If We Don’t Start Taking Kids Seriously, the West Is Done For

Values, not privilege, determine whether a child thrives. In this episode, Katharine Birbalsingh traces her journey from left-leaning Oxford graduate who blamed racism and poverty for school failure, to founder and headmistress of Michaela Community School who believes the opposite. Small-c conservative values, personal responsibility, and high expectations matter more than circumstance ever could.

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Katharine Birbalsingh, Britain’s strictest headmistress, talks about what matters for our culture both at school and in the home. Gentle parenting and progressive schooling have replaced the values our grandparents understood instinctively. This show is for parents and teachers looking for the traditional advice they can't find anywhere else.

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An Original Production of Emergent Order Foundation

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

People write to get me struck off all of the time, saying that it is outrageous that I'm saying the things that I'm saying. Well, I'm gonna keep saying them. I'm just gonna keep saying them because they're true. They're what's right, it's what we need to do for our kids. Because if you want to know how to make your classroom better, how to help you in the home, moms and dads with your kids, how to help all of us have a better world, we have to look at what we're doing with our children. Hello and welcome to Strictly Education with me, Catherine Verville saying Britain's strictest headmistress. So this is kind of an introduction, you know, who is Strictly Education for? Um, you know, I speak to parents all the time who want traditional advice on their kids, or I speak to teachers who want traditional advice for their classrooms, and they can't find it anywhere. But it's not just for teachers and parents, it's also for those of you who, you know, you don't think that kids are that important. You know, you think, oh, kids are for mums and for teachers. Well, you're wrong, okay? I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. This podcast is about doing things differently because if we don't change, we're in big, big trouble. Because your grandmother was right. Your gentle parenting neighbor is wrong, okay? Look a few months ago, I met this wonderful 86-year-old man in Florida, and he said something very wise to me. He said that children make up 15% of the population, but they make up a hundred percent of the future. The values we give to our children matter because the values we give to our children make for a good life as adults. Okay. And the things I'm gonna talk to you about will relate to anything that informs our values about how we raise our children. So sometimes this might be about parenting methods or teaching. Other times, we're gonna get a bit saucy. So other times it might be about race, might be about gender identity or men and women, how we approach mental health or technology. Actually, any topic or news story that tells us something about the values that we're giving to our children. And you might think, well, what does that have to do with kids? Well, uh, let me tell you, it has a lot to do with kids. And I'm gonna do it right here for my office. This is my office here. Look, I need to show you actually. Let me show you. Look, I've got items. This is my favorite item. You see him? This is my little monkey, and you see how he has a little British flag on him there? Like, there is our little British monkey. And wow, we've got lots of items here. I gotta show you this. You can't even see it in the set. Look at this. This is football. Anyway, I'm gonna put out an episode once a week, and whatever the topic, it will always relate to the values that our children need to live a life of dignity. So you might be thinking, who am I to make this podcast, right? Well, I'm the headmistress of Michaela Community School, which is in Wembley. We're a state-funded, non-selective inner-city school with normal inner-city kids in Northwest London. Guests tend to think that they come from Mars. I promise you, they're just perfectly normal kids. Kids we didn't choose, kids the council gave us, right? Just like any other school. We actually get a thousand guests a year. It seems crazy that a thousand people would come and visit us. I'm telling you, they come from all over the world. Uh, today we had some guests from Australia, from the US, uh, like they're from all over the place. It's true that we get amazing academic results that can outperform some of the elite private schools. So that's one thing that we're famous for. But I have to say, I don't think I've ever, and I teach, I talk to the guests every single day. I don't think there is a single guest that's ever said to me, Oh my goodness, your results are so amazing. I I I can't I can't really think of one. All of them come here and they speak to the kids and they sit with them at lunch and they have a tour, and they're always struck by the fact that the kids are so nice, kind to each other, polite, ambitious, driven, um, just good people, right? Now, look, I founded the school 12 years ago, and people always ask me uh why we haven't expanded. I mean, look, the school's obviously working. Uh, people come from all over the place to come and see it. Uh, so you know, why why haven't we got a second school, third school? Well, I've tried. Okay, we've tried. Uh, we've been blocked at everything we tried to do. We tried to open a primary, we tried to open a secondary, I tried to set