Latest / Teachers Talk Radio / Telegraph article claims ‘left wing policies’ risk keeping violent pupils in schools: Points of View

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Telegraph article claims ‘left wing policies’ risk keeping violent pupils in schools: Points of View · Teachers Talk Radio

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1:20
Hello and welcome to Teacher's Talk Radio points of view.
1:24
We are so back. Bridget Philipson has written a blog about toilets again.
1:29
We are so back. That was supposed to be in April 4 when we rebranded to Toilet Talk Radio.
1:34
But literally every day at the moment, there is a story genuinely about toilets in school.
1:38
So whatever. But this is not what we're talking about.
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Yes, JP. Please, Tom, can I go to the toilet?
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No, you have to wait for the end of the lesson.
1:50
So today we're talking about a Telegraph article.
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If you want to dig it out, you can do it. All right.
1:56
It's just Google it like Telegraph. But basically, it was a big article.
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It was an exclusive by them. They've got lots and lots of contributors in it.
2:02
The premise of the article is basically saying that left wing policies,
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broad stroke, risk keeping violent pupils in schools.
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Now they've listed not listed, but they've gone in this in this article to some of these policies.
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So, for example, they mentioned managed moves. They mentioned pressure to not exclude.
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They mentioned inclusion policies. They mentioned things not being picked up.
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You know, violence going on with no sanction to it.
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They mentioned lots of things basically here that that is going wrong.
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And they attribute some of that to to sort of left wing influence in education, amongst other things.
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So we're going to discuss that today, whether we think that was fair or not.
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And, you know, what we think the issues are, actually.
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Do we think this article that was out this week in the Telegraph, do we think it it sort of accurately paints the picture?
3:00
Do we think that the solutions that pitching? I mean, they weren't necessarily pitching a lot of solutions in the article.
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It was more about highlighting what's going on. But in our view, what is the solution?
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So that's really what we're going to be discussing tonight.
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And obviously, I'm joined by Liz, Ray and JP. If you want to get involved in the conversation,
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please write us a comment on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, wherever you're watching this.
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Get involved in the chat and be good to hear from you tonight.
3:27
I'm sure they are a really good one. So is there anything I've missed there in my intro about this?
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This article in terms of what it's what it's sort of talks about? I don't think so.
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So does anybody want to kick off? Yeah. Yes.
3:44
I always I always do with things like this before we get to the content of the article, even.
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I feel like we need to discuss the headline and the media bias and the implications of the phrasing and the wording that they're using.
3:57
The it's the Telegraph. It's the Telegraph.
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So, of course, they're going to critique some left wing something in their headline. Of course they are.
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I've been in this country since 2010, which is perfect timing to make this point.
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The entire time I've been here with the conservatives in power until recently.
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Every school I've worked in has done managed moves. And this article spends a lot of time criticizing managed moves.
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And when they're done and how they're done and what the point is,
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they use specific examples of children who've experienced managed moves between schools.
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And then later on, gone on to commit heinous crimes.
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And they're as if they're trying to connect one to the other. They're not saying one causes the other.
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They're saying that, you know, these students are so violent that rather than excluding them or putting them in a, like, I don't know, prison cell.
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I'm not sure what they're suggesting. We just move them to be somebody else's problem.
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And then we allow them. That seemed to be the implication.
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We allow them enough freedom still that they go off and kill people, literally.
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So they're criticizing managed moves in an article, criticizing left, lefty, loopy, loony, lefty policies,
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which is really cute because managed moves have been going on the entire time I've been here.
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Well, let me let me put in nothing left. What about that?
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Let me put in briefly managed moves. I did a bit of sort of research prior to this.
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So managed moves were introduced in 1999. So that was new labor.
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Then they were, I think, cemented into guidance in 2004.
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So, again, a new labor. However, they were continued.
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They have been continued from 2010 all the way through to now.
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So it was actually it was actually a non from what I've read.
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It was a I don't know the wording they use, but it was like a non-party political thing.
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It wasn't a one side. It was like a multi-party agreement.
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This is the way. And it was adopted by pretty much everybody to say this is awesome.
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It's cross-party. So cross-party support would be non-political and would be supported by all sides.
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Cross-party support means same as cross ventures in the House of Lords, which means I think actually a lot of education should be cross-party.
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And it should be a political football. And this concept of left and right.
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And this this I mean, they mentioned about the murder of a transgender student is the Telegraph.
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Actually, all of a sudden, pro-transgender, if they want to get into that and it suits them, they want to come out with certain things to suit their agenda and maybe cherry pick.
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That article is cherry picking certain narrative to score points against a government that doesn't like.
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And there's half truths and there's some truths in it. But it is obviously a hack job decided to get people to believe a certain narrative.
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And that certain narrative is is that lefty teachers, lefty unions, lefty this, lefty that or the woke or the reds are out to get us.
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And they are they are harming our children when it's more.
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Yeah. They're saying the left is killing kids. That is that is literally the implication of that article.
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Yeah. It's the inference, isn't it? It's the deeper meaning of that. Somehow the enemy within the state, within the fifth columnists are.
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And it's a fear driven article. And also working in the reality of schools.
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No, there is a definite temperature change in education. There is definitely more fear, but there is more fear as a result of there are issues within education.
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There are issues within society. But let me be very clear. The bulk of the young people I work with are nonviolent, non-aggression and not a problem.
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And the bulk of teachers I work with are exactly the same. But too often now we get polemic.
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We get examples thrown together to create a narrative which is not true. And that happens on all sides.
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I don't care what side of the political spectrum we have a polarization debate.
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And I just wish they didn't start the article with that, because there are elements of the article, I think, raise some valid concerns.
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But they lose the kind of credibility when they start throwing around that agenda.
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And if they just de-agendaize it, I actually think they've got something valuable points to raise about what do we do with children who just don't fit within the mainstream?
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What rights do we have as educators when we know that some children just don't fit?
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And I'm a firm believer in education. I'm a firm believer in giving a fair chance at every child.
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I'm a firm believer in redemption as a practicing person of faith. I believe people can be redeemed.
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I think education can be a great lever. I think people can change.
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And that's part of our job sometimes is to take people in and make them a better version of themselves.
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But we have to have red lines. We have to have some boundaries, consequences.
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We can't just say, let's give this kid 15 chances. We do have to protect the majority of people.
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And that means we need, and I think you said it, Ray, in one of your clips, we need sometimes proper provision for people who have specific needs, behavioral needs, that we are not either trained for or capable of dealing with because it's not A, in our job description.
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B, not what we signed up for. And C, it's not fair on the rest of the children or their parents or the communities to put people at risk.
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And that's not, no condemnation of those young people who are the risk. They themselves need the proper help and we cannot deliver that.
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And I don't think that's the part that needs to be actually spoken. There needs to be more provision for children with very complicated and very much traumatizing behavioral needs that mainstream schools just cannot deal with.
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It's not to say we're not capable of dealing with many things. You know, I'm not going to a doctor when my teeth are hurting, am I? I'm going to a dentist.
9:51
All right. You know, I'm not going to a vet if I need my leg operated on. And that's a bit what schools have become.
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We are doing way beyond our remit. And I think, unfortunately, people then suffer as a result. And it's got nothing to do with left or right. It's just human beings.
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And to take a step down from that, even if you remove the cherry picking and the kind of exploitation of murdered kids in that article, to make a political point, even if you take that out, I still don't like what they're implying generally.
10:27
I will defend managed moves until the day I die, because most kids who are managed moved, who go to Fair Access Panel, they're not there because they've stabbed somebody. They're not there because they brought a knife to school. The majority of kids, it's things like persistent disruptive behavior.
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It's things that they're just not settling. They've bullied or been bullied. They had a fallout with a friend and decided to kick off because they don't care about this place anymore. It's more minor things because schools try, if they have the capability, to find alternate pathways and alternate placements for students before it gets to things like bringing knives into school.
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I've seen so, so, so many students as a teacher, as a head of year, come in as managed moves and thrive and actually just being removed from that specific environment. Something about it wasn't working. Think about a school. There are thousands, literally thousands of variables. And any combination of those things could not work for a particular child at a particular time.
11:29
And they thrive. Not all of them do. Sometimes it doesn't work. But enough do transfer to a different school successfully and move and become a better version of themselves that it is 100% worth continuing to do. And the whole article seemed to break it down to managed moves are all for violent kids. And if you managed move them, you are just passing the buck and making them somebody else's problem. And for the vast majority of these students, that is not the case.
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Some of them just do need a fresh start.
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Let me just thank you very much for the people who are watching this and listening live. We've had a few comments, which I'm going to throw up on screen in a second. But if you are watching this on Facebook or YouTube or X or anywhere else, drop a comment and let us know where you're watching from. Any thoughts or views you've got, let us know. And of course, give us a like and subscribe as well.
12:19
Rosanna has made a comment. Let's have a look at it. I'll read out. We have nowhere to send them when they literally physically abuse us, the teacher. They get sent right back after one minute. And the principal say I bombard the office. Why should I have to be facing someone who just physically abused me? How can I carry on my lessons after all of this? And how do the kids feel? This is in Ontario, Ontario, Canada.
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Ontario. Tom, who are you?
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Sod off.
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Ontario. Good Lord.
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I think it was a mistake to get an actual Canadian.
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Look, it could be worse. You could have said you're from America. Let's be honest.
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Let's not go there. Any thoughts, people?
13:05
I.
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OK, my sister is 17, she's in grade 12 in Hamilton and she goes, which is in Ontario, Tom, just in case you didn't know, Toronto.
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And she's she goes to a Catholic school. So it's it's it's not it's the Catholic school board, which is.
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Things work differently anyway.
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There are some incidents there, but it doesn't seem to have the same problem that the I don't know, the regional school board, like the non-Catholic school board seems to have.
13:36
So I feel like from what I've heard of various teachers that I know in Canada as well, it seems to be a really similar situation to here.
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So I feel like this is kind of a universal thing. It's something I've been thinking a lot about.
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I feel like all these things that we talk about as being relevant to the UK seem to be happening in various places in Europe are definitely happening across North America.
13:56
It seems to be like a Western culture thing that's going on right now.
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I'm not really sure why, but I feel like all of these issues keep popping up in different places in certain hemispheres.
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But I think the Anglo-American, the Anglo-American communities are the sharp edge of that, because I'm in Europe and I have to say that, you know, I'm in quite a traditional area of Spain.
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And it is more traditional. Now, I'm not saying it would be as traditional as maybe, you know, we were talking about this the other week, weren't we, the other day.
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I'm not saying it would necessarily be as traditional as some other areas.
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But I do think the United States, Britain, Canada, you know, if I had to pick the three countries where, you know, that might apply to, I'd pick those three.
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Australia is kicking off as well, apparently.
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Sure. You know, yeah. So I don't know. What do we think? What is the reason for that?
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I mean, I've got my. One of the reasons for me is like materialism.
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And I think that that has driven quite a lot of.
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Hold on, Tom. You mean that right wing ideology of capitalism is the problem?
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Maybe The Daily Telegraph needs to run the story about Thatcher's children coming home to roost and how the selfishness and entitled society of getting what you want, when you want and how you want.
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So maybe if I was to run a counterpiece, I would say the selfish nature of human beings now driven by getting what they want, when they want and how they want.
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So you're really basically saying, you know, it's the right wing then, not the left wing that is the problem.
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Solidarity, JP. Solidarity.
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But I think, yeah, I think, listen, I think whatever reason I get the point you're making.
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I don't know exactly what the issues are, but I think materialistic materialism has one particular is one particular cause.
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I think all the fabric of sort of traditional societies is sort of falling apart.
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Don't know whether the Internet or online life has played a role in that as well.
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I think views have got more polarised. I think people are just generally more pissed off.
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But again, you know, coming back to coming back to what we're talking, coming back to this article.
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Right. And let's let's come back to what what Rosanna actually said.
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So she said they get sent right back after one minute.
