UK Column Radio

End The Excellence- What’s Wrong With Scottish Education? – With Kate E. Deeming

Why are 8- to-11-year-old Scottish children spending time in school learning how people have sex instead of learning to read? Kate E. Deeming and Diane Rasmussen McAdie discussed Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, which is neither a ‘curriculum’ nor ‘excellent’. Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/end-the-excellence-whats-wrong-with-scottish-education-with-kate-e-deeming

Duration:: 1h 1m
Broadcast on:: 17 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

At Sprout's Farmers Market, we're all about fresh, healthy, and delicious. Step into our bulk department to scoop up as much as you like from hundreds of bins filled with wholesome grains and limited-time goodies. Visit your neighborhood Sprout's Farmers Market today where flavor fills every scoop. Hello, everyone. This is Diane Rasmussen-McCaddy with UK column. I'm happy to be interviewing Kate Deeming today. She is my colleague in the Scottish Union for Education, where she is the parent and supporters group coordinator. And so, Kate, I guess I'll just let you introduce yourself to get started. I'd be interested to know how you got involved with SUV and just kind of your background and how you got to this point to have this fabulous role within our Scottish Union for Education. Thanks so much for having me, Diane. Well, I first got involved with Scottish Union for Education because I'm a solo parent of a, well, now an 11-year-old boy at the time, he was nine. And what I had realized, which is a very familiar story that I'm hearing now, is that what I expected to happen to him in his school years was not happening. So I come from a very positive educational background. I loved school. I wanted him to have a positive experience in school. And I noticed two things starting to happen. Number one, that I intuitively felt that the quality of the education that he was getting wasn't as good. And so I kept saying to them, "Is he okay?" And they kept saying, "He's on track. He's on track." And I was like, "On track for what? What is he on track for? What is this track?" Right? That was the one thing. And then on top of that, I started noticing a lot of programming coming into schools. And again, this is a really familiar thing now that I didn't think was benefiting him. Number one, it was a huge time waste at past. And number two, I thought it was actually damaging him, not least taking time away from valuable education time, but then also in highly contested ideology and adult-sized issues that I thought these are these are adult issues. These are not for you. And in the landscape of that, I came across Scottish Union for Education and I saw that they were writing about the very things that I was concerned about. And so that's kind of how I hooked into them. So I was like, "Somebody saying what's in my head?" In the meantime, I had my son independently tested and I found that he was P2 level in P5 in his reading. So all these things, at the same time, there were some issues in his school with bullying where he was attacked and assaulted, and the school didn't want to manage that at all. So it was a whole host of different issues that I changed school. So he's in a different school now, which is better, and I'm pretty happy with that. But in the course of that, in working with Scottish Union for Education, I started to write for them and look into these things in more detail and I started to see the larger scale problem that we were dealing with. Now, Scottish Union for Education talks about this a lot, and this is something, of course, that you'll be very familiar with Diane in that the role of schools has changed and what parents' roles have changed. And so there's been this kind of mashup of roles, in terms of now, schools are doing what parents used to do, and we can see that within relationships, education, and parents are getting tutors to make up for the deficiency in education. So it's like this big old mess, right? And so, as I started, I've always been, so my background professionally is I developed dance and performance projects in educational and cultural settings for 30 years. And so I had a lot of experience in working in school environments, and I had a lot of experience in, as an activist, ironically, in getting people all hyped up about dance really. So it was more cultural, cultural things. And so Scottish Union for Education said, would you help us to get together more parents to help address these issues? So that was just over a year ago, and in the past year, we, I have worked directly with parents who have contacted the union, as well as developing groups of peer groups of parents in different regional areas to help address what's going on in their schools. So Sue now has 12 regional groups and one English group. I think that's it, or is it 11 regional groups and 12 groups, 12 groups altogether? I guess it's like it's changing all the time, it's actually going really well. And these are really grassroots, grassroots activism. My, my role is just to bring people together and to kind of serve to help parents address directly what's happening in their schools. So it's like a direct to school approach. So that's like, that's basically what I'm doing in a nutshell. I mean, sometimes parents, they'll come with very specific issues, you know, with an activist teacher that's in their school and they don't know what to do about that. And in the regional groups themselves, there will be peer support in terms of other parents that might have faced this, but also not just parents, there are also grandparents and aunties and uncles in these groups. And to say, how is it we can address this directly in this school? Can you talk a little bit about the curriculum for excellence from a parents perspective, because I've heard from our colleague, Stuart Baird, as a teacher in Glasgow, and his perspective on the curriculum for excellence. But could you talk a little bit about what you think that's done for your son's education? And, you know, some of these issues, do you think that's connected to this curriculum for excellence that we've been talking about? Yeah, I don't know if this was his phrasing or not, but I think it's excellent. Stuart said, or he was maybe was coding someone is neither a curriculum nor is it excellent. I think what it does is it really degrades the educational experience, because as I said, it's very subjective, right? So if you're lucky enough to be in a school, now my son happened to be in a school that's as a primary school, which is, which is as I would say, it's okay. The problem is that it's so subjective. So this idea of being on track, so they have these really nebulous markers of what needs to be achieved year on and year on, which is how my son was able