Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #879 Why School Matters with Nigel Howard

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#879 Why School Matters with Nigel Howard · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers. Now.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colls and I am so
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  Speaker 2: so delighted to wrap up what's been a fascinating week
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: of conversations looking at the opposite to what we've kind
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: of talked about all week. Now, lest anyone think that
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  Speaker 2: this week has been about saying school doesn't matter, that
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  Speaker 2: is not the case at all. There's a lot of
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: pressure that a lot of kids are feeling though, because
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Year twelve exams are happening or are about to happen
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  Speaker 2: in pretty much every state in the country right now
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  Speaker 2: and during this week. If you've missed the conversations, really
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  Speaker 2: great discussions with people who have maybe finished school but
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: dropped out of UNI, or didn't finish school at all,
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  Speaker 2: but people who have made incredible lives for themselves without
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  Speaker 2: completing their education. The conversation, though, wouldn't be balanced unless
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: we talked about the importance of education, and that's what
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  Speaker 2: today is all about. I'm so delighted to have Nigel
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  Speaker 2: Howard joining me on the podcast today. Nigel is a
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: research associate at Flinders University. He was a secondary school
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  Speaker 2: principal and now he is doing his PhD studying students
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  Speaker 2: in poverty and on the edge of schooling and how
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  Speaker 2: school's responses to the issues that students face can determine
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  Speaker 2: whether or not they're going to stay in school or
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  Speaker 2: they're going to be excluded. Nigel's really good at telling
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  Speaker 2: us what happens when kids don't finish high school and
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  Speaker 2: he actually wrote an article that appeared in The Conversation
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  Speaker 2: just online last week. Nigel, So glad to have you
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  Speaker 2: on the podcast. Can you tell me new data from
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  Speaker 2: the Productivity Commission is telling us some really surprising things
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  Speaker 2: about how kids are going with school completion. What does
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  Speaker 2: the data say?
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  Speaker 1: What the data is saying from the Productivity Commission man,
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  Speaker 1: with all the data that we find is that there
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  Speaker 1: has always been a very stubborn group of people that
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  Speaker 1: aren't completing school. It's twenty five percent around twenty five
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  Speaker 1: percent that aren't completing schooling and that's in the last
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  Speaker 1: five years. Okay, so we've gone down about five percentage
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  Speaker 1: points in the last six years. And the gap between
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  Speaker 1: students from the city and students from the country, students
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  Speaker 1: from high s and the sees backgrounds and low SS
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  Speaker 1: backgrounds is widening, and so what we're finding is the
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  Speaker 1: young people that we need to stay on at school
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  Speaker 1: are the ones that aren't seeing themselves completing school or
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  Speaker 1: believing that school has part of the future for them.
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  Speaker 2: In the context of the conversation that we've been having
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  Speaker 2: on the podcast all week, people who didn't finish high school,
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  Speaker 2: there are people who don't finish high school and they
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  Speaker 2: go and do their trades, they go to technical school,
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  Speaker 2: they become entrepreneurs. There are people who absolutely contribute in
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  Speaker 2: such magnificent and wonderful ways to society without finishing high school.
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  Speaker 2: Could you articulate the arguments for finishing year twelve? Why
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  Speaker 2: is it so important that kids do get to the
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  Speaker 2: end of year twelve? Inasmuch as that's possible reckoning, We
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  Speaker 2: won't get one hundred percent.
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  Speaker 1: We won't get one hundred percent, and there will always
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  Speaker 1: be individuals who can find their way and the navigate
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  Speaker 1: their way quite successfully through life into career based jobs
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  Speaker 1: without high school. But high school has for about the
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  Speaker 1: last ten years fifteen years been the foundation from which
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  Speaker 1: you build a career rather than just having a job. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so that ability to negotiate around what your skills are
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  Speaker 1: and what you can do and what you can bring
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  Speaker 1: to it become really important now the Productivity Commissions saying
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  Speaker 1: that in the future we're going to have more and
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  Speaker 1: more jobs that will require completion of secondary school at
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  Speaker 1: least and even a basic university degree, and so a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the entry level jobs that you used to
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  Speaker 1: be able to get that kickstart are disappearing. So even
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  Speaker 1: for young people that are being apprenticeships, and apprenticeships used
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  Speaker 1: to before I started teaching apprenticeships was fifteen years old,
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  Speaker 1: I'd be working in a restaurant as a waiter and
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  Speaker 1: a sixteen year old boy would be running the kitchen
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  Speaker 1: on a Sunday where the chef was away. Apprenticeships now
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  Speaker 1: are eighteen, nineteen twenty and even older than that. The
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  Speaker 1: sort of people have started a job and say now
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  Speaker 1: I want to build a career, so that idea of
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  Speaker 1: to build a career. High school is the foundation. And
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  Speaker 1: what it is is not the kids that are dropping out.
