0:00 – Intro
0:31 – Is Play REALLY Better for Learning?
12:08 – What Makes Elf a Christmas Classic? – Elf Movie Breakdown
22:45 – Is Perfectionism DESTROYING Your Progress?
38:15 – Why Learning Styles Are a Myth — The Real Science Behind How We Learn Best
44:00 – Why Boys Struggle More at School – The Truth About Gender, Learning & Brain Development
1:01:50 – Why Failure Is Essential for Growth
1:13:08 – Is Private School Worth It? High Costs, Small Classes and the REAL ROI
1:24:48 – After-School Clubs: Do Extracurricular Activities Cause Burnout?
1:32:37 – Outro

Intro

Hey guys, welcome back. And once again, we’ve reached the end of the season. Over the past few days, we’ve beenreviewing this year’s episodes and the retention graphs to highlight your favorite moments and the most valuableinsights this year has had to offer. Now, if you’re new here, this is the Education Lounge podcast, where we talkeducation in all of its forms, political, technological, and sometimes a little bit controversial.the Education Lounge podcast.

Is Play REALLY Better for Learning?

Back in November, I wrote a blog on my personal site about how play transforms adult life. This naturally got us tothink about what we do here. So, to kick things off, for the first episode of the season, we asked, “Is play really betterfor learning?” I’ve always been fascinated by like animals and I’ve watched a lot of these nature documentaries, you know, like theattempers. There’s uh one with Gordon Buchanan. And one thing that I’ve alwaysseen is that the cubs, whether it’s tiger cubs or or bear cubs, they alwaysseem to learn through play. They always seem to learn about hunting, throughimitating their mother. They learn about where their boundaries are when they’replay fighting with their siblings. They’re just wondering like how much isthat the case for humans because we’re mammals like we’re also mammals the same as they are. AndI think it might be more than more than we think. The main thing I can really get a graspon is this whole neural connection thing. Mhm. Um I think we spoke about it in the lastepisodes. as well a little bit. Um not the um plasticity I said malleabilitylast time I think the plasticity of the brain sort of changes as you develop. Right.Yeah. So when you’re young it’s like a sponge hopefully and um everything you do creates all thesedifferent connections and things and then at the age of I think well I thinkgirls are about two years ahead of boys in in this regard. um which is anotherreason why some of the schooling is a bit unfair, but that’s a whole other whole other topic. Um it kind of levelsout around 21 I think is if I think about that correctly.Yeah. Um which I mean falls in line with the American drinking age 21. So it kind ofmakes sense. Um yeah. So when they’re when they’re learning and playing as they’re growingup, these neural connections are happening all the time. Mhm. and they sort of they become moreuh fixed and like longterm the more they repeat. So if you think about like umsay a river that’s going in different different streams the stream that goes the stream that it goes down the watergoes down the most has the deepest grooves and there’s a similar sort of concept to that. The other thing is youcan’t destroy. You can’t want destroy. You can’t undo neural connections. Youcan just have um newer neural connections made. Yeah. That you end up using instead, which iswhy things like addiction are so hard. Mhm. Um so anyway, rambling back to thebeginning. So when a child is what zero to 0 to 5 0 to 5that’s that’s kind of the key key ages of child development. Um and I guess during that time what arethey doing? They’re not sitting down with no they’re playing books reading wellme but yeah that’s a whole but but yeah essentially they’re they’re learningthrough play because every everything is a learning experience for them. Yeah, any sensory.So, after establishing the unstructured play lays neural grooves in the brain, we looked at why experimentation beatsperfection, or rather how it leads to better results quicker. We then compared structured activities to open-ended onesand discussed how intrinsic rewards and dopamine make play so powerful. I’m sureI’ve told you this one before, the photography experiment. Which one was that? So there was a groupgroup A, group B, um I think 25 in each was same number of people in each groupand their their goal was to come and come come back with the best best picture after like a week or whatever itwas. Um group A were told to to go out and take one picture and make it thebest best picture possible. Uh so they went out, they uh spent ages thinkingabout it and like framing things and like you know looking around for the best the best thing. Then they took onepicture and group B were told not to make the best pictureever. Uh just take as many pictures as possible. That’s it. Take as many pictures as possible. Mhm.And I’m sure you can probably tell what’s going to happen next is the group that took loads of pictures overall hadbetter pictures than the ones that were told to go and take the best picture.So yes, there’s not experiments on uh children, but that’sthat’s that’s a group of adults, right? And that does show how much play has awell experiment experimentation. I would put experimentation and and play in the same bracket.We’ve sort of touched on this topic briefly already, but there are two different types of play, right? There’syou got your structured play and your unstructured play. Um, you could think of this as liketeacherled or not like child led. So, we could we could for it might begood to just have an example of each. So, if you’ve got unstructured play, yeah,you’re giving a kid, imagine you got a young young kid and they’re just playing with some blocks and they’re they’re notaiming to do anything in particular. They’re just playing with the blocks and they’re creating their own structure, Isuppose. Yeah. Okay. Um, sort of like creating their own world.Yeah. But then with structure play, you’ve got a particular goal in mindwhen you lay out a task or like like the photography thing. It’s a bit like, you know, with Lego, Iguess Lego is a really good example of this. Um, you’ve got you got like a model that you’re tryingto create and that’s structured and then you’ve just got likea massive box full of bricks and then you’re making stuff and that’s unstructured. Yeah. What are the benefits? So thebenefits of structured play and unstructured play. I guess structured play you you like yousaid you have a goal, right? Structured play I suppose you have youhave a goal you’ve got maybe some element of competitionthat Yeah. This is something I was going to come on to as well cuz it comes into umwell sports. Mhm. you there’s an element of problem solving usually.Yeah. And you have to follow rules andboundaries. Yeah. But I think with unstructured playyou make those you I mean you don’t necessarily have to. Umbut as you get older you do. But yeah, I think as the young two-year-old mightnot, but No, they’re happy to throw some bricks and see what happens. Yeah. Even then, you’re learning motor skills.Mhm. You’re, like you said, learning about gravity and like how things interact with each other.And a lot of stuff from unstructured play can be utilized in other situations of your life.Mhm. The incredible thing about games and andplay that makes it special is intrinsic and extrinsic reward. Sofor instance, if you have a parent and they say, “Okay, you’re going to do well in your GCSEs. I’m going to get youthis.” Right? That’s an extrinsic reward comes from outside. Mhm. If you can make the child enjoy aclass without bribing them like um if they enjoy the class likenaturally. Yeah. They’re rewarded just by being there. Yes. They they they have intrinsic reward and there’s a lot of sciencebehind don’t quote me on the science. Essentially there is there is a lot ofresearch into how intrinsic reward is extremely important foruh long-term success in something. So, so you might find that extrinsic reward,extrinsic reward works better in the short term, but in the long term, if youreally really want, so if you’re you want to get good GCSE, which is a longit’s a long period, yeah, leading up to the exam really, it has to come from within.And to get that, having some element of fun in the class can be very important.I’m sure that’s true. Like teachers that just bribed you might not have got thatmuch out of you in the long run, but when you genuinely wanted to be there. Yeah. The teachers never bribedbut they didn’t do either. That’s they’re the ones I didn’t like the most. There was no intrinsic or extrinsicvalue at all. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn’t fun. There were and I wasn’t interested in it. There seseveral different things. The ones I was interested in, I did well in and I actually wanted to go to those sessions.Yeah. Because because like if you have fun in a class, it’s linked to dopamineproduction. Mhm. Dopamine is a motivatingYeah. Um chemical hormone. Chemical. Yeah. I just go chemical just to make make itsimpler. Um yeah, it it creates motivation. So, so you without dopamine,you’re not going doing anything essentially. If if you’re able to stimulate that dopamine production inthe classroom through the activity Mhm. of some kind, then you know your yourlearners will be better off as a result. They’ll they’ll actually want to be there and that will have long-termpositive consequences for their learning. There are loads of exciting possibilities with where play can gobecause literally everything becomes possible, but with video games, you’regoing to have have the ability to maybe sort of create your own world and that that’s exciting. Like you can createyour own own video game in a sense, your own gaming experience, your own reality.But there is also the danger when that’s pushed to extremes becomes superaddictive. Yeah. Um and and also um you can lose connectionwith people through sort of overuse of technology.Yeah. You can lose connection by being more connected. Yeah. Ironically. Yeah.Um so that’s that’s the only those are the two big dangers. Um but Idon’t know there might be other things. Yeah. like like there could be the physical danger, physical harm, thatsort of thing that Well, there’s also the lack of exercise and all that. It’s a whole other element.Yeah. I mean, if you’ve seen Wally Yeah. It’s almost like no one has seen Wally or Iroot.Yeah. Ever. Um, well, the advice I would give to the future people is go outside andtouch grass. As everyone says, touch grass. All the two words you’ve got to remember, touch grass.

