Hi, I’m Rée.
Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed. As a student with undiagnosed neurodivergence, learning disabilities, and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned.
In the decades following, I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies. I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy.
Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea, who like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me.
homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale. To speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems to rethink what schools can be. What it should be, when we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources.
In this episode, I speak with Rosie—a trauma recovery coach, HR leader, and professional accountant—about her early memories of growing up in an immigrant family, and the Asian values that were instilled in her. We talk about how her education systems encouraged her development of skills and abilities that could lead to job and financial security, and less on developing her voice and creativity. We also discuss the path that Rosie took towards unlearning limiting expectations, as well as decolonizing some of the harmful perspectives and messaging from society on people of color.
Here is our edited conversation.
Computer-generated Transcript
Accessibility Disclaimer: Below is a computer generated transcript of our conversation. Please note that there are likely very many errors––including the spelling of our names––and may not make sense, especially when taken out of context.
00:00:03:02 – 00:00:03:19 Speaker 1 Hi, I’m.
00:00:03:19 – 00:00:27:10 Speaker 2 Ray. Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed. As a student with undiagnosed neurodivergent learning disabilities and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned. In the decades following, I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies.
00:00:27:12 – 00:00:50:02 Speaker 2 I design curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy. Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea who, like me, had not received adequate attention in school or at home, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me. Homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale.
00:00:50:04 – 00:01:20:12 Speaker 2 To speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems. To rethink what schools can be, what it should be. When we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers, with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources. In this episode, I speak with Rosie, a trauma recovery coach, HR leader, and professional accountant, about her early memories of growing up in an immigrant family and the Asian values that were instilled in her.
00:01:20:13 – 00:01:52:07 Speaker 2 We talk about how her education systems encouraged her development of skills and abilities that could lead to job and financial security, but less on developing her voice and creativity. We also discussed the path that Rosie took towards unlearning limiting expectations, as well as decolonizing some of the harmful perspective and messaging from society on people of color. Here is our edited conversation.
00:01:52:09 – 00:02:20:07 Speaker 1 What kind of challenges? I would say highly anxious. I’m probably a highly anxious adult as well, and I’m learning to be less anxious. I was, I’ve been told, and I could see that being very shy kid in my adulthood now, though, and especially with what I’ve learned about trauma and everything interconnected. I’m not sure it has exactly shyness as opposed to just really fear and not being taught.
00:02:20:13 – 00:02:45:01 Speaker 1 Like what you’re caregivers are for school how to self-regulate. I didn’t get a lot of co regulation from my caregivers for understandable reasons and all that. But yeah, it was always about performance and maybe a little bit of background. I think I come from a pretty model minority. Typical and grant Chinese family. I was born in Hong Kong, but moved to Canada when I was like one.
00:02:45:03 – 00:03:07:23 Speaker 1 So it’s like I was born there pretty much. So it was always about especially back then, like it was in the 80s. So it was always about sitting in, not standing out much, not being different. And one of the ways I learned to do that went through performance. So I was a good as a good kid. And my parents would disagree that I was a good kid.
00:03:08:01 – 00:03:25:12 Speaker 1 I was obedient, I was good, and I was a good kid. In school, I think I was a good student. And, somewhere along the way, I got into what was at that time called the Gifted Program or the Enhanced Learning Program. So smart kid, I guess. And I say that now, not to brag, but because it does, it impact.
00:03:25:14 – 00:03:49:17 Speaker 1 so I have a passion learning journey. I have a lot of opinions about what I got and a good way to my gifted program teachers that I didn’t get in just like regular school. and how that absolutely impacted me even to this day. but I just I definitely feel like both at home and maybe part of this home culture, as well as Western school culture, that it was very shame based.
00:03:49:18 – 00:04:06:18 Speaker 1 So like, I was always trying to avoid shame in school. And so some of the performance wasn’t really to learn anything. It was to get the accolades. which is the opposite of shame. So that’s kind of a broad answer to your question.
