0:00 Trailer / Intro
0:54 Podcast Intro & Key Question
1:08 Football/Coding vs Maths: Which Matters More?
2:09 Cultural Pressure & Parental Expectations
3:59 How Orchestra Made Us Friends
5:42 Social Skills You Learn in Clubs
6:53 Set-Shuffle: Classroom Disruption Story
8:02 When Too Many Activities Backfire
9:39 Rapid-Fire List of Our Activities
13:40 Key Stats: 59% vs 50%
16:45 Do Clubs Translate to Leadership?
18:39 The Participation Gap: State vs Private School
20:47 Gender & Income Gaps in Sport
22:57 True Cost: Gear, Lessons & Trips
27:14 Self-Reported Health Issues in Heavy Arts Kids
30:45 South Korea’s Midnight Study Clubs
33:58 Personal Burnout Stories
37:32 Cutting Clubs Hurts the UK Economy
43:10 Free Play vs Over-Structured Time
47:39 Finland’s “Hobby Guarantee” Model
50:57 US College Admissions & Club Pressure
53:41 Music, Frequencies & Brain Development
58:51 Untapped Talents & Self-Expression
1:02:49 How Many Clubs Are TOO Many?
1:05:11 Giving Every Child a Club They Love
1:11:42 Outro

Trailer / Intro

They said your mouth is the wrong shape for the trumpet. So we think the trombone might be a better fit. What? That’s what I was like a thing.No, a lot of this extracurricular stuff, it’s really good for the UK economy. Like things like art and sports and like they’re things that we’re good at and yet maybe not enough funding is going towards that. It’s not just the class, it’s the equipment, it’s the instruments. It does price out some families and it’s societal pressure as cuz if everyone’s doing it then yeah, you know, you feel like you have to. I taught some children that would finish their after school clubs at I’m not even kidding like 12:00 and they’d have to as in Yeah. midnight. Well, mid midnight.Midnight. How do we make sure that every child gets a club that they love?

Podcast Intro & Key Question

the Education Lounge podcast.Let me know what you think of this this sentence. Okay, so a football club or a coding club after 4

Football/Coding vs Maths: Which Matters More?

p.m. after school could be worth the same if not more than than someone’s 2p.m. math lesson. Agree, disagree, thoughts.That’s what you mean by worth. That’s the it’s the difficult thing to gauge,right? So, on what in what way more beneficial or as beneficialin what way? Well, it depends how you define benefit cuz obviously in terms ofmaths probably the math class would every b but but when you’re when you’retalking maybe benefiting terms of it socialwell there’s social there’s brain development there’s enjoyment there’s it could play into other parts of your lifethere’s there’s several different things the depends how much I think I preferred my math class to my music session.

Cultural Pressure & Parental Expectations

Okay. I mean, no, that’s but that’s you all over. That’s yourBut you got to understand like obviously as someone who was who grew up I hadlike a Chinese mom and then uh dad who was Greek and English, thethe Chinese mentality when it comes to music is very very much like you need toYeah. Why is that? Um, I don’t even I don’t really know whatthe roots of it is. Roots of it are like it could be it could be that they didn’thave that chance to do that when they they were young and thus they see thatas an opportunity. But why? Like there’s a reason. So let I think I might I might have misqued. Letme just answer your previous question. The quote was it may be worth as muchfor a child’s future SAT be a math class. Okay. All right.Again, yeah, it would depend on it depend on your child’s view of maths.It would depend on or or the the activity in question. It would depend onwhether that extracurricular activity they were enjoying it.Look in the first place. I mean, you could insert any um normal school class in place ofmath and any extracurricular that’s why I said football or coding or yeah but then to certain like if I wereto say okay well if you’re an Mbappe you know Mbappe uh then probably thefootball after school would be the would have resulted in the ultimate netbenefit but then if you were talking about I don’t know some mathematician somewhere then it It would be the

How Orchestra Made Us Friends

mascots, but it’s what you’re exposed to, isn’t it? And there’s also crossover. You know,the mathematician doing some exercise, it’s probably still good for him. Yeah. And also, if you think aboutEinstein, Einstein, I think, played the violin, I believe. I think that’sI don’t know. I I don’t know that exactly. I’m I’m not but I’m not saying that like the violin might not havecontributed to much of his success as a I don’t know I think I think you’d be surprised not that we can have exactdata on this stuff but we can go intowell how we met what how did we meet in all well we met in school but obviouslyI think in terms of the I’d say like striking up a friendship I’d say it waspretty much down to the fact that we did orchestra together. Yeah, I think I think that’s true.Um well that and you know we we with doing orchestra we ended upfinishing late you know like 7:00 at night and then we both lived in the same direction. Yeah. So we end up walking home. Umpassing he has between when when the second violins had a little break in thein the piece just like chew it back and forth. That was basically our ultimate skill.Like I’d say there’s more more skill in that than the violining at times.Probably. Yeah. So there’s a whole social element to it. Element to it. Yeah, definitely.

Social Skills You Learn in Clubs

Yeah. I’d say that was I mean there was definitely that with classes too. Soyou know when you’re in when you’re in a class you’re obviously socially interacting but it gives you a chance tointeract in a bit of a different way and also it gets you my social interactions with you in classgot me kicked out of the set if you remember that story. Well well tell tell the story. Umwe were in set two or was it I started in set one. We went to set two met Johnin set two and there was a class where I don’t know I was trying to do some whatever factorizing expandingmaths whatever it was and John kept talking to me about other stuff which still happens to this day actually.Um, I got fed up and said like I said I think I said shut up or stop talking or something and um that got me in troublefor talking and I got kicked out of the class and kicked into set three with all thehooligans. Yeah, but it wasn’t my fault. I think the punishment didn’t fit the crime. Ithink that was the main Yeah, but also the wrong person got punished. True. But

Set-Shuffle: Classroom Disruption Story

you went you went into set three and then I eventually went into set one. Yeah, we were completely inverted.Yeah, cuz I started in set three and then I moved up. I started in set one. You moved?Yeah. Um but yeah, it’s just one one of those things, I guess.Yeah. So you’ve had different social interactions across bothum both classes and extracurricular. Do you think the extracurricular stuffhas a net benefit? I think I took it to extremes and thatmade it overall not the best. I think I I overworkedoverworked and I think it still affects me now because I can’t switch off. I’ve got to be doing somethingat the time. I think it is a result. I I don’t think this this happened. This was not what Iwas like as a child. It kind of developed especially at Forest. So