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Well, that can happen in schools when somebody gets sent out of the classroom and they're brought back within a minute after the person says they've just apologised to me and they're put back in the classroom.
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We've had a nice chat. They understand. Back they come.
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We've had a nice chat.
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No, they've been they've been they've been. Oh, and they come in so lovely, don't they?
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They come back in in front of that adult. So lovely. So nice.
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Almost to make the point you were being unreasonable.
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And of course, that it could be a senior leader who usually would be is buying into that.
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And you're stuck on. And it could be might not be a senior leader, could be pastoral support, you know, whose only role is the pastoral support.
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And they're coming in and going, I've done my job really well because this kid's calmed down.
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I've calmed them down. I've calmed them down. My words, I've reformed them.
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I am the martyr and I'm going to bring them back now into this classroom.
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And the moment they close the door, they revert to what they were doing before.
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And do you know what that equates to? That equates to a little bit of my childhood trauma.
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You're ready for this one. Wait till your father gets home.
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Because, you know, that's what you get undermined. Discipline.
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As your parents and there are parents listening to this, you've got to be a team.
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You have to discipline together. You have to reward together.
18:05
And that, what you just said, is completely the opposite of what you do as a parent.
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You do not. If you're a couple, you're raising a child, you're co-parenting.
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Whatever your situation is, who you're parenting with, if you are parenting with somebody, you're on the same page.
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You cannot and you do not undermine the authority or the person that you are.
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I do not undermine my wife and that. I do not. It's not fair.
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And that's what I had as a child growing up when discipline was done by dad.
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And I dreaded the thought of my father coming home, literally, because the door would open and the poor man would be tired.
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And after a hard day's work, he hears his wife going on about his boys again.
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And he'd go and discipline us and then he'd feel guilty.
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But as I got older, I didn't resent my father for that.
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I resented my mother for, A, not dealing with the problem and, B, not having the courage to literally confront us.
18:57
And that is exactly that. How would the authority of that teacher be?
19:02
When that child walks back into the class and goes, nah, nah, nah, got away with it, 1-0 to me.
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And they do think like that. I'm sorry. You've got to be the arbiter and the complete authority in your classroom.
19:12
And if you undermine like that, you are completely disarmed and you have lost respect.
19:18
They haven't done any. It's a shame.
19:20
How do you as a teacher do that then? How do you as that teacher?
19:24
So let's say that's Rosanna or another teacher and that happens to you and they bring you back.
19:30
In fact, I'm going to ask Liz, because Liz has managed to get like three words in since day 8.
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I've literally counted the words. She's managed to get about three in.
19:40
Liz, if that was you, right, and they came to you and did what I've just described,
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what would you actually do then to deal with that?
19:50
Because JP, you've just said, I'll stand up and stand up for yourself and do whatever.
19:56
What do you do? Do you say no, take them away?
19:59
Well, you can't really then undermine the management, can you?
20:04
You know, you're in a really difficult position. You kind of feel that you have to accept them back.
20:09
I know certainly I've been in the past. My current school are really good with this,
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so I cannot complain at all. But where I've worked in the past where this has happened
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and they send you back in, oh, you know, they know what they've done.
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They're coming back now. They've made amends, blah, blah, blah.
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And like you say, five minutes later, what can you do?
20:31
I mean, I have in the past sent them out again after disruptive behaviour.
20:37
But you would think that after two times they might not be brought back.
20:42
I've also refused to let them back in. It's happened very rarely.
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But there have been moments where the kid's been brought back and I take one look at them
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and know I'm not calm yet. I'm not ready to engage with this child yet.
20:53
I have not reined it in and it is not good for anyone if that kid comes back in this room.
21:00
This comes back to, it's really simple. If a child has an audience, yeah,
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they're going to behave differently than if you're talking to them one to one.
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And I don't care which kid it is. It's just the fact of life.
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So if you're going, they're a lovely kid. They've just spoken to me in such a lovely way.
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They've apologised. They've conceptualised everything that's happened.
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They've reflected and now they want to have a good go. That's great.
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But do you not understand the difference between a 30 in a classroom and a one to one conversation?
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Do you not understand that context is completely different and any child is going to act different.
21:39
And the vast majority of children in that situation are going to go, well, there's no audience now.
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So actually, I might as well, whatever, try and get away with it.
21:47
Or, you know, sort of have a conversation that's maybe more the real me.
21:52
But then as soon as they're back into the classroom, it's like, nah, all my mates are in.
21:57
I'm back to what I'm doing. You know, whatever. Kids will want to do whatever they want to do.
22:03
If somebody's going to say to me, look, can you, I believe the child's behaviour has changed.
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Can you take them back into the class? It's your choice.
22:13
Then I'll judge the situation based upon what I know about the child, what they've done.
22:17
And as you say, Ray, as well, whether I'm willing at that moment in time to forgive them.
22:24
Because, you know, all these people who are trauma informed forget that we're not automatons.
22:29
We're human beings. If you cut me, do I bleed?
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And all those critics of teachers out there, they forget. I'm a parent.
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I don't do this job because I get well paid. I do it because I care about the children.
22:41
Sometimes you need to make a stand so that child knows that there has to be consequences.
22:46
And that sometimes, no, I've had a child once, and this happened to me the other day,
22:50
who spent half a lesson trying to get removed from my lesson because he didn't want to do any work.
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He just simply didn't want to do any work.
22:56
And I helped him more than reasonably and tried my best to keep him in the lesson.
23:00
He just made that choice and he made it clear that he was going to do everything to get removed in order to do the work.
23:06
He reappears back into my classroom, 30 minutes later, asking to come in because he'd been removed from his next lesson
23:14
and wanted me to accept him in because I'm one of the teachers he gets on with.
23:18
Not a chance. And he looked at me straight away and he went, can I come in?
23:23
I went, you just spent a half an hour trying to get rid of me. No, you can't.
23:26
Now, I did follow up with him later on because, you know, those critics would say, oh, that child doesn't feel wanted.
23:32
He was felt wanted. He was felt wanted when I felt it was the right time for him to be in lesson.
23:38
He cannot pick and choose when he dictates what he gets, what he wants.
23:41
Because not over me, not a chance.
23:43
Now, that child is back in my class because I made it clear to him, if you want to behave yourself,
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there's a set of conditions. You want to get into my lesson. You want to stay in my lesson.
23:50
This is the standard. You don't measure up to that standard. No.
23:53
And that's the key word in this. No. If I say that child's not going back into my lesson,
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I am not going to be bullied by the people who are telling me to put that child back in.
24:01
I'll make a professional judgment that I make as a teacher.
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And if they don't like that, then they can turn around and have that conversation with me in private,
24:08
not in front of the children. And they'll have to make that judgment before they put that child back into me.
24:12
And I will, the majority of the time, accept the child back into those conditions that I'm not being forced,
24:16
that it is my choice, and that I believe that their behavior is going to be altered.
24:20
Because defined for me, the definition of insanity, it is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
24:27
So why would I accept the child back into the lesson when I know that they're just going to do exactly the same thing again
24:32
and go back to square one? I want to change the behavior and change the outcome,
24:37
not just pacify a senior member of staff who's got a problem, who just wants to solve that problem as quick as possible
24:43
and forget it's a sticking plaster over a gaping wound.
24:46
I would rather, like that case study I gave you, solve that long-term problem
24:50
where that boy wants to be in my lesson, knows he's wanted my lesson,
24:53
but knows he has to behave a certain way to stay in my lesson.
24:56
And yes, I will have him in and he's welcome at all times.
24:59
But it is about what we have to set conditions.
25:02
Because it's not just, you're allowed back in the lesson because you've said sorry.
25:07
It's got to have something more than just saying a word sorry, because that word is overused
25:12
and it is misunderstood sometimes. So that's my take on that one.
25:16
It's used as a default, isn't it? It's just a default response.
25:20
It's sorry. But I have this conversation with my students all the time.
25:25
And I'm like, no, don't say it unless you mean it.
25:28
And you're actually going to correct the behavior and try again.
25:32
There's absolutely no point of me telling you to stop doing the same thing over and over again,
25:37
you saying sorry every time. And we're just in this cycle.
25:40
It's pointless for all of us involved.
25:44
One of the schools I worked in, we had behavior management training once
25:49
and we were given a booklet as part of this kind of overhaul of behavior management.
25:55
And in the booklet, there was one bullet point,
25:58
which is absolutely burned into my brain because I remember it so strongly.
26:03
And it said all behavior should be dealt with at grassroots level.
26:08
Nothing should be being passed up. That was the phrase that was used in there.
26:13
And I was like, obviously, in an ideal world, of course, we would manage.
26:19
Everything would be low level enough. Things wouldn't be repeated.
26:23
We would manage to deal with everything at grassroots level.
26:27
As teachers, we really struggle with the idea of sending people out
26:31
because we feel that we're being judged in some way, shape or form because we can't manage
26:37
the behavior in our class. I know I've definitely got a stigma attached to it.
26:41
I will try my best to hold on to students unless they really have properly misbehaved.
26:46
However, there are some things that you cannot do that with.
26:53
You just can't. And so therefore, you have to pass it on.
27:00
You have to pass it on. And the fact that management teams are putting in place
27:03
these systems whereby they don't want us to pass things, that's ridiculous.
27:08
That's a ridiculous expectation to say. You also have to.
27:11
Yeah, because there's 31 other kids in the I'm playing whack-a-mole here,
27:16
like and trying to teach lessons, get these kids to get their target grades at minimum.
27:21
When am I? Let me give our amazing supporters and sponsors a shout out
27:27
while we continue this conversation. We've got Hachette Learning,
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27:44
In fact, Rosanna, you should head over to Hachette Learning website because they've got loads of stuff on.
27:49
All the stuff we're basically talking about. Head over there. Do it.
27:53
Also, we have our amazing supporters at AQA. If you want to be an examiner this summer,
27:58
it's paid, flexible work. And of course, it's amazing CPD. And they're currently recruiting.
28:03
You can head over to the AQA website and hit the tab that says apply and become an examiner this summer.
28:11
Now, let me just read you a little quote from the article.
28:15
So they talked about managed moves, which we sort of touched on.
28:18
Now we can talk about. I actually personally, I agree with everything you guys have said about the
28:25
politicization of this in the sense that it's not fundamentally a left or right wing thing.
28:33
I do think there are things in the article around, for example, the movement towards no more exclusions
28:40
and the pressure that's been applied to leaders to not exclude.
28:45
I think that some of that has come from groups and organizations that are predominantly left wing.
28:51
However, that's not to say that the vast majority of things that they discussed, managed moves,
28:58
just blatantly are not a left wing thing. That's just a non cross party thing.
29:03
But do we agree with a quote from the article that says underlying the system of transfers is the conviction
29:12
of so-called progressives in education that the interests of the vulnerable,
29:16
who for them are always victim of their circumstances, trump those of the rule following majority,
29:23
even if it puts other children in harm's way? Do we do we agree or disagree with that?
29:31
Mixed. I think you're right. I think if you went around like, you know, the lobbying groups,
29:38
the ones who are advocating for exactly what that article just said, I think you would find overwhelmingly
29:43
they would define themselves as left wing or be voting for left wing parties.
29:49
But if you look at the, as it said, overwhelming majority of everyone else,
29:52
we've had this conversation because we have such a diverse group of panelists that come on the show.
29:57
You know, we've got people who are counselors for different political parties.
30:02
You've got people who vote for different political parties.
30:05
And ironically, every single one of us has been called right wing multiple times.
30:13
I vote green, but OK, sure, whatever. You vote green. I know.
30:22
I'm just somewhere in the middle, but we get accused of it.
30:27
But if you look at the majority of teachers, it is diverse.
30:30
A lot of left wing staff are in that and educators are in that majority,
30:36
because as we have discussed amongst ourselves with with our conservative colleagues,
30:43
it's if you work in schools like your opinions and your views are actually more aligned with each other
30:50
than they are with any political ideology, because we know what it's like.
