Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #881 A Lifelong Love of Learning

Transcript

#881 A Lifelong Love of Learning · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
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  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers now.
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  Speaker 1: So last week on the Happy Family Podcast, we had
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  Speaker 1: a series of five conversations completely different to what we
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  Speaker 1: normally do on the podcast, talking with people about their
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  Speaker 1: school experiences, primarily what went wrong at school, why school
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  Speaker 1: wasn't a good experience for them, and how they lived
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary successful lives in spite of their lack of success
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  Speaker 1: at school. We've been having these conversations because right now,
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  Speaker 1: right around the nation, pretty much every state and territory
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  Speaker 1: has their year twelve school leavers completing their final exams
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  Speaker 1: ever at school. And then on Friday, we wrapped up
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  Speaker 1: the week with a fascinating discussion with the Flinders University
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  Speaker 1: academic Nigel Howard, talking about what happens on average when
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  Speaker 1: kids don't finish school. Kylie, I want to use today's
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  Speaker 1: podcast is not recap. We don't need to summarize what
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  Speaker 1: was said. People can listen to and hopefully did listen
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  Speaker 1: to all five of those conversations. They were fascinating, but
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  Speaker 1: really to I guess, unpack and play around with the
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  Speaker 1: ideas that came up. What were your overall impressions as
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  Speaker 1: you listened to four people who dropped out of school,
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  Speaker 1: never finished UNI and we're on to have extraordinary lives.
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  Speaker 1: And then Nigel's I guess balancing act as he reflected
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  Speaker 1: on what happens when we don't finish high school? What
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  Speaker 1: were your impressions.
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  Speaker 2: I think every single person acknowledged how important education is.
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  Speaker 2: It's power amount to our ability to progress in life.
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  Speaker 2: But they might have left school, but they never stopped learning.
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  Speaker 2: And I think the emphasis for us as parents is
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  Speaker 2: helping our children to stay curious in their environment, regardless
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  Speaker 2: of what that curiosity leads them to do. While ever
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  Speaker 2: they're curious, they will seek learning and regression.
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  Speaker 1: Over the weekend, I had a conversation with somebody who's
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  Speaker 1: a deputy principal at a Queensland school and the conversation
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  Speaker 1: essentially was this guy saying, we are not helping kids
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  Speaker 1: to become lifelong learners at school. School is destroying the
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  Speaker 1: desire that kids have to learn. Kind of taps in
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  Speaker 1: with a conversation that you had with our youngest with
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  Speaker 1: this whole homeschooling thing that we're going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: on Friday, where she has indicated now she's had a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of time off school. She's ready to learn,
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  Speaker 1: she's anxious to learn, she wants to get into it.
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  Speaker 1: She's almost rekindled, already discovered what learning could be now
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  Speaker 1: that she's had time away from the school environment. The
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  Speaker 1: discussion I found fascinating with Nigel Howard talking about the
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  Speaker 1: negative results in people's lives when they don't finish high school. Now,
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  Speaker 1: obviously we spoke to a couple of people who had
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary lives in spite of not finishing high school. I
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  Speaker 1: wonder if you have any insights or reflections on what
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  Speaker 1: Nigel had to say.
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  Speaker 2: One of the biggest challenges I see in our kids
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  Speaker 2: today comparative to when we were going to school is
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  Speaker 2: the level of anxiety and stress associated with those school leavers. Exams.
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  Speaker 2: Exams are stressful in and of themselves. They put us
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  Speaker 2: under pressure, and regardless of whether we know our stuff
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  Speaker 2: or not, most of us have an element of stress
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  Speaker 2: walking into an exam room with exam conditions.
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  Speaker 1: And I want to just add here as well, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know of any situation in real life once you
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  Speaker 1: leave school where you experience that kind of pressure, like
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  Speaker 1: if you're in a profession and you have to do
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  Speaker 1: anything at all. You just perform your role, right. You
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  Speaker 1: never sat down in a room and told to recall
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  Speaker 1: all the information that you need to know about best
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  Speaker 1: time and how to do it exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And you can't talk to anyone now.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously, you need to know how to perform surgery. You
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  Speaker 1: need to know how to stand up in the courtroom
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  Speaker 1: and speak, You need to know how to I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: write an essay or do your work. We all have
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  Speaker 1: a performance level. But what happens is you take on
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  Speaker 1: a job and you receive training, and you develop as
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  Speaker 1: you're going through that, and then you start to perform,
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  Speaker 1: and when you make mistakes, there are people around you
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  Speaker 1: who support you and say, oh, not like that, like this,
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  Speaker 1: try that again. And it just seems to me that
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  Speaker 1: the entire school experience, especially around exams, is artificial and
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  Speaker 1: I would even add quite provocatively unnecessary.