When Too Many Activities Backfire

yeah. Well, um you just touched on a couple of points I was going to go into. Somainly some stats which basically back up what you’ve said so far and and more.So I can go into that if you like. Yeah. Well, we’ll count we’ll just explain that. So extracurricular is any activitytaught outside of your timetable at school for those who don’t know what that means. Um, so it could be sports, itcould be performing, visual arts, music, STEM or debate clubs, volunteering,leadership programs, outdoor things, scouts, tuition.Yeah, I’ I’d classify that as it’s extracurricular. Yeah,in line in line with curriculum, but extra. What’s your um So, yeah. What first of all, like what ones haveyou done? Cuz my list is ridiculous. Do you mean throughout my entire time atschool? Yeah. Um, so if there was like a a playthat the whole class was in, does that count or is that? I’d say the ones that you didregularly every year. Um, music was the biggest one. Yeah.And then that was like two night two nights a week. Two to three. Yeah. cuz you had I knowthat you did the brass trombone ensemble. No, it was in big band. Soyeah, that one we like Yeah. travel to different places in Europe bands. Um symphony orchestra

Rapid-Fire List of Our Activities

with two instruments, not at the same time. Um yeah, music.Uh some sports. Um I played basketball for school. Iplayed a couple hockey games for school. Um, performing visual arts, not so much.Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, I was in a few plays here and there in primary school, but I think I don’t really want to count thosebecause it wasn’t like I went and said, I want to do drama. It was Yeah. The whole school had to learn lines andwhole class. Sorry. You you did them mainly in school, but I also did some outside school too. Sorry.Uh I did Birminton outside school as well as a club. Uh yeah, I went every Saturday. I didn’tplay prof, you know, competitively or whatever, but yeah, I did binton. I didI did some tap as a child, like very young. Nice. Umwhat did I do? I did some ballet. I did I did I did um Jianuh a little bit came on I did that a lot. Uh swimminglots actually. Yeah. Thinking about now that I’m saying the list out loud. Yeah. Yeah. I tell you I’d say I I did a lotof things outside of this including chess and other stuff. But then I did like I told my regular timetable waslike football Monday after school. Then Tuesday I did I think a choir chapelchoir or something like that. Oh actually I was in choir for a bit as well. Yeah. But they had ridiculous number like atforest because this is a private school. They had a ridiculous number of choirs,orchestras, things like that. And yeah, again this comes under the stats I was going to talk about. Uh,Wednesday I think I ended up doing Wednesday sports as Wednesday. Wednesday I either didathletics or it was like they did extra football training after school that I didand then Thursday was orchestra day like where we met.Friday was my day off which is good. Same. Saturday we’d actually play some sports.So for instance, I I did because I was in the football teams, I did footballmatches on Saturday and then I do a football match with my club team on Sunday. So I found that a lot. Yeah, Idon’t remember my time level to that level. Thursday was orchestra. I think Tuesdaywas band. Wednesday was band. We used to go around all the different schools anddo performances and give talks about the different instruments. Uh we did a trip to Italy to perform. We did a trip toGermany to perform. So we performed in around Europe a little bit. Yeah. Performed at the Royal Albert Hall. Gotgot paid £10 for that that gig. My first professional music gig and onlyprobably. Wow. Yeah. We got every band member got £10 each. We were in the So I’ve performedon the Royal Albert Hall stage. M um they those were usually Wednesday things. Thursday orchestra. Friday don’tremember. I think Friday was Friday used to come home and watch Robot Wars. Friday. Yeah, that was Friday.Friday was was the rest day definitely which is kind of it was it was a nice day. It was a goodgood day cuz it was just like h I don’t need to worry too much about homework immediately. I don’t need toworry about anything after school. I can rest up for Saturday. So like the sportSaturday I would be depending on what age I was I’d be doing some swimming orum a bit earlier on I would be doing some badminton in the afternoon. Yeah. And then or maybe Sunday was Sundaymorning was swimming. Yeah. Yeah. So pretty busy.Okay. So I think most of these stats are taken from the education policy institute or gov government website. So

Key Stats: 59% vs 50

in terms of academic and career, kids who join clubs tend to do better.Uh 59% versus 50%. So sports club pupils had 42% higher odds of being ineducation or work at the age of 21. Okay. It’s a 9% jump. So it’s so people whobasically saying you stand a better chance of not being a the the word isthe neat so not in education is it training and employment. So that’s the 50%.Yeah. Yeah. There’s a 9% jump for those who did specifically sports club.Then if you’re going to creative and academic clubs creative and academic clubs boost university entry. So, arts,hobby clubs, they showed a 56% higher odd of entering higher education.So, 61% versus 50%. I remember doing UKCAST and thensubmitting saying, okay, I did this and this to this grade and did this and Yeah. And then you get extra points.Yeah. Yeah. I think in the US it’s even more. I uh will um I think I’ve got some stuffon there as well. Physical and mental health. Active children are happier. I mean, you know, we spoke before about endorphins andserotonin and all the stuff that gets released when you do exercise. Active children are happier and moreresilient and trust others more. It’s team sports, isn’t it? So,oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Um, so Sport England survey links beingactive with higher well-being scores. 57% of kids hit 30 minute a day outsideschool. Yeah. And then you’ve got Yeah. teamwork like you said the soft skills and confidence,time management, leadership um which is apparently a lot of things that employers list as missing.Yeah. In school levers. So those soft skills really come into play there. So 59 61 tohigher education 55% still playing sports regularly. Soyeah, thoughts on that expected I kind of thought it’ be a bit higher actually.I also well I I I don’t I don’t doubtthe fact that something like you know participating in a club wherecollaboration is required is probably very good for your soft skills like is quite likely to bebecause it’s experience of some kind and experiencesin that domain would improve your ability to and and also I’ve noticed that people who are very good at say saysay say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say they’re team captain of a sport they tend those skills tend to translate to

Do Clubs Translate to Leadership?

