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In this episode, we're talking with Penny Brownle from Dance with Me in the Heart about how to help shield children from the news. Hot tip. There's a very simple cure for this. How children are just earthlings and therefore expect to play outdoors, and how classrooms therefore hold children captive. Why being barefoot is so important for children and all humans, a damaging culture of dynamic domination versus a healing dynamic of partnership, and about the three most important bonds in a child's life: the womb, the mother, and mother earth.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education, stepping into the wilderness, however that looks, with your family.

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Each week we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less traveled.

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We're your hosts Vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School. Pop in your headphones, settle in, and join us on this next adventure.

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Before we start, we'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kabi Kabi and Gabby Gabby people. We'd also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which you are listening to this episode, wherever you may be in the world today. Hello and welcome to the Raising Wildlings Podcast. I'm your host, Mickey Farrell. Just a quick heads up before we start that we have finally just had a shop restock. As you're all probably aware, shipping and logistics has been a nightmare over the past few years, and we have not been able to get some of our best-selling stock in since October last year. So we're happy to say things seem to be flowing again, and we've been able to restock some, but still not all of our favourite items. But we do have many more coming in over the next two or three weeks. So if you're looking for a birthday gift for your wildling, why not head over to our shop at wildlingsforestschool.shop? When I grow up, I want to be just like Penny Brownlee, mother, grandmother, photographer, artist, teacher, facilitator, author, book publisher, advocate for parents, and a big kid at heart. I couldn't think of anything better. She's a fierce and to use a Kiwi term, a staunch advocate for children and has for a long time been one of my inspirations as an educator and someone I have learned so much from over the past decade. Penny and I got stuck straight into our conversation when we were recording this podcast, and I didn't want to miss a second. So I hit record without actually doing an official intro. So what you'll hear is us jumping straight into conversation. It felt like I was just sitting in Penny's living room today, and we were just trying to solve all the world problems. So I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Penny, how are you and how's business been going the past few years over the pandemic?

SPEAKER_01

I have got into retirement and you know I could do a whole lot of things, and I'm doing well, I'm playing patience and I make memes and I go and visit people. Sounds wonderful. Yeah, not bad. But uh I'd rather, well, you can't change what is at the moment, so there you go.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. How are you going over there with um Omicron going through? Um, it's very distressing. When the world is feeling heavy and and there's always terrible news on the news. Do you have any advice for parents and how we not shelter our children because they they're capable human beings, but maybe ease the way that this news is distributed to them and helping them know that they're they're safe in their houses, hopefully, in the houses that they are, but that there are things going on in the world.

SPEAKER_01

Personally, I won't have a television. Yeah, I don't either. And the reason that I won't have a television is because you just get fed what they want you to see. And if you're a child in the home, because usually in the many homes the television's going the whole time, the thing about children and adults is you can't unsee anything. And so when children see images that they would have been far better off not seeing, they can't unsee them. And so it puts some anxiety into the world that they don't need because even their parents can't do anything about that, uh about fixing what's going on in Ukraine or Venezuela or Syria, say, just for example, or me and my so here's the child with all this anxiety because of the images and the hype that goes on, because newscasters very often use hypey voices that has to sit with the child and the child has to deal with, but it's not their business. The parents can't even deal with it. So what parents can do, what what we as the elders in the in the outfit can do, is to make sure that they see stuff that's age appropriate and they don't see stuff that's not, not stuff that they can't do anything about.

SPEAKER_02

And it's not developmentally appropriate, is it? It doesn't matter how sanitized the news is.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's not developmentally appropriate at all. And you know, I get people saying, Well, I'm going to do this for to teach the children how fragile the earth is, and I say, Do not do it. And they'll go, Why? Because they need to know. I say, they can't vote. They can't change. Powerful penny. You can vote. So what are you doing? But don't hang it on the kids because of where we've got ourselves. Sure, we can, as children, we can learn to look after the environment to save the friggin' earth. They can't vote. So expecting them to do that is really it's thoughtless and and and anxiety-making. Look, I grew up in the 50s and 60s, we were in the middle of the cold war, and it was really anxious that we'd all be wiped out with nuclear weapons. We didn't have television news then, but kids get what's going on in the ethers.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, they do.

SPEAKER_01

And now we've got Mr. Putin deciding to put his nuclear, whatever they are, on on alert. And you think, ooh. Kids don't need to deal with that. They need to bond into their reality, not fly around up in their imaginations because someone's been careless letting stuff in that shouldn't have gone into their the temple of their mind.

SPEAKER_02

I think to break it down further for some parents is because I think some people think they get desensitized, and A, that that's another issue, but it's not just the images they're seeing, it's the sense that they don't have a sense of geographical location in the world either. So Ukraine to them could be the next town over for some children, and also time as well. I think they're getting that feed in into the living room right now. They don't know that happened yesterday or a week ago, or that that problem's been fixed. I think some parents might forget that that's another reason why it's not developmentally appropriate. Is there any other things with the news other than what they're seeing that makes it not appropriate?

SPEAKER_01

It's just not appropriate for a child. If a child has to live in there, like the children in Myanmar now who have to cope with this, or in the southern Sudan, then they have to live with it. But our kids don't. We've got a chance to put some developmental blocks in that will keep them from anxiety. It doesn't keep them out of the real world, it grounds them in the real world. Whoops, sorry for whacking the table. No, it's good emphasis. But they need to be grounded in the real three-dimensional world because that's where we live. That's where we can make a difference, that's where we can make a community, that's where we can look after our ecosystem, that's where we can play and unfold ourselves. We can't do that in a two-dimensional world that's not in our time and space. So important.

SPEAKER_02

And we forget, I think because the screens are there and they're in everybody's hands, we forget that that's not the reality and that it shouldn't be for children. So I think that's that's so important and going back to the environment as well. And the the conversation that we had when we were speaking a few weeks ago, I loved how you were talking about um not traveling and staying rooted in your community and and being, like you said, being grounded here and fixing the things here. And I think there is a lot of anxiety in the world. And I was having this conversation with a girlfriend this week that feeling helpless, I'm not very good at feeling helpless. We can make a difference here. And I can see that, you know, if I'm in making donations, they're helping clean up the mud in the floods that are happening right now, that's making a real grounded difference. So, yes, I think that's very important.

