPEAKER_06: And he tells him it doesn't matter how bad things get, we don't steal.
13:00
SPEAKER_06: It's not who we are.
13:03
SPEAKER_06: And that is the heart of the story.
13:05
SPEAKER_06: They are victims of terrible things, right?
13:08
SPEAKER_06: Life is really hard for them, but that dad is a good dad.
13:13
SPEAKER_06: That's virtue, not victimhood, to not give in and doing the wrong thing, even when times are tough.
13:21
SPEAKER_06: And it's a wonderful film.
13:22
SPEAKER_06: You gotta go see it.
13:24
SPEAKER_06: So victimhood is the opposite of Cinderella Man, right?
13:29
SPEAKER_06: It's the opposite.
13:30
SPEAKER_06: Because we now, a days, nowadays, not in the Great Depression anymore, nowadays, when things are easier, we get stories where people feel entitled to steal because they feel like they're victims.
13:42
SPEAKER_06: Here's one example.
13:44
SPEAKER_06: I'm proposing a new term microluting.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: I started going into the grocery store, I would pick up the thing that I wanted, and then I would go.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: It's a survival technique.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: You're paying for that, right?
13:56
SPEAKER_09: No, babe.
13:57
SPEAKER_09: Food is a human right.
13:58
SPEAKER_09: People are taking small things from big corporations and they're feeling justified.
14:05
SPEAKER_08: Like, look, everyone's shoplifting from hofus when you're shopping there.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: But you're not gonna steal from a deli like that.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: But hofus f Hofus.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Basil, Amazon, Ola.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: We should be rioting, but we're tired.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna take these bagels.
14:18
SPEAKER_06: We're tired.
14:19
SPEAKER_06: I mean, you know, I find it really embarrassing.
14:22
SPEAKER_06: If you watch Cinderella Man and then you you look at that, uh it makes me feel slightly sick.
14:27
SPEAKER_06: I mean, this is just moons away from a man trying to feed his family during the Great Depression.
14:33
SPEAKER_06: Microlooting is so common now that this commentator has actually given it a name.
14:38
SPEAKER_06: And these people, I mean, how do they speak like this?
14:40
SPEAKER_06: Stealing, as long as it's from big corporations, is somehow justified.
14:44
SPEAKER_06: I I just I just find it incredible.
14:46
SPEAKER_06: I find it incredible, and they they don't just do it.
14:49
SPEAKER_06: They then just ha they're happy to put it online.
14:51
SPEAKER_06: And yeah, well, of course we're justified.
14:53
SPEAKER_06: What?
14:54
SPEAKER_06: I mean, these people are saying, compared to big companies, you are the victim, right?
14:59
SPEAKER_06: I'm tired, so I'm a victim, therefore I should be allowed to steal.
15:03
SPEAKER_06: You can do what you want.
15:04
SPEAKER_06: Now, in the same interview, Hassan Piker, the super rich socialist podcast guy, like this guy is super rich, and the writer Jay uhino, they say that stealing is fine depending on whether you think the business is big or not.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, no, I'm I'm pro-piracy all the way.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: Like across the board, uh, would you pirate a car?
15:24
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you could.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: If you could pirate a car.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: It was just a classic thing back in the day where they'd be like uh the the government-funded anti-piracy initiatives would be like, dude, would you steal a car?
15:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, sure.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: If I could get away with it, if it was as easy as uh, you know, pirating IP, I would do it.
15:46
SPEAKER_08: Would you dine and dash from your local diner?
15:49
SPEAKER_08: Never, never, except 35%.
15:52
SPEAKER_08: Mike's come on.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh no, I wouldn't do that.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: And if I saw somebody doing that, I'd probably pay for their meal.
16:00
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
16:00
SPEAKER_09: Would you steal a book from the library?
16:03
SPEAKER_09: Never.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: No.
16:06
SPEAKER_09: Would you um steal from the Louvre?
16:10
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
16:12
SPEAKER_08: I would not be logistically capable of executing such a fact, but would I cheer on every news story of people that I see doing it?
16:18
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
16:20
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, I I think it's cool.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: We gotta, we gotta get back to cool crimes like that.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, bank robberies.
16:27
SPEAKER_06: Okay, so they're saying the reason you can't steal from your local restaurant is because it's a small business.
