We Taught Them to Hate Our Country - Katharine Birbalsingh

Katharine Birbalsingh (0:02)

People look at multiculturalism and they say it is broken. I do not disagree. It is broken because of what we have done with our children.

People were asked when they think that political violence against your political opponent is justified. When you ask people between the ages of 18 to 24, it's one in four people. And for those who identify as progressive, half of them think that if they think your views are fascist, they should be able to attack you physically. Why do they think that? Why do they think that? Because of what they've been taught, right? Because of what we're teaching them through the media, in our homes and in our schools. If we don't start talking to each other, we are going to have civil war on the streets.

Konstantin Kisin (0:48)

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College. Right after this episode, go check out the incredible online courses, which are absolutely free at hillsdale.edu/trigger.

Katharine Birbalsingh, welcome back to TRIGGERnometry.

Katharine Birbalsingh (1:03)

Well, thanks for having me.

Konstantin Kisin (1:04)

It's always fantastic to have you on, but you have got a book out which I think, A, wades into very controversial and dangerous territory, while navigating all the difficult issues that we are all concerned with at the moment in our country. And you do it very well, and I think you're not partisan politically, which is always great. You talk about where both left and right are not looking at the problems that we're gonna discuss correctly in your opinion.

And it's really fantastic. One of the things I wanted to do for people who haven't seen every interview we've done with you before is actually to talk about the part of your book that's autobiographical. Because you are known as Britain's strictest headmistress. But actually you went into teaching with a totally lefty mindset of wanting to help black kids because you believed that black children don't do well in school because there's not enough black teachers effectively. Is that a fair summation?

Katharine Birbalsingh (1:59)

Yeah, because of racism in the classroom and poverty. Racism and poverty, those are the two big things.

Konstantin Kisin (2:04)

So you start out as this well-intentioned lefty, you go into education, and what happened?

Katharine Birbalsingh (2:11)

And I start to see that things aren't, as I imagined. I saw lots of white teachers working really hard for their... for the black and brown kids in front of them.

Really, you know, really dedicated people. And often there was very poor behavior.

The systems didn't seem to work.

The knowledge we were teaching them was perhaps not being taught as it ought to be, but that took me many years to sort of figure out. It's over time that you come to see that the things that you imagined were the case just aren't true. And I...

Well, I just came to change my mind. I came to change my mind about what works in the classroom, that the more progressive methods that we were taught in my PGCE, teacher training, the stuff that everyone pushed was just wrong, and that actually if you gave kids detentions and told them off, that that worked. I found that praise and punishment worked, and that the old-fashioned traditional ways of raising kids that we were told to move away from worked, and you learn that over years because nobody's telling you that. Nowadays, things are in teaching. Thanks to the Michael Gove reforms that happened between 2012 and 2016 or so.

Thanks to those, everyone just takes for granted that we teach knowledge in classrooms. Before then, there was no such thing as a debate between should we teach knowledge, should we teach skills. Everybody just didn't teach knowledge. And that seems crazy, but that is how it was. Everyone was suspicious of discipline. In those days, if a kid had a knife in their bag, you were not allowed to search their bags, you know? If you wanted to give a kid a detention, you had to give them 24 hours notice, and you'd have to write it in their diary, and then, you know, they'd be booked. For the next day, they'd already be booked, and then you wouldn't be able to give them a detention. And you'd say, oh, you've got a detention, and they'd say, 24 hours, 24 hours, is what they used to say. Like, people don't realize. And there's a reason why the results in PISA, the international tables that happened, that just came out a few weeks ago, that we've done so well. England has done really well. Why? Because of the Gover Forms. And the Gover Forms basically established a traditional outlook in teaching, which is to give us traditional teaching methods and traditional discipline. And before that, we were like 27th in the world for science or maths or English, it was, and then 21st and so on. Now we're in the top 10 for all three categories of reading, maths and science. And the reason is because we have gone back to tradition. So the one difference I would say now that might really distinguishes my school is the traditional values that we've got. That I'm on a big campaign, partly through my book and just generally, I'm trying to persuade the world of schools and just the world of families. Because people, when looking at my book, they're like, well, one, it's called diversity is not our strength. So that should make it clear that this isn't just about schools. But it isn't just in schools where children learn how to be adults. They also learn how to be adults at home. And I think parents and teachers, I think we're doing the wrong stuff.