00:04:06:20 – 00:04:32:09 Speaker 2 Oh, gosh. Yeah, that’s, so relatable. But I think the difference, I think, in your journey and in mine is that you were actually able to perform the part and, you know, bring home the like, the grades and, things like that. Whereas I was sort of like the creative child. So, you know, my values were vastly un valued.
00:04:32:11 – 00:04:53:04 Speaker 2 in, in school. and so I kind of want to go back to what you said about, how you said you were a good kid. You were a smart kid. and then to the part about you being a good kid, you said. But my parents might disagree. And I’m curious, like, where do you think that kind of dissonance or why?
00:04:53:06 – 00:05:37:05 Speaker 1 Oh, that’s definitely part of my internal Chinese master conflict. even when you’re good, you’re still not good enough. and the false humility that I learned from at least my Chinese family culture where. Oh, like, I still I distinctly remember listening to the aunties, an uncle talking with my parents, and it know it’s like this comparison game of, oh, but your child is so much smarter, or your child is so much better, and this and that, and so could never be just, you know, my kid is great or my kid got an A on this report, or my kid got into the gifted program where I kind of did a piano, trying to put
00:05:37:05 – 00:05:56:06 Speaker 1 the other kid up by putting your own kid down. and so, yeah, I as you can tell, I still haven’t. I learned that narrative. well, I think I was a pretty good kid, but maybe my parents wouldn’t even see it because, I don’t know, they would actually say that. They would probably say, you know, all things considered, you were a good kid.
00:05:56:10 – 00:06:06:21 Speaker 1 But there was also that time and but but this and this and this about you. There’s always a conditional conditionality attached to obedience, performance and even love.
00:06:06:23 – 00:06:40:04 Speaker 2 Yeah. And oh my gosh, I’m jumping like, way ahead to, you know, your education journey. and help Cal rein myself back in. But I want to know how that sort of impacted the different stages in your life. and like, how you made relationships and how you established and maintained friendships or like how that sort of manifested, like even in, in work or, you know, other collaborative spaces.
00:06:40:04 – 00:06:44:06 Speaker 2 I’m wondering if you can glean like or. Yeah.
00:06:44:08 – 00:06:47:21 Speaker 1
00:06:47:23 – 00:07:26:04 Speaker 1 There’s definitely a lot I think one, one aspect of drawn is I think my continual need to seek acceptance. And I mean I’ll just say specific to my situation now that I’m in my 40s and I’ve had therapy and exposure to new ways of thinking, and I’ve taken a lot of educational programs and, and now a certified memory coach now I can look back and say and see and say that, yeah, I didn’t get the unconditional love that every child needs.
00:07:26:06 – 00:07:50:14 Speaker 1 Not because my parents are my parents and not because they didn’t love me. But there is all sorts of between cultural conditioning and just what what they knew to do as parents and what they learned from their parents and so on and so forth, that I think I was never really sure that my parents really wanted me or love me enough, unless I did the next.
00:07:50:16 – 00:08:16:11 Speaker 1 So it’s always about the next thing, and I don’t. I didn’t realize how much I think I did carry that with me into relationships, especially when you combine it with, say, teenagers, right? Where nobody feels accepted and everyone’s always trying to be like the other person. But for sure, in my friendships, like as a teenager and even as an adult, I think I was always, at least unconsciously speaking that unconditional approval.
00:08:16:11 – 00:08:45:11 Speaker 1 Or will they accept me as I am? And only in my, I think, 40s have I started to not give a crap or care a lot less and be like, actually, I never lived long enough to see that. Even when I try my hardest and I feel like I’m only trying really hard to the point of exhaustion. there’s still these people that will not accept me the way I am, or they’ll find some fault to take.
00:08:45:12 – 00:09:08:14 Speaker 1 And so only now am I learning to just be like, screw it. I’m going to be it doesn’t mean I’m going to do whatever without caring what other people think, but to put a lot less weight on that and and learning to live with other people’s disappointment or disagreement with me, which is not something I was taught talking about education.