What Makes Elf a Christmas Classic? – Elf Movie Breakdown

Speaking of keeping a little play in your life as you grow up, this next segment taken from our Christmas episodeis a perfect case study. Buddy the Elf is an adult who never lost his playfulness. That childlike wondertransforms his family, his workspace, and even an entire city. We mappedBuddy’s Heroes Journey based on Dan Harmon’s story circle and looked into the themes of the movie like family,play, and the corporate world. Ultimately, Elf Endures because it reminds us to stay playful and toremember what’s really important. This was quite a fun episode. It’s magical. It’s wonderful.So, what do we think of let’s let’s break down this character. What do we think of the story arc? The the the hero’s journey. What’s thewhat’s the hero journey to for Buddy the Elf? So he he starts off in he seemsfairly happy in the North Pole. Yeah. He’s in a and then he has a bit of anthere’s little clues here and there that indicate he’s notthat he’s over double the height of anyone else. Yeah. Little little tiny things, little indicators thatthat he’s massive, 6′ three or something. Incidentally, they’re really um nicelynicely done. They didn’t use CGI and they used they did the force perspective, didn’t they? Yeah. Um,so using a they used a lot of large things for the elves and then Wolf Wolf Ferrell would sit on smallthings purposely and they’d also use and they’d also Yeah. They’d also they use that for like The Hobbit andthey use that for like Lord of the Rings with the Gandalf scenes. Yeah. See buddy, you’re not a cotton headmini. Dan Harmon sorry circle which we brought up in the Home Alone one last year.Um I don’t remember stuff. There’s like eight different steps to it. It’s very small.Yeah, it’s printed very small. Oh, okay. Right. So, you’ve got you, your characters in their comfort zone. Mhm.But they need something. They go to an unfamiliar situation,which is so far so good. That’s New York. They search and try and adapt to it.He’s searching. He’s searching. He’s definitely not adapting. I don’t think that’s ever a word you can use for W Farrell’scharacter. Maybe comedy is a slightly different. Well, tests and challenges. He tries to Yeah. tries to bond with water. Hestruggles to understand humans. He’s like trying to figure it out. Yeah. Uh then the fifth one on that circlething is they find or they get what they want. Like they get temporary success. So he’s found his father.Yeah. And he’s living with them. He’s found him. It’s not like where he wants to be. And he’s going on dates with Zanel.Yeah. Bit. So DNA testing basically finds it but it’s not like a it’s a false resolution basically.Yeah. Yeah. Uh and then because of that they get to the lowest point and they have to pay a heavy price. This is where they sort ofseparate and but he’s not sure whether he’s elf. Yeah. That’s his lowest point.Yeah. Um then they return back to the unfamiliar situation. Yeah. And uh then theyhave the final transformation change. So they’re back to the beginning of and that’s the stuff that I think thatagain is but I suppose his family that whole arc works way better for the dad even though even though it’s done intoo short a time frame I think that that would describe it almost perfect a lotof it. Yeah. So it’s essentially Dan Harmon the guy that did uh yeah community andRick and Morty. Rick and Morty it’s um essentially what every story is.Yeah. Every story has that kind of those steps. Yeah, he’s he’s I think on this one,Buddy’s got six out of eight. Maybe Buddyas a like as the character doesn’t necessarily learn anything, does he? He doesn’treally learn anything. He he he find he he finds his father and he sort of andhe falls in love. But in terms of him changing the buddy that you see at the end is kind of like it’s everyone justlearns from Buddy. It’s Yeah. So the the normal Dan Harmon story circle thing doesn’treally complete itself. Well, he knows he knows who he is though and that’s the difference I guess.Yeah. He finds himself. He’s not. He kind of knows who he is in act like the end of act one, doesn’t he? He likeknows who his father is. He hasn’t got himself situated in that world. The the in the same way with MaryPoppins, I think it might be that he it’s it’s not about the kids. It’s about the dad learning that he’s the one whogrow. He’s the one who has to grow. He’s like the satisfying plot arc. Well, I I find I findWe’ll get to the Yeah, I find his plot arc not the most satisfying. No, but it’s like the mosttraditional of like I I don’t believe in Christmas. No, I think there’s not enough development of the of a father, butI mean all the a lot of the the rest of the film I’m like you can’t really change it, but I’d say a little bit moredevelopment of father would have been nice. Yeah. Well, we can come on to we can come onto breaking that down as well. And then yeah, let’s continue breaking down Buddy. SoSo yeah, he he goes to New York. He finds his father initially, but hisfather’s not accepting of him or doesn’t even know that he’s he’s like, “Who’sthis crazy guy?” Which is fair enough. Do they call it a Christmas scram?Yes. Which I don’t know if that’s as big a thing. Oh, it’s not here. Yeah. No, I don’t think it’s not one ofthose things that translates necessarily, but you kind of get what it is. Yeah. Someone sends a thing as a joke, a person with a joke to do whatever it is.Yeah. He he sort of just he finds himself in the toy was it thethe department store department store. Yeah. And and the elf area funnilyenough. And yeah well he gets pulled into the elf area by the elf manager. I don’tmanager. Um well who who sort of Yeah. Who like says you shouldn’t be here you know youshould be up there working. So he sort of can gets a job. You know I’m you knowYeah. cuz he’s dressed Well, he’s dressed he’s dressed like a you know, he’s got a lovely elf clothes and he meets Joy.Mhm. Which is nice. Like Yeah. Uh Zoe Dish. Yep.Yep. Blonde. It works. It does. I I I No, I don’t think it does. I think I thinkit’s much more of a And it’s quite a fringeless performance by her. Usually a hair pun or is thatUsually she does usually she has what they call bangs. Yeah, bangs. like in New Girl.Yeah, that’s like the classic Zoe Des look. Um I don’t know. They made it Zoe Des look.Oh, I think they made it look cute. They like so so and it sort of workedfor the character. Yeah. Yeah. So, buddy the elf. So, Buddy the elf.Um he falls uh for her quite quickly.That’s probably part of his growing up arc cuz he didn’t he doesn’t know what it is. like he’s not sure what he’s feeling and his little brother that’slike 12 years old has to teach him what that is. That’s part of him growing up into aYeah. No, he does adult human person. Yeah. I suppose at the start you It’s not like you can’t imagine him feelinglove cuz he’s already feels like love for his parent. Yeah. But like a romantic interest.Yeah. No, no, that’s true. That that is that’s part of his development. The way he treats it is the way he treats everything though is a bit likeoh my god it’s so amazing. you know, everything is, you know, wonder. Yeah.Which is kind of important for the film, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, once he’s once he met me meetsWhat’s the name? Jov Joy. Joy. Joy. I don’t Is her name even cuz I’ve seen the film a few times.Yeah. Where is the name mentioned? It is. I mean, it’s not like it’s not front and center.No. No. She She doesn’t She doesn’t get a lot to do,you know. She just pops up here and there. He sort of pops up here and there and seems to be fine with everything. Seems to be like into him.To be fair, it is a very short film. So, I feel like you can’t really you got to focus on the dad. Yeah. It’s like there’s a main there’s amain arc and it’s a side quest essentially.That’s what I mean. The side character development is kind of weak in that sense becausethey don’t have time. Well, you’ve got to get all his ad libs in, don’t you? You’ve got to get all of Will Ferrell’s funniest bits in andthat’s was probably at the expense of a lot of character development of the Yeah, I think the main characters areprobably Yeah, obviously Buddy the elf. Um the dad and I think the little brother as well is quite an importantone. Yeah. Um cuz his relationship with the dad is also strengthens that. But the women in the film don’t seem tohave a lot of Well, the mom has like she’s got essentially nothing to do. She sort ofsmiles. She smiles and sort of gently chides her husband a little bit and sort of is sort of his better nature of justlike, “Oh, no, we’ve got to, you know, she sort of allows the plot to move along.” Yeah. She is essentially a plot device of justlike, “Oh, no, no, we’ve got to let him in the house.” He cuz we, there’s no way we’d believe that James Khan, you know,the dad would let in the elf without his wife being there. So, come on. Yeah. We’ve got even shorter films.Yeah. No, no, no. Just closing the door. Yeah. I don’t think uh but I I’d saylike in general, even though the side characters don’t get development, the only one that I’d say probably deserveda bit more was the dad. I I think of everyone else cuz he’s the he’s the second most important charact.He’s the instrument of change and it’d be interesting to see like why is he like this and that kind ofthing. But I guess the whole implication is that it’s the corporate culture and and that sort of thingof children’s literature. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I’ve got news for you. Even if those twopages were in there, the book still would have sucked. Have you seen the numbers for this quarter?Uh, they’ll be here today. They’re in. That freaking puppy and pigeon are tanking hard hops. My peopleestimate we’re going to post a minus 8 for this quarter. A minus 8. That does not happen.I guess the son makes the father realize at the board meeting. Yeah. that it’s sort of like a you or melike them or me choice. Yeah. Choice between the family and and your your your job essentially in thiscase and he chooses his family. He makes the right choice as it were.

