Oh it annoys me so much that people can see how broken schools are yet they continue to support the set up. A massive teacher recruitment company was sharing how, to no surprise, there is a shortage of teachers currently and that they’re running a massive campaign to drive more young teachers into education.

What does Syd think of our current education system?

I challenged him. Is that a solution? Driving more individuals to a system that’s broken? Does that solve the problem? But of course, it creates more business for them.

The truth is, I wish UKVS didn’t need to exist. It shouldn’t need to. I wish the schooling system was so amazing, because kids are these phenomenal sponges that are at awe with everything – that tutors, alternative provisions, and online schooling didn’t need to exist. Imagine a system that was so flexible that it allowed flexi-schooling and gave parents more control in what their children were exposed to. Imagine a system tailored to individuals.

So this CEO’s response was that he agreed the system is broken, but millions of children need teachers and that’s what they’re doing. He didn’t reply when I encouraged him to use his position as the CEO of a multimillion pound recruitment company to challenge the system that he’s recruiting for.

He would risk everything.

Something awful that schools tell us is, “we must comply.”

I’ve spoken about my own personal journey in education many times. You can find it in this podcast as well as many others. I did well by the system, but I saw my creativity diminish and I saw how others were marginalised and outcast by a place that’s meant to be a place of safety and learning.

How can a child learn in an environment they don’t feel safe in? Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs clearly indicates the importance of feeling safe before an individual is able to build relationships with self and others and before they are able to reach their full potential. Yet we have things upside down in education. We expect the students to reach their full potential when they’re made to feel not part of the community, when relationships between themselves and teachers are minimal or strained, when there’s anxiety, bullying and low self esteem.

Education and learning should be FOR the child, and not anything else otherwise.

Labelling students as “low-achievers,” “troubled,” having “issues,” or “not willing to comply” serves in pushing the very kids that need the most care. We wouldn’t tolerate this from a workplace – and teachers don’t, with tens of thousands leaving in droves, being so traumatised by the system that they never feel like they wish to remain in education – yet we give children no choice to tolerate this in schools for up to 14 years?!

Imagine what that does to their impressionable minds. No wonder mental health is so poor and suicide is becoming more frequent for young people. Schools are not places of education currently. They are a place of compliance and any deviation from that warrants procedures and processes that outcast students. How scary does that sound when I put it like that?

And the irony is, we need individuals:

to innovate,

to be creative,

to invent,

to come up with solutions to ever new problems,

to be critical thinkers,

to be entrepreneurial,

to be accepting of everyone’s differences,

to lead as peaceful leaders,

to be passionate about causes,

to be ethically driven,

to be able to think out of the box.

Education impacts our lives in many ways.

We need all of these things, yet it’s those individuals who are slipping through the cracks of a broken system, and unlearning everything they were forced to absorb, that become the above.

What does that tell you about schools?

What do you think of the current school system? What else do you think we can do to amplify what’s lacking in education currently? React or comment down below!