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  Speaker 1: It's not just individuals, it's cohorts of kids. As I've said,
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  Speaker 1: it's more likely that you're going to drop out of
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  Speaker 1: school if you're from a rural or remote area, or
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  Speaker 1: if you're from a low socioeconomic background, and that's what
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  Speaker 1: we have to choose. We have to close that and
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  Speaker 1: make sure that everybody has the choice that they want
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  Speaker 1: to negotiate their life afterwards.
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  Speaker 2: Where are they going? Where are these kids who are
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  Speaker 2: dropping out going? And maybe a double barreled question, which
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  Speaker 2: is a terrible to do, but there's just so much
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  Speaker 2: here that I'm curious about exploring. Number one, where are
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  Speaker 2: they going when they drop out? And number two? Why
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  Speaker 2: why are they actually leaving looking out?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, just flipping that question on its head a little bit,
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  Speaker 1: is why do kids stay? So if whider kids that
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  Speaker 1: like school stay at school, and it's really quite simple
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  Speaker 1: is one, they have friends, they have relationships, but they
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  Speaker 1: can see their future in schooling. They can see that
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  Speaker 1: what they're doing has some relationship to who they want
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  Speaker 1: to be and who they want to become. And even
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  Speaker 1: though they don't have to get a's, they don't have
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  Speaker 1: to be high achievers. But yeah, I'm doing okay at this.
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  Speaker 1: And then also school fulfills a very social thing for
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  Speaker 1: them that they get to be in the sports team
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  Speaker 1: and the ested for they had to do those things.
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  Speaker 1: So if those are the things that are missing. If
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  Speaker 1: you look around your school and say, well, I don't
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  Speaker 1: fit in, I don't fit in socially, I don't fit
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  Speaker 1: in academically, and I can't see my future here, then
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  Speaker 1: that's why you drop out. And quite often a lot
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  Speaker 1: of that is from the students we've talked to, from
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  Speaker 1: the young people we've talked to, once as a principal
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  Speaker 1: and now as a researcher, is people didn't listen. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So I couldn't see what the relevance of this was.
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't see myself in this, but people didn't listen
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  Speaker 1: to me. And that's the major thing. I didn't fit
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  Speaker 1: in and people didn't listen. And so where do they go?
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  Speaker 3: So some go to work, okay, and there are still
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  Speaker 3: entry level jobs even though they're disappearing.
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  Speaker 1: They go to work. But also those jobs are usually precarious,
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  Speaker 1: they're not very well paid, and quite often they will
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  Speaker 1: disappear when the kid's eighteen and so somebody has to
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  Speaker 1: pay them by They tend not to go into apprenticeships.
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  Speaker 1: Because where you have our areas of high dropout is
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  Speaker 1: also area you have areas of low take up of
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  Speaker 1: apprenticeships and low take up of university some find themselves
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  Speaker 1: in alternative placements, and that's an increasing area in schools.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a group of schools called Specialized Assistant schools
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  Speaker 1: that are small, independent, relational schools where students that found
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  Speaker 1: themselves lost in the big schools can actually find a
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  Speaker 1: place there. So it's round about I think it's around
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  Speaker 1: about twenty percent of students that we would say I'm
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  Speaker 1: not unemployment, educational, or training okay, And they're the ones
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  Speaker 1: that we need to can be concerned about. Once we've
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  Speaker 1: lost them, it's hard to get them back.