Is Perfectionism DESTROYING Your Progress?

From Buddy’s very outgoing and lively personality, we again turn inward. Thisis another episode that came from one of my blogs. The episode was on perfectionism and whether it can hinderor even destroy progress. We unpack how perfect quietly becomes the enemy of done. How students hesitate on thingslike first drafts. How parents overengineer schedules and even how schools sometimes prioritize polish overiteration. This is closely related to the play episode because perfectionism can inhibit play. And play is whereexperimentation and genuine learning actually happen. to actually explain what perfectionism is before we get intoother topics like how it relates to education, personality types, uh how to tell if you’re perfectionist, how to getpast all of that sort of stuff. Maybe we should sort of define what it is.Yeah. So I did some research on this andit seems that this idea of perfectionism has undergone a bit of transformation inthe academic literature. So it’s sort of changed from being probably considered a bad thinglike completely bad to being more nuanced in how it’sdescribed. So what? Yeah, give me initially you could say perfectionismjust involves setting abnormally high standardsum for yourself and others and then judging your own selfworth by those standards,right? And being over overly critical of your own behavior.Okay? And that’s basically what we’ve always generally thought perfectionism is because I think in mostcases we regard it as not a good thing. So it’s negative butyeah I guess yeah depends what it is. Depends what it is.I mean I I I everything you’ve listed there I can relate to. I’m overly critical of myselfand others and others. I’m sorry. Um,but it’s like I just want things to be done the right way, which there isn’t. Iknow and I get that. But the right way to to me is not always the right way to you or whoeverelse I’m talking to or working with. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, you’re saying it transformed intoit’s more nuanced. So, it’s basically transformed into there’s more than one type ofperfectionism essentially. So you can have perfectionism that is debilitating.So it’s really bad. So negative form of perfectionism or maladaptive form. And then you’ve gota more adaptive form of perfectionism which is actually just setting just setting high standards isn’tnecessarily a bad thing to do. Can you explain the adaptive and maladaptive? So basically there’s two types that wethink of. So maladaptive perfectionism is fear of mistakes, excessive concern.Now notice the word excessive. Mhm. About others judgments and is associatedwith a higher risk for depression, anxiety and eating disorders. Okay. So generally pretty bad like as in we’renot going to say that is is is generally going to be a bad thing. And then adapt adaptiveis setting higher personal standards without harsh self-criticism.And it often leads to better emotional well-being and greater life satisfaction. So I think it’s settinghigher standards versus debilitating perfectionism.Okay. So then I would say I’m probably on the adaptive sides. Yeah. I mean like at times I think it’snatural for people like a spectrum where you can fluctuate between there. Yeah, there’s probably probably times where like I think I canbe overly perfectionist, but even even me and I wouldn’t consider myself a perfectionist.No, I wouldn’t. I would just say you’re more like Yeah. free flowing with that sort of stuff.But I I I get it as in I have I think sometimes I’ve got an idea of how thingsshould be. Yeah. And if something doesn’t conform to the ideal, I won’t even attempt it inthe first place because I don’t believe it’s worth doing unless it’s unless it’sperfect. Something that I’m really into is like psychology anduh you know, MyersBriggs test and the big five uh uh personality traits andanagrams and like all the different personality things. Um,we we we we spoke a little bit the other day, yes, yesterday maybe, about how howperfectionism relates to the big five specifically. Mhm. Which again is something that JordanPeterson talks about a lot. It’s a big five. Yeah. So, it’s so it’s so you remember using the acronym ocean, don’t you? So, opennessto experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and thenism.Yeah. And it’s really really funny because I I I when I was researching this idea of perfectionism, I thoughtit’d be good to com combine those two things together and say, “Okay, whatmakes you likely to be a perfectionist?” Yeah. And it kind of came up exactly how you’dexpect it to be. Yeah. So, so I’m going to I’m going to try and let’s let’s see if I can if I can guess this.So, the first one was openness, right? Openness to experience. Um I think opennesswon’t make much difference to perfectionism.Is it high or low? Uh, probably low.Yeah. The more open the more open you are, the more free you are. So, it’s Yeah. A perfectionist has a li haslimiting beliefs. It’s like prices, right? Like higher or lower. Um, so the next one was conscientiousness.Yeah. Conscientiousness. I think you’d have to be for some for you to want something to be like perfect, you shouldbe you’re probably going to be quite conscientious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A high conscientiousness.High conscientiousness. Probably lower in extraversion. Yeah. Because you’re less open again.Mhm. Um and then agreeableness. Agreeableness I think will go either waybecause Yeah. to in order to get something perfect,especially if you’re working in as part of a team, you’re going to have to besomewhat disagreeable because people aren’t going to be always doing things the way you want them to be doing them.So, I think but then it could be the other way as well. It could go either way. Yeah. I um there doesn’t seem as far asI’m aware um correct me if I’m wrong but there doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship between agreeableness andperfectionism. Yeah. I think you can be very agreeable conscientiousness very very strongrelationship. Yeah. And the last one neuroticism. Yeah. And very very very strong relationship again.And I think I am quite neurotic. Yeah. And I think I’m high inI’m quite high I’m high in openness conscientious I’m quite I’m high inconscientiousness. It depends extraversion. It kind of it kind of fluctuates depending on what situationI’m in and who I’m with. I don’t think you’re I I don’t think you’re as I I think the conscientiousness is verythis and that way with you. As in in what way? as in in some some areasyou’re very conscientious in others you’re not. Okay. So it fluctuate depends depends on the situation.Yeah. But there’s some people who are like with everything. I’m going to soldier from 5:00 a.m. till12 a.m. Well, like all all day like like you know like they there are people who literally likethat. I don’t think you’re like that. I think I like I like my sleep too much to be like that. So yeah,but there does seem to be suggestion at least that there is a correlationbetween age and decreasing levels of perfectionism. I think yeah I think as you get olderyou realize that not everything well the world the world is not perfect. Yeahthe world will never be perfect and your perception or your idea ofperfect is different to somebody else’s idea of perfect. So Mhm.he will never be. But you think about this comes back to was it a blog before maybe did I speak aboutum Morgan Hel’s same as ever book. Was that last podcastone before blog? I wrote it spoke about it somewhere. Anyway, the the tree thatgrows the tallest and the straightest to get the most sunlight is like trying to be perfect, but then it sort of bends andcollapses under its own weight. Yeah. So it’s a natural thing in nature.Nothing is perfect because if something is perfect, it um negates another aspectof the characteristics of that animal or plant or whatever. Mhm. Sonothing in nature is perfect. Therefore, nothing that we do as part of naturewill ever be perfect. Yeah. And perfection’s is obviously objective subjective thing. Soperfectionists have an objective view of that something should be a certain way.It has to be that way. Whereas in reality it doesn’t play out that way.And I think that’s also the other thing is children live in a sort of curated world. So everything’s like pretty andlovely and you’re the I don’t know if you’re you’re a girl, you’re the magical princess or whatever. And then if you’rethe boy, you’re the sort of hero archetype with the sword that saves theprincess. And that sort of thing is it’s like um yeah, you play into these childhoodarchetypes. Your dad is perfect for you. Your your mom is perfect uh