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  Speaker 2: And I guess that's where I was kind of headed
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  Speaker 2: with this idea. As a school leaver, I can remember
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  Speaker 2: feeling immense anxiety around doing well, but not to the
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  Speaker 2: extent where I felt like my whole life weighed on
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  Speaker 2: the outcome.
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  Speaker 1: And that your value as a person was predicated on
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  Speaker 1: how you did.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there wasn't the same level of pressure for me
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  Speaker 2: to know what I wanted to do with the rest
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  Speaker 2: of my life.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and I said this in one of the pods,
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  Speaker 1: right in one of the conversation I think it was
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  Speaker 1: with Cam Barber. When I ask parents how many of
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  Speaker 1: them are still doing today what they thought they'd be
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  Speaker 1: doing when they finished high school, it's twenty percent or less.
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  Speaker 1: Like we change our mind when we become adults. We
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  Speaker 1: change our mind when we go through a university. We
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  Speaker 1: change our mind when we get a job and don't
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  Speaker 1: like it and go into a completely different career path.
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  Speaker 1: One of our good friends who runs a successful real
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  Speaker 1: estate agency. He started off as a school teacher. Then
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  Speaker 1: he developed a brand of shoe and now he sells
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  Speaker 1: real estate and he's happy at doing that than anything previous.
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  Speaker 1: Like we change our minds, we change our careers.
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  Speaker 2: But that's the whole point to lifelong learning. We learn
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  Speaker 2: and we grow, and we progress and we tap into
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  Speaker 2: strengths we never knew we had. Maturity life experience, they
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  Speaker 2: kind of they open our eyes up to opportunities that
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  Speaker 2: we never thought were possible because we didn't have the maturity.
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  Speaker 2: We didn't have the life experience.
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  Speaker 1: And that was something that came out in every conversation.
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  Speaker 1: The learning for them, the desire for learning was kind
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  Speaker 1: of crushed in the school context, and that desire for
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  Speaker 1: learning and progress came alive once they left school. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this isn't a let's bag out school conversation at all.
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  Speaker 1: The school system has its flaws and we're not trying
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  Speaker 1: to solve all of those right now, but rather just
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  Speaker 1: reflecting on the conversations. That's something that really stood out
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  Speaker 1: to me, and it's certainly something that we've experienced in
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  Speaker 1: our life that when you're anxiously engaged in learning and
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  Speaker 1: growing and developing after school, you tend to get somewhere.
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  Speaker 1: You tend to help you little.
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  Speaker 2: More fulfilling lives because it's self directed, as opposed to
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  Speaker 2: I guess essentially living a life out of fear, fear
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  Speaker 2: that you're not going to be able to meet other
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  Speaker 2: people's expectations, fear that you're not going to you know,
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  Speaker 2: kind of live up to your own expectations. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that for our kids, helping them to find that
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  Speaker 2: love of learning, and right now for our daughter, our
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  Speaker 2: nine year old daughter, it's her love of learning of dragon.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, at worms.
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  Speaker 2: But it doesn't It actually doesn't matter what it is.
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  Speaker 2: So at this point in the story, all that matters
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  Speaker 2: is she's curious.
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  Speaker 1: Something that you said before. I think this is a
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  Speaker 1: little bit provocative, but I want to call back to
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  Speaker 1: it really quickly. You talked about the increased level of
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  Speaker 1: anxiety in stress that kids are experiencing that you didn't have.