30:54
And we have the experience of working in schools,
30:56
whereas people who aren't educators and don't work in school environments have no idea what the hell they're talking about.
31:00
So no matter whether you vote conservative, green, labor, whatever, reform, God help us,
31:05
you are more likely to agree on education related issues than you are to align with your party's specific view on it,
31:14
if that makes sense. Experience counts for more.
31:17
One of the weirdest things that you see that we used to see on old Twitter a lot was like,
31:22
you believe in traditional behavior rules, you're right wing.
31:27
Well, not really. Someone can just believe in pedagogy.
31:32
These people's pedagogy makes you fascist and all this, you know, famous interview on TTR.
31:40
You can look it up between me and another person.
31:44
But, you know, this idea, I disagree. I disagree that somebody using particular pedagogical methods can make them a fascist.
31:52
I disagree. I disagree that slant is a precursor to fascism. I disagree with that.
31:57
I also disagree with people who paint a picture that people who believe in particular behavior standards and expectations are right wing.
32:06
By definition, it's like auto, you're right wing.
32:10
You haven't even spoke to them. You're literally judging it, basing it on their school.
32:14
It's like a job. It's like saying, OK, it's I always love my football analogies,
32:18
but it's like saying somebody who's a flair player in football is left wing because they have flair.
32:26
It's like, you know, oh, they must be left wing because they hang around on the wing.
32:29
And, you know, they sort of they don't do what anybody tells them.
32:33
They must be left wing. The right wing must be the structured person in central defense.
32:37
That makes that makes Donald Trump left wing because he doesn't follow any rules,
32:41
doesn't have traditional values and all the rest of it makes it up as he goes along and makes him left wing.
32:46
And you're absolutely correct. I don't fit in boxes sometimes. I have traditional views.
32:51
I have traditional views because of where I was brought up.
32:53
Traditional views about my experiences, traditional views of my occupation.
32:56
And sometimes there's contradictions. And the struggles.
32:59
Well, that's the experience. And I have, you know, certain neurodiversity as well.
33:04
So I have certain certain dichotomy where I have a combination of views and experiences.
33:10
And sometimes they're in contradiction. And people live like that.
33:14
I mean, you get people in America who believe in the death penalty, but are anti-abortion.
33:19
Tell me how that works when you can think that some people's life is OK,
33:22
but actually it's OK to then give the death penalty to somebody.
33:25
Human beings are by definition very contradictory and very complicated.
33:29
And our children are exactly the same. So are their parents.
33:32
What makes this job amazing is that we're dealing with human beings on an issue by issue basis.
33:37
I can be very conservative on some issues, but I can also be very progressive on some issues.
33:42
And that's human beings, isn't it?
33:45
Correct. And I'm willing to change my position based upon are we ready for it?
33:50
Based upon my experiences as a professional, my evidence, my CPD and observations.
33:56
And even coming onto the show, I'm willing to be challenged.
33:59
I have interviewed people whose political views, frankly, I do not like.
34:02
I've sat down with Katharine Burgess and I've sat down with Daniel Kevity.
34:06
Now tell me you don't have Daniel Kevity and Katharine Burgess and I can still find something in common with both of them.
34:12
And both of them, after interviewing them, I can tell you that both of them care about what they're doing.
34:17
And yet Katharine will get a lot of abuse from people.
34:20
But yet as a head teacher, she does a good job. I have to acknowledge it.
34:24
I respect her in many ways, but I severely disagree with some of her views.
34:28
However, I respect some of her other views.
34:30
So what am I to do? Just turn around and ignore those things I don't like about her.
34:33
Pull it, you know, be polar on it.
34:35
And that's, I think, what we're facing sometimes in teachers talk radio.
34:38
But this is it, isn't it? This is like nuance is dead.
34:41
Done. It's finished.
34:43
There doesn't seem to be any capacity at all to realise that everything's on a spectrum that slides back and forth.
34:52
And you can have an opinion that's here. You can have an opinion that's there.
34:55
And those views can move all over the place.
34:59
Nuance is everything. And we've become as a society so polarised.
35:05
Sorry, Liz, I don't want to allow you to get 20 words in the show so far.
35:10
I just want to give a shout out to Johnny who has said, well done.
35:13
We don't fit into boxes. And Johnny, thanks for sort of engaging with TTR stuff that we do.
35:19
Because Johnny is a primary teacher and he does he does engage with stuff that we do and get him gets involved in the chat.
35:26
So we appreciate that. So thank you. Yeah.
35:29
I mean, listen, we can go around the circles of this. I want to bring it back for like 15 times.
35:33
See if we can attack this issue, because in that particular quote, it says.
35:38
Are always victims of the circumstances. Now, I'll put something out.
35:42
I think have we moved into a space where when we talk about behaviour.
35:48
OK. It's almost like at times we've we've literally moved away from the idea of choice within behaviour.
35:57
So we if somebody has any sort, anything, any sort of thing that we know about, it's almost like they have no choice over what they've done.
36:10
They have they have had no choice of what. Now, in some cases, of course, that is going to be the case.
36:16
OK, we can think of examples where somebody exhibits a behaviour where they've had no control.
36:22
But this does not apply to the vast majority of people and young people.
36:28
They do have a choice that they can make a choice and then you have a consequence.
36:32
I think we've moved much more to a space where, number one, there's no consequences.
36:37
But the first thing is there's no choice either. It's you are this.
36:43
We're taking ownership of your behaviour. We're taking ownership of it.
36:47
It's on us. It's immediately on us before we even get to like anything else.
36:54
It's on you've done something. It's on us. We've got more support.
36:58
More TAs, more funding, better curriculum, better teachers, more time.
37:03
It's all it's all us. It's all us. We very rarely go responsibility, accountability.
37:09
You've made a choice. There's a consequence. We've moved away from that.
37:15
Now, you might argue that we have we that is healthy in some ways.
37:19
It hasn't. It's been a good thing. It's not a bad thing to really consider lots of different reasons and factors and causes of something.
37:29
It's not a bad thing. But we've moved so far, in my opinion, the other way.
37:33
Well, now it's like we almost jump immediately to.
37:37
It's not their fault. Well, sometimes it is their fault.
37:40
I'm really sorry. Sometimes it is their fault. They've chosen to do something.
37:43
And it's no reflection on them as a person. Behaviour is separate from them as a person.
37:47
We're talking about their behaviour to support what you're saying.
37:50
And I do agree with you is that our children cannot learn if we do not turn around and say to them,
37:58
these are your mistakes. And yes, part of this mistake is driven by your background, your poverty, your neurodiversity.
38:05
That helps explain why you do. But our job is just to say, oh, well, you grew up in poverty.
38:11
Well, we're just going to lower expectations for you because, you know, we don't expect as much.
38:15
Hey, when you don't do as well. Sorry about that. It's because you're poor.
38:19
I did not go into education to reinforce those. I went into education because I believe that we can change those outcomes.
38:26
And that does mean I believe that every child, no matter how unteachable they are, no matter their circumstances, can be redeemed.
38:33
Now, that is part of my Christian upbringing, which makes me a little bit right wing.
38:37
But then that other side of that's left wing. Redemption. So that's confusing.
38:41
But I go into education believing that the children I teach, their outcomes can be changed by someone like me and the education system itself.
38:47
Tell me that's not our job and tell me that's not what we're there to do.
38:51
Because what I'm getting sometimes is is literally that's not their fault.
38:55
That's not their fault. There's nothing you can do about it. That's just the way they are.
38:59
You've just got to accept that child the way they are.
39:02
It's a child. It's a proto-adult human. It can be altered and changed.
39:07
The brain is bloody flexible. Tell me the brain cannot evolve.
39:13
That is the most evolved piece of equipment nature has ever designed.
39:17
We are still figuring out how this piece of machinery still works.
39:21
And it is amazing. And yes, we are finding out how it is working and that's giving us a better understanding.
39:27
But it's also making us a bit confused and a little bit of knowledge, rich, but understanding poor.
39:34
And I do think, unfortunately, people are making excuses sometimes when what is needed is.
39:39
I often say it's not what people need. It's what they're demanding.
39:42
They're demanding lots of things, but they actually what they need sometimes is a lot.
39:48
They want it easy. They want everything broken down.
39:50
And it's a bit like if a child is struggling because they've got a learning difficulty.
39:54
And I don't even like the word learning difficulty because they might find some things more difficult and they may be a genius at something else.
40:00
And I just don't like that sometimes when we pigeonhole, it goes back to boxes, we pigeonhole children.
40:05
Because again, I think there are some children who are talented at many things.
40:08
And our education, one size fits all, just doesn't always fit and doesn't help.
40:12
But part of our job is to try and get that out of kids and to try and grow them and to try and grow them beyond their environment, to grow them beyond whatever their issue is.
40:22
So if a child is in poverty, I want that child to go to Oxford and Cambridge just the same as any other child who has less life chances.
40:29
I'm in it for the life chances. I want to improve children's life chances.
40:32
And that means sometimes having the argument and saying, I am not settling for anything less for this child.
40:38
And I know that's not what you want to hear, but that's what I want for your child.
40:42
That's what I want for these children. And that means sometimes I have to be hard on them.
40:45
That means I have to sometimes say that's not good enough.
40:48
That means sometimes I have to say to their parents, you know what, that's the standard, do better.
40:53
Simple as that. And they can say that's because it's for me.
40:56
Somebody comes to me and says as a teacher, that's the standard, you do better, I will do better.
41:01
I try and do my job better, but I just wish everybody had the same attitude.
41:05
And I think we're losing a little bit of our attitude of accepting things rather than fighting them, overriding them, and actually encouraging our young people to go way beyond.
41:13
And I think sometimes our young people start to believe the stuff that they're told.
41:16
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, the Dweck thing.
41:19
Somebody's saying, I've got no evidence for this. Just read Cara Dweck and self-fulfilling prophecy.
41:23
You tell people they're not very good, you tell people they have a problem, they will develop that personality based on that problem.
41:30
And then they will overcome that problem, and then the rest of their life they will spend the rest of their life going, I can't do that, why not?
41:35
Well, I've got this problem. That's fine. They may struggle.
41:38
But isn't our job to break down the barriers? And yes, they will struggle.
41:42
But they will struggle a lot less because we will have the confidence to boost them up, to grow them beyond.
41:48
Because we want kids out of prisons. We want kids being productive.
41:51
We don't want them in the system saying they can't do things.
41:54
And look at the shape of a lot of our young people at the moment. There's more needs than ever.
41:58
And that is not because we are literally not pushing them hard enough.
42:02
And we're not driving them hard enough. We're just accepting and saying, you haven't done well.
42:07
Come on, do work harder. They're losing the graft because we're so afraid to literally say, you've not done well.
42:13
You've failed. That's a word. That's a dirty word now. Failure is a dirty word.
42:17
You have failed. You went in. I went to my driving instructor and I apologized to my driving instructor.
42:22
I failed my driving test. I failed my driving test. Nobody else.
42:27
I drove the wrong way, nearly crashed the car. And I was very nervous.
42:31
I took responsibility for that. That was my fault.
42:35
And then what did I do? I went back and reset the driving test and I succeeded.
42:39
That's what we want people to do. It's resilience. It's about all those things.
42:43
So Tom, absolutely correct. I completely believe you're correct.
42:46
Because we have literally started to create a system where it's not their fault. It's not their fault.
42:50
It's somebody else's fault. And I do believe these things are factors.
42:53
Poverty, of course, it makes things more difficult. But people can overcome that.
42:57
And that's our job to help them overcome that. But we can only overcome that when we get support.
43:01
When people are undermining us, they're getting in our way of doing our jobs.
43:04
They're not helping us to overcome them. They're literally stifling our ability to do it.
43:08
They're questioning us, why we're trying to grow these kids. Sorry.
43:12
I was going to jump in there and be really geeky.
43:15
Not allowed. Now up to 20 words.
43:20
So standard one of the teaching standards is about setting high expectations for all pupils.
43:26
That is the expectation on all people. Yeah.