for you aswell. Like your parents are like everything seems perfect in a sense. Andthen you’re shielded from a lot of the pain in the world, right? Yeah. They’re in a little bubble.Yeah. Um which, you know, is fair enough as in I think it’s it’s nice. It’s themagic of childhood. Um but it also can lead to a bit ofdelusion as you get older. So obviously in in the teenage years, you might beconfronted by more challenges. You’re approaching adulthood. you realize that the worldisn’t completely rosy and that’s probably why the transition between childhood and adulthood sodefin um and then I think now social media isa big sort of bit more of a thing that we we didn’thave to deal with so much obviously we we still had to deal with the perception of others that kind of thinggrowing up family pressures that sort of But I think this current generation hasmaybe it’s slightly worse because they have such a curated life and it’s onlineand Well, yeah. Not even that. Everything that they see is curated. It’s ahighlight reel of somebody’s life. You don’t see the imperfect moments. Mhm. The 49photos that were taken before this 50th one got uploaded. So, what do we keep? What story do wetell ourselves? Well, the philosophies of Porsche’s incremental changes versus Ferrari’s range of designs. Andsimilarly, in the world of tech, iPhone’s minor tweaks year on year versus Android’s try a lot of ideasapproach. Explain the concept perfectly and which philosophies to use when. In aworld where perfectionism fades with time, your philosophy matters more. Have you heard of Porsche versusFerrari? I mean the different well I mean obviously you heard of the cars but I meanI mean the different um like methodologies of how theyI think Porsche would aim for per like perfection. How what’s the um I don’t know you just hear it likePorsche. So Porsche Porsche are incrementaladjustments towards perfection and Ferrari is just the opposite. Randomcar, crazy car. Random car, crazy car. And it was basically equated to theiPhone versus Samsung. iPhone versus Android thing. iPhone is Porsche. It’sthey make tiny tiny changes every year to the point where you’re like, “Oh, these phones look the same as last year,like which they do, but they change a couple of bits here and there and they incrementally make itbetter. It does mean you don’t need to upgrade every year or whatever, butthey have the Porsche philosophy.” Yeah. And then Samsung has like it flip phone. Samsung is the Ferrari philosophy.It’s like Yeah. Flip phone, fold phone, phone with a stylus thing, phone without a thing.Camera arrangement looks completely different to last year. That’s Ferrari and iPhone is Porsche.That that that’s the mentality. Yeah. So, we’re looking at the incrementalupgrades to make things that you’ve started on better and better and better rather than makingseemingly random things and hoping they hit. But I think like interesting enough you need both becauseyou need you need you need the Ferrari thing to start with. Yeah. Exactly. And then once you start it you refineit. Yeah. Yeah. Although there are some people who just they new thing new thing new thing newthing new thing. Yeah. They can’t focus on one thing. Yeah. No, I I umit’s annoying. Well, I prefer the design of Ferraris, but the philosophy of Porsche.We spoke about Kaizen. I don’t remember even on our personal channel, but Kaizen, remember the Kaizen philosophy?It’s that incremental tiny steps. Yeah.Towards better, better, better, better. So, to wrap up, I think the maintakeaway is to do your personality test. figure out if you’re that sort of a person. Use thetools that we’ve spoken about and practice self-compassion. I think practicing self-compassion and being notbeing as hard on yourself cuz people that are perfectionist and quite neurotic and all this sort of stuff,they tend to be pretty hard on themselves. So, practice some level of self-compassion.Uh I would say to end on one of my favorite quotes about this topic and itis art is never finished. It is only abandoned. We debunked the popular misconception

Why Learning Styles Are a Myth — The Real Science Behind How We Learn Best

that every person has a single learning style. People don’t have specific learning styles that can be applied toeverything. There are just some methods that are better suited to certain tasks than others. This is my takeaway from this. I knowwhere what quite quite early on in the in the conversation, but I feel like I already know what my conclusion is.What my conclusion is that the learning style isn’t for each individual person, butit’s for the thing that you’re learning. Yeah. No, I mean that’s that’s the conclusion from the data.Is it? I haven’t actually looked at it. So So no, it is it is Well, there you go. end of podcast.But it’s it’s kind of a terrible thing that so many people believe itbecause people think, okay, oh, it’s you think it doesn’t matter, but like interms of an education system, you got loads of teachers and loads of studentsand loads of parents who believe in learning styles and that something needsto suit a preferred learning style. You’re wasting time. You’re you’re making you’re making itmore effort to actually learn stuff when you could be going, okay, well, this isthe optimal route to learning this specific specific thing and this is the provenroute for learning this specific thing. Why aren’t we doing it? There’s actuallya sort of curve which describes how we forget things. Basically, it describesspace repetition. So this is useful in this method. So space repetitionum you know like flash cards. Yeah. Sopim have you heard of Pimpsler language? No. Pimpsler language course. So there theseseries of of courses and there was this guy called Paul Pimpsler and he’s he throughout his course hebasically doesn’t get you to learn that much in the period of time that you learn in the course but essentially hespaces out a lot of the inputs and the words and then the idea is that overtime you do you actually retain quite a lot of what you learn and that’s certainly my with Pimpsler the againit’s not very dense course but you do find that you learn some of the thingsquite well like because they they appear in later lessons like oh use a word hereand then use a word a bit later here. Well, it turns out that there’s a sort of specific so there’s the first daywhere you encounter something then you wait a day and then you revise that thing then you can wait 3 days or twodays after uh the second the second time that you review it. Yeah,we talked a bit about focus and how important that is. And one of thealthough it’s not really a method, it’s important. It’s a I guess it’s almostlike a it’s a technique, isn’t it? The pomodoro technique. Yeah. So, this is umyou set amount of time, short break, set amount of time, short break. You’re chunking your your learning intomanageable chunks. Yeah. So, 30 minutes. Well, there’s a umYeah. I I don’t know the um exact formula, but there’s a formula forhow long someone can concentrate for based on their age.Okay. You take the age and you multiply subtract something something. And it’s like, okay, well, I’m always really skeptical about that,but because I like it it varies a lot. Yeah. So, it be like a 10-year-old can do 18 minutes, a 20 year old can do 45or whatever it is. I can’t remember the the formula. I’ve heard about it. But,so yeah, the Pomodoro thing is where you have a set amount of time then a short break. A set amount of time and a shortbreak. So it kind of um matches up with how again with howyour brain naturally works. I did that on Sunday. So I was I was studying Romanian and II spent like 30 minutes doing one thing. So I just practiced the technique. I did that and then I you know being me I wentto go and eat something. Of course you did. and had a little walk and then came back and then I did thatand then I did it again and did it again and I got I did two and a half hours of studylike but it was quality study cuz I knew exactly what I was going to do in thattime. Yeah. Yeah. You had it planned out where it was like I think I think a lotof a lot of students they struggle with that extended focus obviously.Yeah. I mean, I do as well unless I’m really into a task. But the having a strategy of sorts ishelps. So you you know how you’re going to use that time at least.Um that’s also something that people struggle with. Um like time blocking.Yeah. Working out exactly how they’re Oh yeah. I mean I struggle with that too, butI get distracted. Yeah. I distract myself. other things distract me, you might getan email or a call or whatever. Um, so yeah, time blocking withPomodoro. Yeah, probably. Yeah, pretty useful.