other things so other projects and yeah whereas leadership team workbecause leadership doesn’t really change that much from sphere to sphereyeah I would say I learned my leadership skills after schoolafter university would do do you know do this running running businesses. Yeah,I’d probably say I’d probably say so as two cuz I don’t think I was like much ofa leader at school. No, neither of us were leader. Neither of us were captains. Neither of us werelike first violin. Neither of us led orchestra sports. I do part of a team buteventually and eventually I did lead the second violence but that didn’t translate to that much like as in that’snot really being a leader I think is like being team captain of some sport orsomething. I was never good enough anyway like no neither so I learned I learned how to play footballbasically by my experiences in forest so I wasn’t really playing before thenand yeah I think if I had played before like I didn’t really get involved thatmuch in sport until private school I wasn’t really apart from squashwhich I only got involved in by accident cuz my old minder was her childrenplayed squash. So I naturally went with them and then I discovered I’m pretty good at this.Oh yeah. That’s basically where all my hand eye coordination came from cuz I didn’t play any other sport.I think your hand eye coord your hand eye coordination only exists in a sports situationprobably. Yeah. Me talking about that I did actually play tennis as well. Saturday mornings were tennis. I playeda little bit but not as much as squash. I played squash. Well, let’s look at how many people

The Participation Gap: State vs Private School

actually took part. So overall in the UK roughly three and four state school pupils do something each week. Three andfour 75%. Independent schools nine in 10. Yeah.So 90% of independent school people pupils do some sort of extracurricularum each week and only 75% of state schools. That’s also down to selection though, isn’t it? Because when they’rewhen they’re interviewing, they are selecting people who don’t justthey’re already doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You already have those interests. So, and and my mom was like really keento get me doing something like doing other things. Um, she did like I did orchestra andstuff like that. I did did that before in primary school, butit was I saw um she saw it as like an opportunity to do more by I kind of wentoverboard. I did too many things. Yeah. Sports. 91%of independent school pupils play sports versus 67 in local authority schools whojoin a sports team or a club. 91 versus 67.And then terms of gender, this is a US comparison. So it’s 2020 census showsthat 44% of boys and 35% of girls were on a sports team, but the gap reversesfor lessons. So it’s 37 girls% girls. It’s 27% boys. Yeah, I’d say it’s um not surprising.Yeah, boys need boys a lot of the time. All kids need activity, but especially boys.Yeah. We got to get rid of not get rid of, but like channel all of that teamaggression and whatever into constructive. Exactly. And then there are obviously regionalgaps. We spoke about the difference between the state schools and the independent schools, but there’s a lot more going on in the southeastapparently. Yeah. Money. Yeah. So the active rate is 54% in high

Gender & Income Gaps in Sport

affluence high affluence families versus 42% in low affluence families andthere’s a regional gap due to regional and income gap across England and most of the uh more more ofthese activities take place in the southeast. Yeah, it makes it makes a lot like basically everything there makes totalsense. Yeah. Um, the only thing,well, if you were to, if you think about how much money these activities cost ofoutside of school, like picking up an instrument is not cheap.No, like a violin. That’s a particular expensone of the cheaper ones. Yeah. Few hundred pound for a good one. Probably the cheap to be fair.True. But you can only have one. You only have one of them. An orchestra.Whereas like a recorder club, you can actually, you know, you can have like multiple people doing it. And choirs. That’s why choirsare so popular. Well, the instrument’s free. Yeah. Essentially, although the trainingfor it isn’t. No. Um, now I remember we had to drive across thecountry to go pick up a a trombone. We had to buy one cuz I used the one in the school. In year four in Forest, I don’t know ifthey still do this, they gave us a free year of learning an instrument.And I’m, you know, looking back now, it’s like it was a way to get people topay money to take those classes. Yeah. But I mean, it was also becausethe school itself was known for music. It was uh Yeah. That was its that was it sellingpoint or at least a very strong one. Yeah. So we had a very good music department.Yeah. So that that in year four they gave us the instrument and then I had to we had to drive acrossI don’t know to them to Yorkshire or whatever to pick up this this drum and it was even back then it was a few hundred pounds. H

True Cost: Gear, Lessons & Trips

are you was there anything that you wish that you did of these clubs but youdidn’t really get involved with? I always have these sorts of regrets. I mean firstly with the instruments I Ichose the violin because I I mean I’ve told this story in the podcast before but I chose the violin because I saw oneof the kids in our class in year two uh play the violin for us and I’ neverseen anything like it before. I was like I want to do that. M and then that’s the short version. Andthen uh when they did the three year four sessions, I thought, well, I already play a stringinstrument, so I do like a a brass or a wind instrument. So he played the trumpet for a year. Uh and then I thinkForest lied to me and said they said your mouth is the wrong shape for thetrumpet. So,so we think the trombone might be a better fit. What? That’s what But I was like, I thinkNo, I thought it was. I was eight. Yeah. No, but and I I wanted to play the trumpet. Thereal reason I found out later on is that they had no trombone players for their bands. Okay, smart. JustI was eight. I was like, “Okay, I’ll do that then.” And then I ended updoing that. That’s the reason I did that instrument. But what I would have preferred to dois saxophone or drums. Drums. How do you know this stuff? Have Ibefore? No, I just feel you just know me. Snap. Drums, man. I would have I would have 100% done the drums.Yeah, it’s cuz you’re always drumming stuff on things. I do without realizing, honestly. Butthere’s there’s some untapped stuff there that I wish Yeah, I could have. that my my main regret isprobably in terms of music is probably not reaching the level that I know Icould have out of piano because I’m really good at piano. Um but yeah, piano would have been theother one if I was to cuz I I’ve not done it for quite a few years, but music production is something I did a lot of.I did music at school and just in my own time even the even the theme tune forthis podcast is made by me. Yeah. Um, so for music production, beingable to play the piano um, and drumslike gold mine. Yeah. When you’re um, producing on the computer, whatever, you can change thedifferent instruments, but obviously you don’t have the actual usually just Yeah. So, if I knewthe piano better. Yeah. And and drums, I would have Yeah. gotinto music production a lot more. My my two that I probably regret not gettingmore into is chess. We had a chess club, didn’t we? Yeah, I did play, but I wish I got moreinto it, but I think I just didn’t have time. Um, and probablyWas it your uh like athletic stuff or No, it wasn’t that. Cuz I I think I gotplenty into that. It was I don’t like running. Running was notnot my thing. What did we do? What did we have? We had Well, was it a sport or was it umI had it in my mind like and then it slipped away. It will come back. Anyway,uh drama that was it cuz I think I would have been really into likeI like that okay sort of stuff. But I sort of think it was mainly a confidencething. It wasn’t it wasn’t to do with not being good at it. I think I wouldhave been been good at it if I’d taken the time and I think I could have learned I can learn stuff if I if I tryand learn a part. I know I can remember it and turn cuz I did it at uni.I did it in primary school. I remember learning loads of lines but um I think I probably ended up becomingmore self-conscious when I grew up. Yeah. And uh Yeah.So that’s probably what I would have what I would have done. So we’ve spoken a bit about the the the