up a training course for deputies and head teachers, principals, you know. We've just been blocked by by it and everything we've tried to do. Okay. So I've just been doing it by stealth, really. Um, I, through social media, you know, I have to say I'm not a big social media person. You know, I'm a bit of a hermit in that way. I'm happy to sit at home and um, you know, do stuff for school. Like, I'm really not like it's social media is not my thing. You wouldn't think it, because people think they call me the social media queen, and I'm really not. Um, what I am is um the Michaela Queen, and I really believe in what we're doing here. So I'm like an evangelist going out there and just trying to spread the word. I always say I'm like a traveling salesman with a suitcase going from door to door saying, Let me tell you about traditional teaching, let me tell you about traditional values and how what we need to do with our kids. So Michaela's traveled far and wide because of me being on social media. And it's basically just spread through word of mouth. And then these guests come from all over the world. You know, and journalists always ask me every time I'm ever interviewed, and I've been interviewed a lot, they always ask me, why are you the way that you are? And so I thought I'd take this opportunity now to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in New Zealand. My mother uh was a nurse and she's originally from Jamaica. My father is uh, or was an academic, I should say, and uh he is originally from Guyana, Indo-Guyanese. Um I grew up in Canada. When I was about four, we spent a year in Nigeria, and when I was about 10, we spent a year in France. Uh, here's a photo of uh me and my sister in Nigeria. You can see the car there, right? 1970s really dates me. Um, my dad had these sabbaticals from the university where he taught in Toronto, and we would go off and live somewhere else because he was a great adventurer. You know, he took us around the world, he really did. Um, and uh we eventually moved to England when I was 15. Although I say that my parents spent a year here in England and then they went back to Toronto. I ended up staying, and each time I was gonna stay for a little bit longer, stay for a little bit longer, and then in the end, I just never went back. So we lived in Lemmington Spa, uh, because my dad was placed at Warwick University for that year. This is a photo here of Mrs. Chrysic. So Mr. and Mrs. Chrysik were these wonderful old English couple who um, when my dad came to England in the 1960s, he knew their son, who lived in the Caribbean. And so when he came to England, they treated him like a son. In fact, he called them mom and dad for his whole life. Um, so in that photo, I remember being introduced to Mrs. Chrissic as Mrs. Krizick, but when my dad would refer to her, he always called her mom. Uh they were a lovely, lovely couple. Uh, you know, she she was her husband had died at that point. Mr. Chrysik was no longer there. They brought me up very much with um small c conservative values because we were a Caribbean family, and in our West Indian home, those uh small c conservative values were were just normal values, you know. I suppose they were Christian. They we used to go to church, and um, I wouldn't call myself a Christian now, but certainly my parents brought me up that way. You know, it's funny, just today I had um uh a guest in uh one of the local uh teachers, actually, she's from Guadeloupe, and she was saying how much she loves the school. And she said, She said, you know, the thing is, Catherine, in Guadeloupe, this is just normal. She said, you're giving the kids an education here that you get in Guadeloupe. And my mother would say the same thing about Jamaica, my father would say the same thing about Guyana, you know, like I always say to the parents, actually, before they join, I say to them, uh, that, you know, our school is more similar to the schools in their countries. And they could be from Poland, they could be from China, they could be from India, they could be from Nigeria, Jamaica, wherever. It's true. Our school is more like their schools. Or you go back in a time machine to the 1950s, and you'll find our school is quite like the 1950s schools in England. It's just that schools in the West have really changed. In our school, we're not um celebrating victimhood, we embrace personal responsibility, we're grateful for what we have. And these are the kinds of small C conservative values that my parents taught me and instilled me. So they're just they're just here, you know. So, you know, later I went to Oxford. Um, I used to read Living Marxism. Uh, you know, I was a lefty, and I think I've, you know, moved in terms of my politics since then. Um, and I've changed my mind about a lot of things. You know, I chose to go into teaching because I wanted to teach inner city kids in schools. I wanted to change the world. I've always taught uh deprived kids, really. And that was because I had this real sense of, well, it's racism and it's poverty that's holding kids back, you know? So here's a photo of my first form class. Um, they were my little tutor group, you know, and I would check them in in the morning and in the evening, and um, oh gosh, I love those boys. I love those boys more than anything. So much so. You see the curtains in that photo. I made those. I like I got a sewing machine, and I'm no, I'm no seamstress. I got some material and I sewed those curtains because I wanted them to have really nice curtains because the curtains that were there were horrible. And I thought, this is our