00:09:08:16 – 00:09:28:22 Speaker 1 I think that’s actually really critical. And it’s something in, Chinese culture that is definitely not taught, because you always end up seeing the other person, not just, you know, oh, they disagree with me. Okay. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. That’s not that was never the rhetoric I had growing up. Oh my gosh. What is your opinion of you?
00:09:29:03 – 00:09:39:16 Speaker 1 It matters so much. And if their opinion is not positive, then I must change my self in order to make their opinion positive about me. But it’s is a.
00:09:39:18 – 00:10:14:14 Speaker 2 So yeah yeah yeah 100%. And you know that really is so relatable. and so there’s this idea of just like constantly curating other people’s perception of you. Right. Going back to that performance, that performative aspect. And, you know, I always so when I went to university, I majored in art. And, the first, I think, art medium that I really enjoyed, for the first time was performance art.
00:10:14:16 – 00:10:48:20 Speaker 2 And, you know, when I look back, I’m like, why did I love performance art, having been such a shy entire life? And I just keep thinking, like, because that idea of people of you performing for other people or, living up to, somebody else’s expectation, you have that audience, right? Like you’ve never not lived your life as if you had an audience and that you were doing the show for them.
00:10:48:22 – 00:11:12:01 Speaker 2 And so it was like that. But it just came naturally. It came so easily. And so like, you know, like you, I went through a lot of, therapy and realized, oh, that piece, right there, so, so, so relatable. And so I kind of wanted to, go back your, education journey and this idea of disagreement.
00:11:12:01 – 00:11:38:00 Speaker 2 Right. And I’m curious for you because for me, I receive the same messaging at home, that I’m not supposed to talk back, that I’m not supposed to disagree, and that any kind of disagreement is seen as disobedience. Right. And there was such a huge clash at school because I was supposed to have an opinion. And you can’t have an opinion if you’re not able to disagree with people.
00:11:38:02 – 00:11:57:11 Speaker 2 So I’m kind of curious how you navigated classes where you were supposed to have an opinion like, you know, and like when you had to write papers or, you know, reading like reports and things like that. Like, do you remember,
00:11:57:13 – 00:12:22:16 Speaker 1 This is really interesting question because I’m not I don’t know if this is true, but my perception of this is that, I wasn’t supposed to have my own opinion or more, maybe more accurately, when expressing my opinion, because I did have to write analysis of and talk about English papers in particular whenever I think. But but I already knew that to get the grade, I had to have the right opinion.
00:12:22:18 – 00:12:43:11 Speaker 1 So I don’t know if I ever felt like I was supposed to express my own opinion or, you know, what my opinion would have been, because I was probably trying to figure out what my opinion should be according to the teacher, and and the portions would be in proper English books like Shakespeare and whatever. All those other names never read other literature back in my day, right?
00:12:43:11 – 00:13:11:17 Speaker 1 Wait a minute. Not okay to read non English literature. so I think it’s a fantastic question and something that, maybe, I mean, you know, I would say that something I didn’t like about education in which I’m no, I’m just now realizing is that they didn’t cultivate difference of opinion. Not really. But like the debate. And we could have debates and we did have debate, but debate was always structured around Western ideas.
00:13:11:18 – 00:13:30:06 Speaker 1 and what was maybe 2 or 3 different westernized opinions from Western philosophers that looked that the Greeks versus the Romans or that sort of stuff. And so none of those were my own opinions, and I don’t even know if I was encouraged to figure out, in my opinion, what that even though.
00:13:30:08 – 00:13:39:00 Speaker 2 Yeah. So I’m wondering, like, when did you find your voice?
00:13:39:02 – 00:14:07:04 Speaker 1 So only recently because in this idea of don’t have your own opinion really carried on through work. And this is also why I’m adamant now about uncovering non-obvious traumas and covert isn’t overt anything, including in capitalism because workplaces really don’t see it and or they deny it, right? They they will say it because your opinion matters as an individual employee.