16:33
SPEAKER_06: So it's sort of like a victim business, you see, if you think about it, right?
16:38
SPEAKER_06: But for an art gallery or a car company or the big banks, they are big and successful.
16:44
SPEAKER_06: And we are all victims of these big, oppressive organizations.
16:48
SPEAKER_06: So it's okay to steal from them.
16:50
SPEAKER_06: That's how that's how their thinking goes.
16:52
SPEAKER_06: It's the same as the Terence Howard clip, or it's the opposite to Cinderella Man.
16:57
SPEAKER_06: And what none of these people, Piker or Talentino, seem to focus on is what Cinderella man really understands in its bones, which is what kind of person am I becoming?
17:09
SPEAKER_06: That's all we've got in life, is who we are as people, our values.
17:13
SPEAKER_06: The dad in Cinderella man knows that the type of person his son becomes is what matters most.
17:19
SPEAKER_06: Victimhood robs people of that.
17:22
SPEAKER_06: And the other thing great about Cinderella Man is that it does acknowledge sometimes there are hard things in life.
17:30
SPEAKER_06: You know, it's true for all of us.
17:31
SPEAKER_06: But that isn't the point.
17:33
SPEAKER_06: The point is that dwelling on victimhood and the obstacles in our lives actually makes things worse.
17:39
SPEAKER_06: It makes it harder to jump over those obstacles.
17:42
SPEAKER_06: Here's an example of what I mean.
17:43
SPEAKER_10: You think we have the same opportunity as everybody else, as black people?
17:47
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, 100%.
17:48
SPEAKER_10: With a 200-year economic head start on us?
17:52
SPEAKER_11: You don't have nothing to do with that.
17:53
SPEAKER_10: Yes, I do.
17:54
SPEAKER_10: Have you ever heard of generational trauma, generational wealth?
17:57
SPEAKER_10: How can you build something when my people come from nothing?
17:59
SPEAKER_10: I come from South Memphis.
18:00
SPEAKER_10: And I come from stop six.
18:02
SPEAKER_10: Congratulations.
18:03
SPEAKER_11: Congratulations.
18:04
SPEAKER_11: We are behind.
18:05
SPEAKER_11: Some people are behind.
18:06
SPEAKER_11: We're not behind.
18:07
SPEAKER_11: Why?
18:08
SPEAKER_11: Because we make positive decisions.
18:09
SPEAKER_11: You can have a full deck of great cards and you play them poorly, you won't make it in life.
18:14
SPEAKER_11: You can have a bad hand.
18:15
SPEAKER_11: You play them strategically and you play them right, you'll do good in life.
18:18
SPEAKER_11: America is the only place.
18:20
SPEAKER_11: They proportionately.
18:21
SPEAKER_11: Who is they?
18:22
SPEAKER_11: Are you saying white people?
18:23
SPEAKER_11: Brother, you in the you in the same situation as Ollie's white people and you and you play the victim.
18:27
SPEAKER_11: Am I?
18:28
SPEAKER_11: What's your GPA now?
18:29
SPEAKER_11: 3.6.
18:30
SPEAKER_11: Brother, what's holding you back then?
18:31
SPEAKER_10: That's the point.
18:32
SPEAKER_10: Everybody doesn't have a 3.6.
18:34
SPEAKER_11: Do you just get a 3.6 because you woke up one day?
18:36
SPEAKER_11: You studied, didn't you?
18:37
SPEAKER_11: If you study, you work hard, you play the cards that you're dealt properly, you will be successful.
18:42
SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
18:43
SPEAKER_06: Play the cards that you were dealt properly.
18:46
SPEAKER_06: I so feel really for this young man.
18:48
SPEAKER_06: When he talks about intergenerational trauma, he's saying that black people have been treated terribly.
18:53
SPEAKER_06: He's saying that there's this legacy that exists even today, and some of that trauma of racism is passed on to their kids.
18:59
SPEAKER_06: Where I feel sorry for him is that if he keeps telling himself that the whole world is out to get him, he'll focus so much on what isn't in his control that he won't be able to do the things that are in his control and that he can do.
19:13
SPEAKER_06: Look, he's obviously a clever guy, he's at college, he could study hard and have the chance to be super successful.