classroom, and our classroom's gonna look great. And so I got some nice, bright material and made them those curtains. I remember a science teacher once that when I got that form class, he said to me, You'll never forget your first form class. And I tell you, it's true. You know, it's true. Uh I'll never forget those boys. I cried and cried and cried when I left those boys. Oh my goodness. Um, and they gave me this mug, uh uh, you know, and it I still have that mug. Um, and then a few years ago, the school where I used to teach those boys was closing down. And um uh there was a teacher who'd uh had who'd been there for years. So this teacher, he had been in the school, I don't know, 25 years or something. And so he'd organized an event in the pub to kind of say goodbye to any of the uh now young men. I say young men, they're not even that young now, like they're in their 30s. Um, anyway, my boys came back, you know, my boys came back and there they were. I couldn't believe it. And there you can see in this photo how um, well, there they are with me, uh, years later, with the teacher who was their head of year and I was their tutor. It's just lovely. It's one of those things where you think, you know, teaching really is the best job in the world. So um the thing is that at the time there was a real consensus that black and brown children were failing because of racism and because of poverty. And I really just believed all, I just thought, you know, if we get rid of the old-fashioned racist ways, uh, because anything old-fashioned is racist. That's kind of the idea. If it's traditional, then it must be racist. You know, like Dead Poet Society. If you think about Dead Poet Society, you know, with Robin Williams, um, and you know how like they all stand on the desks and, you know, captainum, my captain, and all this, you know, there's a real sense of we are gonna overthrow the old, doddery old guys who are teaching us boring traditional stuff. I kind of believed that stuff, you know. Uh, and I thought, you know, what needed to happen was that white teachers needed to question their racism to stop telling black boys off for no reason. When I went into teaching, that's what I thought. And when anything went wrong, there just were always two reasons. I mean, it was poverty or racism, and that's just how I thought. Everybody thought like that, frankly. And I think, unfortunately, because I've changed my mind, I don't think that's the case. Whereas I do think that there's a lot of us who still think like that. And actually, I think thinking like that is a massive part of the problem. I mean, it's huge, okay? And when I say part of the problem, it's not that, you know, uh black boys are failing. Actually, in this country, in England, uh it the stats show that it's often white boys who are underachieving. Uh, I'm just talking about a general uh problem of our kids, not just underachieving, because this isn't just about kids achieving. It really isn't. It's about the values that they've got. Why are our kids misbehaving? Why are our kids rude? Why do you get on the bus when there are kids on the bus and you think, oh my goodness, I'm gonna get off the bus and get on a different one? That's what strictly's about, all right? Um look, why did I change my mind? I went to so many places around the world. Um, and I used to go and visit schools because I was obsessed with education and I wanted to find out more about schools in different parts of the world. I spent time in schools in South Africa, in Rwanda, in Turkey, Brazil, China, India. Uh, I also went to schools in in America and New Zealand and Australia, so parts of the West, you know, and I'd compare the two. I'd compare the richer countries, the Western countries, with the poorer countries. And in the poorer countries, they really had nothing. You know, there'd be 50 kids in a class, sometimes more, 100 kids. You'd have uh old textbooks from the 1970s, uh, you know, the place would never have been painted. You'd have a desk shared between four kids. I mean, it was awful in some places. As an example, like in South Africa, I worked there for about six weeks in a in a school, and we were in the middle of nowhere. It was just totally rural. I mean, like there were goats that would walk into the classroom. Uh, everything was sort of outside. Uh, there was no technology or anything. They had one computer, which they'd never turned on because nobody really knew how to use it. And then when I turned it on, I thought, I don't uh that what are we gonna do with this? We have no printer, we have nothing. I mean, it was like it really was um the back of beyond. And uh the kids would turn up late to school, some of them. They were walking miles to get to school. And remember, these people, you know, they have nothing and they've paid for a uniform and then walking miles. But I said, no, we need to get you in on time. So I had this whole assembly about the early bird gets the worm, and um, I drew a bird. I'm no, I'm no artist, but I drew a bird and because I didn't have a print or anything, and I drew a worm, and then I stuck, I made loads of these posters, drawing them, and then I stuck them up all over the place. And you know, kids, kids came in early. And you know, one time we got into a car and we drove hours to another school, which was miles and miles and miles away. And when I arrived at the school, I was wandering through the school. I could hear kids in the classrooms there saying, It's the early bird, it's the early bird. And like it was amazing. Because I mean, here we were miles and miles, miles