SPEAKER_01

The biggest difference, and all the leaders of every spiritual path or humanitarian path, it doesn't matter which you know, people who want something better for us as a species, they all say we have to move to the next level of consciousness, and the next level of consciousness is heart consciousness. Now, kids come with that. That's how they come. So we as parents and caregivers, we better watch our P's and Q's, and particularly what we say and what we do, because the thing about the human infant is it's model dependent, and so whatever the models do, that's what they earn to do. That's why your kid speaks Australian. That's why my kid sounds like a New Zealander. That's why you don't speak Russ, well you might speak Russian, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, it's model dependent, and so they'll speak the language you speak, with the accent that you've got, with the patterns that you've got. I I my mum's been dead for 44 years, and I come out with some sayings that I must have learned when I was five, so now seven years ago, um word for word, because we're model dependent. And so if kids come in the heart, then our role as adults is to find our way back to the heart out of all this rar-these worries and these troubles. That's not to say put your head in the sand. Yes, I'm not saying that at all.

SPEAKER_02

Can you tell me you just triggered a thought there? Where does the name Dance with Me in the Heart come from? Is it from that premise?

SPEAKER_01

I've been in early childhood since Claire was a baby. So she's gonna be 50 next birthday. And I wasn't in official early childhood, I was a mum. And when she was two years old, I went to Play Center. And for me as a trained teacher, it was fabulous because there were parents with their kids. So there were parents, it's a parent cooperative in New Zealand, so it's run by parents, the whole thing. And there were parents with their kids of all ages from zero to five, right up to their fifth birthday. And so you, as the teacher, didn't have to do what teachers normally do, which is keep an eye on everyone that's crowd control. You could sit back, well, I could sit back and I could actually see how people were learning. And I learned so much in Play Center. Like people think you go for your kids and you do, but actually it's for you. Yeah. And then that that's the kind of support that you need to get back to more effective and more gentle ways of being with children. So and when I was there, I was asked to write a book about children's creativity. Well, I wasn't actually, I said to my friend at a book launch and I was very shy, I said, I reckon you could write a book about creativity. And she said, Do you? And I said, You could. It's got to be possible. Because I was taking workshops and she disappeared. And she went and got the editor play sent publishers who came back and asked me all these questions, and he said, Right, right, well, you can write it. And I went, Oh now my big mouth. This isn't Dash of City for you. But anyway, I wrote it in 78, 1978, and it got published in 83, and it's still going strong, although it's been revised in 2015 to put I revised it to put all the brain stuff in there that wasn't available. And so I really understood a lot about children and children's education and how they learn. But Italy squat about infants. We think we do, because we've all had a kid and we know how to do it, but we don't. And so when I met the work of Dr. Emmy Picklin, and then I went to Budapest with some colleagues from here, and we went to the first training in the English language. Nikki. And I knew I had to come home and teach it, but I I'm busy taking notes, taking notes. And there's in my head, there's a little voice going, Well, this is common sense, this is common sense. And then another little voice, and then another little voice going, Well, if it's so common sense, how come nobody's thought of any of it? Because we hadn't thought of any of it. And so that changed everything for me because the understanding that I had for older kids was the same understanding, but it's look it looks different when you're doing it with infants. And so that was 2005, and I thought I've got to let this integrate it, but I can't write until it settles and integrates. And two, three years later I wrote Dance with Me in the Heart. Because what I wanted to write was a book that would work for parents and teachers, that you it would be an easy read no matter what your level of education, because sometimes people write for people who've got PhDs and the rest of us don't get it. It needed to be an easy read. And I was near the end of it, and I thought, I don't even know what to call this. And into my head came dance with me in the heart. And I went, What? That's too long. Carried on finishing off writing, but as the years have gone on, I realize that's what every baby's asking us. They come in the heart, that's how they come. They come with unconditional love. That's it. That's why people love babies. There's no judgment in them. And they are asking us with everything that they've got, could we dance with them in that heart energy? It's a it's a measurable energy. Could we meet them at that level? And that's what Dr. Pictur had worked out is what are the physical things that you can do to meet them at that level of what's called heart coherence now that they've done the research around it. She wouldn't have seen that research because she wasn't here then, but she knew, she knew instinctively because everything, well, everything changes, Nikki. So that that's how it got its name because somebody older and wiser and smarter or something popped it into my head, and I went, what? That doesn't seem turns out they knew a lot better than I do. That was usually the case.

SPEAKER_02

And it is, isn't it, listening to those. I love those. Um there's a book that I read to the to my boys, and it's called uh what to do with an idea. And it is that, you know, there's a picture of the idea just floating around, and it just kind of niggles around the brain, and and it's grab it and hold on to it, and you know, let it let it guide you. And it's really, it's a beautiful image, beautiful book. I love your in a in a world of social media where it's often about image and false realities and whatnot. Your social media accounts, Dance with Me in the Heart, on Facebook and Instagram, give me so much heart as a parent. And I've been probably following you since at least my youngest was an infant, but probably my eldest, I think. And I've learned so much from your from your accounts. What's the do you get much feedback about? Because it's mostly quotes and your illustrations are beautiful. Can you tell us about the illustrations in a minute as well? But gosh, the the variation of what you have, but the fact that it's always, always child-centered, but the amount of times I've gone, oh, oh, that one hurt a little bit, but then stopped and thought about it and broken it down. It amazes me how these little accounts from all over the world can make such a difference. And I'm grateful and thankful to have accounts like yours in the world. So I just wanted to put that there before I before we keep going. But yeah, could you tell me about where you get the the quotes, the inspiration, the illustrations from and and what kind of feedback you get from it?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'll tell you why I started it. My job is the job that I love is facilitating work with parents and early childhood teachers. I love it. And I run residential courses and I run day-long workshops, but I haven't because of COVID for two years. And so I'd be taking this workshop and I'd say so-and-so, you know, and mention an author that is is just a classic. You must have read it if you've ever done your early childhood training. I say, Have you heard of them? They'd go, No. Well, have you read anything? No. Well, who's reading what? No one's reading anything. And I'm going, God help us. You've got all this wisdom available, and no one's even knows of its existence. But the minute that it's morning tea time or lunchtime, out comes the phone and playing on Facebook. And I'm going, My God, I'm gonna have to learn how to do Facebook. So I got one, I got my great niece to come and sit here and show me what to do and jack me all up. And and so 10 years ago, this coming November, I started the page just putting up little snippets from some of the classic people that we that have got so much to share that would help make the difference. And yeah, you know what? Sometimes people they take it personally, it's a piece of information, and they swear I've hit them on the head with a cricket bat.

SPEAKER_02

Um it sometimes felt like that in a good way. So, oh, I've never thought about oh, geez, that's me. Oh crap, I better do something about that.

SPEAKER_01

No, but sometimes I but I think, well, do I stop because a couple of people have taken it personally? No, my job is to be an advocate for kids.