Self-Reported Health Issues in Heavy Arts Kids

benefits, the statistics and percentages and the outcomes. There are there are afew negatives. Yeah. Um the main one main one being is thatthere’s slightly higher self-reported health issues among heavy arts club participants.What? slightly higher self-report self-reported but do you think that’s because with things like art you areself-reflecting a lot is that is that a link there I mean it is justtoo much critical thinking if only like statistically significantit’s not you know depends what this I mean I think it’shard to with that sort of it depend you need areally really need loads of thick descriptions of why people have those issues and why they’relinked. Yeah. No, I don’t I don’t have um that level of data on it. I don’t think it ex I don’t think thatlevel of data really exists because we’re self-reported. Yeah. So, I mean self-reports, it can stillbe, you know, pretty critical,but maybe that’s just a case of correlation. So again, those sorts of people who go into those things are abit more Yeah. No, I’m just thinking like art. So I’m thinking more like drama studentsare quite dramatic and you know Yeah, it could be to do Yeah. I mean therethere that was just one thing. So the other ones we’ve spoken about some of these already.The obvious one is money. Yeah, I think money is the big onebecause it’s not just the um it’s not just the class, it’s theequipment, it’s the instruments, it’s the paying for for dropping off and pickingup because if you’re at work, you’ve got to pay someone to do that. Maybe it’s the buying of the the kits, the shoes,all of that sort of stuff. Um which does Yeah. trips like paying togo for me to go on those band trips or whatever, then they’re notfree. No. So, yeah, it does price out some families.There’s also I mean obviously a lot talking about the state sector there area lot of there’s funding for these activities but it’s not maybeas much as is needed and it’s certainly like in the state sector it can’t compete with what people in the privatesector are doing. Yeah. And it’s also not just state versus private, it’s alsoum different countries which I’m going to come on to in the next in the next segment. But um othercountries do have initiatives to help with this sort thing. I’ve heard thatspecifically with South Korean parents, one of the reasons why some of them justdon’t want to have kids is because of the amount of pressure on them to sendthem to send them to they’re called hogwands. So they’re after school clubs and when Iwas teaching in Korea it was that was a real problem because I saw I I taughtsome children that would finish their after school clubs at I’m not even kidding like 12:00

South Korea’s Midnight Study Clubs

and they’d have yeah midnight. Oh, midnight midnight midnight. And they’d they’d do sometimes like fiveor six clubs after school. And they’d also have to get up early atlike say to be in school at like 7 7 something like to be in school at like 7and then do their homework for the school day like from the previous school day.I don’t know. Too much. Yeah. Way too much. I can see that being a huge amount ofpressure on the child, but also on the parent because they’ve got to pay for all of these extra things.Well, and they’re going to make sure they get it done as well. And it’s societal pressure as cuz if everyone’s doing it, thenyeah, you know, you feel like you have to. So taken to extremes, it’s a it’s aproblem. Well, overcheduling. Yeah.middle class trend is to stack too many activities on top of each other. So Idon’t think even middle class here doesn’t go to that level.But it’s a lot still. It’s a lot. I remember there was a there was therewas this time when I was at a chapel choir event. Yeah. And I just remember like I was not ableto enjoy myself. I I was quite young at the time. So I was like 13, 14, maybe even youngersomehow in the chap choir. I was the only person really in that choir at that age. Um everyone else was olderand the I just remember being in the sort of churchyard garden and we werehaving canopes and stuff like that. It was like really it was really fun. You you think you think I was enjoying that.Yeah. But I was full of the I was surrounded by these older kids and stuff like that. I wasn’t really like with myfriends. I was, you know, in that group and we I was just sitting around andthen I just pretended to be ill so I could just leave. And the thing onlything I had on my mind was the fact that it was like 8 8:30 or something like that and I had homework to do for thenext day and that’s that’s all I was thinking about. I couldn’t enjoy myself at all.And that was after an event. And you know, you’ve got your social stuff after. Andthat is a concern though because I I I had several times where I was theyoungest. I mean, there were several times where I was the only primary school kid. Yeah.In these events. Um Yeah. And there were a few times where theolder one sort of made fun and like picked on me a little bit. Yeah. Um, well, part some of it wasI was uh staying back in school because there was no one to pick me up. Yeah.My mom was working in the city and dad was working and there wasn’t anyone that could pick me up from school. So, I’d bethere like 8:30 at night. Yeah. In a random room in the secondary school which I didn’t know.