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  Speaker 1: And there's no way to say this politely, but I
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  Speaker 1: placed the increased anxiety, the increased perfectionism, the increased stress
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  Speaker 1: squarely at the feet of parents, when we have a
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  Speaker 1: look at the increased expectation and pressure that parents are
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  Speaker 1: putting on them. In a couple of weeks time, we're
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  Speaker 1: talking with a guy called Professor Thomas Curhran. He's a
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  Speaker 1: professor of psychology at the London School of Economics, and
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  Speaker 1: he's written a book all about perfectionism, and I'm talking
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  Speaker 1: with him about perfectionism on the podcast. It's just a
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  Speaker 1: couple of weeks away, but I just recorded that conversation
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  Speaker 1: a couple of days ago, and we're editing at the
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  Speaker 1: moment and listening to him speak. He's not as direct
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  Speaker 1: as I'm being right now, but I think when we
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  Speaker 1: look at the unfair expectations and pressure and perfectionistic requirements
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  Speaker 1: that parents place on their children, the demands they come
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  Speaker 1: off the soccer field, they come off the netbull court,
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  Speaker 1: they come off the stage, no matter what they're doing,
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  Speaker 1: we can hobbies, school experiences. There's this relentless pressure that
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  Speaker 1: we as parents, or the sory I shouldn't say we
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  Speaker 1: as parents, the too many parents place on their kids
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  Speaker 1: to just get better, to not do it like that,
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  Speaker 1: to do it like this. Come on, you know better
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  Speaker 1: than this. You should be able to do more than this.
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  Speaker 1: That's the persistent message that comes up, and that's what's
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  Speaker 1: I think creating the stress that kids are experiencing around school.
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  Speaker 2: I agree one hundred percent, but I don't necessarily think
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  Speaker 2: that it's because we have bad parents. I think what
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  Speaker 2: we're experiencing is a desperate need of parents who love
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  Speaker 2: their kids to allow their kids and give their kids
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  Speaker 2: everything they feel like they missed out on in their childhood.
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  Speaker 2: And when you look at the demands that are being
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  Speaker 2: placed on parents right now in today's society, economic stress
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  Speaker 2: that we're experiencing, the changes to lifestyle as a result
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  Speaker 2: of the pandemic there are so many different things that
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  Speaker 2: we've now gone through as adults, and our minds are
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  Speaker 2: already ticking forward to what's going to happen for our
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  Speaker 2: kids in fifteen twenty years time, and how do I
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  Speaker 2: prepare them best.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I'm going to make a clarification on what I said.
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  Speaker 1: This is an important clarification. There's always been stress, there's
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  Speaker 1: always been pressure, There's always been those kinds of things,
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  Speaker 1: but it's risen to all new levels. And it's because
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  Speaker 1: parents are at number one, more invested in their children,
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  Speaker 1: and his investment and children goes up, both emotional investment
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  Speaker 1: and financial investment, so to expectations, and those expectations are
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  Speaker 1: generally unrealistic. Like we've got good evidence that today have
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  Speaker 1: expectations of their children that are unrealistic, especially compared to
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  Speaker 1: a couple of generations ago. We just expect so much
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  Speaker 1: of them. A Number two, parents with high expectations are
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  Speaker 1: often overly critical of their children, which leads to lower
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  Speaker 1: resilience and increased anxiety, and they're more controlling of their children.
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  Speaker 1: So my clarification is we've got data from the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: nineties through to today, and we know that parents are
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  Speaker 1: less autonomy supportive, which means that they're more controlling, and
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  Speaker 1: they're doing it because they're more invested, because they're more
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  Speaker 1: worried about the outcomes, because there's a belief that the
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  Speaker 1: world's increasingly competitive and dog eat dog zero some kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing, and taking controls the only way that you
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  Speaker 1: can assure that your children are going to be successful.
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  Speaker 1: And that's where the problem is, because it's not the
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  Speaker 1: only way that you can assure that children are going
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  Speaker 1: to be successful, whatever success actually means.
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  Speaker 2: I think. I think another challenge that we're experiencing, though,
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  Speaker 2: is how we view success, and our desperate need for
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  Speaker 2: our kids to have success in their lives is all
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  Speaker 2: tied up in how we see ourselves and how much
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  Speaker 2: work earth we place on who we are as a
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  Speaker 2: result of what we achieve.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the thing. We believe that we're successful based
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  Speaker 1: on external that's right, reality is, rather than what's happening inside.