00:14:07:06 – 00:14:28:04 Speaker 1 and we value everybody and we want different diversity because we want to see a thought, but they don’t really just like schools don’t really they want what will uphold the standard and what they think are the norms that they want to teach you. So in a very practical way, as I got more senior, in particular work, I took my profession.
00:14:28:04 – 00:14:58:21 Speaker 1 At that time, I, was a professional accountant, and I ran like, finance teams. And I noticed the times when I would have a difference of opinion rather like, well, there’s a better way to do it or a different way of thinking about it, or I have an idea and I would like to see this change in the organization, and I at least got to the point and standing firm in my own mind, or what I thought was good or right or true, or what I wanted, but already knowing that they’re not going to accept it or they’re not gonna change it.
00:14:59:02 – 00:15:21:07 Speaker 1 Well, I’ll try a little bit, but then your boss or your boss’s boss will say, oh, well, we already tried that. Or maybe you can write some of the report and business case for it so you don’t. I think you learn over time and as employees to not express the opinion or to only express things that will eventually get accepted, because those are the things to get you promoted.
00:15:21:07 – 00:15:45:03 Speaker 1 And if you say enough dissenting opinion, even if you think it’s for the good of the organization, you just get labeled as an outcast or black sheep and eventually you get fired. So the entire society I think, is built around a construct of we don’t really value differences of opinion. We want differences only to the extent that they can still fit in to our bigger narrative.
00:15:45:05 – 00:15:47:01 Speaker 1 Just so capital and and patriarchy.
00:15:47:03 – 00:16:13:07 Speaker 2 Yeah, 100%. And you know, when I think about and when I visualize what you’re talking about is like, you know, all of these mainstreams are carved out, right? And, these very specific containers are erected. And if we don’t either fit into these containers or follow the same streams that have already been carved out, then there is no place for us.
00:16:13:09 – 00:16:51:20 Speaker 2 we can’t grow our own, like, garden or create our own parts, or we can’t rebuild the whole structure to make it more inclusive. and so I’m kind of like, you know, wondering if we go back a little bit into, like, your education journeys of, like, you know, high school and university and, beyond. where do you think, do you have any stories of, like, you know, authority figures telling you that you don’t fit in?
00:16:51:22 – 00:17:22:09 Speaker 2 kind of aside from, like, in addition, not in addition, but kind of what you were talking about, like, you know, at work, your, being told to, like, write reports a certain way or not have, not have dissenting opinions or have, ways to improve the, prove the structures right. where in school, like from teachers or even administrators?
00:17:22:11 – 00:17:29:05 Speaker 2 do you think you also got a similar message?
00:17:29:07 – 00:17:54:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, I’m not sure this is exactly that, but I do give a couple of points in my educational, story that speak out and maybe two contrasting examples. So and I’m going to digress for a little bit. First I’ll go back to it because I’m still hung up on when you talked about you being creative, and that wasn’t really something that was that.
00:17:54:23 – 00:18:16:22 Speaker 1 I’m paraphrasing that like, you weren’t good at the academic school because you’re creative. I feel like the creative part of me kind of got stifled and threw home and through education, because I never thought of myself, I never fit into the creative category. What is the creative? You must be super talented at dance or music or writing or art or something.
00:18:17:00 – 00:18:46:14 Speaker 1 And I actually love to write when I was a kid, so I had even briefly considered what what if I was a writer and we learned limitations saying, how? Well, how will you ever make money? And therefore you can’t do that. You have to go to even accounting or doctor. And yeah, I really loved writing, and that was encouraged in me when I went to give the class for the first time, which was only grade five, and yeah, there’s been five and six of my teacher was the most like.
00:18:46:14 – 00:19:11:13 Speaker 1 I still remember him to this day. We all loved him and it was I had no structure. I felt like we had no structure to class. And yeah, that was the most fun the first time. I would say have fun learning. But like I said, the projects I got to research, things that I was interested in. I got to write up, and even though the stuff I wrote, I read, I read it again when I was older and like, we’ll have the complete garbage.