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Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And what's more, when you're a parent, you might, you know, like if somebody had told me, no, Pen, you're doing that wrong, I would have thought, well, stuff off. But if but later, if I go and think about it, I go, you know what? They got a point, eh? And and that's when you can make a change. It was just an instant thing. So some of the beautiful stuff that's coming out from the research that really gives us a pathway in our parenting. People aren't reading those kinds of books. They don't go onto YouTube and go, oh, let's look for something that will help me. They don't. They go onto Netflix and look how to be entertained. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I do. So I find any quotes that say something to me that's valuable in the role of looking after the child, looking after yourself, or looking after the earth, because all of those three things are, you know, that's all together. So anything like that. And then sometimes I put something up that's personal for me, and if you people, you know, sometimes I think I find things that are funny, well, I think they're funny. So I post them, but I've had to put a a little disclaimer with it because even though they're funny, some people get quite knotted around it. So however, I'll still keep doing that. I need to laugh every so often.

SPEAKER_02

And it's your images.

SPEAKER_01

Who does your images? What about the images? Who does the images? Well, I go searching. No, I just go searching for them. They're all in they're all in the public uh arena, but otherwise I wouldn't be able to find them. And um I know from when the years that I worked with the polytechnic that if you're going to use an image not for personal gain, not for um money, but it is to do with education, um, and it's a once thing, you know, you don't actually publish it in a book, you can do that. Um, I have had one artist say, um, please don't use any of my work, and I respect that. So it took all of that work off. But um they're beautiful. I because I'm an artist, I try and look for artwork that might speak to the quote. Because that that's the other thing. Lots of people don't have a look at other people. I mean, I I'm a gallery goer when I can. I'm an art book collector. So I just I go, oh that's one of the best jobs. Part of part of this again is you get you get to see all these people's work, and you think, my God, every one of them started with a sheet of white paper or a white canvas, and how the hell did that?

SPEAKER_02

come out of them that's just like it's so amazing yeah it feels like pure magic i say my i'm a yes i i'm a what's the word without sounding like a toffee is is an us an us an osthete i just love pretty beautiful colorful shiny things to but the effort and the talent that goes behind it and and that's i think that's it you've nailed it why i love your your your feed as well because it's it's visual but the visuals combined with the quotes are very impactful i think and and they do speak to the heart when you see them i think that's beautiful there's a there's a scottish there's a scottish painter that i've just discovered um and she's dead now she painted mostly in the 50s and she painted pictures of Glasgow children and I love her work but if I ever use her work there's always a comment like oh what an awful picture of a child that's art we all get our own taste as my as my mother said to me so many times because I was so opinionated it'd be a sad world if we're all the same wouldn't it's sage advice again with the the the fact that you cover what's best for children best for us and something I don't see often on social media and the planet and the environment and I I'd like to touch back on what you've said there is that it's all the same. Can you speak to us about that?

SPEAKER_01

You know there's a crisis in Ukraine there's a crisis in Syria there's a crisis in Turkey because they have the most refugee people but do you know the biggest crisis is the climate crisis and if our governments don't get get to grips with that I hope no children are watching or listening it's gonna take us all out that's the big crisis you know when I get teachers saying oh I haven't got time for that I think for God's sake nobody's gonna care whether your kid can write or do long division if we haven't got a planet to live on. So bring that back to those teachers and parents like us who are looking out for children and what do we need to do at the practical level because if you had if you if if you were able to bring up children who really understood the ecosystem and they were eco-literate then they wouldn't do the things that like they wouldn't mass spray things like you do for industrial agriculture because they'd know that you'll kill the soil. Now that that's that's a huge issue at the moment that carry on like we are and there's going to be very little little soil that is going to be able to produce food. That's regardless of the climate that's even if the climate was fine. So it starts right back with us the adults because we've come a bit unhinged because we could all race down to the supermarket so we did it starts with us the adults getting in with the kids now the thing is if you've got a kid outside it especially if they've been allowed to go outside the whole time if they've been inside and they've been stuck on a screen then they're gonna resist going out because they'll actually have to do something. Yeah they'll have to they'll have to do that instead of something coming into them just you just sit there and it all comes in like it's like adults watching Netflix you don't have to do a damn thing except get your cup of tea or whatever else you're drinking. So these little so these little kids could be our our teachers if we got them outside stop saying they're gonna get dirty and I know we haven't got snakes in New Zealand but Aboriginal people have been living in your land it's their land for 4000 years minimum and and their children have been completely bonded with the earth in a way that we wouldn't even understand. But every child comes with that ability because that's what it is to be human. You see the when a little child is born the first great bonding that must happen is you bond with the mother. Now sometimes the mother dies or sometimes it can't be the mother so it's going to be who stands in for her but that's not the plan. The plan is that you bond with the mother and that bonding is a relational energy bit of the mind between the mind and the heart of the mother and the mind and the heart of the child and that bonding that relational bonding is a frequency bonding mind frequency and heart frequency bond through the heart and that bonding for the little one gives them their place on this earth. That's their anchor they grew inside mum now they're outside mum and most cultures not not us because we got really clever and got trams and push chairs and God knows what but most cultures carried the child so it was close to the heart. And for God's sake when you and I if we've got somebody we love and we and we're feeling a bit and they say would you like a cuddle we don't go oh no thank you no no thank you we don't do we go straight and cuddle and our hearts speak to one another and that's that's metaphorical but it's also scientific they speak to one another so that's why I mean this is how dungie we are a baby will cry a baby will cry and people say don't pick them up because they're just having you on so you pick them up and they stop crying and them and the person goes see they're just having you on I mean talk about misinterpreting data I like how you put that it is it is so sad that that's what we've come to so here's this little person with a great need for closeness and being next to their mothers or their fathers or nanas whoever's heart is going to oh and they'll go oh I'm home again because I was getting dysregulated oh and they just go oh well we know that if we're upset and somebody we love says would you like a cuddle we go oh you know like thank you add the two things together here mate good for the guest good for the gander you know it's like are the same species or not the same species they're the same species they're just littler yeah so what works for us pretty much works for them.

SPEAKER_02

It's sad isn't it that need for you know you often hear that don't let them control you. What are you it's this got a tyrannical government here.