Why Boys Struggle More at School – The Truth About Gender, Learning & Brain Development

Now, I said at the start of this wrap-up that we do sometimes get controversial. So, next up, we’re tackling a big one,the gender gap in schools. Why are boys falling behind? Either down to braindevelopment speeds or the way that we teach. There are many factors at play here from evolution and nature versusnurture to the literacy gap and generally natural instincts of boys andgirls. So should boys start school later? What are the roles of these teachers and role models and where dofocus study habits fall into all this? Well, let’s take a look. It’s not reallytalked about openly. I think people do talk about it, but it’s not really like aopen discussion. I think that’s what we’re doing today. It’s it’s it’s known very well in academic circles. So,but in terms of like parents and teachers and dayto-day I think I think teachers are probablyaware of it. Parents maybe not as much so.Do you think there’s some sort of uh what’s the word? Purposely not paying attention to it, ignoring that itexists. We have a tendency to do that. So, ignoring I I think this is just asocietal thing is in ignoring obvious problems and just allowing it to sort offester into I think because there’s not really a solution it there there are solutions butpractical solutions I think there are practical solutions they’re just notmaybe it’s it’s not what you’ve got to make a s value judgment about how important it is and I thinkit’s all swept under the carpet compared to other things because I mean there are more important things to maybe worryabout but the direction of of boys in educ in education and society is actually verycritical in the long term but it’s a very on the short-term side you don’tsee bigger impact but you will see it in the future and I think that’s why it’s notreally talked about that openly Okay. Um or that oftensimply the priority isn’t on that now. That’s you think it should be.Yeah. I I think I think any child I whether they’re boys or girls, we shouldalways be aiming for excellence in education. So we should always be asking ourselveswhy is this person not succeeding? Why is this person what could we do to improve this person’s education? Weshould, no matter who that person is, um, attempt towithin reason get them better levels of attainment.Is that possible though? Cuz in terms of like developmentaluh, speeds, is that possible? We can certainly it’s such a massivelead that girls have in especially lit literacy that there’s more at play thanjust biological differences. There’s no intelligence difference between boys andgirls really. I think there is I think there is like alike brain development speed. Yeah. But it’s not in related to intelligence. that’s related to probablyemotional processing and that sort of thing. I don’t know. I think it could be partlyintelligence as well because if it’s if your brain is developing slower than somebody else’sthen there will be an intelligence gap there. That that might be true for certaintypes of assessment or certain types of question that boys sometimes struggle with morethan girls. But if you think about it, throughout history, we’ve had amazingmale writers. Amazing male writers. Yeah. They had no deficit in terms of theirliteratur. No, but how old were they when they wrote those? How because because the the gap does close upin, you know, early 20s by 25 it’s sort of set.Yeah. Um but growing up Mhm. there is a difference. So yeah, we havehad amazing male writers and amazing female writers, but that you know the things that they’ve written that werethat amazing were once that gap had been closed in early early adulthood.Mhm. But I’ve also seen boys who are 10 years old write amazing piece of work.Yeah. There’s a there’s a problem here though because what’s the exception and what’s the rule? Because you can’t take the exception and and make it the rule.Well, I I would say they’re exceptions. They’re exceptionally good. It’s anexception to the rule of what generally happens. Do you think there’s a perception thatboys are just worse at English and that Yeah.permeates across like in the same way that people used to have a perception ofgirls in math that permeates throughout the system because I’ve heard so manyparents comment on okay he just he’s just not very good at English and that sort of thing and it’s always with boysand I’ve I’ve heard the opposite with girls. I’ve heard oh she’s just not very good at maths. Ithink that’s it might not seem that relevant, but I think there’s a causal connectionbetween them because I’ve I’ve I’ve just seen it so many times. Girls who struggle with maths often presented asort of view. It sometimes stems from a parent not being particularly strong atmaths. So, a parent going, “Okay, h I’m not very not very good at maths and she seems to take after me.” And I thinkthat’s kind of a harmful perception. Is it like aself-fulfilling? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think those you get told something over and over again, you believe it.Those things are so powerful and we I don’t think we I think we underestimate the Yeah, we do.Um the impact. If you tell say someone they’re useless at something, eventually it allI’ve seen in in class. I don’t know if it’s like a just a like colloquial sort of it’s what the kids always say whenthey get something wrong they’re like oh I’m so dumb blah blah blah oh I’m so stupid and I keep saying likeyeah I know it’s like a phrase but stop telling yourself thatit happens all the time you start to believe it so you don’t want to internalize those no thoughtscuz I have m I have my main thoughts on this I know we’ve spoken about it beforebut My main thoughts are to go back to neurological brain development,biologically speaking, that sort of Mhm. that sort of thing. So maybe we can go into that firstcuz I’ll tell you what I think, right? Evolution in evolutionary terms. The menwere the hunters and the females were the ones that were looking after thecave and the kids and building communities. So, it’s not really surprising thatmathematically and hand eye coordination and all that sort of spatial awarenessis stronger in males. And it’s no surprise that language anduh communities and all, you know, all that sort of stuff is stronger in females. Yeah. As a generalization.As a obviously, it’s a generalization. Don’t get me cancelled or anything. It’s a generalization, but that that’s how itwas thousands of years ago. And despite what a lot of people think, we don’t evolve that quickly.That those networks are still they’re still there. So, I don’t think it’s surprising that,and obviously people, we’ve said this before, people enjoy umthey’re better at things that they enjoy. Yeah. So generally speaking, boys preferphysics and maths and DT they say it’s things like boys areobsessed with things and then yeah and obsessed with people people which goes back to what I wassaying about living in caves and stuff which is why you have loads