00:19:11:15 – 00:19:31:09 Speaker 1 It was fun, and I was proud of myself actually writing because I wrote an eight page story at that, which at that time or that age was like, wow, that’s a long story. and it was super creative out of my mind because I have a very vivid imagination, and I’m pretty sure I remember my teacher laughing as he read it, but I didn’t.
00:19:31:09 – 00:19:57:18 Speaker 1 It wasn’t derogatory, which is like like an adult laughing at a kid. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we came up with this whole thing. So I really loved it. And then fast forward to English class in high school, which is actually still technically the gifted program. High school English. And that that was so much more rigid. And also again, about expectations and meeting the English literature, standards and expectations.
00:19:57:20 – 00:20:24:07 Speaker 1 And I distinctly remember my one of those parent teacher interviews where my English teacher told my parents that I should read more in Canada, The Globe and Mail. So basically comparing two standard newspapers for one was, a little bit more complex English, and one was a little bit more everyday English. And we’re not talking, you know, people magazine, English Review, time magazine or National Geographic.
00:20:24:07 – 00:20:46:11 Speaker 1 We’re talking they’re both perfectly fine newspapers. But yeah, this one is more of a business oriented newspaper and wanted a bit more everyday news each paper. And then ever since then, to my dad in particular, would harp on are you reading the news like reading? Are you reading this paper? Like which newspapers are you describing to you? And it became actually something of a trigger for me to be like, definite, right?
00:20:46:13 – 00:21:15:05 Speaker 1 Even if I wanted to read the news now, I don’t, because it’s become this thing and it’s become a deficiency of mine as it was presented, because I’m not reading or then seeing enough high level English to be able to do whatever or right at whatever, you know, that was considered good quality and acceptable. And, and when it’s fun, I did not have time.
00:21:15:07 – 00:21:40:08 Speaker 1 And what did I really learn as I actually love reading and I like I said, I like writing too. I read plenty of books, and I don’t like really complicated law books, like when they move up or stuff like that. because I liked it. But we, I would just think I remember analyzing Martin Luther King Jr as I have a dream speech, and this is how I said, this is where I think education can really fall down.
00:21:40:10 – 00:22:13:09 Speaker 1 I don’t even know what that speech was about, but I remember using it for obliteration and analogy. And I have to give examples of this is essentially this is a metaphor. That’s what I took away from an entire I have a dream speech, and not until decades later was like Black Lives Matters. I’m like, when I go back to that, I don’t even know what that was about, even though I spent all the time on it, because all we focused on was my white English teacher was if I hadn’t gone with the color of the English strategy, right, like the the way people.
00:22:13:09 – 00:22:43:08 Speaker 1 Right. And we completely missed the forest for the trees. So so yeah. Like that, that really sticks out to me as a failure. You and and in my university days too, like I studied accounting to be an accountant, and I honestly don’t think I used any of what I learned in school. Like, not really. There is some of that technical, sure, but most of what I needed to perform, the work I got from work, not from my academic education.
00:22:43:10 – 00:22:50:07 Speaker 1 So what does that tell you, though? You know what education is for and how it fits in with like.
00:22:50:09 – 00:23:23:19 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. And so I kind of want to ask you about I mean, so powerful, right. these examples are so amazing. And, you know, that kind of wants. I kind of want to ask you a little bit about, when we look back at all of the sort of failures of school, to kind of, you know, focus on really like, like you said, learning the structures or learning like the strategies of writing.
00:23:23:21 – 00:23:56:03 Speaker 2 very detailed things. So much structure and like, you know, they’re almost like, I don’t know if this analogy is going to land, but like, when we think about clothing. Right. you can make you can make clothing to fit the body or you can, like, buy pre-made things or, you know, things like that. You can go the, the opposite direction.
00:23:56:05 – 00:24:25:15 Speaker 2 and I feel like when we’re younger, we’re supposed to sort of have a little more creativity and have a little because I think when we’re younger, we have more divergent thinking ability. and what we’re doing is we’re trying to get our students to conform, and also converge, before I think we’re ready. And I think that kind of, like, prevents our growth in many ways.