to be passed from one year to the next. Despite not being able to read to his proficiency, what you would expect of that year and what he was capable of, actually. And so they have this tracking system, which is not is not really attached to anything concrete. It's very nebulous. It's very, it's very abstract. I've heard from teachers who, you know, I just heard from a teacher and she said her year group that she got this year is made up of two previous, so the previous year you had like the A class and the B class. And they've come into a mix of them has come into her class this year, and the teachers used their own subjective kind of tracking system. So what she would say, she says, it's like an impossible situation because she's getting all these kids coming in. She's reading all these reports and she says, how is it? I help them to move ahead and achieve to their next level, because what you've had is something that's not standardized at all within the context of this tracking system. I mean, in theory, a head teacher could decide to do a degree, decide to do basket weaving throughout the whole school and could find a way to word it in each year group to take all the boxes, and the kids have done absolutely nothing. Like, it's so subjective and it's so nebulous. And I think what I think that the intentions of it were noble. Like, I think there was a nobility about it, about giving autonomy to head teachers to be able to meet the individual needs of the learners and, you know, you can look at it that way. But unfortunately, it puts, it puts far too much pressure onto the schools themselves. And as I said, because, because you've degraded actually knowledge based curriculum that there actually is something that is important to pass on generationally, then, then all of that stuff that is our foundational knowledge is being lost, right? You know, you think about the books that you read as a kid, you think about the books I read as a kid, I've just read Fahrenheit 451 and reading CS Lewis. Like, in a way, like my son going through this, I'm like, I need to read the classics. The classics for a reason, right? They're classics because they speak to the unique human experience that is universal, you know, goes back. So, and that I think is distinctly lost. I think also, it's very ideologically captured. So what you have is these progressive ideologies over actual quality content. I mean, it's like the RSHP is a perfect example because it's such, first of all, it's totally inappropriate, right? Like, it completely oversteps parental boundaries and what should be taught in the family. And, and it's completely, you know, there's all that stuff, how it's influenced by queer theory, and it's all based on a rights based agenda. I mean, there are loads of problems with the biggest, one of the biggest problems I have is this really a rubbish resource. Like, it's a terrible resource. It's so dumb. Like, the whole thing is, is not inspiring. Kids are not leaving that any of those sessions feel in any sort of like, you know, the good stuff associated with learning. It's so dumb. And so I think this is so indicative of a lot of these kind of ideological programs that are being put into schools is that they are their lowest common denominator, and they're denying our children actual learning. I think, you know, can you just teach my kid math, right? Like, I, like, I just want, can you do math with my kid? Like, you know, it's just, it drives me nuts, actually. Could you clarify what our CHP is, please? So our SHP is relationships, sexual, sexual health and parenthood education. What we've seen happen in Scotland, which is similar to what's happening in England is a move away from the idea of sex ed being attached to teaching kids about biological systems. Right. So now what we've moved on into is the system of sexuality education. And this is very much based on a rights based agenda. So the architect of the Scottish RSHP, which is our comprehensive sex education program, which you see globally, is his PhD was on the sexual rights of disabled children. And what you see, and you see this not just within the sexuality education, you see this in a lot of the political programming, is that uses a lot of rascal words as Stuart Waiten called and which I think is excellent. So what we have is a lot of rascal words that are playing into our best nature. So this idea of, of course, you want your children to have rights and of course you want your children to be fulfilled and of course you want all these things but then, but then what it's it's a Trojan horse that's ushering in all this other kind of your theory critical theory stuff right so in the context of our CSER RSHP curriculum, there is no tethering to child development. So those say things like agent stage appropriate, but actually, there's no tethering to any indicator of what that means so again it's completely subjective. So if a teacher thinks this child is ready to hear about masturbation, then they'll say, well, that's agent stage appropriate, right, because it's not coming from your skinner any of the child development heavyweights that exist right now you may disagree with some of the analysis of your skinner any the other ones. But the thing is what it does is acknowledge is the childhood in and of itself is a thing. So, so the RSHP is is is a really big one and I think that you know there there are lots of examples in there that. But even even things like again like a rascal word is consent consent should not be taught to children, right, because children can't consent. Sex right. Well, some will say that, and the people who are decent will say that. But the thing is that consent in and of itself is the wrong word to teach the kids because kids cannot understand consequences they lack the developmental developmental capacity to understand consequences. And when the proverbial hits the fan, it's the parents who pick up the pieces, therefore consent is the wrong thing. It also does not acknowledge the power dynamic. Again, which is inherent in childhood, which is where children are beholden to please adults. That's an evolutionary thing. Children want to please adults. This idea of child led is a lie. It's a complete another lie because children will follow children are people pleasers. So outside of again a few children who probably were jigged up by their activist parents, children will defer to the adults who who kind of give them indications about what the right thing is what the right answer is. And there was a really great video out there. I keep citing it, because I think it's so excellent, called kids first from New Zealand. And they talk about identity disruption, right. And so what all of these programs are indicative of is psychological assault on our children. Good identity formation is formed on the basis that we have a