Personal Burnout Stories

Yeah. Surrounded by people twice my height. Yeah. Uh and just been like, “No, it’s darkoutside.” just waiting for someone to actually and I was often the last one picked upbecause my mom couldn’t get there in time. Yeah. Like it would be 8 9:00 and I’d bestanding there at the front gates just be like waiting for it got to the point where I knew the headlights of the carso I knew that I was getting picked up. Yeah. And then even in things like band cuz I started instruments quite quite young. Iwent into the band and stuff earlier than most people. Soeven big balance stuff I was at the youngest kid there again surrounded by people that wereolder five years older than me. Yeah. Um it is kind of it is kind ofterrifying at that age. But would you Yeah. If you’re that was at primary school, right?Uh primary and secondary. I think at secondary it was it was more bearable because they were actually really likethat everyone was really nice to me but it was it was just that sort of oh I’mbasically surrounded by what seems like adults essentially and I am the only child here I thinking I’mjust thinking about homework like that’s it I just remember that being stressful and I actually didn’t I didn’t persist withchap choir just because of the pressure which is like too Yeah.Too much of that sort of thing. Yeah. I actually quit the band. Yeah. They they I mean the music teacher atthe time, the the head of music at that time, um I think he’s still there now. I think he’s head of primary. Anyway, heended up aing me. I was the only trombone player left. I was like, I can’t I can’t do this anymore. It’s toostressful. Yeah. I I can’t. Um, so I left and yeah, Ithink you hated me ever since. Ended up being my music tech teacher in a six form, which wasn’t ideal, butyou know, it’s just is one of those things. Yeah, I think there’s mostly positives, but there are these these things liketime, time and money pressure. Time, money, mental health, school resources.Yeah. Facilities. Like when you This is quite interesting. I mean it’s kind of obvious but when a state school becomes budgetpressured the first thing it cuts is all the extracurricular stuff. Yeah. Whereas the independent schools activelymarket Yeah. aspect. That that is a is a bit of a shame,isn’t it? Yeah. And it’s kind of funny because actually a lot of this extracurricularstuff is really good for the UK economy. Things like art and sports and likethey’re things that we’re good at, I’d say. like they the UK has a biglike I’d say on the music front in terms of drama and television and that sort ofthing or music production like I actually think the UK’s that’s a real strength of ours and yetyeah true maybe not enough funding’s going towards that so you’re actually hampering thegrowth of the UK economy by cutting those things it always upsets me how people that gointo music and stuff like that don’t get paid as much as someone that sits on a spreadsheet and types of numbers andyeah well it I guess it depends where how successful that person is likebut then success doesn’t always boil down to you know there there are there’s a lot involved in terms of becoming asuccessful say musician so much about like a lot of opportunity

Cutting Clubs Hurts the UK Economy

yeah and you need to know a lot of other stuff to to be able to finding the producer like that was thatwas traditionally the model, wasn’t it? So, you have to you have to have that producer.Oh, see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And thus we see all the problems that we see say see now that are emerging.Well, it’s one of those things when when when it becomes available to the masses likehow cameras are now available in our pockets. Um things change. Yeah. uh if everyone’s doing it thenthere’s more competition. So scarcity creates value. So all of these all of these things that are nowavailable they’ve all trickled down you know computers and processes and eveninstruments and stuff can now be distilled into this. But thatso obviously that will that means that people who are really really good andtake time to learn those skills Mhm. their skills slowlywon’t matter as much and become less valuable. Yeah. Yeah. So not necessarily a good thing.No, I’m I’m saying it’s not. Yeah. Yeah, but then you know I wouldn’t know how to produce music too muchwithout having a computer or whatever. So yeah, well higher barrier to entrycreates a market that can be easily well is easier to exploit for those withthose relevant skills. Yeah. So like we were saying, people don’t have to go find a producer and stuff nowadays. They justthey can learn it themselves. But it’s it’s the thing where it sort of swings back where if everyone is now makingmusic on laptops and whatever else, the people that go and record real instrumentsget better, different, better, more interesting results. But that’s why I think the, you know,gigs have become more of a thing now. So yeah, it’s cycled.It’s always cycled back. cycle back cuz I think that was a big thing in the so 40s 50s 60s and then it sort of fadedaway and then it was about finding the best producer producer things and then it became it’s come kind of I don’tthink gigs have gone away though yeah but people use the music to reach people to come to their gigs more thanas main sources of income no no no completely the other way aroundpeople make absolutely Nothing from streams. I think from Yeah, that’s what that’s what I said. Solike like as in people people use streams to reach reach them.Oh, you I thought you were saying they use gigs to reach people. No, they use the streams to reach people and YouTube and you get videos andwhatever else, but the actual money comes from touring. Yeah. And selling merchandise and that sort of Yeah. I think on uh Spotify it’s like0.03 p per stream. like Taylor Taylor Swift and I think Apple Music plays a lotmore. I think it’s like 0.0.3 or something. I don’t quote you on that, but I know it’s a lot more.But I do think the Spotify one is 0.03. SEND peoples.Yeah, they are. I think they’re SEN now though. Are they?Yeah, it’s changed again. SND I can’t remember.It used to be SEN. they are 23% less likely to join a school sport.Also, bullied pupils and girls in certain sports are underrepresented, which is which we know. But I thinkthat’s not so much down to under representation because of gender. I think it’s to do with what they’reinterested in. Most girls don’t want to play football.Yeah. But also, but then it kind of hinders those that do, I guess. So in in certaincircumstances being so for being being snd would might make it harder to accesssay a regular sports team cuz it depends on the thing. It depends onwhat they have. Yeah. So they need specific they they need a specific team that’smade for them. Otherwise it Yeah. Yeah. Which you probably wouldn’t get in school because it’s uh it’s notthe majority, is it? Yeah. You it would be something where you’d go you have to you have to seek it out yourself. Yeah.And that that means that you need maybe a lot of uh community run charities andand that sort of thing to actually cater for that. So there definitely is a problem there.Yeah. Yeah. I think overall the benefits outweigh the negatives.There’s quite a lot of negatives there, but yeah, the I’d say the benefits of justthe social benefits, the leadership skills. That’s what I think is the most important. I don’t think it’s so muchthat oh, there’s a 9% jump in those that go to university oryeah, those that are in employment. And I think there’s plenty of people that areon from independent schools and not from independent schools that struggle withemployment and yeah, whatever else. So like 5% here, 9%there. Yeah, they’re figures. But I think the most important thing I mean for my

