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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, at the end of the day, with all of

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Speaker 2: our searching, we have not found the school that takes all.

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Speaker 3: The perfect school doesn't exist. I'm copious of it.

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Speaker 2: I don't think it does.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum

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Speaker 1: and Dad.

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Speaker 3: So every now and again something pops up on social

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Speaker 3: media that just has to be talked about on the

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Speaker 3: Happy Families podcast. And last week it was Rebecca Sparrow,

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Speaker 3: a wonderful friend of mine and somebody who if you're

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Speaker 3: not following on Facebook, can I just recommend check out

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Speaker 3: Beck Sparrow. Rebecca Sparrow on Facebook. She talks all about

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Speaker 3: raising tween and teen kids, mainly girls, but a bit

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Speaker 3: of boy stuff in there as well, and she's just fabulous.

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Speaker 3: She posted the following it and I'm going to read

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Speaker 3: the entire message. Okay, it's a couple of paragraphs she says.

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Speaker 3: A friend of mine took her son to a year

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Speaker 3: seven orientation the other night at he's soon to be

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Speaker 3: new high school. The parents and kids were told that

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Speaker 3: there was an expectation that the kids would be doing

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Speaker 3: ninety minutes of homework per night. Then Beck says, ninety

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Speaker 3: minutes of homework per night for twelve year olds? Has

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Speaker 3: the world gone mad? I wasn't doing ninety minutes of

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Speaker 3: a homework in year twelve, she says. Meanwhile, another friend

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Speaker 3: has a child in year twelve who is now madly

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Speaker 3: trying to memorize all kinds of information for the upcoming

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Speaker 3: end of year twelve exams. What possible benefit is they're

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Speaker 3: enforcing kids to memorize all this material. It's twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 3: for Pete's sake, and I'm going to just throw And

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Speaker 3: has anyone heard of Google? Like you can find whatever

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Speaker 3: you need to know? And a year ten girl I

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Speaker 3: know said she's planning to do the suicide six in

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Speaker 3: years eleven and twelve. We've heard our kids talk about

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Speaker 3: this as they've gone through these senior years. That's the sorry,

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Speaker 3: back to Beck, that's the nickname given when you choose

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Speaker 3: to do physics, biology, chemistry, English, Maths B, and Maths

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Speaker 3: C in your senior years. You know, says Beck. I

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Speaker 3: see all this talk about how worried schools are about

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Speaker 3: our kids' mental health. I see politicians talking about it,

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Speaker 3: and education boards, but we're running in the opposite direction

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Speaker 3: to what our kids need need. Sorry, but this is

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Speaker 3: all BS. Our kids well being in their future careers

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Speaker 3: are not reliant on single scores at the end of

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Speaker 3: year twelve. Do not buy into that message. Year twelve

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Speaker 3: scores are about school marketing, brochures and universities using scarcity

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Speaker 3: as a tactic. There are so many different pathways to

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Speaker 3: take after school. Well, first of all, I love what

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Speaker 3: Beck said, but have we got some stuff to talk

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Speaker 3: about here or what?

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Speaker 2: So a couple of years ago, we had our kids

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Speaker 2: enrolled in a really expensive, expensive high school.

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Speaker 3: We're sending us broke and they're not there anymore.

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Speaker 2: We loved what the school had to offer.

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Speaker 3: Beautiful school and a beautiful community and incredible resources, and

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's the kind of thing that you look

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Speaker 3: at and think, I want my kids to have this

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Speaker 3: kind of a learning environment.

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Speaker 2: And for one of our children it actually was a

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Speaker 2: really positive experience. But one of our other children really struggled,

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Speaker 2: and she has anxious tendencies, and we watched over a

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Speaker 2: very short period of time those tendencies becoming more and

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Speaker 2: more prominent and her feeling more and more pressure and

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Speaker 2: weighed down and she was.

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Speaker 3: Just miserable, miserable.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely miserable, and so we made a really really tough decision.