common humanity. Okay, so you get children to recognize we all have a common humanity and you're nodding your head. And probably most people here are like, yes, that's a lovely thing to teach. That's exactly what I want for my child, please, Martin Luther King can again amen. Yes, that's what I want. That's it done. Right. So the common humanity and then after that, in identity formation, you have character development, right. So then you say, okay, we're all, we're all capable of good about. Right. We all are. And then your identity is formed on what you do with that. That's character. Right. So it doesn't matter what color your skin is, who you're going to date. You know, what, how much money you do your bank account, it's what you do with that, which is a measure of your character. Right. And that used to be a given. These were kind of universal tenants, but what schools are teaching is exactly upset upside down of that. So the pinnacle of identity formation, which is a little bit and it's actually almost meaningless is race, sexuality, economics, dancing, all those things in terms of identity formation are minor. What they do is they prioritize that. And that creates a disruption in the formation of the identity of the child and that damages children. Now, in the case of RSHP, like, you know, it's like, they lead them down the garden gate, right, to the more disturbing stuff. So even the stuff that's really anindine, right, like they ask personal questions, like, they might start out and say, what's your favorite color, what do you like to eat, like, again, but like, why is this in schools. Like, again, totally stupid. It's totally stupid. Like, why are you wasting my kids time asking them about what is favorite color. Right. But then the next thing is like, you know, a few more questions done and like, what makes you sad and how do you feel if somebody misgenders you and then it makes kids kind of assume gender identity. So it's kind of like this, like, sleek slate of hand where it's like they just keep moving the overton window, getting kids to be more comfortable with disclosing personal things about their lives to speaking to strangers about their lives. And then over time, this completely disrupts their whole, the whole format, their whole formation of their identity, which creates mental instability, right. And, and then into that the activists come, right, but what we're doing is we're making broken children and is really evident. What's got a senior education talks about, Stuart Waden is more excellent on this than I could ever be, but is, is the absolute dereliction of authority in children's lives. Right, which again is the problem with child led, because what it's saying is that no, you're the boss, you're the boss, you're the boss, and I'm like, I say to my son, we are in a monarchy. I'm the queen, right. I am a good queen. And if you, if you, you, the doors of the land, you will have a very nice kingdom. The minute it's a monarchy, right, because it's good for him. Like he's not my equal, he's equal and Isaac odd. Yes. Okay, like that. But in terms of like I've been given this responsibility to take care of him because it's too much room. Hey, schools are not that way anymore. Like I just owe myself so annoyed just this week. I like my son's school. They read Dickens last year, right? Like, as far as things go, they're better than a lot of schools. They test. I like that they test testing is important. Testing is important because we get tested our whole life. That's why I said to somebody, you know, testing is terrible. I was like, you have to be prepared to synthesize information your whole life. You have to be able to draw together a body of knowledge on the spot, and this is going to help you function. So when you get tested in schools, you might not be good at it, but it's training up those muscles. And also, like I can see with my kid, he was never tested in his old school. And now he'll come home and learning is not abstract anymore. What am I here for? Okay, I've been tested. That's something that's concrete. And me as a child developmentally, I feel better when I can see like a concrete marker. But what they've done, I like my son's school, he's in right now, but they just started. They are a bit caked up in United Nations rights of the child, right? And Scotland has just voted that into law. So that's law now here in Scotland. As you know, you've spoken a lot about that Diane. And then just started in their assembly, giving up rights respecting award. And so basically it's like a nice person award. If you're a nice person, you get an award. And I'm like, it's not the role of schools. And a friend of mine was so funny, she said to me, you know, that reminds me of a girl I was in brownies with. She got the best smile award, but when she wasn't smiling, she was talking trash about all the other girls. And I was like, but that's exactly it. Totally meaningless. I was like, why are you giving out this word? Give it out an award for like the most books the kid read read like this child read Dostoevsky. I don't really give out a word for that. Let's do that award. Can we start changing what the priorities are in education, like the nice person award. Not your job. Not your job. That's my job. You know, can you teach your math? I'm good at that. I'm the queen, the queen of my child's life. More people need to establish their kingdoms and just go. You're delegating to you, but this thing, but I'm going to get on with my business. All right. Good. So just do your job. It's interesting that the backgrounds that we come from and I just would like to hear your thoughts on this, you know, us both being from across the pond and living in Scotland and our backgrounds. And one of the things that I think about frequently when I hear about all this anti racism education and you have to identify by your color in this map is that I was actually taught the opposite by my mother who was from Arkansas. I grew up in the deep south when segregation was still a thing. And she used to tell the stories of when she was a child of when she used to ask her mother, well, why are those people using different water fountains or why are they using different toilets than ours? Because those were the black toilets or the black water fountains or the back of the bus for the black people. And that was what she grew up with. And she saw that they she told me about how she saw that they were different, but she didn't understand why because they looked a certain way that they had to go use separate facilities. And her mother taught her that's not that it's it's not important. We shouldn't be doing this. And eventually, obviously, they saw the end of segregation and there's there's still problems in the states, you know, it's still racial tension that goes on around the country. And my concern