Free Play vs Over-Structured Time

own experience is expanding your horizons, meeting new people andlearning new things and enjoying them. One thing that I think a bit of a weirdlike it’s probably a unique point. If you um if you have loads ofstructured activities, then you might not spend enough time devoted tounstructured, you know, just play. Yeah. just not being if everything needsto be shocked for you then then you’ll struggle withI feel like that’s definitely a thing with me like yeah I think especially doing what we do we have to structure things ourselvesI really yeah and I struggle with that yeah I I I do as well it’s like you know being in the army youjust getting used like it it literally felt like that sometimes because it it was just like okay we’re doing this thisthis I had my routine Yeah. Then as soon as you break that routine, it’s like really hard because you can’tyou’ve got to adapt to managing your own time in your own way. Well, this is why I’ve tried to putstructures in place for what we do. Like I Monday is a marketing day. Tuesday we’re recording. Wednesday we’re workingon numbers. Thursday we’re editing and doing website. Like I I try andstructure it. Structure it in that way. I think the best way is to have an overall structure with a little bit of flexibility.But you definitely need you need some free imaginative time. That’s that’s also built in as well.But I remember I’m I think one big thing that I noticed between primary school and secondaryschool is how little I I I didn’t I did so much reading at primary school and itjust fell off a cliff at secondary school. And I honestly think that’s a time thing like because I had no time. Ididn’t have time to read for enjoyment and that was a great unstructured thingthat I would just do independently and I couldn’t do it. I just didn’t havelike didn’t have the energy or time. I found that nowadays like the uhhobbies and stuff I used to have have just fallen off over the last 5 years.that just don’t do them anymore. Yeah. It’s like gaming or something likethat. I wouldn’t I don’t think I don’t I wouldn’t have time to game.Um anyway or but reading t is the something that I Idid a lot of just didn’t do it at secondary school. I didn’t have time.Uh like even to send myself to sleep I used to read andI just I you just don’t have the energy like mentally so to do it.That’s what I’m finding at the moment is that just energy and motivationkind of fall off. If you overwork you burn it’s burnout. Yeah.But for me it’s not really going through cycles. It’s just a consistent burnout.Yeah. True. And and now I like I like I said at say holiday time I think Istruggle to turn off like thinking everything like that like and it’sbecause since we were I think it’s because since year seven I’ve just beenon a constant just train of work like one thing here’sa task here’s an activity task activity task activities kind of over stimulation the whole time so I need to be consciousmy brakes are important Mhm. So why holidays are important? Yeah. Yeah. But then it’s no good if youcan’t switch off like on holiday. No, but the holiday is there for you to switch off. Yeah. It takes me probably acouple of days. Mhm. And I’m still checking cameras and emails and whatever else. Butyeah, that’s important. H we mentioned um when you went to SouthKorea and I think most of the things that we’ve spoken about can berelevant worldwide apart from the like more stuff in the southeast and whatever else but thereare some differences between different countries when it comes to extracurricular activities. So would you

Finland’s “Hobby Guarantee” Model

like to hear some? Yeah. So I mentioned earlier that some countries actually have initiativesum for this sort of thing and Finland has a national hobby guarantee whichfunds a free club in school time and early data show 19% of lower secondaryschool secondary pupils still lack a hobby. Finland also take the pressure off theacademia. I think that’s so so they’re they’re pretty much renowned for their teachingsystem. It’s pretty pretty incredible. They’re very very different fromlike the say Asians and also the the Western world at large. They they theyare pretty much their their stuff on education is basically followed by mostmost teachers around the world. play. Is that just Finland or is that Scandinavia in general?Finland is particularly well known for having a pretty amazing education system. Butyeah, Scandinavia, they they do have a lot of social programs. They’re very verysocialist. Well, uh they fund one one free club perchild. Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. Um, you can’t really say more than that.They’re just brilliant in that regard. They’re more able to fund it simply because they’re very they’ve got a veryvery big state sector and they have uh, you know, like natural resources. Ithink they’ve got uh sovereign wealth fund and basically they’re able to payfor it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean the UK should have I think we’ve got we’ve gotprobably similar schemes though. Um nothing like that. But not like that. No. Well, the UKwhat have we got about 75% of state school sector pupils do one or more activities.It’s pretty good. Which is pretty good. Yeah. uh United States, we’ve gotabout 80% of children between the ages of five and 17in some sort of activity and 57% girls and 44% boys in organized lessonsor clubs overall. Yeah. I think the US there’s also a biguniversity drive towards it. Yeah. Yeah. So doing some sort of activity.So they get I think the universities place a bigger I might be wrong aboutthis but I think they place more weight on it. Yeah. Well and they they have morescholarships available as well for that sort of stuff which is why they’re so good at you know certain sports. Not allof them but certain ones they’re very very good at. It’s just the the money involved and the scholarships.Yeah. Well, that’s literally Yeah. colleges value well-rounded applicants driving high participation.

US College Admissions & Club Pressure

Yeah. But then yeah, they they also discriminate against some applicants because they say you don’t have the Idon’t know was it mental. It’s like personality personal Yeah.personality uh traits or something like that. Like that’s how they discriminate againstlike Chinese people, Asian-Americans. It’s a big big Yeah. Like you know those like Ivy Leagueuniversities like Asian-Americans have to do way way better and otherwise allthe universities will just be filled with Asian-Americans because they just get higher scores across the board andthey are more they’re very involved in extracurricular activities.There is a correlation causation problem with all of this. Yeah, there is with everything. I think even with our last episode, there was acorrelation causation uh issue and and I think this this plays intosort of the as as someone who has I have an Asian mom. So I I I thinkthis plays on her her mind a little bit when she’s making so or she made thesesorts of choices. She knows that. All right. Oh, my So, she she’ll have afriend who’s also Chinese. Um, and she’ll say, “Oh, my boy is doing thisand this and this and this.” And then, uh, yeah, he’s doing this well in school. And there’s this sort of thingin their minds that just says, “Oh, maybe that’s why they’re so whatever.”Um they there is some suggestion that certain types of music can improve yourIQ. So I think it’s Mozart and free jazz thathas the highest where it’s it’s basically associated with higherbrain activity in people in their first stages of development and prenatally.specifically those two, not like Bark or cuz you know I’m into all this like likelooking into different frequencies and energies and whatever else. You have like 432 Hz and like 528 healingfrequencies and stuff. apparently uh I think it’s Bark was really reallyon it with this sort of stuff and all of his music is takes all that into consideration all the differentfrequencies and it’s tuning and I think that there is this there theremight be something to it in terms of frequencies but there’s also with those specific types of music