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  Speaker 2: That statistic is something that I hadn't considered in many
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  Speaker 2: of the most of the conversations that I have with parents.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, when you think about it, people who are
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  Speaker 2: listening to a Happy Families podcast, they tend to be
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  Speaker 2: pretty invested in their children's success and well being. They're
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  Speaker 2: the ones who are coming to me and saying, I've
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  Speaker 2: got this challenge, my child's struggling at school, and that
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  Speaker 2: level of investment it seems to be somewhat different from
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  Speaker 2: the challenges that many of the students who are describing
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  Speaker 2: a facing, and so I'm very very strong on saying, hey,
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  Speaker 2: you know what I know plenty of builders, and plenty
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  Speaker 2: of plumbers, and plenty of hairdressers, and plenty of beauty
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  Speaker 2: therapists who are doing such great work, and they loved
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  Speaker 2: their life, and they dropped out when they were sixteen
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  Speaker 2: or seventeen, they got the apprenticeship and they've never looked back.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm just I think that I'm struggling a little
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  Speaker 2: bit as I'm listening to your conversation with the tension
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  Speaker 2: that exists between the reality that there is a big
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  Speaker 2: number of kids who were dropping out and they're not
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  Speaker 2: feeling satisfied, they're not feeling purpose, they're not feeling meaning.
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  Speaker 2: And my sense also is these maybe the kids who
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  Speaker 2: are at risk of not only dropping out of school
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  Speaker 2: but also starting an apprenticeship and dropping out of that
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  Speaker 2: as well. Right, completion rates for apprenticeships are pretty low,
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  Speaker 2: somewhere around fifty percent, So maybe there's a broader issue
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  Speaker 2: of discipline and having those character qualities that are enabled
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  Speaker 2: you to a finish school and get through the apprenticeship,
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  Speaker 2: or work through the university degree, or just hang onto
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  Speaker 2: a job for long enough to develop the competence in
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  Speaker 2: the sense of belonging and mattering there.
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  Speaker 1: But that's part of it. The other part of it
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  Speaker 1: is actually having the resources and the society and family
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  Speaker 1: resources that you can draw on to help you do
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  Speaker 1: that kind of navigation. And so what happens is for
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  Speaker 1: students that are losing connectedness to school, that don't have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of those resources to draw on, then they
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  Speaker 1: drift and they fall out. So the school must find
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  Speaker 1: a way for those students of creating those networks, creating
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  Speaker 1: those links and doing things like that. So where I
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  Speaker 1: know young people that have dropped out and therefore gone
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  Speaker 1: on to be successful, they've had society resources and family
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  Speaker 1: resources that they could draw on that there was somebody
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  Speaker 1: there who could pick them up and go, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and take them on. Secondly, there are a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people for whom it's just a matter of time. They
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  Speaker 1: just need some time to become themselves in a different
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  Speaker 1: way and then they will find that passion or that
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  Speaker 1: re entry to university. A number of the young women
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  Speaker 1: that I work with dropped out of school and then
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  Speaker 1: later in life decided, look, I have to do something
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  Speaker 1: about this, and we've gone back to school and to
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  Speaker 1: university and followed those kind of things on. So it
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  Speaker 1: is a matter of the personal psychology that you have
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  Speaker 1: and the resources that you have to draw on there,
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  Speaker 1: but it's also what we surround them with with sort
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  Speaker 1: of society, and how we can support them in that way.
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  Speaker 2: Nigel, the conversation around anxiety is becoming increasingly important. The
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  Speaker 2: latest National Study of Mental Health and well Being that
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  Speaker 2: was just published in the last six to twelve months
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  Speaker 2: and looks at our twenty twenty through to twenty twenty
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  Speaker 2: one twenty twenty two data indicates that kids aged well,
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  Speaker 2: I'm saying kids, but I'm really talking about young people
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  Speaker 2: age sixteen to twenty four. Prior to the pandemic, we
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  Speaker 2: saw anxiety levels probably around about fifteen percent, with girls
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  Speaker 2: out numbering boys three to one. Now we've got anxiety
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  Speaker 2: for boys, for males sixteen to twenty four hitting twenty
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  Speaker 2: one percent, and for girls it's forty one percent. So
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  Speaker 2: the ratio is shifted two to one, but forty one percent.