for this, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it as well, is that by teaching children to be anti racist, that they're going to look for these differences or be trained to see these differences. And that racism is going to emerge as an even bigger problem than it already has been for a long time. What do you agree with me on that? What do you think? I definitely think it's creating more racism. And when, after George Floyd happened, and I saw, because I come from an arts background, and I saw the tramway come out with this frickin statement. And I was like, what the hell are you doing? I was like, why are you adopting American policies that don't work? I was like, don't work. Why are you doing that? Hello. I live in the largest Muslim community in Polish shields, Polish shields in Glasgow. Right. So this is the most ethnically diverse and the long term diverse community. We are not without our problems, but I would say, in terms of racism within the these walls of this community is not an issue, right? I would say policies like that are going to hurt the children in my community, because what it's doing is it's creating more division. Right. And I could even say, when I worked in North Philadelphia, which had huge gang violence and huge problems within a largely, you know, multi ethnic community. That all these race policies are not going to help them either. Right. Because it, you know, Heather McDonald, as I'm sure you're familiar with with her work talks about. What they're, what they're, what they're imposing is disparate impact theory. And what disparate impact theory is, if something isn't going your way, and you're a black person, then it's racism. That's it. If a job is not completely matching the ethnic background of a country, then it's because of racism. It doesn't look at any of the other underlying issues. Right. I saw who kept Stuart, MSP for Scotland, who grew up in public shields. And she made this grand statement, as she often does. Don't get me started. How racism was keeping Muslim girls from sport. And I was like, are you, if you lost your mind. Like, you know exactly the many layers that keep girls from being in sport here in public shields. Not least, we used to have four community centers. And now we have none. You know, there's the equivalent amount of play space here in public shields for kids to play is equivalent of one a four sized piece of paper. That's how much play space kids have. Right. So if you're a poor kid from an ethnic who happens to live here and it's largely at the minorities right because it's, it's, that's 49%. So if you're a poor kid here, and your parents don't have a car, and you've got, and you're managing, taking care of your kids, all the stuff like that. So the only way your child would get to something is if they walk to it. Right. And if there's nothing within the walkable space, your child's not going to do sport. Okay. So first, that's number one. Number two, it's not, it's, it's not a culture here. And I'm only speaking in terms of what I see here in my community, which is largest ethnic minority community in Scotland. It's not a community that really values sport. And part of that is because their lives are really busy. Like, you know, it's, it's family and faith. You know, in the weekends or go to weddings, they have family things like they're, they're busy. They're very busy. Right. And that's not a bad thing. Like under minds. The agency of families to choose what, what it is they might want for their lives. And I think what it does is it also dehumanizes dehumanizes, like even in this community is so diverse in the diversity. Like, I could tell you so many stories about the individuals that live here. And what that does is it creates a prejudgment on superficial characteristics. But even like from a son, the thing that happened to my, my child in his school was that a group of older boys made up a lie about him saying something about the Prophet Muhammad. And they attacked, they chased and he was, he was, they were three years older than him. He was minority white boy. They chased him into the toilet and they assaulted him. Right. And only because his Muslim friends stood up for him and hit the Muslim families that I'm friends with stood up for him. Did the school deal with it. Right. And, and, and, because those boys said, you know, your son didn't say anything wrong. He didn't do anything. They've made up a lie about him. And for me, that was a good teaching moment for my child, because I said content of character, what you have is you have two people from the same community. One has shown good content of character in telling the truth and doing what is right. And one has shown very bad content of character in not doing what was right and in terms of targeting you. And it was an awful thing for him. But I think what this, these programs do is it takes away the agency from everyone to be able to relate just on a human level. And I think ultimately this creates huge paranoia. I think it's really damaging to child development. I mean, not least. I mean, lots of programs come into this area that are specifically only for Asian kids. That's a fact. Right. My son was the same friends. These are his friends. Right. These are his good friends. He was playing football in the local mugga when it's few spaces that's overcrowded. And one of the youth workers came along to do the youth program at the local school. And he wasn't allowed to go because he wasn't. Because he was a program specifically funded for B.A.M.E. kids. And they said, because they knew me, they're like, well, we can let him go. And I was like, no, I can't let him go because then what about the other boys he's friends with that happen to be white. Right. Like he's all he let in. You're going to sneak him in. Like, what? No. Right. And this, so the thing is like, they're so, so the thing is like what you could see his friends, who he knew since he was a nursery and played with. You know, it's like they want they trundle down to the school to do football and have snacks and play Game Boy and all this stuff. And he was left to not be part of it. Right. And so it is it completely disempowers kids completely undermines their friendships. It's just it's a it's a corrosive and an awful thing. And it was so upsetting. Not just for him, but if we're hit, there's little boys as well. What do you, you know, it's it's just awful. So it seems to me that kids can see differences, but they don't they don't attach the prejudices to them that unfortunately people learn as they grow older. They see, okay, you're different. Maybe your skin's a different color. Maybe you look different, but every time I see groups of kids playing together, those things don't seem to be issues. They just kind of get along. Right. And it's unfortunate that I think that before