Music, Frequencies & Brain Development

because they’re very complicated very intricate. Yeah.Yeah. And it’s the intricacy. Like if you put on some 90s pop or something like that, I don’tthink you’ll see the same effect. And it wouldn’t matter what frequency is being played at. It’s moreI can tell you it was the wrong frequency. But yeah, it’s it’s um it’s also just not complexenough to have that impact on the mind. So there is there is things like that but it’s very again with all of thesethings it requires like if you really want to carry out a test you need to do it in sort of labcondition. Yeah. We’re never going to get that that level of that level of detailum or statistics. Um but yeah uh well there was a whole studywasn’t there about um playing classical music to plants versus rockmusic. Yeah. Yeah. And I I think there there’sloads of things we don’t know about the brain. And I don’t think it’s just about the brain. I think it’s about frequencies becausethere’s there’s a whole thing about uh like water molecules. If you if you saynegative things to water molecules, you and you zoom in on them, they fall apart and their patterns break down. Whereasif you say gratitude positive things to water or food or whatever it is, you canliterally see them. You can literally see the molecules for forming like perfect hexagons and perfect geometricalpatterns. And I think that’s similar in in the cases of like classical music versus rock music or 90spop or whatever. The frequencies and the energies behind it change.It’s not just about the brain. It’s about Yeah. the energies and frequencies. I think there’s like Tesla knew about all thissort of stuff. I I think um because I think what we were talking about this briefly evenjust creating music. I really think that music was a massive source of expressionfor me um emotionally. So I don’t know if I was asgood at expressing my emotions verbally. Yeah. And I think I could communicate it quitewell through music. Um, and I thinkisn’t it an outlet for a lot of for a lot of kids and students participating in theseactivities. It’s it’s like a you know how we said umI think Tom he like one of our friends hewasn’t really speaking until we was older and thenyet his in drama and stuff like that. I find this very very strange becauseum I was in primary school with with Papa. Yeah. Do umand when we all first joined I think we joined in year three I think. Yeah. We we joined in year three. He couldn’tspeak. Yeah. Like he’d open his mouth and like small sounds would come out. Teacher would askhis name and you just hear like a small like squeak. Mhm. Yeah. Andand now he’s in Hollywood and in the new Harry Potter and uh doing that Christmasfilm with Melissa McCarthy and acting and is doing incredibly well. It’s veryweird how people that go into these roles start off like that.But it’s I guess it makes sense. It’s like it’s kind of its own fantasy lifeand having that that hero’s journey safe space to exploreto explore your levels of expression and range of emotion. I think that’s that’swhy extracurriculars are important. I never thought I was I think squash forinstance I I started doing that in primary school. Yeah. That was like a massive source of confidence for me because up to thatpoint, I don’t think I was like willing to do I just didn’t want to do stuff. I didn’t want to do other activities.And it kind of unlocked cuz I kind of had to. I was like, “Okay, I’m I’m doingthis now. I might as well do it.” Yeah. And then that sort of unlocked mysporting prowess. I was in loads of teams becauseI had the confidence now to go, okay, I can just do this. I’m I’m physically capable of of doing something. And withmusic as well, that was also important because I don’t think I was maybe the most expressive emotionally and stillprobably aren’t, but I think music I get the emotions in music and in art.Yeah. And no, I can I can express it really well on paper as well. So like these these

Untapped Talents & Self-Expression

extracurricular things actually like how I express myself. It’s harder in everyday life.Yeah. There’s certain pieces in I remember learning on the violin that were had a lot of like anger and energy to them and some that were really softand romantic as well. Yeah. So yeah. Um we were talking about differentcountries. Um um the last one and the most no not Finland. We’ve done Finland. This it’sum one of the more interesting ones in terms of all these stats is Japan.So is in like 92% of children are inYeah. 92% of junior high students Yeah. are in daily club. UhI’ve not heard this phrase before. Bukatu culture. I imagine it’s somewhatsimilar to the Korea situation. Yeah, I think there must like I’m not gonnalike it sounds really good, but having having worked in Korea,I think the amount of social pressure to do it is is the unhealthy part.Well, I don’t think it’s that different to what you did or what we did. Um,no. 92% of junior high and 81% of high school students join one bukkatu clubthat meets most days or one club that meets most days. Okay. uh which would include um sports. Brass bands are quitepopular and it’s five to six days a week and it’s quite intense but I think thatsounds like it’s one club 5 to six days a week whereas what we did was several clubsand bands that cover five to six days a week. They have really cool ones though likeAbacus using the abacus kids. No, it’s freaky. Like they can do likemental they can use mental abacai to like do some insane sums.Mental as in like they’re not actually using Yeah. They they just go like that and you see them do that, you know, and theycan do it without Japan’s just crazy. Yeah. But like I said, although there isan advantage to that in that they’re not spread thin. So they if they’ve got like one focusthat’s very good, then they can get to a very high level in that one thing. I always kind of think that was adisadvantage with mine because I feel like flipping between different things and you do want some some like physicalexercises, you want some mental, some expressive like I kind of get whywe have different ones, but do you think there’s any rule is too many? I think too many is when you don’t haveenough time to reflect and rest. That’s how that’swhat I think. Yeah, I think I reached that point. If you’re not able to to sleep more thanlike 7 hours and you don’t have time toswitch off a little bit, like coming home at 9:00 at night, doing homework,having dinner, going to bed, waking up again at 6:00. It’s It’s unsustainable.I think that’s too much. But I think I did managed to do it. I don’t know howdon’t know how were you happy doing doing that in a way like there’s a comfort inroutine that is hard to and you get better at managing it. Yeah. Yeah. But rest there’s no rest.Yeah. I think people underestimate how how important rest actually is. You knowlike eight hours a day is eight hours sleep people say is the norm and a lotof people don’t get that. Mhm. Um, it takes seven to eight hours foryour brain to cleanse. Yeah. Gen like scientifically it takes seven to eight hours for your brain to cleanse.

How Many Clubs Are TOO Many?