43:29
Yeah. All pupils. And yet somehow we are breaching that standard.
43:33
I feel like because society is expecting us to because we are being expected to.
43:39
Oh, yeah. But they can't do that because they can't do that because no, no, no, no, no.
43:43
They are going to find that a little bit more difficult because like it frustrates me this.
43:50
We've got into such an excuse culture with everything. And it's like that's not going to help anybody in life.
43:56
I saw a comment. I think it was on one of our videos that said I had a head teacher who used to say,
44:03
I'm having high expectations for your child and I'm making your child accountable so you don't have to pay a barrister to do it in the future.
44:11
That was all in Ebenezer.
44:13
Oh, was it?
44:14
It connects me. It was parents.
44:20
Yeah. And then somebody else commented, parents who constantly excuse their children's behavior will later pay a lawyer to do the same.
44:28
So there you go. And before before we get 5000 death threats from certain corners of the Internet,
44:36
obviously, if students have particular educational needs or disabilities,
44:44
those expectations are going to look different from the majority.
44:48
Reasonable adjustment. It's a reasonable adjustment. And we all agree with that.
44:54
Of course we do.
44:55
Find me a teacher, find me enough teachers who actually disagree with that.
45:01
No one does.
45:03
I've never met a teacher who goes, oh, somebody's actually got this special educational need or disability.
45:10
We're not going to make any adjustments for those students at all.
45:14
Find me a teacher who I'm sure they're out there, but I've I've never met one.
45:19
And I struggle to think there are many.
45:21
Tom.
45:25
I spend a lot of my time arguing for those adjustments.
45:29
Exactly. Exactly. I've got so many of my colleagues who want this specifically to help those particular students.
45:36
And a lot of those colleagues and friends have SEND themselves.
45:43
So they were were on a list in school or they've been diagnosed since and they found things really difficult.
45:48
And they want to help support students in those positions because maybe they didn't get the recognition, especially the ones that were diagnosed in adulthood.
45:55
They definitely didn't get the support that they could have got in school.
45:57
So they're trying to change that for future generations. Right.
46:00
That's their driving force in doing this job in the first place.
46:03
And they say all the time and they have to say this to parents all the time.
46:08
Just because your child has ADHD, for example, does not mean they are incapable of doing X, Y and Z.
46:15
Because the parent goes, oh, he can't do that. Oh, but he's ADHD. Oh, but of course.
46:18
No, no, no, no, no. It doesn't mean he can't do it.
46:20
It means he's going to find it more difficult and I'm going to support him to do this.
46:23
It means that maybe the final results of this process is going to look a little bit different, but it is not an excuse.
46:29
And it does not mean he cannot try and it does not mean he can give up. That's not what we're here for.
46:33
It's not an excuse. It's a partial explanation, not an entire excuse.
46:37
Everybody says that we work to support these kids, not have low expectations and just write them off.
46:45
It's wanting them to succeed. Like I don't see it. It seems to have become almost controversial for us to fight for these kids to succeed.
46:56
Like, why is that?
46:58
Every child is different and every child has their own personality.
47:04
Right. Every child is different. Every child is a person.
47:07
They're not defined. They can't be defined by something. They're a person. They have a personality.
47:15
They can't be defined by something because people can be different from what they're supposed to be.
47:26
That's human nature. Right.
47:29
Right. But Tom, Tom, Tom, sorry to interrupt again.
47:32
But this is this is another like personally what I find offensive because I don't have a diagnosis.
47:38
So I'm not looking at it from that angle like a lot of my friends are and colleagues are.
47:42
What I find kind of weird as an outsider is that a lot of these and so much of it comes from parents.
47:51
Oh, he's he's done this because he's got ADHD. He's done this because of his autism.
47:55
He's done this again. Often that is part of the explanation.
47:58
But if you are attributing every single behavior or negative behavior to your child's special need or disability,
48:06
you are literally reducing their entire personality to their disability.
48:11
Like, is that not the most ableist thing you've ever heard?
48:14
If you refuse to accept that your kid can make choices or have views or behave in a way that is like typical of a child
48:24
and you're attributing everything to their diagnosis,
48:28
you are saying your kid is is literally just a walking autism or a walking ADHD.
48:34
Like that is literally what you're saying.
48:38
And that's a fixed mindset. That is that fixed mindset of I cannot.
48:44
One of the most amazing experiences of my life was working at the Paralympics in Sydney 2000.
48:49
And I went to the Olympics and I worked at the Olympics in Sydney Olympic Stadium.
48:53
And and I and I worked there and I saw the behavioral athletes, the showboaters,
48:58
the guys who had all the money and the wealth and there they were.
49:01
And then you watch the Paralympics and you watch what the human spirit is able to do in overriding.
49:07
And you watch those guys. Inspirational does not even come close.
49:13
I watched a blind athlete literally dragging his not blind athlete over the line to get the world record.
49:20
And literally, honest to goodness, that was one of the defining moments of my life is watching those.
49:26
Because literally you go, oh, my word, these people are beyond amazing.
49:30
And I think even when Channel 4 was doing coverage, they called them superhumans.
49:34
But every single one of those Paralympians has had at some stage probably a moment where they go, I can't do this.
49:40
I can't do this. And maybe they've had a trainer. Maybe they've had a coach.
49:43
Every single one of those successful people, maybe they've had somebody, a rescuing factor.
49:47
That rescuing factor is apparent. You know, it's somebody in their life.
49:50
And we sometimes are that rescuing factors.
49:52
We are those those those good teachers who are trying their best to get those children to say, no, you can do this.
49:58
I know it's difficult. I know you struggle to spell because you've got dyslexia.
50:02
But hey, look, I struggle to spell dyslexia, dyslexia.
50:05
I have a child that tells me and he really struggles with spelling.
50:09
And he says the spelling quite well and spelling this.
50:12
And we're talking about the Holocaust. And I knew exactly what it was.
50:16
I went, don't worry. I struggle to spell Auschwitz as well.
50:20
And the look in his face was beautiful. It was just kind of like, I get it.
50:24
I still struggle. I'm a history teacher. I still struggle to spell Auschwitz.
50:29
And instead of, you know, me going, it's fine. I can still understand that it disarmed him.
50:33
And he put a smile on his face and he got it correct. And that was the right way to handle it.
50:37
I know he's never going to be able, like me probably, to spell the word Auschwitz.
50:42
But that broke that down and went, it's fine. It's OK. I know you're going to.
50:45
But I reward him and go, you got the answer correct. Well done.
50:48
The spelling is important, but it's OK that I can read it.
50:52
And that, you know, the human to human of like what I struggle to.
50:55
The empathy. Empathy is so important. Massively.
50:59
Again, that's kind of dying in society because I think it's a bit of a left wing concept, isn't it?
51:04
This idea of actually caring for your fellow humans. And it's very woke, isn't it?
51:11
Progressive. It's progressive, isn't it? To care for your fellow humans.
51:17
How how very dare we. Well, to care for all of them.
51:21
I mean, as we said earlier on, even the children who have done bad things.
51:27
You know, I still care about them. And in fact, sometimes I was muted.
51:30
It didn't matter. I was muted. I was just talking to myself for like a minute.
51:35
Oh, that's fine. I was saying that I don't I don't think that it's good to necessarily exclusively say that left wing people have empathy.
51:52
I was being I was being sarcastic. It's not like I identified.
51:58
Oh, no. I don't think it's exclusively.
52:07
I think it's accused of being a left wing thing. Yeah.
52:10
Yeah. No, I agree with that. I agree with that.
52:14
I do agree with that. I get that bit.
52:18
I mean, what I what I sort of was thinking, I mean, I taught in a school for the deaf and, you know, for a couple of years up to twenty twenty four.
52:26
And the staff there. Treated.
52:32
All the children. In as children.
52:37
They didn't see them as less than they didn't treat them in a in a they made reasonable adjustments.
52:47
But they didn't they didn't approach like I, I feel sorry for you or I'm going to treat you.
52:54
And they treated them as individual children with respect in the school was the same.
53:02
The school was run in the same way. They didn't see the children.
53:08
I think that comes back to what you were saying, Ray, I think in terms of ableism and like sort of like not like seeing people as less than.
53:21
But thinking that you're doing that in a good way. When you're not.
53:26
Does that make any sense? What I'm saying? I think there I think there is a connection there.
53:30
I think we need I think we should be treating people and engaging with young people or anybody as the individuals that they are.
53:38
Yeah. Rather than attributing or just like making assumptions about what they can or cannot do.
53:43
We're expecting to do what's possible or treating them like they're never going to achieve something because of X, Y and Z.
53:54
Disabling them, isn't it? By by having no faith in them and saying, well, you're not going to be able to do this because of this.
54:01
And then defending that to the hilt. You're making a child believe that that's always going to be the case.
54:07
And I think as teachers, generally, we don't take that as an answer.
54:13
We very much are. You can do this. You can. We believe in you. You can do this.
54:19
Look, let's try it this way. Maybe this will help or, you know, but sometimes that's viewed as a poor choice.
54:29
I think we just have to be careful of the self-fulfilling prophecies.
54:32
What is told to young people then becomes the thing that they, as you said, define them, doesn't it?
54:39
And I know I grew up as a second class citizen in a certain conflict and my parents were discriminated against.
54:47
No, it was true. We were discriminated against. There are people in the world who get discriminated against.
54:51
And it goes one of two ways. You get pushed down and you can rise back up.
54:56
And I often believe that sometimes you have to be that person that gives them that opportunity.
55:00
So even those young people, going back to the story, those young people who have lost their way.
55:04
If I had the management, you're absolutely right. Right. Sometimes that's what they need.
55:07
They need a break. They need a change of setting and then they can try.
55:10
And the same goes for redemption. I mean, we're killers in our society.
55:15
Now there are people who are productive. Now there are men at peace.
55:18
You know, people can be redeemed. Education is a powerful weapon.
55:22
And I know that's controversial, but I do believe in the power of redemption.
55:25
I do believe that people can change. I do believe.
55:27
Because if people cannot change and people cannot override their backgrounds, then I wouldn't be sitting here now,
55:33
you know, having the experiences that I had, living through a conflict and then a peace situation.
55:38
I think people can be redeemed. Look at the likes of Mandela.
55:41
Look at so many examples in world history of people who have changed.
55:45
And sometimes it has been education that's done it for them.
55:48
And I do believe in the power of education for all children.
55:50
So there's an irony and there's a real irony in this is that sometimes the people that need the most education are the ones who aren't in education.
55:57
So I get why there are those that believe in that.
56:00
Because there's education offered in prisons because it's part of the rehabilitation process, isn't it?
56:07
It's the power of education is really, really important in turning somebody's life around.
56:11
But they would argue, though, that if they got the education before, they would not be in prisons.
56:17
And I firmly believe in the power that children who are dangerous, et cetera, et cetera, can be made less dangerous if they can be educated, if they can be changed.
56:27
Otherwise, you're just. And then what that article is basically saying is there are good ones and there are bad ones.
56:32
Keep the good ones away from the bad ones.
56:33
And I get why there are some people that don't agree with that, because that is condemning some children to a life of like your crap, your crap, your crap.
56:41
And that's it.
56:42
I think that's what really bothered me about the article, though, was this concept of what they should be excluded from school.
56:47
They shouldn't get another chance or whatever.
56:49
It's like, OK, so you exclude them from school.
56:52
What happens next?
56:54
Exactly. So this is the question.
56:56
Where is the line?
56:57
Like, where do they go and where is the line?
57:00
So I really strongly believe that obviously.
57:03
And this is this is it is insane to me that people find this like offensive or controversial or discriminatory or whatever.
57:10
No one should come to work and feel in fear of being physically, verbally, sexually, et cetera, harassed.
57:18
No child should go to school and be scared of being bullied, of being beaten up, of being verbally assaulted or bullied.
57:26
Like no one should have that should not be happening in schools.
57:29
And there has to be consequences when that does happen.
57:32
But to me, if that is happening, that child needs to be like try them somewhere else, because there is something about this environment.