SPEAKER_01

No well that that's not a surprise because the our dynamic that we we ourselves were brought up in is called the dynamic of domination. And then we go to school and it's a dynamic of domination and we go to the workplace it's the dynamic of domination and the government's the dynamic of domination and so it's very extremely rare for a child to experience a lot of the dynamic of partnership that's why I love Pickler because it's all about partnership from the beginning it's extremely rare and so if when I'm working with people I say if if you were when you were a kid if you had a teacher who really liked you and and you worked together do you remember them and people smile instantly if they had a teacher who would actually work with them cooperate collaborate and work in partnership well actually in a group of 30 people there's only usually about two that have that now that's out of 12 years of schooling so the dynamic of domination is the norm. And what we have to and see take that into the environment the dynamic of domination is the norm. Oh I'm planting some lettuces let's go down and get some um slug bait so that we can fill the the dynamic of domination so I learned that if you want to plant some lettuces and you want some of them plant a few more some for the and and you can wash the slugs out it's not a big deal but if you leave it like that you'll have thrushes I don't know what kind of birds you have over there but over here you'll have thrushes and blackbirds because there's something for them to eat there's you know like you kill off a piece out of the web if you dominate it by killing things willy-nilly expect it to come undone and it is coming undone the rate of the rate of extinctions of species is just like mind blowing that's where you don't want to watch the television because that's scared the hell out of you.

SPEAKER_02

It is our precious koalas which you know I'm other are endangered now.

SPEAKER_01

It's you know and they're the cutest cuddliest things and probably getting the most fundraising out of anything because they're cute and cuddly so what's happening to the ones that aren't deemed so cute and cuddly and have international fame it's it's terrifying so let's just stay with the koalas why are they disappearing in such numbers or habitat destruction from humans but also the fires why so many fires there have always been fires in Australia your flora is designed for flower fires some of it doesn't um germinate unless it's been through a fire but the rate of fires now with climate change is it's it's just going up exponentially yeah don't think it's going to get better because it ain't no our hundred year floods just happened the second time in 10 years you know literally and people people that just excuse it you know we've only got a certain amount of data is like we do and then it's changed even in that snippet of time I'll hark back to a song from my teenagers I think we ain't seen nothing yet we ain't we ain't seen nothing yet we paved paradise and put up a parking lot yeah so these little people um that that's the first bonding you have to bond with the mother because nurture is your first requirement now nurture is not a dominating thing nurture is a partnership thing and the better you do the nurture and the partnership the better this kid's outcomes for all of the rest of their life particularly their mental health so that's the first great bonding because the mother is the child's center of their world and people get all hit up about this and they go what about the father yes the mother birthed this baby and she's the center of the world and the baby bonds with her the the mum and then they get to know the dad pretty if dad's around we'll just assume is in pretty quick time and the siblings and for a while that's the size of their social world and then they get to know the auntie or the and so on and it goes out but all of the time the bonding anchor is mum you get that eh that's not hard to get is it so all the links go out from there. Now at four and everybody who's had a kid will notice they change at four all of a sudden they go want to be in your pocket have you noticed yes when when you're in early childhood you'll notice that the four year olds put a cape on start roaring around and terrorizing everybody they just don't need to be that close anymore because they know their anchor is reliable that's a that's a good thing. A boat would like to know that its anchor is reliable and a kid likes to know that its anchor is reliable. And so then their next great bonding now it doesn't mean that this is the first time they get out on the earth because they need to get out on the earth from the beginning but when they are ready to up anchor from mum it's not that they're going to go away they can sail back but their great bonding is with the earth mother now get how extraordinary this is first of all this little baby is in the womb that's their first anchoring in the world then their second anchoring is the mother and then their third anchoring is the earth and the earth provides every single thing that the mother will ever need use or have and the mother provides every single thing for the baby in the womb that the baby will need use or have it's a nesting of bonding relationships energetic and what's happening now for so many kids is they've been kept in captivity. Now school keeps kids in captivity and and and like I'm a teacher and I've taught for years and because you go through the school system yourself you think that you have to have a class frame. No you don't and you only have to ask any indigenous people that or there were a couple of sisters that I can't just off the top of my head remember their names Scottish sisters down in London who did amazing work with poor people sort of at the turn of the century or end of life or end of the eight the century before they built kindergartens now this is in London for God's sake and it's cold there and wet and they they only had three walls. The other wall was so the children were not kept in captivity and they said that the best classroom and the best resource cupboard is roofed only by the sky. These are Scottish women bring and do you know what kids don't go br if they've got suitable clothing on. We're standing there going outside you get cold no we're not cold mum I don't need a coat no because they move their bodies how they're meant to move their bodies yeah and so this organism called a human being is expecting absolutely 100% expecting that it will this child will be on the earth and we know that it's best if they bear feet now some people say well you don't live where we live there are things that you'd have to have shoes on for and I and I get that but um indigenous people didn't wear shoes or if they did they were not made of rubber you know they might um weave them out of russels or something like that birch bark or whatever but so that the energy of the earth the electromagnetic energy of the earth is is supposed to come in through our bare feet. So if you're in a really cold climate and you don't want to get frostbite you're gonna have to do a few things around that so that's fair enough but if you if you're not in one of those climates and you haven't got broken glass everywhere bare feet for kids and so what happens is this electromagnetic the earth has a pulse she has a heartbeat and it's the same frequency as the the brain frequency that children are born using. When they come in their brain is only 25% of its adult size so it doesn't do all the smart things an adult brain can do but it runs a basic frequency it's called delta that's not COVID. It's called delta and um it's this in that same frequency band of kilohertz is the same frequency of the earth's pulse. Now do you think that's an accident that kids come with the same frequency at co in their consciousness that isn't because they're earthlings. That's what they're expecting they're expecting to be on the earth and they're expecting that interaction the stuff that comes that's one of the reasons that the soles of feet sweat so that it's more conductive to the energy of the earth. It's incredible how we're designed so get those little kids out there because only when they're out there can they make friends with the buttercups I don't know if you have them over there but we do here and and probably most kids don't do that now but we used to pick them and put them under people's hold them up there and you get a yellow reflection and say do you like butter? They go slide down the gutter you know the kinds of little nature games that kids have and people go you know it's just kid stuff it's not it's them making friends with different species. They mightn't know the name of them I've done workshops with parents and teachers now for 40 years about being in the environment and you'd say and you'll say to a group of people did you in your district have a donginocker tree? Well heaps of people had either a donginocker tree or a bongy knocker tree. What it meant is some stuff fell off well exactly what are they what they didn't know what its proper name was but everybody in the team knew like if you said to the kids hey we'll go to the dongy knocker tree and they go oh yeah and you go and the stuff falls off it that you can have fights with so all around the country there are kids who have that and some of them might be I don't know what sort of trees they might be horse chestnut trees they could be acorn trees God knows what kind of trees but they've made friends with those things they know about them. There's a kind of acacia that we have here and we probably got it from you fellas because they're not native and they have little black seeds and if you scrunch them between two rocks with some water they smell like the worst plant ever and so these are the kinds of things that kids get to know just by being out in their natural environment a home is not an it's a shelter the home is not the natural environment and so if you have kids who are friends with these and understand the partnership thing they don't turn into people who go oh let's just you know if we tweak that poison we'll be able to take out all the broadleaf weeds you know they wouldn't do that they go hang on a minute that's gonna wreak the show yeah yeah do you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah soapbox no good this is what we're here for Penny this is it is though it it is that broader because we think we know like you said because and this is one of the things that scares me a little bit about teaching is that we get we go through school we go straight to university and straight into teaching so that's nearly 20 years assuming that just because that's how it's always done always done it's not how that's a snippet of how it's been done that's how it should be and that's best for us. What a wild experiment that's been and the damage that it has caused in keeping children in captivities. We were speaking about that um that Carol Black quote weren't we about comparing the data of children in schools is similar to comparing it to killer whales in captivity. I just think what are we doing?