19:20
SPEAKER_06: Once you're focusing on external circumstances, you end up convincing yourself that you can't change, right?
19:26
SPEAKER_06: You can't change it.
19:27
SPEAKER_06: And that someone else is to blame.
19:30
SPEAKER_06: Someone else who is privileged or who isn't a victim is the one who has to fix the problem, not you.
19:36
SPEAKER_06: That means you don't think about what you can do and how to make your life better now.
19:42
SPEAKER_06: When you think you're a victim, you see victimization everywhere.
19:46
SPEAKER_06: Now, of course, bad stuff does exist, but once you become a victim in your head, you see it even when it doesn't exist.
19:53
SPEAKER_06: Here's Constantin Kissen explaining an experiment on how perceived victimhood can hold someone back.
19:59
SPEAKER_05: They did an experiment with a group of women and they put scars on their faces, and they told these women that they're going into a job interview to find out whether people with facial disfigurements face discrimination.
20:10
SPEAKER_05: They showed them the scars in the mirror, the women saw themselves with these scars, and as they led them out of the room, they said, we're just gonna touch it up a little bit.
20:16
SPEAKER_05: And as they touched it up, they removed the scarring completely.
20:19
SPEAKER_05: So the women went into the job interview thinking that they are scarred, but actually being their normal selves.
20:24
SPEAKER_05: Those women then came back reporting massively increased levels of discrimination.
20:29
SPEAKER_05: Many of them came back with comments that the interviewer had made that they felt were referencing their facial disfigurements.
20:37
SPEAKER_05: If you preach to people constantly that we're all oppressed, that we're all being discriminated against at different levels, that because I'm an immigrant, I'm automatically disadvantaged, that because I have dark skin, I'm automatically disadvantaged.
20:49
SPEAKER_05: Then that primes people to look for that.
20:52
SPEAKER_05: We have to teach young people in particular that they're strong, that they're capable, that they're able to overcome adversity, not that they're victims.
20:59
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, exactly.
21:01
SPEAKER_06: That's what we have to teach young people.
21:03
SPEAKER_06: So look, the point of the experiment is that when you're looking for evidence that someone is out to get you, you're gonna find it, even when it doesn't exist.
21:10
SPEAKER_06: This is why it's dangerous to tell children all the ways the world might be unfair to them.
21:15
SPEAKER_06: It means they'll see unfairness everywhere.
21:17
SPEAKER_06: It just changes their whole way of seeing things.
21:20
SPEAKER_06: And if you see unfairness everywhere, you will stop focusing on what is in your control to make the most of your life.
21:27
SPEAKER_06: It's like that with the kids at my school.
21:29
SPEAKER_06: Plenty of them will have harder lives than the person sat next to them.
21:33
SPEAKER_06: But don't focus on that.
21:35
SPEAKER_06: Don't make that your identity.
21:37
SPEAKER_06: Remember, Cinderella man.
21:38
SPEAKER_06: It's all about being decent and then overcoming the hard things that may come your way for all of us.
21:44
SPEAKER_06: So in this next clip, it's a young girl talking about having victimhood pushed onto her.
21:50
SPEAKER_06: Let's see.
21:51
SPEAKER_04: Every time I get on a another social media platform, all they talk about is slavery.
21:56
SPEAKER_04: And I understand that that is very important.
21:58
SPEAKER_04: It's a very sensitive.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: And I don't want to be desensitive to it.
22:02
SPEAKER_04: Like I am insensitive to it, but you know, I understand it.
22:05
SPEAKER_04: You know, however, I just feel like it's more to us as a black community.
22:09
SPEAKER_04: Like in schools, all they teach us is are we are we are known as are the people who are oppressed.
22:16
SPEAKER_04: I feel like we are a very creative people.
22:18
SPEAKER_04: We are very fun.
22:19
SPEAKER_04: We're, you know, we play a very key role in the making of America today, in society today.
22:26
SPEAKER_04: And I just feel like we should, we are more than just slavery.
22:30
SPEAKER_04: We are more than just the people who were killed.
22:32
SPEAKER_04: We are more than just a people who were once illiterate.
22:35
SPEAKER_04: You go, girl.
22:36
SPEAKER_04: Good for you.
22:37
SPEAKER_06: I love her.
22:39
SPEAKER_06: So let's see.