00:24:25:17 – 00:25:13:07 Speaker 2 and so I wanted to kind of, ask you a little bit about what do you because I know you do a lot of like deconstructing work now. And I’m wondering, what do you think we can deconstruct in our education systems around how we teach or what we teach? Then that can be a little more, liberatory or a little more expressive, to allow our young people to explore their emotions more, to have more freedom to, go into their imaginations, more, and things like that.
00:25:13:09 – 00:25:18:14 Speaker 1 If I need that, I would bottle it and sell it.
00:25:18:16 – 00:25:49:08 Speaker 1 Oh, okay. I have honestly been pondering that recently, and it wasn’t initially to start with. Education has more to do with work. but I like the term credential ism. It means that we’re getting degrees or certifications or designations for the sake of getting them, or for the sake really, of making more money down the road because they can get the job, the titles, and be accepted into those places and qualified whether or not we’re actually qualified.
00:25:49:10 – 00:26:18:04 Speaker 1 And I have seen firsthand because I have two professional designations that I paid a lot of money for and got a lot of exams and a lot of work. And I have a postgraduate degree involving graduates. I have on paper. I have these things. And yet now when I am making basically a total pivot in my career, midlife and mid-career, I’m right back to feeling completely and unqualified in that and having to fight all my own things.
00:26:18:09 – 00:26:51:12 Speaker 1 Oh, but I don’t have certifications I don’t have. I don’t have a master’s in social work or a psychology or all these things that you would expect from any kind of mental health trauma person. And even just putting aside for the moment how other people see, how do we see ourselves and what is education really for? So this is where I started asking, like I when I think about again how, I don’t I’m not really using any of what I learned in school for the accounting work that I was doing.
00:26:51:14 – 00:27:16:13 Speaker 1 So something that could be directly applicable. And yet most of it wasn’t, and I wasn’t even interested in learning it. It was for the sole purpose of getting a job. And that’s what I see education has become. Or that’s not education. Maybe that’s the problem. It’s become an education system as opposed to education, where we’re not really learning.
00:27:16:15 – 00:27:41:15 Speaker 1 I don’t know, what are we supposed to be learning? Are we learning ways to think? I mean, we should be learning ways to be good human beings and what actually and you know, how to deal with complex situations like Israel and Palestine, like what is the purpose of educating our young people? And is the education system achieving that purpose?
00:27:41:17 – 00:28:06:12 Speaker 1 So before even getting to what I’ll say, technique or methodology and then how we teach, which of course is critically important, but, why are we teaching and what are they supposed to learn somewhere along the way? I’m also not studying the history of economics, which I’m oddly interested in. When I hated economics in university, I hated it, hated it, but that was about graphs and curves.
00:28:06:14 – 00:28:31:00 Speaker 1 And one terrible teacher I had literally just wrote what was on the textbook, on the board in class. And that was the class. Yeah. So I hated it. But now I love learning, and I realize I’ve always loved learning, but I hated school. Yes. But also, there’s a lot to me about this is that so? I feel like the learning curve has come out or been deprioritized.
00:28:31:02 – 00:28:49:17 Speaker 1 And I’m sure all of you know. Prof. Can you try to disagree with me? Can they make their money off of it? But really it’s become another part of the capitalist system where you wait, sometimes illegally, to get your kid into the best school so that they can get the best job and get the most money at the end of the day.
00:28:49:17 – 00:29:14:00 Speaker 1 And I get it like I don’t have blaming them because we all need to survive our social. When our social system has become. But then education in itself has lost whatever the initial intention was. and even the idea of education as the way out of poverty or the way of the future, you know, can’t you get schooling up to a certain grade?
00:29:14:00 – 00:29:31:09 Speaker 1 They have a much better chance of blah, blah blah than other kids? Yes, I believe that. But even that has become capital, has become weaponized as part of capitalism. And it’s you know what? What did that kid even learn in school? And don’t even get me started on who gets a grades and how racism plays a part in that.