57:41
There's something about the social group. There's something about this place and this child and that combination that is causing that could be contributing to these behaviors.
57:50
And sometimes people just need to switch up and they will get on with their lives, realize what they've done, be in a fresh environment, meet new friends, get away from negative influences or get away from their little fan club that they're influencing.
58:03
Go to a new school and get on with things. And maybe they'll stop bullying people.
58:08
Maybe they'll, you know, rein their neck in and actually focus on what they're supposed to be.
58:13
I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen.
58:16
I've seen managed moves work.
58:18
But where where is that line?
58:21
And I do think this is one of the valid questions the article raised.
58:25
If a child is bringing it, for example, because everyone everyone like draws the line of weapons.
58:29
But strangely, not every school does.
58:32
Sometimes they just say, oh, no, it's fine. We won't talk about that or let staff know that that kid brought in a knife and let's just carry on.
58:38
It happens. But most sane people agree that it's not acceptable for students to bring in weapons.
58:46
So what then? And this is this is where I think the article has a point.
58:50
Do we take a child who's done more than just like making an appropriate sexual comment or maybe pick on a kid in a younger year?
58:56
Maybe they've brought a knife to school.
58:59
What do we do in that situation?
59:02
Is it still acceptable to pass the buck and try and manage move situation?
59:07
Or is that an immediate exclusion? And if so, where do they go?
59:10
I think those are valid questions because there are some things that are above and beyond what other schools should be accepted to accept into their doors and put in front of their staff and in front of their other students.
59:25
Because a permanent exclusion with no support plan in place for a child is only going to encourage antisocial behavior.
59:32
It's going to push the problem out into society.
59:35
It's it's not going to solve a problem.
59:37
It's going to solve a problem within the school, but it's not going to solve the bigger problem.
59:44
And so something needs to be put in place.
59:46
But then does this boil down to the fact that actually all of our societal resources are just stripped back to nothing?
59:55
And so schools are having to pick up the slack on all of this.
1:00:00
Of course we are. And because there's nothing in place.
1:00:03
And I'm not sure there ever really was anything useful for like students who are bringing weapons to school.
1:00:08
It's not fair to subject anyone to that in school.
1:00:12
It's not fair to force them onto another school where they can potentially kill somebody.
1:00:16
Because there are hard lines and it's not fair to just exclude them and let them float around and get lost and be doomed to whatever because education redeems, et cetera, et cetera.
1:00:25
So where is this other place? Where is this other option for these students to go?
1:00:29
This is this is my point.
1:00:31
If they do go to that option. And this is more me asking a question than knowing the answers to this.
1:00:37
But if they do go to another option. So let's say an alternative provision.
1:00:41
Right. Let's say something along those lines. And I've worked in one.
1:00:45
I've worked in one where there was swearing all the time, where the students in the alternative provision sort of just wandered off.
1:00:57
I mean, I've told this story before where I may not have. I can't remember.
1:01:01
But they one of the students I was working with once while they decided they were going to go.
1:01:07
And I they were like, you're going to have to sort of follow them, you know, at a distance.
1:01:14
So I followed this. This child literally walked out of the center.
1:01:18
So I followed them and I walked. I must have been a hundred meters behind them.
1:01:22
And they just they're just walking around, walking around and around and around for like an hour.
1:01:27
And then eventually they decided to go back. And it was sort of, you know, abuse, verbal abuse of staff was was quite common.
1:01:41
Right now, suppose my question is. And I'm not I'm not suggesting all APs are like that, by the way.
1:01:48
I'm not at all suggesting that just to make absolutely clear.
1:01:53
But what I am saying is, where do we I suppose it comes back to your question of where do we draw?
1:01:59
What happens when we've done a managed move? There's been an exclusion.
1:02:07
They've gone to an AP. They exhibit the same behaviours again.
1:02:14
They do the same things again. What then? Is it is it containment?
1:02:26
What what what what do we do then? This is what I mean. What do we do?
1:02:30
But there isn't really any detention centre.
1:02:33
Well, I mean, the way the way some of these some of the way some of these cranks talk nowadays, you'd think it was it was the school.
1:02:42
Liz gets it. The the school. It's the school's fault for excluding them in the first place.
1:02:48
And again, this is another valid question from the article rather than anything else.
1:02:52
Everybody focuses on that exclusion as being like the exclusion to prison pipeline.
1:02:56
It's more like the parental to prison pipeline, the illiteracy to prison pipeline.
1:03:01
Those are the things we should be taught. The poverty and dysfunction and illiteracy combination to prison pipeline.
1:03:08
Those are the things we should be talking about rather than focusing in on that one.
1:03:16
Because schools have to react to things. People really underestimate how much individual support, how much, how many chances, how many conversations, how many things happen before a child gets excluded.
1:03:32
Oh, my gosh. It's such a last ditch.
1:03:36
Listen, I don't think people would believe the length that a school staff body goes through to try to help an individual child to go on the right path.
1:03:51
They go through weeks and weeks, months and months, sometimes years of trying to address behaviours before a child gets excluded, even not a permanent exclusion.
1:04:07
They go through so much. And then when that then happens and they go to another school on a managed move or they go to an AP.
1:04:17
They're going to get the same thing that they're going to get incredibly dedicated staff.
1:04:21
And I know, Liz, you said about funding cuts. No one can deny there's been some funding cuts in some areas, but the staff are very high quality.
1:04:30
The chances and the opportunities that individual children are getting now in a lot of cases is far beyond what children would have got 30 or 40 years ago in the UK.
1:04:42
I'm really sorry. It is. They get gym memberships, they get opportunities to go to places, to do things, they go on trips, they go on trips.
1:04:52
It's more than that, Tom. You take someone like me who's hit HD.
1:04:57
What was the punishment I got at school? I got caned.
1:05:00
And so for any of you out there, I want to quote modern teachers that you seriously give your head a wobble.
1:05:07
We have thugs teaching us when we were children with no diagnosis of neurodiversity, with no compassion, no kindness.
1:05:15
Then you get faith. I went to a faith school. Have nuns teach you and tell me about trauma.
1:05:20
So I get people criticizing modern teachers. This is the most compassionate, kind, educated, knowledgeable, evidence based pedagogical group of educators across the globe as well.
1:05:31
But we're also dealing, as proven by what we said in Canada and other countries, we seem to be dealing with some of the same issues, which is attacking us.
1:05:39
And yet we are the most compassionate, kind, understanding. And we're breaking because instead of supporting us and saying, you aren't those teachers of the past,
1:05:47
they seem to think that I am just like the guy that taught them 30 years ago.
1:05:51
They haven't understood that we've changed and that we are literally trying our best.
1:05:55
And they also don't understand that we're all, many of us are parents ourselves, are parents with children with complex needs.
1:06:00
I'm trying to balance that life while caring for children, who, frankly, sometimes we care for more than the actual people are meant to care for them.
1:06:07
And the government, as far as they're concerned, we're operating with a hand tied behind our back.
1:06:11
Educational funding is decreasing across the Western world.
1:06:14
You asked a question earlier on about what's going on across the Western world.
1:06:17
Have a look at educational funding across the Western world. Have a look at education funding in America, Canada, New Zealand, all those countries.
1:06:23
They're more likely to want to build nuclear weapons now than they are and want to put, you know, classrooms back together.
1:06:28
And I'm really, really sorry. You know, a nuclear fleet would be great if we could actually use it.
1:06:32
But we're actually 4% at the moment. And one of the unions is going on strike for that, is it not?
1:06:36
Because educational funding is extremely important. And when you cross reference educational funding going down,
1:06:41
how many football pitches have closed? How many swimming pools have closed? How much other things have closed?
1:06:46
In many ways, our young people are being done by, but at the same time, they are getting a better deal in schools.
1:06:52
So those people criticizing schools are not criticizing schools from a place where the actual reality versus the previous.
1:06:58
And I think they need to really have a long term consideration of what they expect of us, because we are not miracle workers,
1:07:05
but we are a damn sight better than previous generations of teachers who were out the door at 315,
1:07:11
who got a lot more respect, who could sit there, smoke a cigarette in class, smoke a pipe in class.
1:07:17
Yeah. My head teacher was smoking a pipe when I'm year six.
1:07:25
And I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not joking, it gets better.
1:07:30
He had a skimful the night before, he played in a band.
1:07:34
As you know.
1:07:36
Because he bloody stank of whiskey, that's why.
1:07:40
And you dare not question him.
1:07:43
So if anybody wants to have a go, I mean, seriously, any idea how far the teaching profession has come?
1:07:51
In the level of professionalism we are, and also to the ninth degree of accountability we are.
1:07:57
And there are people in our profession, obviously they're always bad and so the rest of it,
1:08:02
but the majority of people who are still left in education have to be hardcore to put up with this nonsense.
1:08:06
To put up with a lack of pay. I'm 19% worse off on my pay.
1:08:10
My job's annoying at the moment because of multi-academy trusts, and I'm still doing it.
1:08:14
Despite all the nonsense, and I'm sure all the people who are, you know, get on their high horses.
1:08:20
Get your ass in the class, then make the judgment.
1:08:24
All right? Come and do our job.
1:08:26
Get your asses in the class.
1:08:28
Nice bingo board stuff.
1:08:30
All right? If you think it's a bloody easy job, you get your ass in the class.
1:08:33
You know what? Half society had a meltdown because they had their own children during COVID to do a couple of lessons at home.
1:08:39
Come on, guys. Stop it.
1:08:42
And it's getting really frustrating now because we are trying our damndest and we care about all the children.
1:08:47
But as Ray says, there has to be ground rules.
1:08:50
There has to be cut off points.
1:08:52
There has to be even more reason that you say there are things we can accept and things we cannot accept.
1:08:56
Violence is a no-no and comes from a parent.
1:08:59
That's not me being a teacher.
1:09:00
I'm a parent of two children, and I'm really sorry I am not having my two children.
1:09:04
Okay, let me ask you this question.
1:09:06
Why is violence in schools on the rise then?
1:09:10
If we're all sitting there saying, you know, you speak to the average teacher.
1:09:13
It's like, no, it's absolutely not on, whatever.
1:09:15
Violence is on the increase, and it says in that article, whether we would agree with it or not, it says management, not punishment.
1:09:22
Managing the issue rather than sanctioning it.
1:09:25
And when it comes to violence, it seems that from every, you know, all the teachers who message in here and talk to us about it,
1:09:35
when we've put out stuff about violence in schools, the volume of responses has been staggering about, you know, the things that people have had to endure.
1:09:43
So I suppose my question is, if we're all saying this, why is it going the way it is?
1:09:48
Is it because of this pressure to not exclude?
1:09:52
Is it because, as the article says, progressive activists are saying we need to do this and then schools are listening?
1:09:58
Is it because Ofsted sort of are looking at exclusion as a bad thing, which intrinsically it is, I suppose, if you were to take it as what it is.
1:10:12
But it's sometimes a necessary evil.
1:10:15
I mean, come on.
1:10:17
But is it because they go, how many exclusions have you had?
1:10:19
Right, they've had this many exclusions. They've had this many suspensions.
1:10:23
And wasn't that thing about putting in internal processes to see how many suspensions have happened internally and how many internal exclusions?
1:10:32
You know, there's more of that building, isn't there, about making schools more accountable for stuff that happens internally?
1:10:40
Is it because of that? Honestly, that's what I'm asking you.
1:10:43
Why are we saying this then? And the opposite is happening.
1:10:48
It is an aesthetic, isn't it? It's all about how things look.
1:10:53
And so as soon as a school gets a reputation for it or something, they exclude.
1:11:01
I mean, look at the fact that people think that it happens so easily and that it's really common when it just isn't.
1:11:08
When it is a last resort, there is a stigma that's attached to it for schools in that you have not managed this adequately.
1:11:15
This is a reflection on you that you have not provided properly.
1:11:20
So, yes, schools, we use it as a last resort, perhaps wrongly in some situations.