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  Speaker 2: I mean this anxiety change, it's almost now. When we
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  Speaker 2: look at anxiety, ADHD, autism, I mean the various other
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  Speaker 2: diagnoses that are becoming increasingly prevalent, it's almost becoming abnormal
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  Speaker 2: to be normal from a psychological standpoint, right, how much
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  Speaker 2: do you think this is playing into the challenge of
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  Speaker 2: getting kids to finish your twelve.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's a part of it.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's a large part of it. And where
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  Speaker 1: a large part of my study is how do how
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  Speaker 1: does schools respond to the changes that young people are feeling.
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  Speaker 1: And so one of the schools that we're working closely
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  Speaker 1: with is a new school that has that talks about
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  Speaker 1: being holistic teaching and holistic learning. And over the last
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  Speaker 1: three weeks we've just been interviewing those parents of students
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  Speaker 1: with high anxiety levels and neurodiverse students, and what they've
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  Speaker 1: been saying to us is the responsiveness that they get
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  Speaker 1: from the school, the ability of the school to work
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  Speaker 1: with their students within their stride, just to take it
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  Speaker 1: as part of what was going on and part of
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  Speaker 1: the normal way of doing things. Actually, it releases pressure
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  Speaker 1: on the child, releases pressure on the family, and it
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  Speaker 1: seems to be working. Now this is kind of new,
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  Speaker 1: but it's one of the things that we noticed at
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  Speaker 1: this school and other schools that we've worked out that
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  Speaker 1: are responding to this is every child is the responsibility
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  Speaker 1: of every adult, and so if a child leaves a
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  Speaker 1: classroom because they're anxious they will be picked up by
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  Speaker 1: another adult and then taken back into another learning experience.
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  Speaker 1: And so there's no kids that are left to wonder,
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  Speaker 1: no kids that are left to not be there. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that's really important. I think, to me, the
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  Speaker 1: key word is responsiveness is we can't we can't pretend
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  Speaker 1: these things aren't happening. We can't say, oh, there's nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with the school, because some of these issues
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  Speaker 1: aren't to do with school. But how we respond to
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  Speaker 1: them becomes really important. And if we respond with honesty
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  Speaker 1: and compassion, then still ensuring that we're a learning organization,
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  Speaker 1: then I think we can keep more students at school
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  Speaker 1: and engaged.
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  Speaker 2: I love the thoughtfulness of this conversation. I love the
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  Speaker 2: idea of responsiveness, the possibility of connection, the relational aspect,
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  Speaker 2: the building of trust, and the involvement, the supportive involvement
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  Speaker 2: of adults. Let's see the conversation back to what's happening
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: right now around the nation for our students. I want
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: to ask you a really provocative question, Nijeb, how important
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: is the atar system?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: The Atar system is important for schools and for universities,
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  Speaker 1: it's not very important for students, it distorts learning. So
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: if you know, my daughter is now a big grown up,
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  Speaker 1: had got a very very hiatar and she said it
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: lasted two days. It didn't mean anything after that first,
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  Speaker 1: Oh I got a hiatar. It distorted what she was doing.
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  Speaker 1: And going from there, what it means for a lot
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: of schools is if the school itself is chasing hiatars,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: they are going to ask those students who aren't going
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to contribute to that to find another place to move on.
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  Speaker 1: It also means that what you're doing is you're concentrating
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  Speaker 1: on a very narrow set of skill rather than the
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  Speaker 1: kind of that broad sense of how do you apply
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  Speaker 1: what you're learning into unfamiliar situations. You know that the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: best way to get a hiatar is to teach the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: students how to pass exams, So how the knowledge in
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a familiar situation? And that's not what life is about.