SPEAKER_01

If you think the data comes from children in schools if you think that's normal it would be like using the data of killer whales in SeaWorld and thinking that was normal for AUCA. Yeah it's not and and the and the thing is Nikki because we've all subliminally been through it for the minimum of 12 years unless you they chucked you out of school at 15 because they couldn't stand you anymore but you've still been there a damn long time especially if you went to some form of um drop you off early childhood you've been there for a much longer time in in the more impressionable years you've got to remember that that's all of us who are teachers so it takes a lot of intentional going into the subconscious of thinking this is normal looking it up pulling it up and looking at thinking for God's sake it's not normal. It's just what we do but then you have to remember that the parents have been there too so they think that's normal and they're not going to go into their subconscious and do that unless well I'll tell you when a lot of it has happened with lockdown a lot of parents have gone holy noses when they've had their kids at home a lot of them can't wait to get them back to school but a lot of them gone wait that they've had a much better quality of life doing the things that they had to do but doing other things that are normal living not just sitting there waiting for the bell.

SPEAKER_02

The sitting the sitting is and the disorders that are being labelled because of the sitting and I know I don't want to paint entire generations with a brush or the medical industry but maybe I should the kids aren't meant to sit for six hours a day. Just just no it's not normal it's not healthy. Some people are diagnosed correctly and other people incorrectly diagnosed because they're just being made to sit still which is developmentally inappropriate.

SPEAKER_01

Yes so that some of these children who are given labels as early as in early childhood. Yes and um Because the parent they're searching for a label because they're wanting to know what why this child is different. The research has come in that and just from the teachers that I know that if those children are outside in a natural environment, most of the aberrative or the behavior that's kind of challenging disappears. I'm making all the gestures. And that and that has that's not just a one-off in one place with one that that happens again and again and again. And so here we are misinterpreting the data again. Yes. Because we know, especially if you're teachers, we will have read about what happens to rats when you put them into a small ish and there's nothing for them to do. We've read all that. We know that their behavior deteriorates and they do some pretty weird stuff. And then when they live in their natural environment, that all disappears. So join the links. Here's a child who's got energy requirements that are different from some people there. There's no avenue within that system, because it's a system of domination, to listen to what's once to come through the child. There's no avenue for that whatsoever, because you'll sit there, or you're, you know, pretty much. Um, and at least if people say, Oh, they can do what they want. Oh, yes. So when the bell goes, they cannot come in, you know. We're kidding ourselves if we think that traditional teaching is the partnership model. Now I know that there are some teachers in there who really work to get it and look, all power to you. You're you should write the book, you're fantastic. But for most people, we're just doing what was done to us, and it's the domination model. Now get those kids who've got different energy needs and different ways. Well, you know, people call them neurodiverse, which maybe that's true. I'm not saying it isn't, it's just another way of describing what's going on for this kid. Yeah. And so when those kids get out and they can make their relationship with the earth, and they can do it on that partner, and they can have all the healing benefits of the earth. That's just yes. Like people in Jap in Japan, they go forest bathing, and and and people go, Oh my god, forest bathing next, they'll be hugging trees. But they have they've identified the kinds of molecules that come off from trees living and how they affect us and all our health markers. And they've done a whole lot of research about it. So people who like to knock it would be the same people who, if they're feeling crap themselves, lots of people go out into the garden.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Or they might go down to the lake, or they go, Oh, I'm gonna go and have a surf, man. I don't want to blow the cob.

SPEAKER_02

You know, like we do that and then get surprised when it works for kids. Yeah. Or surprise when not letting them do that doesn't work. I think we get phone calls from parents, you know, just giving us a heads up, hey, little Johnny's level three, blah, blah, blah, with this disorder. These are some of the things he that may happen. He may get agitated, may get aggressive, blah, blah, blah. Comes down to the forest. Yes, exactly. Can't pick him in lineup because there's no fluorescent lights, there's no walls, he's not stuck in a room with noise and lights and colours and and the healing benefits.

SPEAKER_01

Because he's in his natural environment. He's not a rat in a box. Yes. He's an organism living where the organism's supposed to organism supposed to be.

SPEAKER_02

And his feet are grounding and and co-regulating with Mother Earth.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, absolutely. And it wasn't urgent in my day, Nikki, because what happened in my day was you'd go to school and it was and it look, it wasn't a lot different from what it is now, I'll tell you. But when we came home, mum would say, Well, that's it, get out of your school clothes, get into your home clothes and get outside and play. So every kid, and when there's no television in New Zealand when I was a kid, and so every kid had their school sit down, do what I tell you, and then the parents weren't gonna do that. Well, not at the most parents, and they say get out inside and play. So all of a sudden, you're out of that domination thing. You're out of that dynamic, and you could well my time on our farm with my brother. We have a sister too, but she's a lot younger, so that was useless for playing with. Um, but my brother and I are only a year apart, and that's what makes us who we are, our childhood outside. So I know the importance of it because I just know how important it is to me and the people that I know. Very often when I'm and people here in New Zealand anyway set up special um nature sessions or special forest schools at, I say, where were you born? And nine out of ten they say on a farm. Guilty as charged. Yeah. Because nine out of ten build on be brought up on a farm know how important it is. Because that's who we are now being. And so we are all charged with nobody said with a stick and pointed at us because that's domination. You are brought up on a farm, so go and do it. They just do it because that's what they know is a natural environment for kids.

SPEAKER_02

What's for that's what feels comfortable for me that makes me feel safe and grounded and calm, and I don't feel comfortable in a box.

SPEAKER_01

Because that's your second great bonding, the earth. Nobody's ever bonded with a classroom. No, no, it's not alive. You bond with your mother because she's a living entity, you bond with the earth because she's a living entity. You do but don't bond with the classroom because it isn't. It's as simple as that.

SPEAKER_02

How can we just just boom? How can we, other than opening up the rooms, you know, three walls only maximum, how else can we encourage our teachers to take the children outside?

