My interview with Tom Rogers for Teacher Talk Radio

Is SLANT fascism?

I enjoy interviews. Because you don’t really have to prepare if you’re being asked about something you care about, and because it’s nice to be asked about something that matters to you. And it’s always nice to be asked to talk in the first place.

A few months back I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by the omnipresent social media magnate Tom Rogers, and we had a broad discussion about behaviour, the educational landscape, and why expecting kids to behave doesn’t actually make you a fascist, although I suppose you could still be one if you wanted.

It’s odd, isn’t it? This presumption that some people have that anyone who wants to direct the behaviour of others must be motivated by dark triad personalities. We don’t ask children to behave because we enjoy telling them what to do- that should probably preclude you from the right to run classrooms- but because we love them. Or to put it another way, if we didn't insist upon certain behaviours from children, we would be abandoning them to self-guided learning and non-learning, bullying, clamour and distraction. Ironically, if we don’t have boundaries set with love, then we have no safety, dignity or calm. We don’t have an environment where children can learn and flourish and grow particularly well. I say ironically because advocates against school rules, boundaries, consequences and so on, frequently (and loudly) profess to be interested in the welfare of children. But any approach that favours self directed behaviour, guarantees the opposite. In their efforts to demonstrate how compassionate they are, they abandon children to chaotic circumstances.

Anyway, you can watch or listen to it here. Enjoy.

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