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Speaker 2: Part of it was financial, but part of it was

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Speaker 2: just looking at the kids and watching how they were

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Speaker 2: dealing with life.

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Speaker 3: It was hard as well from an ego point of view, right,

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Speaker 3: because when you've got your kids in a really nice school,

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Speaker 3: there's something nice about saying, oh, my kids go to

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Speaker 3: this really nice school, and reputation kind of matters. So

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Speaker 3: it was hard from that point of view. But we

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Speaker 3: were drowning financially and the kids were struggling, especially this

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Speaker 3: particular child.

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Speaker 2: And so we made a really really big call to

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Speaker 2: pull them out, and we talked to them and gave

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Speaker 2: them options of the schools that were around, and this

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Speaker 2: particular child decided she wanted to go to the local

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Speaker 2: school just around the corner, and we really struggled with that.

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Speaker 2: It was a really really big deal for us to

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Speaker 2: put her into a public school after she had been

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Speaker 2: at this beautiful, very well manicured.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that it's important to highlight here.

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Speaker 3: I always said that our kids would just go to

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Speaker 3: public schools because my parents put me through a private

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Speaker 3: school and all of my siblings, and it was such

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Speaker 3: a waste of money, Like none of us, none of

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Speaker 3: us did anything with the private school educations that we

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Speaker 3: received at all. The private school education did not benefit

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Speaker 3: a single one of us, and it just seemed like

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Speaker 3: such a waste of money. But anyway, that's where they

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Speaker 3: ended up for a range of reasons that we don't

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Speaker 3: need to go into now. And just the difference of

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Speaker 3: the local public high school and primary school compared to

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Speaker 3: that school. Nothing not saying anything bad about it, it's

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Speaker 3: just you can't draw a comparison because you've got this

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Speaker 3: very expensive, hoyty toity school with all the lush surroundings

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Speaker 3: and all the just you walk in and you go, ah,

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Speaker 3: this is lovely, and then you walk into the local

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Speaker 3: public school and it looks and feels like a local

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Speaker 3: public school. No disrespect at all, but it was such

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Speaker 3: a contrast after what we'd experienced for the last couple

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Speaker 3: of years.

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Speaker 2: It was and just before the holidays, she received her

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Speaker 2: report card. It's been there for nearly eighteen months now, yep,

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Speaker 2: and she was ecstatic.

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Speaker 3: Yep.

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Speaker 2: Pretty much, straight a's straight a's across the board. She's

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Speaker 2: in a couple of extension classes and has just absolutely

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Speaker 2: nailed it.

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Speaker 3: Almost almost zero anxiety, just a little bit of self

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Speaker 3: self imposed anxiety, but no anxiety from the school. There's

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Speaker 3: no pressure from the school or anything like that. So happy,

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Speaker 3: great group of friends like seriously. Putting her into the

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Speaker 3: local public school has been one of the best education

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Speaker 3: decisions we've ever made for our family. Right, just so

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Speaker 3: so good, and the pressure has come off.

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Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is we've talked to other families

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Speaker 2: from our old school who have all started to feel

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Speaker 2: exactly the same way, and one of them, in particular,

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Speaker 2: I've been watching their daughter just get squashed, absolutely squashed

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Speaker 2: with anxiety and all kinds of other challenges associated with

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Speaker 2: the pressure to compete and to perform at a certain standard.

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Speaker 3: So this all started in about grade four, grade five.

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Speaker 3: They're now finishing grade eight.

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Speaker 2: And her mum just sent me a message the other

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Speaker 2: day she said, tell me about the public school. She said,

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Speaker 2: because I feel like we need to do something, we

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Speaker 2: need to make a change. And my comment to her was,

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Speaker 2: just at the end of the day, with all of

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Speaker 2: our searching, we have not found the school. We have

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Speaker 2: not found the school.

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Speaker 3: That takes all the perfect school doesn't exist case, I

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Speaker 3: don't it.