SPEAKER_01

Well, there's there's some issues here. There's the issue of sun, the the issue of heat, which comes back to the issue of the school never doing suitable planting. Most school grounds, unless they're old private schools, don't have a really good tree cover. Certainly not climbable if they are. The people who set up the school and who have looked after the school and been guardians of the school for the decades that the school's been there, they themselves don't have or haven't paid attention to the eco-environment for children. And I mean, quite often I work in teachers' classrooms, oh my god, Nikki, the first thing I ask for is a vacuum cleaner. There's so honestly, that's you'd think even I'll clean up here if somebody's coming to visit, you'd think it's if somebody was coming to visit, they wouldn't have such a friggin' tip. And the kids have to live in that day in and day out.

SPEAKER_02

And you've got 30 helpers too. There's no reason that they can't be responsible for their environment as well. Exactly. Yeah. That's part of their culture. Might look after it better if you have to clean it yourself.

SPEAKER_01

There God. Oh, we don't go there, otherwise I'll I'll be getting a smallmouth like a cat's bottom.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, it is. So shade is one, inappropriate clothing is the other. Parents complaining about the mud that children bring home, if heaven forbid you do let them out and get wet, is another. That one drives me mad.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I I think that I think that that's really parent education. I think as teachers we've done a shocking job of educating our parents about what learning looks like, could look like, would look like, and how to support it. And um, I have found both as a primary school teacher and as an early childhood teacher, if you got parents together and took them through a workshop and took them through their childhood and related it back to how that worked for them, and then they go, Oh, I see what you're doing. The minute they go, Oh, yeah, I feel that inside from my childhood, I get what you're doing, then they're on your side. Because if you've got to remember that every parent, I'm gonna say every parent, I'm sure there's one or two that didn't, but every parent wants the best for their kid. And even if they fall out of love with their kid because the kid's too difficult, that's not what it was like when they were born. When they helped were holding their little baby, they were totally in love with this little person and they want the best for their kid. And so if they get a bit antsy, it's because they think that the school's not delivering the best for their kids. More compassion required. Parents aren't having the best for their kids, they just don't know how to do it. And and for to be honest, for a lot of us who are teachers, we want the best for the kids and we're not sure how to do it either.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and and stuck within a system where you know you're stuck on a hamster wheel because the the curriculum and the calendar is so crowded, there is no space for relationships. And what are we doing as teachers if we don't have relationships?

SPEAKER_01

Well, that's because we've been through a system that put curriculum before people. And as a teacher, actually, you don't have to do anything. There's a curriculum there, and you pick and choose. There's only a few things that are compulsory on there, and so you've really got free range. You might have a principal who tells you that you have to jump now, jump now, and I'll tell you how high. But um, you question them because in fact, when you read at, I don't know what your Australian curriculums are like early child in primary school and secondary school, how they're brilliant. And they don't say you have to do this, this, and this, and this. There's hardly anything that's compulsory. And so when you get primary schools in New Zealand doing ridiculous things called structured literacy, you know, that'll kill every kid's, yes, it will kill every kid's desire to be a writer and reader. Because someone's come up with a portable program that you can buy and put it in front of them, but it it's not how kids learn.

SPEAKER_02

No, it takes any fun and joy out of what they're reading.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. But then that's a domination system. I like this, so you're free to do it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, or even I don't like this, but I I think I think it's important. Who says? So that's that's you speak to any writer, and they say, I don't know what a yeah, I can't even give you an example, but it you know, you mean yeah, and I'm I'm an award-winning author because I love to read and I've learned through reading.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and the schools that buy um story starter programs for a lot of money, and I made some really um what do you call them sarcastic memes? Jo Rowling started her career as a writer with story starters, yeah, right. Like as if I was gonna say no, for goodness sake, it's just say for goodness sake, what are they thinking? Oh, it's and even just telling that. And to be fair, to be fair to the teachers, they don't know how to teach writing. Yeah, they could show paragraphs or persuasive writing because if you if you did, you wouldn't be doing that. So compassion for everybody. Apparently, Jesus' second to last words on the cross were that's if he's reported correctly. We don't know about that. Forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02

Oh gosh. It's funny, but it's not funny, it's not funny at all that we don't because we do, it's there, and it there's so much research, but even if we ignore all the research, we know, we know inside, if we just forget what we've been taught. How do we how do we, particularly as women, in a society that constantly tells us to hush our intuition from every every corner, how do we go back to listen to that intuition again?

SPEAKER_01

Well, Nikki, one of the things that I do when I'm working with school teachers is I say, I want you to jot down some of the things that you remember with affection from your primary school days. Just jot them down individually. So here are people jotting down things here. Then I say, pick just three, you know, it's not the decision of your life. Look down your list and just put a little mark by three of them. Then turn to your partner and you tell them the three things that you remember with affection, and they'll tell you the three things that you remember with affection. So you have so what happens is there's all this lovely talking going on and heaps of laughing and people going, yeah, yeah, you know, it's just a nice feeling in the room. And then I go, Okay, you know, you just judge when people are kind of running out and go, okay, it's not the decision of your life, but of those three, pick just the one that's up for you at the moment, and I'll go around and I'll say, when I invite you with my hand, like this as an invitation, could you just say the one you've just picked? And so we go around the room and we'll hear how good many there is. And it's really interesting. It'll be things like when we were having singing, I used to sit next to the piano and hear the vibrations. Or I loved it when we had music. Oh, swimming sports for me. I don't know if you have them over there, it's kind of like we call them calf club days here.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I did, but I know many schools didn't because I grew up in a very tiny farming community.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, that kind of stuff, calf club day over here. Um, the days that we um had a a a visiting specialist come in, and for me, especially if it was an art specialist or a music specialist, because it meant you got stuff that you didn't usually get. It will be when we were out on the lawn after the lawn I'd been, and we'd make huts with all the grass and squares, and we'd make little houses, or playing down in the back of the trees, or we had a hedge at the back and we used to climb in the hedge. We had huts under the hedge, or swimming sports, that was the best for me. Oh, look, uh, what do you call it? Cross country. A couple of people say cross country, obviously they won. Um and are you noticing something here? I can't hear about any walls. No, it's it's um my friends, uh, that comes up a lot. My friends, a teacher who liked me. Oh, what a surprise. Now, the only things that happened in the classroom that people mention, oh no, and one one person said I was allowed to take the goat home in the holidays, but quite a few, but quite a few people said I was allowed to take the budgie home in the holidays. These are their most favorite memories from eight years of school. The closest we've got to a classroom thing is lots of people have said, oh, we had a teacher who read us the hobbit, oh we had a teacher who read us um the silver sword, or we had a teacher who, you know, so being read to. So is as is as play is a part of children's unfolding, absolutely important. So is listening to story for a whole lot of other reasons. Probably haven't got time for that today. Um but if anybody said spelling, it's because they won the spelling test. Nobody else ever did. If anybody said maths, because they were very, very good at it. Two people so far out of hundreds have said maths, out of hundreds. One person said, Oh, story writing. I said, Tell me about the story, and they meant, oh well, we went to the mount and we found this amazing octopus in the pool, and I wrote about it. I said, Well, I'm gonna blame the octopus, not the story writing. That was about the octopus. There's nothing about a lesson in all these hundreds of people that I've worked with that is stuck with them. Most of it's about friends, friendship, being like music, the arts, drama, and outside and nature. God help us, surely that's a clue. Shocking, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02