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  Speaker 1: And everybody nods their head and says, yeah, yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: want my kids to have a great character, but you
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  Speaker 1: know the messages that the kids are receiving. We've got
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  Speaker 1: evidence on this as well. This was a study that
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  Speaker 1: came out of Harvard just recently a couple of years ago,
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  Speaker 1: and the researchers at Harvard said to the kids, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: what would your parents consider to be successful for you
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  Speaker 1: to be a good person or for you to get
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  Speaker 1: good grades and have a good career. And the kids
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  Speaker 1: were like, overwhelmingly, I need to be a doctor. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's right. But the parents, when they were asked that question,
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  Speaker 1: they said, I want my kids to have character. But
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  Speaker 1: what are we focusing on? You've said that. Now. We
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  Speaker 1: didn't set this up, but I've got a poem that
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever shared with you that
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  Speaker 1: I looked up because I wanted to finish the podcast
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  Speaker 1: with this poem. I discovered it maybe when I was
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  Speaker 1: about eighteen or nineteen, and it's always hung around in
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  Speaker 1: my head and it's amazing me. Maybe I have shared
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  Speaker 1: it with you, but I don't think I have. I
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  Speaker 1: want to read this to you. This is a definition
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  Speaker 1: of success. The poem. We don't know who wrote it.
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  Speaker 1: I've googled it and it says by anonymous, but it
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  Speaker 1: says this success is speaking words of praise, in cheering
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  Speaker 1: other people's ways, in doing just the best you can
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  Speaker 1: with every task and every plan. It's silence when your
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  Speaker 1: speech would hurt, politeness when your neighbors curt it's deafness
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  Speaker 1: when the scandal flows, and sympathy with others woes. It's
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  Speaker 1: loyalty when duty calls. It's courage when disaster falls. It's
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  Speaker 1: patience when the hours are long. It's found in laughter
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  Speaker 1: and in song. It's in the silent time of prayer,
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  Speaker 1: in happiness and in despair. In all of life and
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  Speaker 1: nothing less, we find the thing we call success.
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  Speaker 2: I remember once having a conversation with a really good
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  Speaker 2: friend of mine who, when I was struggling to recognize
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  Speaker 2: my own worth in a dark moment, reminded me of
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  Speaker 2: how we feel about a brand new baby that comes
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  Speaker 2: into our world and we've obviously just experienced that in
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  Speaker 2: our home. They have done nothing to earn our love
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  Speaker 2: and our desire for their wellbeing. They've done nothing, and
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  Speaker 2: just them being, just them existing brings us so much
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  Speaker 2: joy and so much love and desire to keep them
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  Speaker 2: safe and bless them with every good thing. And yet
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  Speaker 2: somewhere along the line, we go from a feeling that
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  Speaker 2: to feeling like the only way we can experience that
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  Speaker 2: same kind of love and joy in our lives is
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  Speaker 2: to prove that we're of worth, to prove that we
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  Speaker 2: have been successful. And as I think about all of
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  Speaker 2: the stress that our school leaders are experiencing in this moment,
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  Speaker 2: one of the best things as parents that we can
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  Speaker 2: do for them is to just remind them that no
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  Speaker 2: matter what, no matter the outcome, that they have got
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  Speaker 2: a marvelous future ahead of them, that their worth is
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  Speaker 2: not tied up to the results that are going to
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  Speaker 2: come out in a few months time. That they can
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  Speaker 2: achieve the things that they want to. But everybody has
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  Speaker 2: an individual path and there are so many different ways
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  Speaker 2: to do it.
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  Speaker 1: So let's wrap up. Finishing school does matter. Education matters,
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  Speaker 1: but developing a love of learning and a desire to
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  Speaker 1: continue learning after school. For example, we're not trying to
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  Speaker 1: get through UNI. We're trying to get UNI through us.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think if I could restate what you've just said,
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  Speaker 2: I think education is imperative. I don't think school. Finishing
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  Speaker 2: school at all costs is how we need to view things.
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  Speaker 2: There are different ways for us to receive an education,
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  Speaker 2: and I think we need to be fine tuned to
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  Speaker 2: our kids' individual needs to recognize how education is played
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  Speaker 2: out in their lives.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, nice recap, plenty to think about. Good luck to
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  Speaker 1: everyone who is going through their exams. Remember you are
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  Speaker 1: not your atar. Your value is in you, not in
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  Speaker 1: your grade. And we hope that we've inspired some useful
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: conversations as we've talked about education at this time of year.
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  Speaker 1: The Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: like more info about making your family happy, visit happy
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: families dot com dot au or visit us at Dr
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Justin Corson's Happy Families on Facebook