22:41
SPEAKER_06: What's she noticing?
22:42
SPEAKER_06: She's saying that dwelling on victimhood means you define yourself by the bad things.
22:47
SPEAKER_06: And she's also saying that having such a negative identity is a bad thing.
22:51
SPEAKER_06: She doesn't want that.
22:52
SPEAKER_06: This girl already gets it, right?
22:54
SPEAKER_06: And that's sort of the point.
22:56
SPEAKER_06: Even if you don't mean to, you have to be careful not to push a victimhood identity.
23:00
SPEAKER_06: You need to tell young people to overcome, to be anti-victim.
23:04
SPEAKER_06: I am in control of me.
23:07
SPEAKER_06: I own my own life and I own my own actions.
23:11
SPEAKER_06: That's all anyone has in life.
23:13
SPEAKER_06: The dad and Cinderella man knew this.
23:15
SPEAKER_06: That's why he makes his son take back the stolen food.
23:18
SPEAKER_06: The values he's teaching his son matter to him more than the food or the money.
23:26
SPEAKER_06: So this is Tom Nash now, speaking to our kids during lunch at school.
23:31
SPEAKER_06: And um, he's a super interesting guy.
23:34
SPEAKER_06: You should look up his podcast called Your Last Meal.
23:37
SPEAKER_06: And um, he's going to explain to the kids how he lost the use of his arms and why he thinks victimhood is never the right option.
23:46
SPEAKER_12: I had contracted a disease called meningococcal septicemia.
23:49
SPEAKER_12: Has anyone heard of that?
23:50
SPEAKER_12: Just out of, yeah, there's a couple.
23:52
SPEAKER_12: It's kind of like a meningitis type disease.
23:55
SPEAKER_12: When I woke up out of the coma, my entire body was covered in gangrene.
24:01
SPEAKER_12: Now, interestingly, I had a uh a doctor who understood my sort of dark sense of humor, and he entered in my my room one day in the hospital, and he said, We have to talk about the arms and what we're going to do with them.
24:14
SPEAKER_12: And I said, Okay.
24:15
SPEAKER_12: He said, You have two options.
24:17
SPEAKER_12: And I said, What are they?
24:19
SPEAKER_12: He said, Well, we can amputate your arms.
24:21
SPEAKER_12: You can live with prosthetics.
24:22
SPEAKER_12: It's not that common, uh, but it does happen.
24:25
SPEAKER_12: You'll be okay.
24:26
SPEAKER_12: And I said, I don't really like that option.
24:28
SPEAKER_12: What's my other option?
24:30
SPEAKER_12: And he said, Well, we can leave the arms and not amputate them.
24:33
SPEAKER_12: And I said, Okay, what's the catch?
24:35
SPEAKER_12: And he said, uh, you'll die.
24:37
SPEAKER_12: So for the first time in this entire process, I had a choice.
24:41
SPEAKER_12: Up until then, things were just happening to me, and I had no agency.
24:46
SPEAKER_12: And so he was actually imbuing me with a sense of agency.
24:49
SPEAKER_12: If I didn't want to go on anymore, I didn't have to.
24:52
SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's obviously a horrible thing to have experienced.
24:56
SPEAKER_06: Uh, and Tom Nash is an extraordinary man.
24:59
SPEAKER_06: But notice the distinction Tom makes here.
25:02
SPEAKER_06: Up until then, things were happening to me.
25:06
SPEAKER_06: And what he was being given at that moment was agency to decide.
25:12
SPEAKER_06: Okay, well, perhaps I die or perhaps I keep my my my life, but I lose my arms.
25:18
SPEAKER_06: That was a choice he was able to make with his agency.
25:21
SPEAKER_06: Let's see what he says next.
25:23
SPEAKER_12: And there was a very interesting mental shift that happened with me when I made that decision to amputate the arms and go on.
25:31
SPEAKER_12: Because immediately I was imbued with that sense of agency.
25:34
SPEAKER_12: I had made the choice to go on, and it was all up to me.
25:39
SPEAKER_12: And you're in that same position right now where you too have a sense of agency, just like I was given when I decided to lose my arms.
25:47
SPEAKER_12: Because you could choose to be a victim, or you could choose, as I try to, to be an anti-victim, is what I like to call it.