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  Speaker 1: What we do with life is I have a great
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: deal of knowledge, but how do I apply it when
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: something new comes along, when something different comes along? And
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: how do I work on that? And so that it's.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: That the problem with it is it does predict at
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  Speaker 3: the moment success at university, and it is going to
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: be very hard to move along and what is it
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  Speaker 3: that we would replace it? But also at the moment,
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  Speaker 3: around about sixty percent, well no, sorry, the other way around,
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  Speaker 3: around about forty percent of students accessing university do not
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  Speaker 3: go through a NATA. They find other ways of doing it.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of it's adult entry. And I have the
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  Speaker 3: great privilege of teaching the next generation of teachers and
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  Speaker 3: the ones that have worked and got life experience and
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  Speaker 3: now saying hey, now I want to give something back.
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  Speaker 1: They're the ones that are going to be so valuable
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  Speaker 1: to our students in the future.
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  Speaker 2: A cynic might say, based on your response, that an
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: ATAR is really just a marketing ploy for schools to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: look more attractive to aspirational parents.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And the cynic in me would say that as well
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  Speaker 1: a little bit. And what that mainly does then that
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: case is it means that the school is always looking
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: to the next group of students rather than responding to
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the group of students in front of it. Okay, so
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: my work with my students that I teach now is
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to have high expectations of the students and teach the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: students in front of you to those expectations. Marketing then
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: looks after itself.
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  Speaker 2: Politics aside. Around the nation right now, there are so
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: many students sitting exams that they are being told are
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the most important exams of their life so far. So,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: as a former secondary principle, the one who primarily work
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: with children who have additional needs, and as someone who
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: knows the terrain both practically and also academically, what advice
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: would you give to both students and parents if they've
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: set through this conversation, hopefully been as fascinated by it
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: as I have, and are now dealing with the pressure
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: that comes from wanting to do well on those final exams.
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  Speaker 1: If you regard the examination not as the be all
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  Speaker 1: and end all, but as the performance of your knowledge,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: then what you're doing is you're moving into a different state.
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  Speaker 1: So it's like being match ready. It's like performing on
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  Speaker 1: stage that you've done your rehearsals, you've done your training,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and now what you have to do is you have
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to twitch your phase into a different phase. So you're
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: no longer acquiring knowledge or anything like that. It's a performance.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And what we know about athletes is when they perform
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: is the more relaxed, the more focused you are, the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: better you're going to perform. So if you go into
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the exam thinking well, I'm going to do well at
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  Speaker 1: this and this is the culmination not of my life,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: but my demonstration that I can perform in this way,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: in exactly the same way that you want people doing
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the Grand Final to be match ready and to work
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: on that, but to concentrate on that moment and what
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: they're doing and then put that aside you when you
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: go from that that there it is. It is. It
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: can be exciting, it can be it can be a
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  Speaker 1: part where you actually say, yeah, I've done my best,
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  Speaker 1: I can do what I can do. But it's that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: idea of moving into a different state in order for
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that three hours, in order to complete that task and
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: seeing it as a task that is part of that
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: whole year's study, rather than oh I've got to get
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: this mark in wisdom.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Wisdom from a lifelong learner and educator, the soon to
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: be doctor Nigel Howard, who is a research associate at
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Flinders University, former secondary school principal and now studying how
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: we can help kids to finish year twelve because on average,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: it doesn't just matter, it matters a lot. Nigel, so
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: grateful for your time today. Thankful for the things that
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: you've shared, and good luck with the PhD.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you very much.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: The thing that I really take from this conversation is
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: that relationships matter. The kids that are going to be
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: most resilient, whether it's school or if they're stepping out
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: of school and into the workplace, the ones who are
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: going to complete the apprenticeships, they're going to complete the traineeships.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: The ones who are going to go on and I
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: don't know, build the businesses or become the successful trades
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: people or whatever it ends up being, they tend to
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: be the ones with really great social support, and maybe
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: that's really at the core of what's happening here. Fascinating insights,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: good luck. I hope that this has helped with your
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: discussions with your children about what they're going to do
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: for their exams and also for what happens after school.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Nigel has written three really wonderful articles that have all
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: appeared on the Conversation. We will link to all of
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: those in the show notes. The ones about what happens
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: with finishing high school, why it's so important, and even
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: how to get kids involved in schools that are more relational.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: All that information and more in the Happy Families podcast
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: show notes. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: and if you would like more information about how you
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: can make your family happier, please visit us at happy
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: families dot com dot a U and have a great weekend.