they're ready to kind of understand those differences and people will serve nuances between cultures and, and, you know, races and, and, you know, even gender is really that that we're teaching them. It sounds like we're teaching them before they're ready to understand that or before they even need to worry about that. And so I'm also curious about gender in this community where you live, because it just myself having been to Riyadh in 20, what's it, 2018, 2018, somewhere I think, yeah, the year before we were locked up. And I was, I had a student who was a PhD student at the biggest ones university in Saudi Arabia and I traveled there alone as a woman. And I was really worried about, you know, what would I need, what would I need to do to make sure that I wasn't going to get in trouble as a woman, you know, I kind of stand out over there, right, my blonde hair, all of this, how am I, what am I supposed to do and be respectful. And what I've thought about in recent times with all of the trans ideology and all the activism going on is, if you compare the cultures and you can't compare the cultures, but if I were to land at the airport and Riyadh and say, I don't have to cover myself because I identify as a man. Do you think they would have let me into the country? And this is what I've said to some of these people that are trying to do this activism is that it doesn't translate and what I feel like happens is that they don't appreciate the freedom that we have in the West. We don't tell people who are Muslim, you can't cover up because this is a traditionally majority Christian country and we don't do that. We allow them to do that, but we can't go to Saudi Arabia and say, well, I'm a woman so I'm not going to wear my a bias. And so I'm wondering what this means for, if you know anything about the parents who are Muslim in your community, if their kids are being taught gender and told that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man and they have the right to make that decision. And how do you think that they're viewing it from their religious and their cultural backgrounds where it's just not acceptable? Have you heard anything from them about that? I think that my experience of my friends who are Muslim, whose children are in local schools and speaking to parents is that they are completely not signed up for gender ideology. It is counter to what they believe in their faith and scientifically. I think that the difference perhaps is parents who choose Muslim parents in particular and about Muslim parents in particular, we used to sending their children to quote unquote mainstream schools. They are used to, and maybe we could take a page out of the note, but they're used to de-radicalizing them when they come home in terms of if things happen in the school yard or in the school gate in terms of that they teach their children to just not and smile, you know, with certain things. In particular with the with when children are older with things, but they're completely and utterly not signed up to one thing that did happen locally. And I think you probably heard about this is that the local nursery hired a trans identified nursery teacher in the nursery. And this created loads of distress was what you're dealing with is young young children who you can who who were making sense of the world between what is imaginary and what is real again coming back to child development. And so what happened was one of these parents came to try one of these parents daughters came home and was very upset and when she interrogated it a little bit. But the little girl said, I don't want to go back there's a man woman there, something to that effect, but it was this fact that she was distressed that this individual she could clearly see was man, and she was being told that this individual was female. And so the parent was thinking she had a good relationship with the nursery her other children had been in the nursery, went in to see, and she was told by the nursery staff that this person identifies as female and his female. However, we will help your child to adjust, I you re educate them and the mother said no you won't because my child's not going to be taught to lie and I don't think that will be very good for her. Right. So she took her out of school. In the meantime, now this, this particular mother is first generation Scotts Asian so she was born and raised here, and is, you know, works and all the rest. It's quite confident as an individual, a faith, but there are other mothers of the school whose English was not their first language she didn't have the social confidence. And so they were also concerned but they went to her because they didn't have the confidence to go to the administration to get some answers because their children were also coming home and saying things. And so all she did was pass on the information. What the school then came back to her and they said you are organizing amongst parents, and we could call the police on you, right, for organizing against this teacher, right. And she said, I'm just passing on information. Now as it turns out the this to get into the paper a bit and the nursery trans nursery teacher did leave. And so that I think this person is in another nursery in Glasgow I'm not sure but I have heard rumors. Now this brings up a really important question because when this person was doing their nursery training. And when I think it was Clyde College is where they were when Clyde College was called for a comment, they said something about the equality, the right for this person to identify right. Nowhere in their statement was any reference to the rights of that child. Nowhere in that statement was the reference to the safety of that child and the safety within the context of psychological safety of that child I was talking about like identity disruption. So basically what happened was all this BS right space stuff, which we know is is bump anyway. Went out the window by their own standards went faced with it with a greater something greater on the oppression scale, suppose you could say. Now I wrote a piece on this first got a huge education because I was reflecting on all of this because you know we live in a live and let live society and in my background as a as an artist. I used a lot of costuming in my work and you know I'm a bit famous for dancing around the streets dressed like a chicken so I don't have any issues with people in costume. What I have an issue is where well there are two issues number one is where no one should demand you to take part in their fantasy what is real is what is real okay. And in particular for children in terms of how damaging that is for children number two. What is the bandwidth of it allow ability right so you could say well that person is free to wear what they want to wear but are they could they show up