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Speaker 2: I don't think it does. But what I will say

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Speaker 2: is the pressure has been taken off my child. She's

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Speaker 2: performing at a higher level than she has ever performed,

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Speaker 2: and she's motivated out the anxiety or us pushing her, because,

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Speaker 2: like you said, she's absolutely one hundred percent motivated.

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Speaker 3: I don't think I have ever literally, I don't think

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Speaker 3: I've ever said, hey, got any homework? Like she just

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Speaker 3: doesn't work because she likes being there, she loves being

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Speaker 3: around her friends, and the learning is actually enjoyable for her.

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Speaker 2: So I'm really interested in having a conversation with you

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Speaker 2: about Bex Barrow's comments on social media and how that

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Speaker 2: relates to this immense pressure that our kids are feeling

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Speaker 2: at the moment, and how we can help parents if

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Speaker 2: they are watching and seeing their children feel this level

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Speaker 2: of anxiety around performance and competition.

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Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast.

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Speaker 4: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having

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Speaker 4: to feel bad or in trouble. The Do's and don'ts

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Speaker 4: of discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits

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Speaker 4: with love, compassion and humanity. Find it now at Happy

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Speaker 4: families dot com dot au.

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Speaker 3: Slash Shop.

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Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers.

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Speaker 3: Now, I really wanted to do that today.

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Speaker 2: Is that right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? But that's fine. You've got it. Hey, we're talking

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Speaker 3: about it.

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Speaker 2: Do a really good job of that line. I can't

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Speaker 2: do any other lines.

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Speaker 3: If you practice the enough, you get there. Rebecca Sparrow

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Speaker 3: has made really a really big splash on social media

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Speaker 3: in the last week with this comment about how much

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Speaker 3: homework kids should be doing as they enter high school,

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Speaker 3: how much pressure we're putting on them in terms of

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Speaker 3: their schooling as they move through those senior years, And

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Speaker 3: we've decided to weigh in one hundred percent behind what

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Speaker 3: Beck had to say. Kylie, how much homework did you

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Speaker 3: do when you were going through high school? Oh?

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Speaker 2: I think I remember vividly taking a block of chocolate

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Speaker 2: into my room one night and doing it all nighter.

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Speaker 3: Right in grade twelve. Okay, But I'm asking how much

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Speaker 3: once once? You did it all night at once? Okay?

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Speaker 2: Was and that chocolate was my survival.

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Speaker 3: So I've written an article which you can google. In fact,

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Speaker 3: we'll link to it in the show notes about kids

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Speaker 3: and homework. I can't say this clearly enough. Children in

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Speaker 3: primary school, there's just no credible evidence at all for

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Speaker 3: them to be doing homework other than reading. And reading

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Speaker 3: shouldn't be homework. It should just be what you do.

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Speaker 3: You shouldn't be rewarding kids for homework. You shouldn't be

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Speaker 3: coloring in the coloring in wheel and saying, yeah, you've

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Speaker 3: got your twenty minutes. You know what happens when you

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Speaker 3: say twenty minutes of reading, off you go. They spend

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Speaker 3: more time looking at the clock. It's kind of like

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Speaker 3: when my parents were forcing me to do thirty minutes

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Speaker 3: of piano practice every day, and I just winged and

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Speaker 3: whined and I sat in front of the keyboard. I

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Speaker 3: didn't really practice. I just watched the clock until the

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Speaker 3: thirty minutes were up and I was allowed to leave

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Speaker 3: the room.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think my parents thought I was really awesome

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Speaker 2: doing homework. What they didn't realize was I started doing

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Speaker 2: my homework and I had really good intentions. But I

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Speaker 2: always did my homework on the bed and without fail,

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Speaker 2: life fell asleep. Did you really I'd always have an

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Speaker 2: afternoon sleep.

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Speaker 3: Is that where you get that from?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Right, Okay, what's how boring? It was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Susie, so read a textbook. That's the fastest way

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Speaker 2: to fall asleep.