00:29:31:09 – 00:29:53:17 Speaker 1 Right? But, just the fact that we’re looking at whether people can tick the box and having gone to certain schools and the best schools and gotten certain grades versus what did they actually learn and how are they better people for it, is that actually that is the point of education and jobs and the economy and industrialization. It’s not to make more money.
00:29:53:17 – 00:30:16:07 Speaker 1 That’s why to come. But when you go back in time, you see it’s actually been about trying to make our lives that humankind better and better for our children. I heard on the news somewhere, I hope I’m not recording until I can’t find it now, but I heard somewhere in the news that for the first time in history, our children in the next generation, their health is worse than their parents generation.
00:30:16:09 – 00:30:37:13 Speaker 1 Every generation. Up until now, it’s been steadily improving. Now it’s getting worse. And to me, that’s just another part of the symptom where maybe we’ve crossed over the curve, across some threshold where you’re doing all these things, doing all these things, building more factories, building our school, pushing more people to get educated. But now I haven’t we’ve lost our way almost.
00:30:37:15 – 00:30:46:14 Speaker 1 And and the education itself is it is no longer about improving our mind. It’s not making us better as human beings. It’s just trying to set us up to get a job.
00:30:46:16 – 00:31:16:06 Speaker 2 Yeah. And, you know, I kind of would argue, if I were to interject, my own opinion, which, you know, I’m still trying to learn how to do and, with people, is that I think it was designed in a way. I think the education systems were designed in a way where, we were training to become economic products.
00:31:16:09 – 00:31:52:20 Speaker 2 Right. And, so, like, I think a lot of the education systems around the world are based on, like, the Prussian model, you know, with, like, centralized education, like, like similar groups, similar age, students are grouped together, teachers all learning exactly the same methods of teaching, like, of standardizing so that, we could dutifully and obediently go off and, you know, turn the economy the way that it was designed.
00:31:52:22 – 00:32:24:00 Speaker 2 And, I never I always think, you know, it was never to help us become smarter or more, you know, more socially justice driven or social change driven or to be, good people. I don’t think that that was the design or the intention of education systems around the world. And, you know, this is probably very jaded.
00:32:24:02 – 00:33:06:11 Speaker 2 and I think, you know, kind of maybe borderline conspiracy, you know, but, you know, I, I do think it was by design that, to keep certain cultures in place, to make sure that there’s always somebody underneath doing all the hard, like, labor work and making sure that the people at the top are always comfortable and always, being guaranteed that they will have enough wealth to make sure that their children are comfortable with that, you know, people at the bottom that their children could just go to, you know, wherever.
00:33:06:13 – 00:33:29:01 Speaker 2 and so, you know, I rarely interject my people, but, you know, as you were saying, that I was just like, I would like to think this way, because, for me, I can always just find additional proof that my theory is true. but.
00:33:29:03 – 00:33:52:07 Speaker 1 Yeah, I, I, I think I love that you’re sharing your opinion, and I think this is what we need. Right. Like, kind of to your point earlier about how were you taught to express your opinion, right? In any given situation? but just for my sake, because I, I think I missed something. What what what exactly was your opinion that you were just thinking about?
00:33:52:10 – 00:33:59:13 Speaker 2 Yeah. So I think the opinion is actually, that.
00:33:59:15 – 00:34:35:02 Speaker 2 We. That education I think you were talking about, like, how there’s education and then there’s, like, education systems and how I think that education systems were designed not to educate us for the purpose of us being like free thinkers or independent thinkers, or to go off and do what we would like to do. but to go off and actually make the economy run, so they’re not filling us for the purpose of, you know, helping us.
00:34:35:02 – 00:34:59:17 Speaker 2 They’re, they’re educating us because they want us to, keep the inherent power structures in place and make sure that the economy turns and turns and works exactly as they designed it. with all of these power structures in place. And so I think, like this podcast, I do really want to.
00:34:59:19 – 00:35:36:00 Speaker 2 Question like your question of like, what is school for? Right. And I think that’s such an important question of, thinking about purpose. Right. What is the purpose? And so if we’re like going back to, understanding or looking at the different things that, could be changed and like in even the work that you’re doing, right, of like helping people see, like their own traumas and, and tracking like the right, the, the visibility.