1:11:26
Perhaps it's a misjudged thing because there is a line.
1:11:30
I do think that when children's safety is compromised by the violence of others in a classroom and staffs,
1:11:39
I mean, obviously, primarily we think of the children, but staff safety is compromised as a result of violence.
1:11:45
That should be a line that's crossed and. But it often isn't.
1:11:51
For me, prevention is better than the cure. I don't think of why that person's got excluded.
1:11:57
I think of what has happened to get leading up to that.
1:12:02
We've had this week about missed opportunities.
1:12:06
Every time something bad happens, Southport killer, there will be our social worker case.
1:12:12
There will be, well, why did nobody pick this up? Why was there so many missed opportunities?
1:12:16
Why did somebody not push the button? Why was somebody afraid of this?
1:12:19
Grooming guys. Gee, meanie.
1:12:22
And you know what? If they come out with that phrase, lessons learned.
1:12:27
Jesus, Mary and sweet Joseph, would they ever learn lessons? Same as school.
1:12:31
Learn lesson. Definition of insanity. Doing the same thing all over again.
1:12:36
What changes? Back to earlier on. When do we get to change the children's behavior?
1:12:40
If we're not supported, we can't change the child's behavior.
1:12:43
Then it will continue and continue, continue. Has to be consequences.
1:12:47
There has to be somewhere along the line where you say this has got to stop.
1:12:50
Somebody gets suspended from school once, right? You go, what did they get suspended for?
1:12:54
They were fighting because they were bullied. Stop the bullying. They don't fight again.
1:12:57
It becomes a lesson in life, right? If that keeps happening and happening and happening over and over again,
1:13:02
you've got to say to yourself, whatever you're doing is not working.
1:13:05
So you have to exclude a child. It means, unfortunately, there has been a monumental failure there, hasn't there?
1:13:11
And that's the big stigma of it. Same as I don't like a child being removed from my class.
1:13:15
I feel as I feel as if I have failed. If a child is outside my classroom, I feel like I've failed.
1:13:22
If a child is excluded from my school and my head teacher would say it's a failure, we have failed.
1:13:26
We've let that child down. My God, we don't want that to happen.
1:13:29
So these people saying, oh, we want to exclude a child. No, it's the last resort.
1:13:32
It's the nuclear option. We don't want to do it.
1:13:34
JP, the other day I was teaching year seven and a child, it wasn't anything major,
1:13:42
but I asked them to stand outside and re-enter the room when they were ready to re-enter the room.
1:13:51
And they walked to the door and as they got to the door, the door opened. It was the head teacher of my school.
1:13:57
Now, listen, in a normal sense, if schools were normal, that would be like he's just doing his job.
1:14:12
Now, to be fair, my head is great in that sense. He he would see it as Tom's just doing his job.
1:14:20
He wouldn't have. But there are many, many, many senior leaders out there who would have put a mark in their jotter book there.
1:14:27
They'd have gone. If they see a teacher in a corridor.
1:14:35
In a assertive way. Where the student is sort of listening to them and the teacher is talking to them in an assertive way,
1:14:44
not necessarily shouting, but a firm and assertive way, but not trauma informed.
1:14:50
But if the teacher uses the wrong words in a conversation, they use words that are deemed to not be fitting to the situation.
1:15:02
If if a teacher has the most amount of warnings given on the system that must be bad, must be a bad teacher,
1:15:12
mustn't be engaging in their lessons enough. Now, listen, in some cases, we said this in the comments.
1:15:19
Someone said, do you think there are any bad teachers? Of course, there's bad teachers.
1:15:23
There's always been bad teachers. There always will be bad teachers.
1:15:28
We've had them in school ourselves. But what you said, JB, is absolutely right.
1:15:33
The levels have gone up so, so much. Your bad teacher now would have been like a blooming Premier League footballer in the 1970s.
1:15:43
I mean, I told you this story. My dad, my dad didn't get observed.
1:15:48
My dad got observed once in his I think once or twice in his 34 year career.
1:15:55
He could have been doing, he could have been terrible in that classroom.
1:15:59
Now, OK, it might have been based on parental complaints.
1:16:02
You know, if he'd have got loads of complaints in, maybe then they'd have whatever.
1:16:06
But it was he got observed a couple of times. His head teacher, he told me this.
1:16:12
He got he got seen once by the head teacher of his school in the first week.
1:16:17
He was there and then they left him alone. They made a judgment off that first lesson.
1:16:21
Yeah, he's fine. Off he goes. Never got watched again in the first 15, 20 years of his career.
1:16:27
He started in 1970 or whatever it was. Right. So this is this is the nature of where we're going.
1:16:33
And this whole thing of like, like I said, I've given you some examples of that, of like teachers being looked down upon for having high standards.
1:16:43
Teachers being made to feel guilty for doing their jobs correctly and holding the line where others are going, I quite fancy being popular today.
1:16:54
I'm going to let that one go. I quite fancy being the martyr today and the saviour of this of this class.
1:17:01
I'm going to let that one go. I don't want to ruin my relationship with this particular student who loves me.
1:17:08
So I'm going to let that serious issue go. That broken window theory though, isn't it?
1:17:14
Just pretend I didn't see it. Are you telling me that doesn't happen? All three of you? No, it does happen.
1:17:19
I'm sure it does. But for me, it's more I don't have the capacity to take this on right now because I'm already up here when my limit is here.
1:17:28
So if I have to confront this student about this thing, I'm going to blow my top.
1:17:33
That's that's where my laziness comes in.
1:17:37
Beata, and I'm sorry, I should have checked out to pronounce your name. I'm not sure, but Beata.
1:17:42
Yeah, I'm going to suggest it's said like that.
1:17:45
Thank you so much because you're always engaging with what we do at TTR.
1:17:49
I don't know if you're a teacher. Tell us in the comments where you are and what you do because you're one of our super fans.
1:17:54
So tell us where you are. Tell us what you do. Tell us how you found us, how you got here, what your concerns are at the moment.
1:18:02
You know, you might not be a teacher. That's fine. Tell us, you know, tell us where you are, what you're doing, what you're up to.
1:18:07
And yeah, you're absolutely right. In my opinion, schools don't use exclusions because they're afraid of triggering Ofsted.
1:18:13
Fortunately, the other children and staff suffer. It's a tragic situation.
1:18:17
Not wrong. And also, you don't get the ire of and this is the bit in the article I did agree with to a point.
1:18:24
You do then get the ire of these sorts of activist groups on you.
1:18:29
You're failing the children. You've done something wrong. You're not good at your job.
1:18:34
We need to investigate you. We need to have an inquiry into what you've done by because you've triggered some of these exclusions in the space of a month.
1:18:44
What's what are you basing that on? Nobody wants to exclude anybody.
1:18:51
And the headteachers, there's a reason why 9% evidence here, just in case. There's a reason why 9% of teachers, the headteachers leaving.
1:18:59
They're caught between a rabbit and a hard place. They've got staff sometimes saying, we want this kid excluded.
1:19:04
He is dangerous and I don't feel safe. And what do you say in any other workplace?
1:19:09
I go back to the what I said before about the A&E. They have bouncers on the doors.
1:19:14
They do not tolerate certain behavior at their public sector. We do not come into our jobs to not feel safe. I'm not physically safe.
1:19:22
And again, when I was a child, I was more likely to be assaulted by a teacher than I was a child.
1:19:28
But we somehow have come full circle on that because now the numbers of assaults, again, look at the evidence, the number of assaults on teachers, serious assaults on teachers, damage done to teachers.
1:19:38
I think one went under national media recently and that was quite a shocking case. You've interviewed an individual who was a teacher who had a shock.
1:19:46
Michelle Stone.
1:19:47
Michelle Stone. And that evidence, again, anybody wants to criticize this, they can look at the evidence, look at the evidence in the unions, the number of attacks on teachers has increased.
1:19:55
And that is a game of global. I see these videos in places like America and you're going, my God, this is even serious, serious level.
1:20:02
And some parts of the world's got meat, you know, and you've got to say, why is this happening?
1:20:05
It is happening because people are expecting those damage because they look down upon us. Parents look down on us. We don't get protection any longer. We are fricking expendable.
1:20:15
Covid.
1:20:16
But that comes down to you.
1:20:18
We're expendable. We're meat. We're just meat. We're not teachers. We're not respected. We're just meat for the grinder. So what if the kid is a teacher?
1:20:24
You know, and you know, I'll finish with this. And I'm flipping sick of this. You're the adult. I might be an adult, but I'm somebody's father.
1:20:34
I'm a human.
1:20:35
And I'm somebody's son. And I bloody well bleed just like everybody else. So I'm sick of people turn around and say they're just a child.
1:20:41
I am a short five foot six man and there are kids twice my bloody size and could do damage to me. So you know what? And there are a lot of women, women, more women work in education than men.
1:20:50
So when you get these people going, they're an adult. Yeah, but we're absolutely vulnerable as well. We're not Robocop in bloody school. We're not fully armed. We're not the riot police.
1:20:59
And I've seen examples of that so many times. So when people need to support us rather than go, well, you know, it's a child. OK. Their levels of concern towards our welfare is shocking. It is shocking. We don't get any.
1:21:13
We are vulnerable because we are the often the only adult in a room of 30 to 32 children. You know, you don't actually have very many workplaces where that's the case, where you don't have the support of another.
1:21:31
I can't think of one off the top of my head. I may well be wrong. But you will often have another adult professional, whatever, nearby in that situation. But for six hours a day, we are often the only adult in the room.
1:21:45
And that does make you incredibly vulnerable. And there isn't really any acknowledgement of that. In fact, we're bullied from every angle, aren't we? Bullied in the classroom, bullied via email, bullied, criticised left, right and centre.
1:22:03
Ultimately, the vast majority of people who work in this profession are, we said this earlier, good natured people who really care and plough a lot of, well, all of our time and energy into improving young people's life. We certainly don't do it for the pay. We do it because we're altruistic and just hoping for the best for young people.
1:22:25
And it's hard to be beaten in the media as well. And I think the media plays a massive role. And I would be, I don't know what it's like in Canada or Australia or America, but I wonder if they have in their media the same sort of bashing of teachers that we have in the UK.
1:22:44
Sorry, have I said thank you to our amazing supporters in this show so far? Because I got so engaged. But let me say thank you again to Hachette Learning, who are our amazing supporters of Teachers Talk Radio. If you haven't heard of them, they're publishers of professional development books and resources that support great teaching around the world. You can visit them at Hachette Learning on the website. And yeah, check them out.
1:23:10
And the other one was AQA. And we thank AQA and Hachette Learning for supporting Teachers and Teachers Talk Radio. And if you want to become an examiner this summer with AQA, then head over to the AQA website and just hit apply on the website.
1:23:24
Guys, we're coming towards the end. But I wondered, I don't know if we've got, we need some sort of, not positive, but we need some changes, right? Let's go through some changes to finish off that we would make tomorrow if we were policymakers.
1:23:44
You know the thing that I, and this gets me stick, it's got me stick on Twitter before. And this is where I might disagree with you, JP, or you, Liz, possibly, or you, Ray.
1:24:01
Listen, education should be way better funded than what it is. But, but, I don't go along with the argument on the behaviour issues that we've been talking about on this programme, that more funding is, it's almost like, in some cases, it's sort of poor money at it.
1:24:28
Values, values and value systems, and the sense of responsibility, civic justice, community, right and wrong.
1:24:42
Listen, I know what, I know what the counter argument is going to be. Sure, start centres, teach them that, help them with that. I get youth clubs. I get it. I get it. But you know, when we talk about youth clubs, I was thinking, in the UK as it stands, would youth clubs be smashed up within a couple of weeks and vandalised?
1:25:07
Because of, because of the pervading value system of everything's expendable. We don't care. Nothing matters. We saw the scenes in, I think it was Clapham, a few weeks ago.