away. It took us hours to drive to this place, and somehow it had the news had spread about the early bird. And I was the early bird woman. I mean, it was amazing. Anyway, all my travels taught me that the biggest difference uh for kids is their values. Like, so those kids in all those countries that I went to visit were far poorer than the kids in the inner cities in New York and in Sydney and in London. I mean, I'd been to these schools, I'd seen them, I know what it's like to work with kids who are deprived because I've done it all my life. And yet the kids who were poorer in those other countries were more positive, they were happier, they were more hardworking, they would walk miles to get to school, they valued their education. So I'm like, well, why is this happening? Well, I can tell you why. It is because of the small C conservative values that are in their veins, right? Poverty has nothing to do with it. You can be as poor as anything. If you've got conservative values in your veins, you will overcome. That's what happens, right? So, look, in the West, we are much richer, but we don't have any of these values anymore. We used to. They're all gone right now. That's why we've got loads of fights going on in schools. We've got very little learning going on in schools. And some people will say, that's not true. We've got loads of learning. No, I don't think so. I always tell the people tell guests, I was telling them just today, I was saying we're a show pony, right? Because the fact is, if you come here, you see just how much kids can learn. I didn't know how much kids could learn. I didn't know. Not until this happened here at Michaela. And if I go into the classrooms now and I think, my God, I had no idea kids could learn so much. So another reason why I changed my mind is that the teachers who I've met in my career, they have embodied those small c conservative values. And these are teachers on all sides of the political spectrum, right? So Michaela herself, who we named the school out of, was a woman very much on the left. The teacher who was the head of year of those boys who I just showed you, um, he was very much on the he's still on the left. Like he's retired now, but he would tell, he will say to me, Oh, you know, Catherine, I'm one of your lefty friends. So, but they were small C conservatives. And it used to be the case that those small C conservative values were both on the right and the left of the political spec political spectrum. They're not, that isn't the case anymore. So here's a photo of my old department. You can see Michaela in there. Uh, you can also see her in another photo here where she's just enjoying life in St. Lucia. Um, you know, she always used to say to me, Katherine, where is the rigor? She used to say. Um, she used to get really frustrated with the fact that everybody just seemed to be so lazy and laid back all the time, you know? She was strict, but she loved the kids. And the thing about being strict is that I think real strictness is totally loving. And sadly, sadly, Michaela died of cancer in 2011. I wish she could have seen this school. She would have loved it. You know, she would have loved it, but you know, maybe she's looking down from up above. So I started changing my mind and thinking differently about how to teach kids. And I came to realize look, the adult has to lead, okay? And we need to believe in pride and shame. Literally, we the idea of making a kid feel ashamed about his behavior nowadays is completely unacceptable, which is crazy, okay? Personal responsibility. We've abandoned that as a value. You know, if you if you turn up late to school, that's on you. If you don't do your homework, that's on you. But we accept every excuse under the sun now. We say he has special needs, we say he has mental health issues, we say the bus wasn't on time, we say that his dad isn't in the home, we say that he lives on a council estate, we say that he's black or he's brown or he's white. I mean, whatever it is. Like it's insane. Now, I came to realize as a teacher, and I want everybody who's watching this, I want you all to realize too if you have different values and if you teach the kids those better values, the kids will be better for you. Okay, that that's just what happens. If they have better values, they become better kids. When people come here every day and the guests say, Why are your kids so amazing? Because they've got better values. It's as simple as that. So I made the mistake of saying this publicly in 2010. All of the stuff I'm telling you now, I said it publicly in 2010 and I got in a whole load of trouble. So here's what I said.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Black underachievement is due in part to the chaos of our classrooms and in part to the accusation of racism. If you keep telling teachers that they're racist for trying to discipline black boys, and if you keep telling heads that they're racist for trying to exclude black boys, in the end the schools stop reprimanding these children. When the lawyers When the lawyers argue against a school and readmit a black boy, who do we think suffers the most? It's all the other black boys who now look to this invincible child and copy his bad example.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