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Speaker 3: When you look at what the research evidence shows, homework's

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Speaker 3: probably one of the most reliable ways to make a

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Speaker 3: child hate learning. Yeah, I mean, it just really is.

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Speaker 3: And here's the other thing. Kids don't really see the

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Speaker 3: relevance of what they're learning when they're doing high school.

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Speaker 3: And with no disrespect at all to the wonderful, wonderful

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Speaker 3: educators who are out there doing such a challenging job

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Speaker 3: teaching our kids, I think that quite often education is

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Speaker 3: as challenging as it is for teachers because a lot

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Speaker 3: of kids don't see the relevance. They don't see the purpose.

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Speaker 3: They're not really that into it. They just want to

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Speaker 3: learn the stuff that they want to learn, and so

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Speaker 3: much of what they have to learn doesn't feel relevant

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Speaker 3: at all. Not saying it's not important, I'm just saying

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Speaker 3: it doesn't feel particularly relevant. I literally remember zero from

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Speaker 3: my schooling, Like when I look at what I do now,

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Speaker 3: other than the basics of reading and writing and basic mathematics,

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Speaker 3: very little of my schooling has been important for either

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Speaker 3: my radio career or my subsequent psychology life. It's what

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Speaker 3: I learned at university. Once I was at UNI for

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Speaker 3: the right reasons that they became important. Now I know

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Speaker 3: that a lot of education in primary school and high

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Speaker 3: school is important to provide the foundation for that university study.

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Speaker 3: But gee, we push it really hard. We put so

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Speaker 3: much pressure on the kids to get their grades up

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Speaker 3: so they can get into these courses at UNI, so

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Speaker 3: that they can, I don't know, have the career that

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Speaker 3: we dream that they'll have.

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Speaker 2: I was thinking about the last time I used anything

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Speaker 2: from my maths class.

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Speaker 3: Your math maths teachers get such a hard time. Let's

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Speaker 3: just acknowledge maths is really important. And if you want

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Speaker 3: to be an engineer, or if you want to do

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Speaker 3: something architecturally, anything at all to do with I mean,

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Speaker 3: maths is really landscape gardeners, builders, they need to know

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Speaker 3: how to do maths. It's really important.

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Speaker 2: Well, by the time I had to use anything from maths,

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Speaker 2: yes in life, was obviously when our children started needing with.

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Speaker 3: Their home right and you got to about grade four

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Speaker 3: and we're in trouble totally, and I've.

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Speaker 2: Completely forgotten everything I'd learned anyway, because I never.

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Speaker 3: Had to use it until then they changed it as well.

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Speaker 3: They changed it. I think they don't do that. It's

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Speaker 3: the same way they used to when we were at school.

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Speaker 3: But here's the other thing, just this this idea that

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Speaker 3: our kids well being and futures rely on the school

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Speaker 3: that they get at the end of year twelve. I

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Speaker 3: love what Beck said. She just said, don't blame into

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Speaker 3: that message. It's so so breathtakingly irrelevant.

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Speaker 2: I think your life story and the life story that

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Speaker 2: we've created has really helped take the pressure off our

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Speaker 2: children as we have parented them. You know, you've shared

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Speaker 2: many times that high school was not a place that

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Speaker 2: you wanted to be. You almost dropped out, completely bummed

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Speaker 2: out at the bottom of you know, the wrung speak.

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Speaker 2: And yet you know, a handful of years later, realize

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Speaker 2: that you actually have something to offer to the world

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Speaker 2: and you want to do something, and that internal motivation

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Speaker 2: to learn changed everything. Was a game changer.