1:25:23
I don't know exactly what happened. I just saw the footage of basically people running riots. No care whatsoever. Smashing stuff up. We've seen it actually a number of times over the last, you know, 10, 15 years. It's happened numerous times. It seems to be happening more and more and more, especially with young people.
1:25:40
So this idea of having youth clubs and so on, my concern is more funding, more money, money, money, money. Let's get more money. It'll solve the problem. I disagree with that. I disagree with that. It's a value system.
1:26:00
It depends though, doesn't it? It depends where the money's being funnelled, doesn't it? I think because of the, where the money's been stripped back is in all those supportive services, which is what I was saying earlier. And I think in situations, and I totally agree with what JP was saying earlier, that actually early intervention would prevent the need for any of these things, which we're just not doing.
1:26:27
And I agree with you, Tom, that I don't think actually more money is going to be the thing that solves that. But in the situations where it has escalated to a point where we can't actually deal with it in school anymore, more money then being channelled into the outside services, meaning that if a mainstream situation, or even maybe not a mainstream situation, educational situation for a child was not the right place for them, there would still be some support to try and rehabilitate,
1:26:55
to try and improve that behaviour so that they could become a functioning, respectful member of society.
1:27:02
It comes back to this idea of support though for me, consequences. The consequence is often more support. It's not a sanction. It's more support. That's the consequence. The consequence is more money being spent.
1:27:18
I can tell you that.
1:27:19
I know it's controversial. I know people don't want to hear it. If you've assaulted people, if you've verbally abused people over and over and over and over again, and then somebody takes you to one side and says, we're going to take you on a world class educational visit.
1:27:34
Now, listen, I am absolutely on board with the whole rehabilitation thing that you've been talking about. I'm absolutely on board with that. I believe everything you said, JP, as well about people can change. I totally go into that. And this is not an argument to say, don't do anything. It's just that the balance is completely gone.
1:27:54
The social contract is broken in society. Let's be clear. And a lot of parents feel that. And the values they're teaching their children, it's okay to lie. I'm taking my child out for a holiday. There's no damage in that. Here, you know, we could ban social media for children, but parents would still give them mobile phones. So we have to work with what we have to work with. We have to educate society as well as it seems educating their children. That's great. I don't mind that.
1:28:17
But let me do that job. It's about people. It's about the human to human connection. And when you take AI and you take about the technology and the distance, the dehumanization of everything, you get a child who's done something horrible and you speak to them face to face versus give them a hollow computer screen. I think we have just hived out and outsourced a lot of our problems. And it's come chickens come home to roost. The depersonalization of society.
1:28:39
When you have parents sometimes get angry at a member of staff, it's an angry email. You get them in, you talk to them, you sit them down like a human being, and actually within five minutes, you get to the problem. And that's part of our problem. It's the dehumanization, the depolarization. As you said, there's people that, you know, have a go at us on certain eclipses, make judgments about me.
1:28:58
They have no idea who I am. How dare they make those judgments? But that's the world you're living in now, where it's like, you're one of them, you're one of them. Give your head a wobble. Get over yourselves. Everybody's so self-important. Everybody's so entitled. And so the universe revolves around them. And they're a little darned. So they've gotten the idea of, and I'm worried for it, community.
1:29:16
Community used to be schools were part of a community, and parents give a crap about their school. So let's be clear. I'm going to say this directly to any parent listening. Have a look at your local school. Have a look at education in this country, because it's not being fought for any longer. You've allowed, you've got yourself distracted politically. Where was education in the last general election? I know I stood in the last general election. I can tell you how low down the list it was. The only policy Labour had was private school tuition.
1:29:42
You have allowed, this country has allowed its education system to dwindle and to be destroyed. And it's done the same with young people. So I do agree. We could throw money at it, but it's not just money for facilities. We need qualified people to help these young people. We need more staff, more teachers. Classic example, multi-academy trusts now are saying, oh, we've got too many staff in some schools and are making staff redundant. Would they not turn around, as you said last week, Liz, it's not a perfect opportunity to reduce class sizes so that we can actually get to these children and help these young people.
1:30:12
It's people. We need people, youth workers. We need people working with people.
1:30:18
Again, I've listed all of that. I listed all of that. I said more funding, more people, more TAs, more this, more that. I've listed it all. I'm saying, how then are you going to marry that with a sense of responsibility and accountability?
1:30:33
Can I make a suggestion? I think this needs to go down into primary schools and nurseries and we need to do what Japan, I've never been to Japan. I've never spoken to a Japanese teacher, but I've seen all the videos of little kids cleaning their own classrooms.
1:30:49
I've seen a lot of that stuff. And they grew up in a much more collectivist society than we do, than this rampant individualist hellscape that we exist in right now. And a lot of the training, a lot of the socialization comes from their experiences in school.
1:31:05
They are taught, before they are taught maths, Japanese, any of that stuff, they are taught to be good people. They are taught how to be polite, how to be respectful, how to be accountable for themselves and for other people, how to look after the school and their own possessions and each other and themselves.
1:31:22
They are taught these first to be good citizens.
1:31:24
But that will also come from the home.
1:31:26
Thank you. We've got, the school has always meant to be a levelling factor, right, to kind of make up for parental deficiencies. That's one of the points of it. If a parent can't educate their kid, cool, the school will do it. We're gap fills. We've always been, that's always been the point.
1:31:42
And then there have been other institutions to kind of bring kids up even further and go to university, but whatever. The whole point of a school for everyone is that you level the playing field, not bring people down, but raise people up. That's like literally meant to be the point of it.
1:31:56
But the state of parenting in this country and in a lot of similar countries is to the point that we can't, like the gap is too big. They're starting too low. We can't raise it that far. And meanwhile, we've got so many kids that are being raised in stable, loving, sensible, accountability-filled homes who are actually exactly where they should be or higher because they're amazing young people.
1:32:23
And I don't want to see, I just, I feel like every single day, I feel like I'm failing those kids because I'm trying to teach basics of being a human to children who were never taught that either in primary school or at home. And I don't have the capacity to because the differences within the classes are too big, human-wise, let alone academic-wise, that we literally cannot do this. The gaps are too big. The potholes are too big to fill.
1:32:51
So we need to go back to seeing this as a societal, as a cultural issue that is so widespread now. It is not up to the schools. It is not even up to the kids because you're born in those families, you're raised in those homes.
1:33:05
Yes, by the time they're in secondary school, they should be taking accountability, but it isn't that way. Right. So it's a bigger problem. And I don't know, I don't know what to do other than kind of, if we can't change the parents, if the government's not prepared to invest in some sort of mass campaign to make people raise their children better, for God's sake, then we need to, we need to do something radically different as education institutions to try and raise that gap on a human level
1:33:33
before we even try to do it on an academic one. Primary schools, speak before.
1:33:37
Viata said, my friend had her jaw broken, needed to have an operation. She told the head teacher, it's me or the child because I can't carry on like that. And the head teacher told her to go.
1:33:51
Did you push the head teacher down a flight of stairs by accident, like accidentally fall into them at the top before you went?
1:34:00
I mean, that's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. I mean, these things do seem to be happening, though, you know, people say this stuff. It's obviously, I mean, we have Michelle Stone on here.
1:34:11
A person who it actually happened to, right? So it is happening to people, right? And maybe they're obviously the really bad examples. It's happening in a much lesser sense. It's happening people being shoved, pushed, you know, physically intimidated, you know, really horrible, sly verbal abuse. Not just, you're an idiot.
1:34:35
That's where they just get into the reputational, the false allegations, the online stuff, the bullying, you know, you've got the psychological side of it, then you've got the physical side of it, then you've got pressure from above, then you've got pressure from parents. As you said, Liz, we're getting it from all sides.
1:34:49
But those take a community. There's an old-fashioned saying, it takes a community to raise a child. My school was part of my community, but so was my church, so was my parents, so was my cousins, so was my brothers, so was my friends. There was an element of responsibility. And yes, if I did something wrong, my parents held me responsible.
1:35:05
Yet they may have argued, defended me. My mother is no fiercer defender than me. She's the first to criticize me, but she's the first to defend me. But she also had pride and shame. You bring shame to this family. We're proud of you, son. You've done good there. Well done you. You've done bad there. You can't do that any longer. We can't use shame. Shame on you. You should be ashamed.
1:35:27
When you say the phrase, you should be ashamed of yourself, you'd be like, oh my God, guilt, shame and guilt. My whole life is just one big, I feel guilty. I'm still in this job because I'm probably feeling guilty. I'm not doing a good enough job. Some people want to say guilt's a bad thing. Well, seriously, we have to have a little bit of it.
1:35:46
It's a difficult one because we have to work with society. We have to work with it. Maybe we're looking for a Halcyon days. Now, the old Halcyon days in my education, it was not as good as we're trying to provide. And that's the real burning thing. I can't get my head around this. We've never had it so good.
1:36:05
This is the bit I can't get. I keep coming back to this.
1:36:36
Their environment is never safe. We used to have television campaigns telling us not to get into cars with strangers. Now, kids are living in such a safe environment. School is a lot safer. And what is happening, and funny, my algorithms kicked in now, I'm getting all these stories pumped out about, and I've had five or six in the last couple of days about teacher barred for this.
1:36:55
And I keep, oh my God, oh my God, this one, this one, this one. And then you realize there's half a million people in education. And we talked about this, Tom, and he said, okay, why do these stories keep happening? Because we're finding out about them. And we're getting rid of bad people, which is actually, go back to what you're saying about your dad being observed once.
1:37:12
There's a higher degree of accountability, which should reassure people. We are literally as safe as we could ever be in schools. Your child, my child, are as safe in school as they'd ever be. We just wanted to make sure that it was even safer.
1:37:27
Okay, let's go through some things. Here's some radical ideas. You can give me a yes or no. Do you want me to go through them? Radical Tom ideas I've got. Not that radical.
1:37:37
At least left wing or right wing.
1:37:40
I don't actually know. You can also say that. You can say yes or no on whether you think they're left wing or right wing.
1:37:47
I presume they're going to probably be seen as right wing.
1:37:52
Wait, these screens are flipped for us, by the way. So don't, let's not. Yeah.
1:37:56
You ready? You ready? So idea number one, a legal requirement for parents or carers to have to come into the school with their child into lessons for a defined period of time as a consequence.
1:38:17
That's idea number one. All right.
1:38:21
Hey, I told you they were radical. Number two.
1:38:27
Damn, I've forgotten the other two. They were really good. And you've ruined it now. I can't even remember what the other two were.
1:38:36
Oh, yeah. Oh, I know what the second one was, which we discussed the other week. Body cams.
1:38:41
Oh, right.
1:38:43
Body cams.
1:38:47
And there was something else, but I can't remember what it was. What do you think of the parental engagement one?
1:38:51
No. Great. There are schools that do that.
1:38:54
Yeah, but I don't want parents in my classroom. I don't want anyone in my classroom.
1:38:58
Oh, no, I want everybody in my classroom, but it wouldn't be organic.
1:39:01
It wouldn't be organic because they'd be like, oh, it's like the head teacher walks in and goes, the behavior is fine in here. That's because Darth Vader's walked in there.
1:39:10
They know they're being observed. The behavior changes.
1:39:14
He's got force powers. He's the bloody head teacher.
1:39:21
You've gone out of focus, Tom.
1:39:23
Oh, I hate this camera.
1:39:25
The body cams would be better because they would get used to them and forget that they're on eventually.
1:39:32
True.
1:39:33
So that would be more realistic.
1:39:36
There are times they forget where there are cameras sometimes. We've had situations where the kids are like, do they not know they're on camera?
1:39:43
And they're like, oh, yeah, they forgot that. So you're right about that. And I suppose people forget that as well with driving.
1:39:48
I mean, we said it earlier. I said at that time that the body cams, if I know that I'm on camera and there's speed cameras there, am I going to slow down my driving?
1:39:56
Of course I am.
1:39:58
I just literally solved the problem.
1:40:02
So don't even laugh at that.
1:40:06
All right, guys, should we wrap it up? I think we've pretty much solved nothing in our 40 minutes.