to work in a bikini. Could they show up in fetish gear we had granddad's pride which you're familiar with you know in the storybook or in terms of for me, you know again this is about we have in this live and let live in this liberal society and this in the society of choice. We have in a way it's it's like where what is it over to window there right like where are the boundaries is it and that's critical theory critical theory is no boundaries right so. But somewhere in all of us there is that instinct rightfully so that for children in particular there need to be boundaries right and so so how is it do we navigate that. And I think and I think that case brought brought something very important up because I think that in the case of children we often have societally have always had boundaries and always put limits in for the protection. We don't have it we don't have it in books unfortunately libraries as you know, but in in films, you know we have age classifications so you know in terms of there are certain things you can't drive until you're a certain age. You can't drink alcohol until you're certain age so there are all sorts of boundaries in place where we recognize actually this isn't good for children right now. In the case of that nursery. I would suggest and and this controversial and it shouldn't be is that somebody who's living a lie and is asking other people to live a lie is not somebody who is probably best suited to working with children right because you need people who are stable living in reality who can navigate that world between being in play and not being in play but ultimately have their feet firmly rooted in what is real because for children you need to be the ballast for them in particular in an environment where you're working intimately with them. Have you found that you've had to do with the sort of deprogramming of your son when he comes home from school or do you send him pretty well prepared to to face what what was potentially put in front of him in the classroom. So I think in the case of my son. He's he's got a really good sense of humor which I think helps so he takes the piss out of a lot of the stuff which is good. I think in terms of the trans thing. Just I think with a lot of boys in particular, they're just he's too much of this earth. Like it doesn't make sense to him. It's like it's common sensical for him. I think the deprogramming stuff yeah I absolutely do have to kind of keep the conversation going on a lot of these things and it's going to be a challenge. I think that for me when I look at what parents need to do and I speak from this from a very personal perspective as well. This thing is not going away right as much as I would love the education system. Poof to wake up and my son to be in this absolutely inspirational environment with like you know amazing books and learning and reading and like what I had like I had a great school experience. I don't think that's going to happen. His primary school actually is pretty good. I have to give them credit outside of that award thing. But I think that you know, giving as many opportunities for them to have other perspectives. I was just talking to a dad about this yesterday one of the dads and one of the groups who's who's dealing with this. You know the more perspective we can give to kids the better right so that they can see what is real. I think that is one of the biggest challenges in Scotland in particular because I call it the educational blob. You know when I was having problems with my son's school where he was assaulted and the educational level and stuff like that my sister said to me we'll just put him in a different school because you'll appreciate it. My parents live in and my sister live in a good district and they're like probably 20 schools I get send him to and they'll all be different because they're all competing with each other and so there is there is a kind of the market kind of helps it a bit, even within the public schools right. We're here. It's, it's all so centralized that it's, it's more difficult to find that diversity of choice. And so a lot of it will come down to parents just being empowered to get engaged with what your children are learning really find out and try and provide as many opportunities for them. I think also like what's happening with the, with parents, supporters groups of Sue that you know these little islands of these allies in, in education and that's not just parents that's teachers as well teachers are also really frustrated by this teachers are parents right like there are activist teachers they're absolutely are like the unions OMG don't get me started like educational unions EIS which is the largest teacher union in Scotland 56,000 teachers voted to ignore and voted for self ID in schools, right. That's the educational union, the largest teacher union for Scotland and they had five motions for Palestine, right. Like that's the largest teacher like it was nothing in there about educational standards, you know, that's problematic. And that's the climate that we're in so I think there's an element of just need to be as engaged and invested as you can try and provide opportunities for your children so they have perspectives and find parents and aunties and uncles and people who you can just kind of have a commonality about about what what you want for your kids. And there are still some schools that are okay. You know, we've had some good success because teachers are just like especially there's some teachers who are completely know what's going on are trying to find their way around it. So there's one high school that I've parent whose parents I've been working with and the head teacher is really keen to just get back to core purpose, but she's up against her council. She's up against the some of the teacher activists coming in. And so we we've collectively been working with these parents and things are shifting in that school. Right as it's not it's a big ask right. You have other schools that are completely signed up for everything like everything like nuts like crazy crazy crazy. And it's unlikely that's going to have a major shift right it's like maybe the other chips around need to fall before that one does I don't know. In that case, then I think it's a case of deep programming, you know I've spoken to people who grew up in former Soviet countries, and that's what they say their parents would do when they would go home and so there is an element of this. And there's some people are opting to homeschool homeschool is not a possibility for everybody, not necessarily the best choice. But that that is another thing. And there are some independent schools starting a few. There's one in Glasgow, Tron Church has started one Melville Knox. There's one starting a classical Christian school in Edinburgh. And I think it would be great