25:54
SPEAKER_12: The anti-victim is somebody who changes themselves for the world rather than expecting the world to change for them.
26:01
SPEAKER_12: And the anti-victim is going to be better than they were yesterday, every day moving forth.
26:06
SPEAKER_12: But the victim will always be the victim.
26:09
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, there's so much in what he's saying.
26:12
SPEAKER_06: The victim will always be the victim.
26:14
SPEAKER_06: Anti-victimhood means not expecting the world to change for you.
26:18
SPEAKER_06: Also, anti-victimhood means being better tomorrow than you are today.
26:23
SPEAKER_06: So much wisdom in there.
26:25
SPEAKER_06: As adults, we have to think.
26:27
SPEAKER_06: We can't stop bad things happening in life.
26:29
SPEAKER_06: We can't, okay?
26:31
SPEAKER_06: Life is filled with bad stuff.
26:32
SPEAKER_06: All we can do is teach children the values they should have so that when bad stuff happens, they have the moral strength to keep on going, to be an anti-victim and to make the world better.
26:45
SPEAKER_06: So for us teachers and parents out there, we need to remember that the world pushes victimhood onto our kids, our celebrities, our politicians, our media, all of it.
26:57
SPEAKER_06: That's why we have to tell our children we work hard even when it's tough.
27:02
SPEAKER_06: We have to be honest and know the difference between right and wrong, even when life feels hard.
27:07
SPEAKER_06: We have to do the right thing even when others don't.
27:11
SPEAKER_06: Parents and teachers cannot promise young people life won't be unfair.
27:15
SPEAKER_06: Life will be unfair.
27:17
SPEAKER_06: You can't control that.
27:19
SPEAKER_06: You can only control how you react to it.
27:23
SPEAKER_06: And if you're an anti-victim, you can behave in a way where you make the best of the life that you've been given.
27:31
SPEAKER_06: That's how we need to raise our children.
27:33
SPEAKER_06: And that's very hard.
27:35
SPEAKER_06: But stick with it.
27:37
SPEAKER_06: That's what strictly education is all about.
27:43
SPEAKER_06: Okay, so now I get to answer some of your questions.
27:45
SPEAKER_06: Thank you for sending them in.
27:46
SPEAKER_06: Remember, if you have a question you want me to answer, put it in the comments below.
27:51
SPEAKER_06: I'll try and get to it next time.
27:53
SPEAKER_06: You can also find me on X at Miss Snuffy.
27:56
SPEAKER_06: So, question number one is from Kimberly Green, and she asks, How do you praise and motivate your students?
28:02
SPEAKER_06: Well, um, we use a system of merits and demerits.
28:06
SPEAKER_06: So we give merits out.
28:08
SPEAKER_06: Um, and they have a bank of merits that they they're upholding onto and they're wanting to increase their merits, but obviously they get a demerit, then that decreases the bank.
28:15
SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, parents at home, you can try something similar, you can have a star chart.
28:20
SPEAKER_06: Uh, you do definitely always want to have a system that's consistent.
28:23
SPEAKER_06: Um, motivating them, well, partly that consistency will motivate them and rewarding the small little behaviors that they do all of the time.
28:33
SPEAKER_06: But also you want to give larger motivational pieces.
28:36
SPEAKER_06: So in a school, you give assemblies, you you use form time and you do a little mini-assembly with them, where you're telling them a story about somebody you you get in speakers like Tom Nash to motivate them and think, oh, come on, look at what he's been through.
28:49
SPEAKER_06: Well, I can do what I'm doing then, you know.
28:51
SPEAKER_06: Um, and frankly, throughout the day, the heads of year at my school are giving little motivational speeches to the children all the time.
28:58
SPEAKER_06: At home, same thing.
28:59
SPEAKER_06: Before your child goes off to school, when he comes home from school, you know, have a good day today.
29:04
SPEAKER_06: Okay, I know normally we're getting two detentions.
29:07
SPEAKER_06: Can we try and just get one today if possible?
29:09
SPEAKER_06: Or you set a weekly um uh goal.
29:13
SPEAKER_06: Okay, normally you get a couple of detentions uh a week.
29:17
SPEAKER_06: This week on Monday morning, you're saying to your child, how about no detentions this week?
29:21
SPEAKER_06: Shall we try and do that?