I wake up without an alarm bang on 7 and a half or eight hours. Like last night,fall asleep, wake up without an alarm and my app said 7 hours 57 minutes.Yeah. Um, I literally wake up when my brain just decides, all right, I’m just ready toI’ve cleansed enough is when your body repairs itself. You know, there’s all these stats about people that get lessthan six hours sleep gain weight and increase risk of this and that. And Ithink in your growing stages as a child, that’s not healthy.Yeah. I I think there were some times at say 1:30 2 o’clock in the morning when Iwas like doing homework that I did kind of think to myself all right this isjust too much like but you know you get through it you know if it ever got to that point II I just it’s not worth it but then I go to bed it’s not worth it but then they just give you like theyjust make you stay off like they put you in detention don’t they? No.Yeah, I think detention. You can There were some kids that were like permanently in detention cuzthey weren’t just for that wasn’t just for for homework. I mean, if it got to that point Yeah.where it was 1:00 in the morning, I’d be like, “No, I need going to bed.” I don’t know. I I just made sure I I Inever missed things. Although, I did occasionally do the wrong homework. Yeah. I can imagine you’re writing thewrong page numbers or Yeah. not even writing it down and trying to remember it. Yeah. But yeah, I think Idon’t know. I feel like kids don’t need to handle that much these days likecompared to in terms of in terms of workload. I think it’s not I think it depends on the kid, dependson the parent, depends on your location cuz there are plenty of kids like eventhe ones that we know that come come to us that do not have a single eveningfree. Yeah. It’s not too bad though. Like most of them have less homework than we got.I think it’s manageable. It’s just I don’t know. I mean, we did get a lot.But we’re going to close with a final question.

Giving Every Child a Club They Love

And that question, and I’m going to try not misquote it like the opening one. How do we make sure that every childgets a club that they love? I think you canyou can observe your child at a young age because you can sometimes see whatthey want to do in sort of like their micro behaviors and how or they lean more towards theirinterests and things. I think for in now looking back cuz I’m quite into dance.I dance a fair bit now and now looking back I I did actually really enjoydancing. Well, what do you mean about the music? Like when did you like even when I was like as a youngchild like when there was music I’d be off dancing and yeah I never harnessed that. Yeah.Um I think it’s it’s because boys aren’t really I’d say encouraged to express themselves in that way. Yeah.Um um my my my natural instinct is not to gooff dancing is to like tap tap. Yeah. Like I can hear a piece of musicand I can hear every single stem. So a stem is like an individualtrack. I can hear just the kick drum. I can I can solo different things. That’sthe baseline. That’s the high hats. when it comes all together, I can pickout I’ve done this before with people that do music production and in music and whatever else. I can pick out thingsthat most people can’t even hear, but it’s in the track and I can I can solo it in my head.Yeah, you can produce the track and I can do the dance or the um Yeah, I feel like I’ve not harnessed thatenough. Even Even things like I remember when I was taken, you know, like bring your child to work day or whatever like Idon’t know whether that we never had that. I think you just went to work. Yeah. Yeah. As in I was like my dadwould take me me to like Docklands or whatever. And what was it working? Like in basically insurance,right? And he’d say finance and he was um andI’d be on the computer. He just put me in front of a computer and then I’d like write out stories even when I was youngand there would be like intricate there’d be like plots and stuff like that. So you can kind of tell what yourchild is interested in. Yeah. If you observe them enoughand then you just encourage them down those routes. And I think with writing, I wasn’t really encouraged like so butthen as I went to like university, I started doing things like writing societies and stuff things I wouldn’thave done in school. So if you haven’t had the chance to experience that inprimary school and secondary school, there is you can maybe experience thosesort of things in in university, but I wish that I’d harnessed some ofthat earlier on, but I didn’t I think it’s hard to work out exactly because somuch of it isn’t child directed, it’s parent directed. Yeah. Um, I think for me it was very clear thatmusic was I just had this awakening moment when I heard that kid play the violin in year two. Somethinglike awoke, but I don’t think I’ve used that enough.I think it I got bored. Not bored, I it wasn’t enjoyable towards the second halfof my school life because there was just so much focus on this is the theory. This is you’ve got to get this grade,you got to pass this exam, you got to learn this piece. I was like, well, not really why I wanted to do it. I wanted to experiment and have fun.And um I got to do that outside of school. When I got to university, I started DJing and doing other things.Um, and then producing music after university just for fun. Uh, and I domiss those quite a lot. Yeah. Um, also I think parents have itcan be a parent ego thing. So they Yeah, maybe. I don’t think my one was, butsometimes like in sometimes a parent wishes that they were better at something and that they orto Yeah. So they force it on their their child. I thinkthat’s sometimes the case with Asian parents because they don’t have the maybe they didn’t have the opportunity to do something and then they forcetheir child down a route. But, you know, I wouldn’t really change that much aboutYeah. I think the good thing is that Yeah. Same. I think the good thing is I wasn’t forced to do it. Yeah.It was I actually asked Yeah. and said, “Can I can I do this?”They didn’t even tell me I was doing it. The the the violin teacher of the schooljust walked into the classroom in year three. Everyone thought I was in trouble and she was like, “Come with me.” likewhat’s going on? Then she took me to the music school and I she’s like you’re having a first lesson of parents didn’t even tell me.Yeah. So yeah, so it was something that I asked for and fortunately enough I was able to do it.Yeah. Sometimes a child won’t know to ask necessarily, but a parent shouldalways watch their child and quite carefully observe what they’re into,what they might be into. And then I think it becomes obvious, right? And alot of the time it’s really really obvious if they like football, for instance, because it’s just like, okay, it’s on television, they’re loving it,maybe we should play some football. Yeah. See, stuff like that is very easy to get into. Yeah. But then I don’t knowwriting drawing or interpretive dance and that something like like who knows likeno the kid will be dancing around the the the house you know. Yeah truestuff like that’s easy to get into. Um it’s more when you have to pay for kits and instruments. Oh like for instance squash like youwouldn’t necessarily know. No some of it you have to be exposed to. You you have to you have to take your child to various things. see how theysee if they love it. And if they love it, then that’s their their thing.So, thank you again for joining us this month. Hopefully, you found that conversation interesting. Don’t forget to leave any comments down below to see

Outro

what you think on this topic. If you are watching us on YouTube, don’t forget to like and subscribe. The buttons are just down there. And if you are following us on Apple or Spotify, give us a follow and a rating. And we’ll see you back again next month.The Education Lounge podcast.