of uh women nurses and that sort of stuff and moremale pilots and engineers and mechanics. Yeah. Right. So it’s it’sit is somewhat a biological thing I believe. It’s notto say that you can’t have, you know, a female pilot or a a male nurse orwhatever. Yeah. But generally speaking, people go into what they’re interested in and that’s generally how it works. So it’s notsurprising that girls are stronger in English and they prefer biologyum compared to like maths and physics. Yeah. No. Well, do do you agree with that or doyou I think now I think societal influences are sopowerful that you can to some extent almost social and engineer a lot ofthese things. Yeah. But in terms of the girls have basically caught up withthe boys in terms of STEM. But in terms of the we I think we’ll come on to that next. But the thing I’mtalking about is the the biological evolutionary point. Do you agree with that specific point?Partially. I I think we’re more mutable than as in wewe we become what we’re exposed to. But again, that’s that’s uh that’snurture. That’s not nature. I’m talking about the nature. But I think I think nurture is so critical thatcan sort of I wouldn’t say it surpasses nature’s importance but it can seriouslyaffect it. I think nature is the sort of foundationpoint and there it might be like preferences based on biology but thenthe nurture will take over from that point. Yeah.It was usually both ends of the spectrum in terms of from what I remember at school. The kids who are actually reallyclever and found the stuff really easy thinking of peoplelike sleeping in the classroom and uh making jokes and getting kicked out.And also true on the other end, people that weren’t that bright that found what they were currently doing too difficultand then they switched off and messed around. and that it’s the people in the middle that are kind of okay.They had this thing um about intelligence and how it’s distributeddifferently, boys and girls like so it roughly ends up fairly similar when youaverage it out, but there’s like a the curve is slightly off or something. So, so there’s more really really stupidboys and more really really intelligent boysand then whereas girls it’s more of an sort of more evenly leveled Yeah.flat distribution. Yeah. Um which makes sense.Yeah. I mean, I don’t know whether it makes sense, but it just sort of itmight explain quite a lot why most of the prison population is boys.Um, yeah, there’s also I think morethere’s certain so ADHD is more common in common in boys, I think. So,and it and it also is um shows up in girls differently. It presentsdifferently. Yeah. In the gut. It Yeah. It’s not as um hyperactiveor obvious. Yeah. Not as obvious because of I think of the hyperactive because because it’s quite can be quite tell for someone totell they got ADD instead as opposed to ADHD.Yeah. We were talking about this yesterday Sunday. Yeah. When we met up with the guys.Yeah. We had a friend who he was like I think I think I’m the same after that conversation. And I was like, I definitely not ADHD. I don’t have thehyperactivity. No, I’d rather sleep. But I I think my attention is notYeah. not great. But I sort of think unless I’m like properly locked into something cuz he cuz he he was sort of going,”Okay, I kind of I’m kind of he was he was angry that maybe people didn’t spot that sooner.” And I was sort of thinkingit’s really quite hard to It’s not even that. I think people just look at it asless this is ADHD and more this is what all boys are like. Yeah. This is this is a bad thing. Ithink this is like one of the year sixes. I think it was a year agomaybe two years. Two years ago I think he was talking with I think you know theone um he was talking with uh the other year sixes the other boys in the group.Yeah I know the group. Um, and he said teachers don’t likeboys. I was like, that’s his perception of teachers. Andyeah, I was like, there’s no And the boys just sort of agreed. Well,we did a video on our um personal channeluh like last week or week before and we spoke about the Matthew effect.Yeah. I think it only occurred to me just now. I think the Matthew effect is come is is having an effect in theclassroom. So the people that are working and that are further ahead get given more attention.Yeah. Those what those that have more thusmore will be given to. Yes. Yeah. And those who have less more will be taken fromMatthew effect. I mean we we know from experience we’ve taught the 11 plus loads of times. It’s very highpressured. You have an exam to sit at the end of the year requires a lot of concentrationand focus. We know that dragging a group of boys tothrough the process through the process. Yeah. As opposed to girls is very different.Like Yeah, it is. And it’s not from an intelligence perspective. It’s the focusing andwell there’s just there’s just like other things that they would find more interesting. Like we said, girls are more interested in people and likeconcepts and stuff and boys are more interested in things. Even now I would rather befiddling with a thing like a laptop or or a building whatever it is than I would be sitting and looking atvocabulary or whatever. Even even now I would still prefer that.I think there is this expectation with boys though that they won’t read as well as girls and they’ll have more troubleacquiring language and it becomes that self-fulfilling prophecy. I also think following on from what that boy said atprimary school which you can see that even at primary school there’s a big gap a huge gap between boys literacy skillsand girls. Um, I I think it’s also partiallybecause teachers have quite a low expectation for boys as opposed to girlsand they also have um because there’s so many female teachersas like the ratio um you have a 3 to1 ratio.But then we said, didn’t we, that the teachers, the classes that have male teachersOh, yeah. the kids, they behave better and they learn more. Yeah. I mean, it’s a bit of a this is abit of a weird thing like um we do need more male teachers in education simplybecause they produce results that are different from girls. But I think a boy seeing ahaving a male I I certainly knew models. Yeah. When I had a male teacher, it wasdifferent. Like it was like I did feel that the boys were more on track at likeI noticed that there was a difference. Well, yeah, cuz they’ve got someone to look up to and and it’s also goes backto like biologically and all that sort of stuff we spoke about earlier.um is less less nurturing and more like lessons like you learn your what to doand what not to do from your father really. Mhm. And then generally speaking again, butand then your mother’s the the nurturer. Mhm. You know, like oh yourum dad will be really angry when he gets home and all that sort of stuff. You learn your lessons from that side mainlyand your nurture nurturing comes from the other side. So it again is no surprise that that’show it plays out. They behave better because they’re more fearful, I guess, of being scorned by a male teacher.