And what's frustrating is that you get your numeracy and your literacy and all those other bloody skills from those joyous, joyous activities.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, you do. Or you can, put it that way. We can, yeah. So why are we torturing children in class? Well, if you do it right, I mean, if you're a teacher who loves, you know, somebody said they had a teacher who loved, I can't even remember what it's called, some kind of high-up maths when they were in secondary school. I didn't do maths in secondary school, um, but they said that was my favorite subject. And I said, why? And they said, because the teacher loved it and he could teach it so well. So that's the other thing. If you're a teacher and you love something like I loved art, well, you'll be doing a lot of it because you're teaching love, and everyone's gonna jump on board. If you're a teacher who teaches who loves music, teach that because you'll be teaching love. If you're a teacher who loves the earth as I do, and you take the kids out, teach that, and they'll and they'll grow to love it.

SPEAKER_02

I think that was my gap as a high school teacher. I I love reading and I love being outdoors. So in my head, English teacher and PU teacher. Turns out, not a lot of reading teaching English, and that's sport, not outdoors. So, where do we and and society environment subjects are all you uh it's it's stuck in a classroom? So it wasn't able to teach my passion in a classroom.

SPEAKER_01

Boris School, no, you see, we lose our agency because it yeah, if if we've been brought up to use our agency, you, the young secondary school teacher, would say to the principal, look, these are my passions, and when I look at the curriculum, if I do that outside, it fits. Can I go with that? Yes, and you know what? If you had an enlightened principal, they'd say yes, and then do you know what you fellas would be the the school that was everybody was coming to to see because it would work.

SPEAKER_02

It would, heaven forbid you give an adult agency, heaven forbid you let someone teach the passions and the things that they love and know inside out, miracles might happen.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we the only reason that most people don't think they've got agency is because they had 12 years in school.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, quite quote of the episode, Penny. That's powerful.

SPEAKER_01

And and and I want to say, as a teacher, who my sister's a teacher, my other sister's a teacher, my good friends are teachers, we're you know, we're we're riddled with teachers. We all did our extreme best to make it so that it would be joyful for the kids. But none of us was oh well, one of our sisters taught in international school, or both my sisters taught in international schools and private schools, so they had a bit more leeway and a bit more money.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, don't get me started on the inequity of our systems either. Oh Penny, this has been amazing. I'm aware we've we've been going for an hour, so I would love to keep picking your brain, but perhaps we can book another another time and explore some of those things like storytelling and and inequity in the classroom. Are you okay for ready for some rapid fire questions? And by rapid I actually just mean answer however you'd like. What's your favourite book of all time, if you can pick a favourite, or what are you currently reading?

SPEAKER_01

I don't have a favourite book of all time. Unless I go back to my childhood and it's probably Wind in the Willows or Winnie the Poe. Yes. But I am absolutely addicted to beautiful children's picture books. I you can't see on the screen, but I have thousands of dollars worth and I can't stop buying them. It's another form of art though, isn't it? But they have oh, but they have to be beautiful, the language has to be rivetingly beautiful, you know, the story has to be feeding your soul.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Any Particular ones at the moment that have caught your eye recently, or authors that you go back to because you know you know you're gonna get that?

SPEAKER_01

Graham Bass Graham Bass has got a lot of books out. His The Waterhole is gonna be a classic, but also a newer one out, The Tree, about Peace. I haven't seen that one. It's really good. We've got a press here in New Zealand called Gecko Press, and they go to the book fairs up in Europe, and so they see stuff that isn't in English yet and put in English, and one of their fantastic books is called Odd Bird Out. And it's about a family of crows, and Robert is the odd bird out, and it's fantastic. And I wished I'd had it when I was a school teacher because Robert is amazing the way he dresses and the way he gets around, and the way it pans out in the story, that the subliminally the child who's very different would know it's gonna be okay. That it's that deeper story. I love it. Oh, I'm gonna put that on the list of books. And I don't know if you've seen one that's um Australia puts has put out two awesome books for Anzac. One is called I think it's called One Minute Silence. Have you seen that? No, it's absolutely beautiful, but the other one is the little stowaway. Oh, I haven't heard of that one either. And it's an Australian company Air Force in France in the First World War, and they took in a a young French orphan, and he was kind of like their mascot, and they friggin' well stowed away with him and brought him home, and he had a life in Australia. It's true. This is a true story. Ah wow, far out. It's fantastic. So, of course, if you happen to be my great-grand nieces and nephews, your poor thing is all you're gonna get is books, but all of them have loved this one, and all of the adults, so these are people come out into their 50s, have loved this one.

SPEAKER_02

But your grandgrandnieces are very, very, very lucky to inherit books. What a what a treasure that is. All right, next question. What do you do, Penny, when you've had a rough day, or where do you go, or what do you do after you've had a rough day to reset?

SPEAKER_01

I either go just down the back of my section where I've got I've grown a big European beech tree. And I know that sounds a bit weird, but it's kind of a friend. That's not it soothes my soul. Um, because I'm a I'm weary now that just tittering down to the beach because you feel a bit crap is petrol into the environment. But if I feel really crap, that's what I do. The tree has to wait. How lovely to have a friend there that's that's always a beach over the hill that is just if you go there, your soul is instantly restored.

SPEAKER_02

That's how I feel about the beach where I grew up as well. It's a long, long way away now, but when I go back, it's uh home. It's magic. Yeah. If you here's a loaded question for you, Penny. If you had to choose just one thing to change about the education system, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01

Does the silence speak volumes?

SPEAKER_02

I'm so curious. I'm sitting here with bated breath. What what how can you pick just one? Is I think is the is my curiosity.

SPEAKER_01

I I don't think you can change one, but one that's uppermost for me is the group size in early childhood. We can't get rid of early childhood centres, but we can stop. I don't know what it's like in Australia, but do you know it's legal here to have 20 babies in one room? 20 and it's legal, it's legal to have 40. Now you've been a teacher, remember 40 kids, two-year-olds in one room. How many educators do you know off the top of your head? See that people go, oh well, how many educators are we doing?