I feel old when I watch that. I feel really old. Anyway, um, yeah, that's what I said in 2010. And I basically ended up out of a job and out of a career, actually. I mean, I was just told I'd never work in the state sector again. Uh and I was told that the sorts of things I was saying meant I shouldn't be allowed to be a teacher. And I have to say that still happens. So people write to get me struck off all of the time, saying that it is outrageous that I'm saying the things that I'm saying. Well, I'm gonna keep saying them. I'm just gonna keep saying them because they're true. They're what's right, it's what we need to do for our kids. And I think it's completely outrageous that the whole system is such that anybody who tries to speak out and say what's going on, this is what ends up happening to them. And it's only through, you know, some kind of miracle that I've managed to set up the school. It's just amazing that I've managed to survive. The fact is, I have survived, and I'm gonna keep on going and I'm gonna keep telling you what's wrong. Because if you want to know how to make your classroom better, how to help you in the home moms and dads with your kids, how to help all of us have a better world, we have to look at what we're doing with our children. So I decided to set up my own school. I called it Michaela after Michaela, who sadly died in 2011. Um, we had to try three different times to try and open up in London. Uh, it took us three and a half years to open up, okay? Because we had so many people trying to stop us. Because, of course, you'd want to stop those evil people from trying to set up a school for kids in the inner city who are deprived. I mean, definitely. They're your number one enemy, aren't they? So, three different parts of London. We went from two different parts of South London, then eventually we came to North London and we managed to get this building. Through no help from the council or anyone else, we managed to get this building, and amazingly, we have now opened in Wembley. We opened in 2014. Now, I have to say, before we did open, uh, we had all these information events for parents. Uh, we'd we'd have events in in the back garden of a pub. Uh, and you wouldn't believe the stuff that would happen. I mean, people would be protesting outside. Like when I say, like, people try to stop us, they would protest outside with big banners, calling me a Tory teacher. We were always so worried about uh the possible violence that might ensue that we'd have to hire bouncers, okay, to deal with these protesters. I would have to walk across the picket line with them shouting abuse at me. And then they would come into the event and they would sit themselves among. So I just want you to imagine this, right? So I've gone around uh South London, I've handed out loads of flyers to black mums in the local markets saying, new choice of school, new choice of school. These mums are already. Excited about the idea of being able to have another choice of school for their child. They come along to the parents' evening to find out about it. And then all these white people have been bust in, white middle class people have been bussed in from out of London to sit amongst these working class black mums and to then stand up and shout at me when I'm talking to the parents to just try and drown me out and so that they can't hear me. Okay? Now, this happened more than once. Um, death threats came our way. I mean, it was just, it's just crazy. I used to say you'd think that we were setting up uh a nuclear armament. I mean, I don't understand. What on earth? Like all we're doing is setting up a school. But they the progressives had wanted to stop us. They didn't succeed. Okay. Uh, like I say, it's like some kind of miracle that we've managed to get here. You can see a photo here of uh the building that we eventually got, which was totally derelict and it's like it was just awful. But uh, we got some money from central government so that we could refurbish it. And uh you can see me with my parents. My parents came to visit me here and we went round and and you know, like it was a big thing. And then when we opened, uh, there were still like the protesters would not go away, right? There were still protesters. They were handing out flyers to our 11-year-olds, telling them that their lives were in danger for coming into the building because the refurbishment was still going on. And so we had all these, you know, construction workers around working. Now, you can imagine every health and safety box had been ticked, and we used to walk through this little tunnel to get into the school. But the detractors decided to use that against us and then what tried to scare the kids and the families into thinking that their lives were in danger. I mean, look, I could go on forever, but basically, look, 12 years later, let me tell you how Michaela's different, okay? The critics always said it would never work, but we can't have traditional values. I various politicians and journalists would come and visit us in the first year, and they'd say, Yeah, well, let's just come back when you don't just have 11-year-olds. Let's see what happens when you have 16-year-olds. Well, we now have 11 to 18-year-olds, and we have had for years, and we are still, you know, top at everything, really. I mean, we really blow people out of the water when it comes to our results. Uh, but like I say, that's not why the guests come. And it's not what the kid the guests are are impressed by. The guests are impressed by who our children are as people. Okay. That's what they love. And then people say, well, you know, how do you do it? And they'll assume that I spend all my time reading research, educational research. How does the brain work? How do children um, you know, how do they learn? I can tell you right now, I don't read the research. I don't. I I I I don't read any of the research at all.