Why Failure Is Essential for Growth

How do you feel about failure? Well, we think failure is something that we need to learn to embrace. But why?Well, it helps us grow, improve, and build resilience. When we look at anything in life, we should embrace boththe ups and the downs along the way. They get really upset if they get something wrong or the rubble they’reworking out out cuz I guess they’re encouraged to succeed, which obviouslyyou should be encouraged to succeed, but you shouldn’t be punished for not punished, but likedemotivated by the failure. Um cuz like when we were at school, you would get ared X right next to something that’s wrong. A lot of schools don’t do that now.Yeah. Even the children like when you because I’m I’m used to that. So I’d put an X if something’s wrong or I’d circle thequestion number. Um they get upset about it. Like no,normally we put a dot next to the one that’s that’s wrong. likeI don’t really see that’s if that’s a positive thing or I I think although it hasI can see why teachers and educationalists in general would seethe red X as problematic. I don’t think it is. I think it’sactually about building children up and students to acceptthat they have failed in something and that they have made a mistake but thento learn helping them to learn from that mistake.So otherwise we we just end up in the same place. We’re treading water as it were.Yeah. Not moving forward. I don’t know. Do you think it should be encouraged? Do you think failure shouldbe encoded? Because I have uh another anecdote that I could that I could share. I’ve I’ve got one because I I didn’t Iwouldn’t say I failed tests really, but I had one bad experienceand from that failure it allowed me to move forward and dobetter. Okay. Go. So what was happening? So, you know how it was how it was like in inthe old days, we used to get all our test results read out in front of usin school, right? Okay. Yeah. So, I remember there was likeparticularly traumatic geography lesson when all Yeah. No, it was my worst worstsubject. I I was used to to doing relatively well in subjects so scoringsolidly and that result I got the lowest mark in the class rightum and it really I don’t know it hurt but from that failurethe next time I got as in I went from 49%. which doesn’t sound it’s not thatterrible I suppose in the grand scheme of things but to me it’s the standard you held yourself to at the timeit felt awful like I felt oh this is so embarrassing um but I just remember thatfrom that I just I I decid I made the decision I will achieve a respectableresult in geography and then I worked harder at it and then I got 70% the next test which was a bigimprovement Yeah. So, I’d say if you’re not used to failure,it can be quite damaging, but it’s more about your response to to that failure,right? Yeah. I mean, the so the anecdotes and stuff I have are morenot not personal ones, but but yeah. So, what did you learn? Because you can getused to failure. Mhm. What did you learn from the failure?Well, just to get you learned to get used to it or did you learn? I learned that I needed to revise morefor geography tests if I wanted to. I can’t I shouldn’t accept that I’m bad atsomething. That’s what I learned. Yeah. It’s the same with umWell, you you you prove to yourself that you could improve. Yeah. Because you didn’t you it’s the CarolDick fixed fixed mindset versus growth mindset and you went down the growth mindset. So,yes. um with similar thing happened withcomputing so it I remember I got a report and it was just the mostinsulting report ever and it just it’s like he’s got like no hand eyecoordination. No, it was it was actually insulting. He needs to practice with graphics programs so he gets used tousing a keyboard and a screen at the same time and that kind of like as inimagine someone writing that now. Yeah. I know. Yeah. But I got betterlike I went from sort of an attainment level of a C to a a B.Yeah. So basically that report kind of made mereflect and I was only year seven so I was like 11 years old. Yeah.Um so yeah I I think the biggest improvements I’ve ever had have come asa result of failing dismally at something.Yeah. Okay. Okay, so we just spoke about the red X’s and all the negative connotations, but what if you actuallyaimed for them? What if you aimed to get nos? Sounds strange, right? But hear me out.Sometimes it can be the best approach. There was a study done where they told Idon’t know the number, 500,000 people, whatever to go out and get as many nosas possible. Yeah. I don’t know. Was that wasn’t that just some something that someone didor it was a study? Well, it was it was an Well, yeah, an experiment. Someonetold a group of people I don’t remember the exact like Yeah, we can look it up. But then anyway,there was one group that were told to go out and get as many nos as possible and one group that were told to go andget as many yeses as possible. And no surprise, the people that got themost nos were the ones that got the most yeses. Then the people that went outlooking for the yeses got less.Yeah, I’m not I’m sort of surprised though that people wouldn’t just aim to get nos.Well, I think the the thing with that is that they will hit a more they’ll hit more people.Yeah. It’s like a numbers game thing. You got to fail a certain number of times. Back to the James Dyson thing inthe beginning. You got to fail a certain number of times before you can I I suppose alsoframing it in that way meant that people had less pressure.They weren’t scared of Yeah. Yeah. of of get obviously of attempting. Yeah. It’s a bit like dating.Yeah. Same same. If you’re unafraid of getting nosmore likely to Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It’s similar similar concept.Sales, isn’t it? Yeah. Selling yourself, I guess. And and and I do agree with the generalmaxim that in life, the more willing you are to receive rejection or the betterthat you handle rejection, y the more success you’ll achieve in no matter no matter what youYeah. You what you define as success. It’s true. And I I’ve always beensomeone that’s not handled rejection very well. Yeah. Just in any form oflife, whether it’s like I don’t know, business, family, friends, dating,whatever. I’ve not been not been good at that. And I think I think you’re probably more like water for ducks backsort of thing. Yeah. I obviously still still there. There’s been there’s been some hardones, but not is I I always think you’ve got to lookat the bright side. Yeah. Of any rejection or failure and alsowhat can you learn from it and that tends to be the bright side. Yeah. There’ll always be a there’ll always bea bright side. Yeah. Lessons, not losses. Mhm.I’ve had that with uh year one, no, year two. Year two child.Yeah. Where the mom’s like like having a go. Yeah.And the kid likes art and all that sort of stuff. And the mom wants it to be a lawyer. She’s seven.Yeah. And the dad like sayingI I the advice I gave was get her to do things the things that sheenjoys. If she really enjoys art or drawing or whatever else like don’tdwindle that flame like ignite it more. You can still do you still need math andEnglish and whatever up to GCSE, but if someone shows that level of talent, Idon’t know what what the artwork’s like, but if she shows that level of talent and that level of enjoyment Mhm.I don’t think she’s going to like being a lawyer. Well, I don’t think she needs to show that much talent at that age becausebut if it’s nurtured properly. Yeah, exactly. Like that’s that’s the thing. Andthis doesn’t I we’re not saying that you shouldn’t have standards for yourchild in terms of in terms of it but the process is the important part notthe outcome. Yeah. Fixate on the journey not the destination. Yeah.Um, you might, but then we’ve talked about the importance of setting goalsand sometimes if you set your goals, you should obviously set a goal to knowwhat you’re aiming for. But you don’t want to focus on on that alone. You wantto focus on the journey, right? Because the more things you get wrong, I was I was talking about this on on the on thetrip actually um but it was in terms of personal development. If you look at uhS&P 500 stock, right, ETF for the last 20, 30 years, you see the start pointand the end point, right? But if you zoom in on the journey, it’s like this.It goes up and it plummets and there’s a point there and it goes back up again and it does that.Yeah. But if you take the average, it’s that. Mhm.Yeah. So you have to be okay. You have to take the highs with the lows. You have to take that journey in order toget to that end point. Now with all of the VAT changes in