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Speaker 3: So there's a handful of things to bear in monment

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Speaker 3: it comes to getting the kids into university, assuming that's

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Speaker 3: what they want to do. First off, about one third

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Speaker 3: of Australians actually have a university a degree. That means

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Speaker 3: two thirds more. In fact, it's twenty nine to thirty

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Speaker 3: percent of Australians have got a university degree, which means

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Speaker 3: that about seventy percent don't and they're getting along just

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Speaker 3: fine in the world. You don't have a union degree,

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Speaker 3: I think that you're still a pretty amazing human in

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Speaker 3: spite of the fact that you don't have that little

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Speaker 3: piece of paper that says you completed three or four

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Speaker 3: years of study after high school. It's not the bill

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Speaker 3: and end all. It's not the most important thing, and

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Speaker 3: there are plenty of people who have extraordinarily successful financial

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Speaker 3: outcomes as well in their lives without getting that university degree.

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Speaker 3: In fact, sometimes it does the opposite. The university degree

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Speaker 3: kind of puts you in a box and that's where

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Speaker 3: you stay. So I don't think that we need to

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Speaker 3: be looking at things and saying my child must go

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Speaker 3: to university. Why because I went to university, so everyone's

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Speaker 3: got to go to university. UNI is not for everyone,

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Speaker 3: and kids don't belong there. It's a place I think

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Speaker 3: for adults, for mature learners who really know why they're there.

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Speaker 3: As a former university lecturer, I can tell you right

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Speaker 3: now I used to love teaching mature age students. They

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Speaker 3: were just they were a different caliber of person. They

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Speaker 3: had a couple of years of maturity or more, and

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Speaker 3: they had this innate desire to learn. They knew why

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Speaker 3: they were there, and they weren't messing around. They were

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Speaker 3: there to learn stuff. They asked good questions, they submitted

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Speaker 3: amazing assignments. But most of the kids that were straight

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Speaker 3: out of year twelve, not all, but most, they were

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Speaker 3: a little lost. They were just kind of there because

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Speaker 3: they had to be there. It was really exciting when

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Speaker 3: there was some who were truly motivated, but that was unusual.

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Speaker 3: They didn't tend to be highly motivated.

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Speaker 2: Over the weekend, Emily and I are seven year old,

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Speaker 2: went along to an outdoor program for kids for young kids,

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Speaker 2: and she was able to play in the mud and

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Speaker 2: climb trees. I mean, these days, being allowed to climb

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Speaker 2: a tree in a school setting is almost unheard of,

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Speaker 2: and it was so awesome to see. They had spray

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Speaker 2: painted the limbs of trees at you to the safe point,

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Speaker 2: and so they had some rules and it was just

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Speaker 2: you always had to make sure your head was below

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Speaker 2: the yellow line. So climb the trees as much as

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Speaker 2: they wanted until that point and I just loved watching

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Speaker 2: the kids navigate it and then all of the loose

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Speaker 2: parts where they could build things and the life skills

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Speaker 2: that our children learn if we just let them be kids. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it actually helps them be curious.

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Speaker 3: Think is yeah, yeah, play, explore, spend time with friends,

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Speaker 3: figure stuff out together, tinker.

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Speaker 2: It just makes such a difference to their learning. We've stopped,

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Speaker 2: we've stopped encouraging our kids to be curious about how

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Speaker 2: things work.

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Speaker 3: Well, we've got to get the standardized test scores up.

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Speaker 3: That's why. Hey, so let's wrap this up with a

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Speaker 3: final couple of notes on what Beck had to say.

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Speaker 3: First of all, kids and homework. I don't encourage using

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Speaker 3: your kids to do homework. If they're motivated, if they

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Speaker 3: want to do it, they can. If not, just make

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Speaker 3: sure that they're reading in primary. If you want more info,

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Speaker 3: have a look at the link that we've put in

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Speaker 3: the show notes. Secondly, when it comes to school subjects,

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Speaker 3: don't worry about the suicide six or the toughest ones.

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Speaker 3: We've consistently said to our three kids who are old

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Speaker 3: enough to be making those decisions. And a fourth one, shortly,

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Speaker 3: don't worry about what your friends are doing, and don't

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Speaker 3: worry about what's going to be scaled up or scaled down.