unknown 24:48

Right?

SPEAKER_01 24:49

I just don't. Um, some of my staff quite like it. I don't. I don't read it. I spend all my time with my staff trying to move them on their values. That's what I spend all my time doing. Now, the guests always come every day, and I speak to the guests every day. I mean, you know, I spend 10 minutes with them, 15 minutes with them. And uh almost every day, somebody will say, but how can we make my how can I make my classroom into Michaela? How can I make my school into Michaela? And um, I would like to uh over the next year or so try and create a kind of manual that would help uh people do the lineups and the silent corridors and the uh you know the slanting in the in the in the in the classrooms. But I think people fundamentally misunderstand if if all they want is to know the the kinds of ins and outs of the practicalities of the school, they're missing the point, which is that it's all about the values. And I've realized I cannot explain the values through a manual. It's impossible, right? I can't do it. Uh, I know how I move my staff. And I move my staff and their values by having conversations and by talking to them. So that really is the point of Strictly. I mean, I wish I could talk to each and every one of you individually. I can't. But what I can do is have a podcast where I'm trying to change the way in which you see children and the values that are in here. Because I promise if you change your values here and you give your children different values, whether you're a parent or a teacher, your children will change. And um, I don't know, you know, lots of people talk about saving the West. I'm one of those people. Well, I'm often saying it's the end of the West. I've been saying it for a very long time. Um the thing is, I think the only way we save the West, the only way we we save our schools, the only way we save our kids is if we teach them the right kinds of values. I mean, that that's where the solution lies. And so for all you guys who love talking about immigration and talking about the economy and I don't know, defense. I'm telling you, if you don't want to talk about childhood, all of those conversations are for nothing, okay? Everything starts in childhood, okay? Um people pat me on the head and they say, You got a nice little school. Stop patting me on the head. This is the foundation to Western civilization, right? And so there's a lot of reasons for you to be unstrictly. Moms and dads, you're gonna come here and find out about what kids need, right? Teachers, you're gonna come here because you're thinking I want to know what kids need. And everybody else who think you're too clever, your clever clogs too big for your boots, come and listen to me about what I'm telling you about children. And I'm hoping I can change your minds because those big conversations you have about the geopolitical stuff, if you don't talk about children, all of that stuff is for nothing. Okay? Children are everything, children are the future. And so the future lies with strictly education. So, you know, what I love is that um people have already come up with questions. And my plan is to always answer a couple of questions on each episode. So if you want to give me future questions, put them in the comments below. Um, and I'm gonna answer a couple of questions now. Right. So this is a question from Will Mack on X. Um, I'd be really interested in how you communicated your early vision for Michaela. How did you get buy-in for such a radical vision? Seems like an important case study in successful leadership. Yeah, I mean, how you get buy-in for anything is you go step by step. Um, so I mean, to be honest, in many ways, I didn't necessarily have this vision for the school. Uh, I just knew things could be better. So I got together with my founding teachers and we decided well, what are the small things that we can fix? Do we want them to have bags in the classroom where the bags are just going to be sitting in the on the floor and the teachers will jump will fall over them? Uh small things. And um what you find is when you take care of the little things, the bigger things take care of themselves. So that just happened gradually. Um and I'm always just trying to move people step by step. So, in particular, even now, I mean, you say at the beginning, but now I hire new staff, I have to move them slowly in their understanding of what uh values they might want to change inside themselves, because otherwise they just run away to begin with. So I have to start bit by bit. So this is um from KMP, uh, a question saying, How does a teacher teach values in their classroom when the school system has none? Meaning there are no real consequences for poor