Is Private School Worth It? High Costs, Small Classes and the REAL ROI

private schools coming into play, we had to once again visit this topic this year just cuz there’s so much that’schanging. So private schools, they are pretty expensive. So why would anyoneever pay for it? Let’s look at the reasons why parents might choose to send their children to a private school andwhether paying for education actually makes us value it more. It gives your child maybe the chance tobe independent of you know if they do better in the long runif they have that network of people around them in the long run. Remember net worth is your netnet worth. This is something I was going to come on to today actually. I think that’s the main reason to go down theYeah, this is something I was definitely going to come on to. So, I think we got to get your answer from that. Yeah, I it depends. It depends on yourinterpretation of whether you can you can get a better return from puttingthat money into some securities or assets or whether investing in your child’seducation is the best route to a return. And in some cases it will be because if your child is shows amazing potential ina certain regard and they’re that sort of individual that can get the most out of it thenit probably will be a better investment because investing in yourself anduh your skills and your abilities and your network and that kind of thing that can pay big over a long time.So that’s my view. It depends essentially. Yeah, I always say I’m similar. It doesdepend. UmI think I mean to cut a long story short, if youhave the money and it’s not going to make that much of a dent to you, because that is the case for some people, then go for it.Yeah. Um, and generally speaking, those types of people probably understandfinances and stock markets and property. Yeah. Because that’s generally how most people get toYeah. Or they’ve got a very very highpaying job or they’re Yeah. Um, but that’s not always the case.There are people No, I’m saying generally speaking. Yeah. majority there’s a lot of people in the privateschool world where I don’t know the parents own own a big business or something like that and thus they’reable to afford it and they understand the importance of connectionsand networks. Yeah. So this is what what I was going to talk about is the whole networkthing. Um I went to I was curious. I went to thisum property seminar thing. Mhm. A few months ago. And the guy that wastalking was saying how he puts his kids into private school. Um was obviously he’s got tens of millions or whatever inproperty. But he says he doesn’t do it for the education.He does it for the level of people he has accessto. Yeah. Obviously, he’s a property guy, so he’s going to want investors and whateverelse. Yeah. Um, so when they go to like a kid’s birthday, he’s talking to people thatare talking about stocks and finances and property and all that stuff. Whereasit probably it won’t always be the case that that that sort of thing wouldhappen in other schools. No. Yeah. I I I honestly think that’sthat’s their unique advantage there. There is obviously you’ve got umthere’s a subset of the population who put their children through private school because of the smaller classsizes. It’s not that much smaller, is it? It’s quite It can be a little bit likelike as in every little helps, especially those really small ones. Uh,but I don’t think it’s necessarily the rightreason to send your child to a private school. I think the main reason is always connections, who you know or whothey’ll get to know, who they will surround themselves with. Um, andit’s a mindset thing, isn’t it? A lot of the time. Yeah. And and the fact is is that you’ll pay a more for a more expensive networkfor a better network. So if you were a multi-millionaire,you would send your child to Eaton or Harrow or somewhere like that. It’s justhow it would be because it just makes sense. If you send them to Ethan or Harrow or somewhere like that, imaginewho they’re mixing with. Like you might not maybe like the person that comes outof the other side or whatever. Maybe you will, but they will be in,you know, the the people in those networks will be powerfulsomeday and will be able to help you. And that’s why people pay 60,000 a year,send their children to those sort of s let’s say super independents for lack ofa better word. Yeah. What about the schooling though?Because we’ve had uh Ian folks on from Forest and we spoke about VAT last time.Mhm. I think link somewhere. Um he he was saying that the teachers from hisperspective weren’t always that good. Yeah. Um I I I think that’s probably Idon’t think it’s about the schooling. I think it’s more about the people because No, but like in a private school theycan they can hire who they want. Yeah. Whereas in a public school they would beable to hire they they’d have to hire qualified teachers and go throughprocedures and systems and things. Yeah. I think they they’ve got their ownlike perspectives on so so every school will have their ownso private schools will have their own um agenda for hiring and I think they’re looking for they’d be looking for acertain style of certain certain kind of person. Yeah. I think even the hiring is like alot of it is who you know probably in that situation. No. Yeah. There’s a lot of people wholike our English teacher our English teacher uh went to the school and then got hired by the school.Yeah. No, there’s there’s there’s a lot of that in private school and got married at the school like you know there’s a which not you knowwouldn’t be the case really for um the other schools.Yeah. So there is a but I think across the board there’sprobably not that great of a difference between a teacher and a state school orand even educationally there are some state schools that are so good andespecially colleges that are so like six form colleges that are really reallyhigh level and very hard to get into. And then we’ve talked about grammar schools. Obviously, grammar schools giveyou that. Obviously, you’ll be with people who are your your child will be with people who are veryacademically strong because that’s how they they’ve got some form of selection.Um, the higher the selection criteria in a school, the morerenown it will have. So,it’s the scarcity creates value situation essentially. Quick one. Would you pay $25,000 for agarage to fix your car if they refuse to show you what they’d actually done? No. So, why do our tax bills work thatway? Should we not show people what their money actually gets used for andhow much of it goes to things like schools or the NHS and bin collections?I mean, a simple breakdown could boost so much trust. Remember, people don’tvalue free. There’s the term people don’t value free,right? Yeah. So, if you were to book a consultation withsomeone, uh, I don’t know, a design agency or whatever it is,if you were to book that for free compared to if you were to pay £10 toreserve your spot, what do you think the attendance is? Yeah. You’re more likely to show up tothe one that you’ve paid for. You put money on it. Yeah. Yeah. People don’t value free. So, yes,there’s free schools. Yes, there’s NHS, which actually,even though it’s free, is probably very very valued. Yeah. Uhbut I don’t think it should stop people fromlike wanting to, you know, charge for private schools or go to private schools. people go people uh have accessto the NHS and they still go private. Mhm. Yeah. Why it shouldn’t stop it shouldn’t stoppeople from doing those things or this is probably very controversialbut you could charge a nominal amount for your uh state schools.Well, it’s already built in into the tax system. It’s just that people but people don’t see it. That’s thedifference. People don’t see it. If you were to reduce the the tax, I don’t know, like say just for easy figures,100 pound a month. Reduce your everyone’s tax bills by 100 pound a month and everyone pays 100 pound. It’slabeled like Mhm. school funding or whatever it is.It would be valued more. Even if it’s the same amount going to school, the perception is different.That’s the difference. Ibrahim brought up this very point when we was we were just talking about like people notseeing the value of the NHS cuz he’s obviously a doctor. Yeah. And you can see him up there somewhere.Um he he was like it wouldn’t necessarily even take charging people.It’s actually just making people aware of what things cost. Like if you go to a doctor’s office, it should say rightthere in front of people.So people actually know. They’ve started to do that on uh the NHStext message thing where you book a doctor’s appointment like make sure you turn up because this cost the NHS £160or whatever it is. And it says the figure. Yeah. But imagine going anywhere else. Imaginegoing to, I don’t know, a restaurant. Mhm.And you’re like, “Okay, it’s £249.”And there’s no breakdown of any of the services. Or you go get your car repaired. Mhm. And there’s not a breakdown of this.This part was installed. The labor was this much. It’s nope. Nope. It’s just two and a half grand.Like, what other place gets away with that? In our final episode of the season, we

After-School Clubs: Do Extracurricular Activities Cause Burnout?

go into something we’ve not really touched on before, and that is the world of after school clubs. Are they buildingconfidence or just piling on stress? Let’s look at the upsides, such asskills, teamwork, and fun as well as the downsides of cost, time, and let’s faceit, burnout. There are some simple ways to pick one or two clubs that actually fit your child and your schedule.Should we be taking notes from countries like Finland or Korea? Let’s take a look. At Forest, because this is a privateschool, they had a ridiculous number of choirs, orchestras,things like that. Yeah. Again, this comes under the stats I was going to talk about. Uh, Wednesday, I think I ended up doingWednesday sports, isn’t it? Wednesday. Wednesday, I either did athletics or it was like they did extrafootball training after school that I did. And 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 cuz I was in the football teams, I did footballmatches on Saturday and then I’d do a football match with my club team on Sunday. So I found that a lot.Yeah. I don’t remember my time 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. 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 a kind it was it was a nice day. It was a goodgood day because 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. Yeah, I can rest up for Saturday. So like the sport.Saturday I would be depending on what age I was I’ll 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. 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. Got to university. I started DJing and doing other thingsum and then producing music after university just for fun. Uh yeah, I do miss those quite a lot.Yeah. Um also I think parents have it can be a parent ego thing. So theyYeah, maybe. I don’t think my one was but sometimes in sometimes a parent wishesthat they were better at something and that they don’t want their child to Yeah. So they force it on their theirchild. I think that’s sometimes the case with Asian parents cuz they don’t have the maybe they didn’t have theopportunity to do something and then they force their child down a route butyou know I wouldn’t really change that much about Yeah. I think the good thing is thatYeah. Same. I think the good thing is I wasn’t forced to do it. Yeah. It was I actually askedYeah. 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 school just walk into the classroom in year three. Everyone thought I was in troubleand she was like, “Come with me.” Like, “What’s going on?” Then she took me to the music school andI 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 toask necessarily, but a parent should always watch their child and quitecarefully 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 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 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 they seeif they love it And if they love it, then that’s their their thing.Specifically 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 hogwans. So they’re after school clubs. And when Iwas teaching in Korea, it was that was a real problem because I saw I I I taughtsome children that would finish their after school clubs at I’m not even kidding, like 12:00and they’d have to as Yeah, midnight. Well, mid midnight midnight. And they’dthey’d do sometimes like five or six clubs after school and they’d also have to get up early atlike say to be in school at like seven seven something like to be in school at likeseven and then do their homework for the school day like from the previous schoolday. 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, I’m never going to make sure they get it done as well. And it’s societal pressure as because if everyone’s doing it thenyou know you feel like you have to. So taken to extremes it’s a it’s a problem.Well overcheduling yeah middle class trend is to stack too manyactivities on top of each other. So I don’t think evenmiddle class here doesn’t go to that level, but it’s a lot still. It’s a lot.

Outro

Okay, so that brings us to the end of season 4. A big thank you to anyone who has watched or listened to the episodes.Whether this is your first time seeing us or if you’ve been with us for a while, I hope you found some value inthese key takeaways and we’ll see you back here for the start of season 5.The Education Lounge podcast.