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Speaker 3: Choose the subjects that you want to do most and

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Speaker 3: enjoy being there. Enjoy the learning, Enjoy the subjects, enjoy

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Speaker 3: the experience. Who cares what grade you actually get at

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Speaker 3: the end of it, Just enjoy your schooling. Third thing,

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Speaker 3: I reckon the idea that you're supposed to bust your

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Speaker 3: butt as you go through those senior years of school

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Speaker 3: to get the highest grade is pointless. I think that

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Speaker 3: it's unfair to kids. It robs them of some of

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Speaker 3: the best years of their lives. I would say, instead,

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Speaker 3: make sure that you have a go, get some work done,

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Speaker 3: enjoy life, get a job, develop some skills. And if

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Speaker 3: you don't get the grade that's necessary to get into

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Speaker 3: the university degree that's important to you because the university

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Speaker 3: has manufactured this false scarcity, then get into UNI and

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Speaker 3: follow an alternative pathway. And if it takes you an

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Speaker 3: extra year or so to get your GPA up and

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Speaker 3: to work out if this is what you truly want

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Speaker 3: to do, I think that's a good thing, not a

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Speaker 3: bad thing.

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Speaker 2: As we look back on your educational journey, there were

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Speaker 2: times where we kind of look at each other and go,

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Speaker 2: why are you doing this? Yeah, like, what's the point?

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Speaker 2: And yet the reality is all education leads us somewhere,

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Speaker 2: and so at each step of the way, as you

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Speaker 2: learnch different things, it added to your capacity to learn more.

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Speaker 2: If it takes an extra year to get where you

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Speaker 2: want to go because you haven't actually worked it out

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Speaker 2: or you just were kind to yourself in the process,

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Speaker 2: is that the end of the world.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I've got a book on my bookshelf called Range by

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Speaker 3: David Epstein, and it basically argues that the more experience

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Speaker 3: you get in life, the better off you're going to

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Speaker 3: be later on. It might slow you down in the

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Speaker 3: short term, but it's kind of like the hair and

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Speaker 3: the tortoise racing on a head. But being so single minded,

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Speaker 3: single focused, arrow in what you're doing, it can actually

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Speaker 3: it can actually turn against you as you get older.

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Speaker 3: Whereas people who have got a lot more range, a

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Speaker 3: lot more experience, they tend to do better once they

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Speaker 3: get a little bit older. Last point, scores. I've got

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Speaker 3: to make one last point about scores. Scores lack relevance.

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Speaker 3: No one has ever asked me what my academic transcript

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Speaker 3: shows no one's ever asked me how many high distinctions

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Speaker 3: I got and how many you know, the old saying

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Speaker 3: pees get degrees. No one's ever asked me how many

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Speaker 3: passes I got and whether or not I just scraped

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Speaker 3: in as it happens. If you're curious, I did get

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Speaker 3: a first class honors.

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Speaker 2: I was going to say, you mean you busted your

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Speaker 2: guts for all of that, and nobody even cares.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of. Although again, at a university level, if

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Speaker 3: you want to get into the postgrad bits, you do

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Speaker 3: kind of have to get the right grades to be

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Speaker 3: able to there. But that's a different situation. We're talking

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Speaker 3: about kids. We're talking about school age children. We're not

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Speaker 3: talking about adults who are actually trying to develop their

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Speaker 3: knowledge in a particular way. Now, some school age children

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Speaker 3: want to, but for the most part, the scores lack relevance.

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Speaker 3: It's the love of learning that matters.

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Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 3: We really hope that you've enjoyed the Happy Families Podcast today,

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Speaker 3: and thanks very much to Rebecca Sparrow for her thoughts.

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Speaker 3: Starter on her Facebook page. Make sure you check out

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Speaker 3: Rebecca Sparrow on Facebook. The Happy Families Podcast is produced

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Speaker 3: by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our

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Speaker 3: executive producer. If you would like more information about making

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Speaker 3: your family happier, visit happy families dot com, dot you