behavior or attendance. You need to set the rules of your classroom, regardless of what el what is happening elsewhere. Okay. Um, so implicit in that question is, but there are no consequences outside of my classroom. Well, fine, but that doesn't mean you can't give consequences. I used to leave an hour at the end of every day so that I could ring parents, sometimes for good things, sometimes for bad things. I had to, because nobody was gonna support me. I had to do it. Like it's the only way in which you just have to take control of your own classroom. So here's a question from James, who says, uh, you you want kids to take personal responsibility, but how about their awful situations uh at home? They just come from real poverty. Yeah, it's a good question. The thing is, is that those of us who are well-meaning, we think to ourselves, well, we want to be able to allow that kid off for his homework, or it's all right if he's not on time. But um, you'll remember what I said about the school in South Africa where kids were walking miles to get to school and I was still getting them into trouble for not being on time. Look, the only way to live a dignified life is to have the sorts of values that are gonna make you be a better version of yourself tomorrow than you are today. It's the only way. And so you're not helping children when you make excuses for them. That's the thing to remember. What you're doing in that moment is you're helping yourself feel better about yourself. Okay? You're making uh you feel bad because he isn't as privileged as you are, and then you want to adapt yourself and what you're asking for him in order to make it yourself feel better about your own privilege. It's not gonna help him. It's gonna turn him into somebody who's functionally illiterate and functionally enumerate and isn't able to make something of his life without the right sorts of values, which are whatever obstacles are in front of me, I'm gonna jump those obstacles because I've got one set of cards to play, right? That's all I've got in life. Okay. So if that's all I've got, my teachers and my the adults in my life better not take those cards away from me by making excuses for me. We need to hold children to account, whatever their situation is at home. So, Jordan here is asking, how do you transfer your way of teaching into a homeschool setting? I mean, people always ask me, how do I transfer it into my classroom in Argentina? How do I put this in my school in Australia, you know, homeschool? I mean, the fact is, kids are kids, wherever they are. Um you have the right kinds of values and you instill the kinds of values that are good, the small C conservative values, into those kids, you know, with one-on-one conversations, every interaction you have with them. Uh, you know, you're teaching three kids at home. It's it's the same as teaching a whole class of kids. I mean, it really is. It doesn't matter. You hold them to account, you you praise them, you punish them, um, you have heart-to-heart conversations with them. You love them. I mean, it it's the same thing. Here's another question uh from Richard. Um he says, I'm now 74 years old and was brought up and learned too many things. The traditional ways of teaching appear to be a lost art. Is it too late to change? Have we as a country lost control, given it up to this woke type of society where lies are portrayed as truth and truth defined as lies? Oh. Always breaks my heart when I hear hear from people who are older. Because I mean, they do look back and think they remember what those values were like. Um they remember all their friends having their value those values, and those values have sort of disappeared. But Richard, listen to me. You know, we don't give up, right? That's what strictly education is about. I just said about how you have to jump over obstacles. The fact is, yeah, we've got some big obstacles in front of us as a country, but we're not gonna give up. We're gonna get those values back. We're just gonna keep arguing for them and we're gonna keep spreading the news. And Richard, don't you worry. We're gonna get back there, okay? You keep watching strictly. I promise you, we're gonna spread the good news. So I want to hear more of your questions. You can put them in the comments below, or you can put them on X. My handle on X is Miss underscore Snuffy, S-N-U-F-F-Y. Um, yeah, I mean, I know, like it's Mr. Snuffilopagus off Sesame Street, uh, the elephant in the room. That's why I'm called Miss Snuffy. Uh, so you can subscribe to the channel. That's really important. Subscribe to the channel. Um and I think that's it. So I have been Britain's strictest headmistress. Hold the line, strength and honor. See you next time.