to see more initiatives like this. I am quite hopeful in that I think the conversation has shifted so much to even what it was a year ago. Right. I'm speaking of the battle of ideas I think you're the battle of ideas as well. And so there are more people who are really invested in what is good for children and what is good for education coming together and trying to find solutions I just finished. I'm just in the midst of reading. I'm trying to Williams, a teacher is her parents who's responsible for raising the next generation. She wrote for Civitas. You've got a lot of more work family education trust on, you know, what's going on with boys. I mean there's there's some really good conversation happening around these things and not that is hopeful, but this is not going to be solved at any time soon. So I think that we need to plan for the long game and just just be awake, be awake and be engaged really. Yeah, we're up against a fight in all of these issues. We're all up against a fight, but that's what we're trying to expose. And, you know, I'd like to give people some, you know, some practical things that they can do, whether it's for parents. It's that one to maybe we can get to help join your parents group and be even stronger or for people in other areas that don't have the group that you have. What are some of the specific things that you do in the group that, what have you found to be effective and, you know, where do you see areas for growth in terms of what else you hope to be doing a year from now. As I say, there's been some really positive developments in the past year. I think these these parents groups are really important. So even if you have one person who was on side with you, I think just having somebody you can lean on makes huge difference to be able to, so you don't feel like because your gas lit often, you know, like when I was told, he's fine. He's on track. I was like, I like, and people might think, well, they say, say it's okay, like, and I hear that a lot like I hear, I hear from a lot of parents who think I wish I would have paid attention to my instincts. And their kids are like in high school, right. And they think, and now they've missed that window, because I trust the system. So I think, firstly, find other people who are on side. You can get in touch with me. I'm sure you'll put the details from my email and Sue in the show notes and I'm happy to put you into any of the groups that we have. I work directly with parents. I'll talk through things with you in terms of what specific approaches might work in your school environment or community. I think the other thing is things like just being aware of what strategizing is happening. So, for example, in Scotland, they've just announced the Scottish Parents Assembly, I think it's called. So I find this really interesting, because we know parents are the final frontier in terms of keeping kids safe and ensuring that the next generation, because we're invested in it, right. So there are a lot of grassroots activities happening, and his parents who are leading this, not just in Scotland, this internationally. So Scottish government has taken it upon themselves to start a new parent group, which represents all parent voices, right. And the cynic in me thinks that this is their way to try and control the narrative and control the conversation. But, of course, if you look at what this organization is, it's another quango by Scottish government, funded by Scottish government. There's an application process. So it's not democratic. The application process involves a survey, which is so invasive. I was like, that's none of your business. I was like reading to these questions. I was like, I was taking my clothes off. It's too much. It's over share. All you need to know is what area I live in. Okay, demographically, how old my kids are done. That's all you need to know. Like, it's this part of this new narrative, this lie, this bit of propaganda, that what is keeping parents from being involved in parent councils is racism, right. And so is all this kind of diversity tick box exercise. So it doesn't matter. If you have been doing amazing stuff for your school, raising loads of money, you know, so hard to be involved in the parent council and be involved in in parent things like people who do these things, a lot of their time and effort into it a huge sacrifice. I'm not saying to perfect. I'm not saying racism doesn't maybe exist sometimes by say large by and large, its parents in huge efforts in, and to kind of frame it as if this is a diversity issue and obviously there's, there's other agendas at play. So I think, again, being aware of things like this. One thing that quite a few of my parent groups do is they watch the council meet education meetings again because that gives you an insight in terms of what is going to be embedded in the schools. And that's really useful. Again, for you to be, you know, for warned. What is the statement for warned is for armed for warned is for armed so the more information you have in terms of what initiatives are being put into schools. So in our parent groups, there's a lot of information sharing so like somebody in the highlands might say something and then I'll share with somebody in Glasgow and like so it's like oh did you hear about these things and then we collectively put that information together so there have been things in the press in the past year that have come out of those parent groups as we have gathered firsthand intelligence in terms of what's happening so there's there's the amount of advocacy that happens off the back of that through the collective sharing of information. I mean too much I've got like four pages of list of stuff that there's so much going on. So I think so I think the two there so I think there are a lot of things in there is informed as you can. And the thing is like I think to something worth worth mentioning is that I'm so low parent you know it's like I'm on my own with my kid so I understand sometimes you're going to be able to go whole hog and things and sometimes you need to take a step back because you have work family whatever commitments you give when you can give you contribute when you can contribute at other times other people will pull up the slacks but the idea is that we all at least have our finger on on on the pulse right because this is this is what's going to keep the conversation going about this and emboldened change which is which is what needs to happen. I think to this I think one of the things that was really important that Joanna Williams in her report was this idea of there's a huge antagonism or there can be an antagonism between schools and parents at the minute which is not useful. So and there are teachers and good teachers and there are good head teachers who really want the best for kids. Some