29:22
SPEAKER_06: And then every time they come home, how did it go?
29:24
SPEAKER_06: What went wrong?
29:25
SPEAKER_06: What went well, and so on.
29:27
SPEAKER_06: Constantly checking in with them is a huge way to motivate children.
29:31
SPEAKER_06: Praise, punishment, constantly narrating and constantly checking in.
29:36
SPEAKER_06: That's how you do it.
29:37
SPEAKER_06: So here's a nice question.
29:39
SPEAKER_06: Chris Peachy says, I must ask, why isn't the school 80% white kids?
29:44
SPEAKER_06: Why is it mostly black and brown?
29:46
SPEAKER_06: Now, Chris is being very polite.
29:48
SPEAKER_06: There are lots of people who are a lot less polite when wanting to know this, because there are some people who get very angry about the fact that lots of the kids at Michaela are black and brown.
29:58
SPEAKER_06: Okay, so I'm gonna overlook the the the loads of unease that people are having with that, and I'm gonna explain.
30:05
SPEAKER_06: There are lots of places in the country where there are lots of black and brown people.
30:09
SPEAKER_06: Brent is one of them.
30:10
SPEAKER_06: It's a London borough that has mainly black and brown kids.
30:14
SPEAKER_06: So those are the kids who come to Michaela.
30:17
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I read online how people have all kinds of dark theories about how I've murdered all the white children, I've pushed them off the bridge that's just around the corner.
30:27
SPEAKER_06: I haven't pushed any kids off the bridge.
30:29
SPEAKER_06: We just take the kids that the council gives us.
30:31
SPEAKER_06: We are not in charge of our own admissions, and if any of you are wanting to come and visit Brent, you will see that we just take in the local kids and they happen to be black and brown.
30:41
SPEAKER_06: I don't have a problem with that.
30:42
SPEAKER_06: You shouldn't either.
30:44
SPEAKER_06: Okay, final question.
30:45
SPEAKER_06: Um, how do you establish order in the home?
30:48
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
30:49
SPEAKER_06: KG asks this.
30:51
SPEAKER_06: Well, it's sort of like something similar to what you would do in school in a way.
30:55
SPEAKER_06: I mean, um, praise and punishment and clarity.
30:58
SPEAKER_06: You're really clear with the kids at home.
31:00
SPEAKER_06: What do you want?
31:01
SPEAKER_06: So, if, for instance, um you don't want them running around the living room and throwing cushions around, then you need to make that clear to them.
31:09
SPEAKER_06: Um, and that when they don't throw the cushions, you say, Well done, that's really good.
31:13
SPEAKER_06: That's what I want to see.
31:14
SPEAKER_06: And when they do, you punish them.
31:16
SPEAKER_06: Now, um, you want to do this from when they're small.
31:19
SPEAKER_06: Having a naughty step that they can sit on is a nice way, telling them off, um, getting them to apologize, uh, to explain to you the kind of behavior that you would like to see so that you're clear, that they are clear on what kind of behavior you want to see.
31:34
SPEAKER_06: And then also you want to praise them when they get it right.
31:36
SPEAKER_06: That is really clear.
31:37
SPEAKER_06: You know, well done.
31:38
SPEAKER_06: Oh my goodness, so brilliant the way you did sas and such, and consistency.
31:42
SPEAKER_06: Mom and dad, you need to both be saying the same thing.
31:45
SPEAKER_06: You need to be clear.
31:46
SPEAKER_06: Because if kids are not clear, and the only way they can be clear is if you have consistency between both of you.
31:51
SPEAKER_06: If they're not clear, then they will do things wrong.
31:55
SPEAKER_06: And then then kids get very unhappy when one parent is telling them they should do X and the other one's saying do Y, because they don't know who to please.
32:03
SPEAKER_06: So make sure that the two of you are in sync, and anyone else, you know, if the aunt is living there, uncle's living there, and so on, whoever else is in the home, you all need to be singing from the same hymn sheet.
32:14
SPEAKER_06: Okay, well, that's all I have time for today.
32:17
SPEAKER_06: I have a school to run, you have your life to live.
32:20
SPEAKER_06: So don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel below.
32:23
SPEAKER_06: Until next time, hold the line, strength and honor.
32:26
SPEAKER_06: See you next week.