1:40:12
We never solved anything.
1:40:13
Completely wasted our lives.
1:40:15
No, it's therapy.
1:40:18
It's called teacher's talk.
1:40:19
Should we thank everybody for tuning in?
1:40:22
Thanks if you've tuned in.
1:40:23
Everybody on wherever you've watched this or perhaps you've watched or listened to it back.
1:40:26
And if you've got this far, like seriously, you've done amazingly well.
1:40:30
Well done.
1:40:31
Good staying power.
1:40:34
Yes, Rosanna, we made you feel great.
1:40:38
If it just changes one person, it's worth the same as teaching.
1:40:41
We're not alone.
1:40:42
We're not alone.
1:40:44
No one gave anything away.
1:40:46
If it just changes one person, it's worth the same as teaching.
1:40:48
We're not alone.
1:40:49
We're not alone.
1:40:52
No one gave any solution.
1:40:54
Can we do like a really quick fire?
1:40:55
So nobody's given any solutions apart from me, which people said no to.
1:40:58
So what have we got?
1:41:00
My solution is Japan.
1:41:01
Don't say no to the body cams.
1:41:02
Bring back the cane.
1:41:03
My solution is Japan.
1:41:04
I say bring back the cane.
1:41:07
And you know what?
1:41:08
Bring back the cane so then they actually have something to complain about.
1:41:11
Not that my child's been denied the toilet.
1:41:13
You know what I mean?
1:41:14
They've been denied their fundamental right to go to the toilet.
1:41:16
Right.
1:41:17
If you go back to the cane, right, and you go back to capital corporate punishment.
1:41:24
You know what I mean?
1:41:26
Just go back to the cane.
1:41:28
And then everything else afterwards is going to seem nice, isn't it?
1:41:35
Oh, we've just had a comment from Natalie.
1:41:38
And I know Natalie.
1:41:39
I work with Natalie.
1:41:41
Oh, JP, you keep nailing me.
1:41:43
Right.
1:41:44
Can I just make clear?
1:41:45
I, Tom, does not want to go back to the cane.
1:41:50
Can I just make that clear to all?
1:41:52
Just for the record.
1:41:55
Anyone else can have a different view.
1:41:57
I so enjoyed getting my hand hit.
1:41:59
You're the best part of the keynote.
1:42:01
Are you ready for this?
1:42:02
When you walk back in, right, your hand is burning red.
1:42:06
And everybody's turning their angles.
1:42:08
How many did you get?
1:42:09
25.
1:42:10
Wow.
1:42:11
What did you do?
1:42:12
He got more kudos from doing, from getting it.
1:42:16
So it actually didn't change any behavior.
1:42:18
So any of those out there thinking get stricter and stricter punishments,
1:42:21
stricter punishments doesn't really necessarily work in fire.
1:42:24
If anything, stricter punishments with someone like me may be worse.
1:42:27
So those parents out there saying about bring back the cane,
1:42:30
you know, those, those actual far right individuals.
1:42:33
Oh, yeah.
1:42:34
The insane people.
1:42:35
Yeah.
1:42:36
You know, not us, you know, not us actually in teaching.
1:42:38
Wow.
1:42:39
Are you listening to Twitter?
1:42:41
Rae, Rae Vader over here and now.
1:42:43
Yeah.
1:42:47
The emperor at home, they're all far, right.
1:42:50
You know what I mean?
1:42:51
Seriously.
1:42:52
All right.
1:42:53
Yeah, exactly.
1:42:54
Yeah.
1:42:55
For right.
1:42:56
Hello.
1:42:57
But here's the thing.
1:42:58
If.
1:43:02
If we actually had something to actually complain about,
1:43:05
then they might actually start to respect us a bit more.
1:43:07
And I, and those people,
1:43:09
I don't know if you've heard this,
1:43:10
but I've heard 30% of people in society that think that bringing back
1:43:12
McCain would be the way to do it.
1:43:14
And that we've lost our way in traditional.
1:43:16
And it's a little bit of what you're saying, those traditional value.
1:43:18
But they're not saying we're sick.
1:43:20
They would literally bring us back to the Victorian era.
1:43:22
And they would leverage back.
1:43:23
They would have us back in Oliver twist.
1:43:25
And some of those people commenting on us actually think that we are
1:43:28
Dickensian.
1:43:30
And they really need to give their head a walk.
1:43:32
Really?
1:43:33
Because they think we're Dickensian.
1:43:36
I don't know how far there are other people out there who are basically
1:43:38
saying the best thing we can do is.
1:43:40
Bring back the key and brutalize children on even this word.
1:43:44
And I don't like using it and I do not.
1:43:46
Fear.
1:43:47
I do not want children to fear me.
1:43:50
Fear itself. If you're ruling through fear, that is fascism.
1:43:54
And I don't want that. I don't want authoritarianism.
1:43:57
So any of those people out there think we're a certain way.
1:43:59
We don't want that.
1:44:01
I don't want to punish children.
1:44:03
Punishing children doesn't necessarily mean I punish my children.
1:44:06
Because one nicked a sweet before dinner.
1:44:08
And the other one threw a bottle at her sister.
1:44:10
Although JP.
1:44:11
They didn't get their pudding.
1:44:13
I didn't mind the era where there was like, oh, it's Mr. Bailey.
1:44:19
Like we had a science teacher.
1:44:21
It's Mr. Bailey.
1:44:22
Hide behind a wall.
1:44:23
You know, like that sort of thing.
1:44:25
Because he was like super strict, Mr. Bailey.
1:44:27
I think I mentioned him the other day, the Daily Bailey, the magazine.
1:44:30
Oh, Mr. Bailey, hide behind a wall.
1:44:32
Like he was really, really strict.
1:44:34
Now, he was really strict, but he was sound.
1:44:37
He was all right.
1:44:38
But he was really strict.
1:44:39
So there was a fear factor around him.
1:44:41
Because he never smiled and he was like a machine.
1:44:44
But he was sound.
1:44:45
Like, you know, he was all right.
1:44:47
But was he feared or respected?
1:44:49
Was he feared or was he genuinely respected?
1:44:52
I think there was a touch of both.
1:44:54
I think there was a certain fit.
1:44:55
I don't think there was a fear factor.
1:44:57
I don't think there was a fear factor in the sense of like.
1:44:59
It's not fear.
1:45:00
It's more of a caution.
1:45:01
It's more of a weariness.
1:45:02
It's more of a.
1:45:03
Not that that's going to sound any better to certain people, but.
1:45:06
Listen, we all had a teacher.
1:45:08
And this is what's changed.
1:45:09
I don't know exactly why, but there will always been a teacher.
1:45:11
Probably when I was in school, I'd be like.
1:45:14
I'd like if I got told off by that teacher.
1:45:17
If I ended up in a situation where I was going to get really told off by
1:45:20
that teacher, that would be like the worst thing ever.
1:45:22
Like that particular teacher.
1:45:23
You're like, oh my God, that would just be.
1:45:25
No, I can't.
1:45:26
No.
1:45:27
Help me.
1:45:28
Like God help me.
1:45:30
And I don't know whether that's because the characters.
1:45:35
Of the character has been driven out of teaching a little bit.
1:45:39
Yeah.
1:45:40
Every every each teacher has to almost be the same in so many ways.
1:45:44
And those sorts of eccentric teachers who did their own thing a little
1:45:47
bit have been.
1:45:48
That's coming with like the scripted teaching, isn't it?
1:45:51
Like we're hearing so much now about it's happening in multi
1:45:55
academy trusts and it's coming, you know, stick to the script,
1:45:57
use the script.
1:45:58
You've got to do it this way.
1:45:59
You've got to do it that way.
1:46:00
And so you are ending up with robotic teachers.
1:46:03
It's like cycling things, don't we?
1:46:05
It's like, it's like one of the, it's like one of the disciples,
1:46:08
you know, turning around to Jesus and saying, hey,
1:46:10
before you do the sermon on a mount, can you do the doubt?
1:46:12
Do now task.
1:46:14
That's one for me.
1:46:15
You've nicked that for me.
1:46:16
You did.
1:46:17
You knew you did.
1:46:18
But the point is you've all hit upon is exactly what we're talking
1:46:21
about.
1:46:22
It's the human factor.
1:46:23
Like counting.
1:46:24
But you get now women my beneath in low nonviolent way,
1:46:26
where you've got low variability.
1:46:28
Cool.
1:46:29
odieq.
1:46:32
Do you think they're going to do it soon at STLs?
1:46:34
When was the last time they did it in low value?
1:46:36
I don't know.
1:46:37
I'm not allowed in high quality.
1:46:39
Yeah.
1:46:42
I think so.
1:46:43
I think, you know,
1:46:45
it's something we should be confident in is the filtering feature.
1:46:48
It doesn't factor in.
1:46:49
And, uh,
1:47:21
As you get older.
1:47:22
Right.
1:47:23
And then that's my reputation.
1:47:24
Okay.
1:47:25
But then what the others go, oh, yeah, you know,
1:47:27
that guy's far too strict and you're right.
1:47:29
Characterization.
1:47:32
If you turn around and the parents want you to start raising your voice.
1:47:35
I've children said I'm shutting up.
1:47:37
I'm a passionate guy and I'm Irish and I'm allowed.
1:47:39
All right.
1:47:40
That's the way I communicate.
1:47:42
If you want me not to be really sorry.
1:47:44
This is my voice.
1:47:46
And I get sometimes.
1:47:47
Some parents go child finds you very loud.
1:47:49
Oh, wait till they get to the office.
1:47:51
They're going to be in the stock exchange.
1:47:53
Please could you walk back down?
1:47:54
Yeah, come on.
1:47:56
But we get that.
1:47:58
And I sometimes have people saying I should change my character and
1:48:00
teaching.
1:48:01
I'm not going to do that.
1:48:02
But we are losing the characters.
1:48:04
We're losing the personality.
1:48:05
Yeah.
1:48:06
Somebody's commented on X.
1:48:08
Should I read the next comment?
1:48:09
Oh, I don't want you to.
1:48:14
TTR being a right-wing thinking organization.
1:48:17
After its owner.
1:48:19
Lord and publicize the article.
1:48:21
As in the Telegraph article.
1:48:23
They could have chosen to ignore this.
1:48:25
Tory graph trash.
1:48:27
But made a deliberate choice not to TTR gets worse with every post.
1:48:30
Well, listen.
1:48:32
Thank you to all our listeners and viewers.
1:48:34
Thank you to the 2 million of you.
1:48:37
We appreciate every single one of you.
1:48:39
The first five minutes of that, we'll sort that out.
1:48:41
So listen.
1:48:43
It's been a good job.
1:48:45
If they have one clip to upload from this.
1:48:47
Just tell them what they want to hear.
1:48:49
Bring back the cane.
1:48:51
We want the cane back.
1:48:53
I want the cane back.
1:48:55
I want to be able to smile.
1:48:57
I want to be able to smile.
1:48:59
I want to be able to smile.
1:49:01
I want to be able to smile.
1:49:03
I want to be able to smile.
1:49:06
I want to be able to smile.
1:49:08
I want to be able to smile.
1:49:10
I want to be able to smile.
1:49:12
You've got it on record that he said that.
1:49:14
Clip it.
1:49:16
Do not clip it!
1:49:18
No.
1:49:20
But they'll have my job.
1:49:22
No context.
1:49:24
No context.
1:49:26
We'll take out all the laughing.
1:49:28
I'll block out the rest of this.
1:49:30
And, Liz, as you said.
1:49:32
The nuance won't be there.
1:49:34
Completely taken out of proportion.
1:49:36
Right, guys.
1:49:38
Bring back the king.
1:49:40
Bring back the king!
1:49:42
Oh, my God.
1:49:44
Okay, we're done.
1:49:46
You've been listening to Teachers Talk Radio.
1:49:48
Tune in live and listen back at TTRadio.org.
1:49:50
We look forward to hearing from you next time on Teachers Talk Radio.
1:50:04
♪