of them have been indoctrinated into the cult and so there's an element of you know what do you do about that but then there are other ones they're just going along to get along and so I think they're probably the ones that the more conversations that we have. One thing that I am trying to push forward and actually in a way the funding cuts that are happening in Scotland and education right now are silver lining is because you could say we need to get back to core purpose. All right, all this extra stuff, you know, like I know of a couple schools that dropped their LGBT youth starter actually not maybe like five or six now. LGBT youth Scotland who of course were who were involved with two pedophiles as well as other grooming allegations. And so there have showed the fact of that wasn't enough for people to drop their charters with them but but I think it's easier for for head teachers to say actually we just can't afford that this year even if they wanted to get rid of it before. There have been quite a few schools that have dropped the ideological programming so I think things like, I think it's just a constant of kind of going in these groups strategizing and going how is it what can we do in the situation with what we have there's not a silver bullet. Unfortunately, it's a grassroots effort it's a grassroots activism but the more we can collectively find other people to connect to in whatever ways that is being in WhatsApp groups be it online be in our neighborhoods to share information and come up with strategies that that we can create these cracks, you know, and that's all we do is create the fractures in the system and be ready with what is good because I think that is the really important thing like what is good for kids. I suppose the other thing and because this is one of my bug bears and I was talking about like they're not being enough play space for kids in my neighborhood. And I started finding ways to provide what's good for kids. Like, you know, I always say the first time I had champagne like proper champagne like before I just had a busy slosh. And the first time I had champagne and I was like, oh, this is why people like this. And I was like, oh, that's actually pretty nice. So I think it's like we're giving kids so much crap. If they don't know any better than they think that's all. So the more high quality good stuff we can do which creates good memories and good relationships and good connections and makes them feel good than the other stuff just kind of dissolves away. So I think the more we can build positive experiences and good experience and stable experiences for kids. And the other stuff won't matter so much. So I think I think it needs, I think in a way we need to find both. Yeah, so we're just about out of time, unfortunately, but I guess one thing I would like to leave our viewers with because I always try to end on some sort of a positive note or something inspirational or hopeful so that people don't go away too depressed. What's one positive thing that you can tell us about maybe something that's happened that's been good or something that will motivate us to continue to fight this just give us something good to end on. I think the thing that for me as a parent, two years ago, when my son was being assaulted in the school toilet and I was being silenced, despite all my hard work, and I was being, and I was on the bad list. And I was totally alone that what has happened is I have found a core group of people who share the values that I share for what is good for children. But I didn't realize I was swimming about in a soup, a lukewarm, tepid soup before, and I was just like, it was fine, it was good, whatever, but it wasn't necessarily great for my kids so sometimes you need to go through these kinds of experiences to find what's better, right, and it all makes it all makes sense in hindsight. So I think for me, as difficult as this is for parents and I know and I know personally, and I know from speaking to lots of other parents, recognize that actually what this is doing is it's in the darkness you see the diamonds, right? And so the diamonds are all coming to the surface and it's through the gathering of the treasure as it were, which is all these other great people and great ideas that perhaps we're heading into a new enlightenment, right? Like out of the dark ages came the enlightenment, and so for me that's quite exciting, you know, it's like I'm meeting really like yourself, I'm meeting really inspiring and inspired people who I think actually with voices like this and ideas like this and the will, like this in the heart and the soul. We've been sleeping for too long, and like any birth birth, I give birth to a nine and a half pound baby, it was, it was quite something. Out of that darkness, I have this child so I think, you know, any process of transformation is going to be messy, difficult, like hard painful, but out of that, beautiful things can come in and I do, I do think that I think on the other side, we're going to be better for it. It's just that all the crap is coming to the surface, and it's just in this awakening of us, like becoming aware of it, it's just very dystopian. It is dystopian, but as Brian Gersch has told us several times over the years, if you've been watching UK column for a long time, that once you wake up, you can't go back to sleep again. And I think that that's something that now that we are both awake, we know what needs to be done and hopefully as we get more and more people to join us. And I think that, in my opinion, there are more of us than there are of the people who will truly believe in this week, trying to enforce it, but we have to be brave enough to speak out, and we both have sacrificed a lot to do what we're doing. But it's the only way that if we start, then we hope that other people follow and continue to be brave and we'll all work together and beat this eventually is what I hope and pray will happen. So thank you very much, Kate, for joining me today. I really enjoyed hearing more about what you've been doing and your thoughts on everything and thank you to all of our viewers for sticking with us. And again, this is Dionysus McCatty with Kate Deeming from the Scottish Union for Education. Thank you very much, Kate. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. [no audio] At Sprouts Farmers Market, we're all about fresh, healthy, and delicious. Step into our bulk department to discover a world of options with hundreds of scoopable bulk bins and grab-and-go favorites. From wholesome grains and spices to limited-time goodies like pumpkin apple cashews and butter toffee peanuts. Plus buying in bulk means you can get as much or as little as you like for your next recipe or snack attack. Visit your neighborhood Sprouts Farmers Market today, or fly for fills every scoop. (gentle music)