SPEAKER_02

It doesn't matter if it actually doesn't matter at all.

SPEAKER_01

No, it doesn't matter at all because we're talking about stress levels, and we know all the research is absolutely clear what stress levels do to a child's brain and the anxiety levels and the rise of cortisol, and then their body uh acclimatizes and adjusts to that being the normal level for them. We know all that, and still we have levels that can only be damaging children, and they will have to unpick this as they go into older life. It'll be them who are left with this mental health issue.

SPEAKER_02

And like you say, we know that they can't learn when they're stressed, but we're putting them in their centers to quote unquote learn.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's not about learning. No, it's nothing to do with learning. That's just a cover. It's about looking after looking after children while their parents are at work so that it makes the economy run smooth. It's got nothing to do with education at all, even though early childhood is an education and even though it's teachers. Ultimately it's about looking after kids so that parents can work, because in countries where they have altered the criteria, like in Sweden, when they said, okay, we're going to extend parental leave, but their centres for young babies for kids under one emptied out overnight. Parents, if they if they were going to be supported, parents would look after their little ones. But crooking, you've got to eat and you've got to keep a roof over your head. So what else are you going to do? You can't leave the kid under a bush.

SPEAKER_02

No, no. We used to be able to survive with just one, I'm not going to say easily, and and don't get me wrong, I 100% understand we can all make sacrifices, but that's coming from a very privileged point of view as well, to be able to say to say that.

SPEAKER_01

Look, I don't know what year it was introduced in Australia, but in New Zealand, 1984, neoliberal economics came in like a bomb blast, and our culture doesn't look even remotely the same. And so back then, 1984, you could do it on one wage should you want to. Yeah. Okay, you might have both a bit fine, but you could do it. And people were doing it. And people had jobs before the forestry was privatized, the rail was privatized, and so on and so on. So don't start me on that either, because that's a really big soapbox.

SPEAKER_02

I love it, but this is you know, when we say, well, no, we need a fixture education, it's not just that, it's so much bigger than that. It is exactly what you're saying. It is how are we going to support parents to be at home? Oh, we might not be able to put economy first, heaven forbid, you know, it's people. Like, how do we decentralize? Yeah, again, don't get us stuck.

SPEAKER_01

It's not about decentralizing, it's about reversing a lot of the laws that that came in with neoliberal economics that were basically about taking away the power of the worker, busting unions, taking away 40-hour weeks. Oh, we're going to transfer to the gig economy. How fantastic! Because when you're an owner driver or when you're in a gig economy, you don't have to be paid holiday pay, you don't have to be paid six pay. All of this works not against the employer, this works for the employer, but against the worker. So if you like, it's a class war. It is, and it always not always has been. It is. Yeah, that's one way of putting it. Extreme class war. Neoliberal economics, badly named, extreme class war.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's a have a have and the have nots, and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and children suffer because of it. I I love our long form short answers. They're always the best. All right. And Penny, last question: where can we find out more about your wonderful work and the advocacy that you do?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I've got a website, so you can I've got a personal website. Do you want me to send you the links or have you got them?

SPEAKER_02

I've got those, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But if you'd like to give it a shout out, that'd be great for everyone. I can't remember what it's called, so you'll just put the links up. Beautiful. Um and I've got a publishing company that I started.

SPEAKER_02

You tell me the name because as a husband who's a Kiwi, I love the name of your publishing company. Good egg books? Yes. People don't know what a good egg is in Australia. This is such a shame. I know. If I I've often said to people, oh, you're a good egg, and they look at me like, what are you saying? You're a good egg. You're a good person. Oh.

SPEAKER_01

It needs to be taken and run back. And um and another one called Magic Places. And Magic Places is the one I wrote way back Yonks ago. But it's about children's development in creative development through art and how to assist that and how not to wreck it. And um it's still as pertinent as it was when I wrote it all those years ago. That's yes. More than 40 years ago. Somebody was telling me the other day their little kid went to school and first day of school and was given some colouring and and came home and in the lounge, his mother said to him, What are you doing? He said, I'm playing school, I've got the colouring in. One day at school. And you know what? Don't blame the teacher because a lot of people go, Oh, the teeth don't blame the teacher. If the teeth blame the people who train the teachers, for God's sake. If the person had had adequate training and education around teaching and how to hold a create person's creativity, she, it happened to be a she, but he or she would never ever do that if the the training institutions and universities did their job.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. It's the same with uh outdoor, I'm gonna call it give it a name, outdoor learning, but just letting children be children in their natural environments. There's one university here in Queensland that has one subject for the early childhood teachers, not primary, not secondary.

SPEAKER_01

How are the teachers need to know? Yeah, that's it. See, that's it, and and unfortunately, they're the ones at the talk face, so they're the ones that wear the parents Roth. It's not where the Roth should be placed. The Roth goes right back to the universities who make people pay friggin' student fees to get what? Yeah. We won't go there either. That's another soapbox. It is, it is. Well, um, that's a that's a good soapbox.

SPEAKER_02

I can fit in my house, eh? Penny lives in a multi-story apartment block. We need it. We need it though. We need these voices making people question. So as as a just thank you, as as a thank you as a parent, as an educator, but on behalf of children, thank you for being a voice. Thank you for being the matriarch that when I grow up, I want to be being that voice. I appreciate your time and I appreciate the the work that you've done for years and years and years for children.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, okay, Roniki. Thank you for asking me.

SPEAKER_02

I just wish that all parents could have even just an hour's conversation with Penny or someone just like her who is so well read and researched and passionate and has that wisdom of experience behind her and is honest with her advocacy. Our society knows what is best for children from the research, yet we continually offer them what is not best and then leave them alone to, as Penny says, heal the damage that was done to them and their systems as adults. We need big systemic change, but that starts by voting with our feet in our own micro-communities. That means supporting those schools, those centres, those organizations who are actually doing what is actually best for children, which is people and relationships first, academics well down the list, it's mental health and holistic well-being and physical health first, bonding first, feet connecting with the earth, breathing fresh air, children able to move their bodies how they need to. So please, let's move with our feet. If you'd like a little help to instigate change in your child's school or centre, why not head to wildlingsforestschool.com backslash free dash downloadables and go and check out our free outdoor spaces checklist. Then you could perhaps book a meeting with your principal or your parents' school council and start being a voice for children. Because Lord knows they need our help if we don't want them in therapy for the rest of their adult lives. Thank you for taking this journey with us. Thank you for being a voice for children. And until next week, stay wild.