00:35:36:01 – 00:35:59:21 Speaker 2 Right. A lot of Asian people don’t have, don’t feel like they’re allowed to be visible or they’re allowed to have opinions or, you know, and, but then again, I’m realizing, I’m assuming what kind of work you’re doing. And so, you know, to know, what the work that, that you are doing with changing lenses.
00:35:59:23 – 00:36:25:17 Speaker 1 Thank you for asking. I think, I mean, I just see this conversation we’re having. I think it’s part of the work. It’s literally about what we’ve always seen from a different angle. And then we can look at the same thing but see something different. Yeah. And I chose the name changing lenses because I was inspired by, a decolonization teacher.
00:36:25:20 – 00:36:57:12 Speaker 1 I took this course on decolonizing the Bible and was learning from a black South African woman pastor, and she used a simple but profound analogy of looking at a drop of water to the naked eye and need something to drop water. And if you were to look at it under a microscope, time, whatever magnification you see, you’re looking at the exact same thing, but you see something very different and I think these questions that we’re starting to ask, and I agree, I agree with your opinion on, how education has been designed.
00:36:57:12 – 00:37:23:20 Speaker 1 Totally free, but it didn’t. That’s the thing. I didn’t that way before. Right, right. And I would have just I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’m sure I would definitely get to this. Like, is this the school that move to the right neighborhood? Right. The whole a whole societal structure now up and, get the right place to live so that your kids can go to the right schools and get the right education and get the right job down the road and be set up for success.
00:37:23:22 – 00:37:46:06 Speaker 1 And what is success? What are all these things? And I would really like to start questioning from the ground up, like, what is this life that we’re building for ourselves? Because in a generation now where the earth is falling apart, our kids health is getting worse and our own, job is unstable and what’s considered a good job or not.
00:37:46:06 – 00:38:22:15 Speaker 1 And like, totally changing in the cost of education is inequitable. And yet anyone’s going to get an education. Maybe what we’ve designed for ourselves to keep working out so we but we’re still tweaking things as opposed to redesigning from the ground up. And the more where equity comes into, my work and my work at, I’d like to say that I’m at the intersection of social justice and trauma and work life because work and like to me are not just things like work is a means to living the life that we want to live.
00:38:22:16 – 00:38:49:05 Speaker 1 That’s how it should be. And so we’ll be doing a social justice lens, and we look at all the isms and just even the question, how do we get here? That’s the primary question I’m asking now for all things how to leadership. Right. What is leadership and what is coaching and branding myself as an UN executive coach and executive coach because I never wanted to be an executive and I never wanted to be an executive coach due to the way it was presented.
00:38:49:07 – 00:39:15:04 Speaker 1 But if you could imagine a different way of being a leader, you said you have to be this executive. The executive has been defined and he says we have to do coaching the way coaches have been defined. I only now in my 40s and strong enough to stand, in my opinion, that I can reject the other certification, that I could not get to be a coach, which is more generally accepted, which is what everyone incorporated said.
00:39:15:05 – 00:39:52:00 Speaker 1 Oh, are you certified as this and that, and what level you certify that? And the moment I started taking some of the courses to get back, I already knew that what they were teaching is not what I wanted to learn, and it was going against my own principles around equity and things, and I was just starting to really because I was getting my own education and my own initiative to people who are not officially teachers, they they were the black leaders in the community or indigenous people and Turtle Island and all these things are not treated as education or alongside educators.
00:39:52:01 – 00:40:24:01 Speaker 1 And yet these are people. They are knowledge keepers and wisdom holders and people with different opinions. And if nothing else, changing our learning. These are a different perspective now that I think about it, that in this form of education that you can then form you own opinion on what you take from these different perspectives. When you’re starting to take a different lesson, and then you can think more critically, which I also believe is missing in your rote education system, where you’re just trying to pass a chance to get the great.
00:40:24:03 – 00:40:51:19 Speaker 1 I had the benefit of at least hearing from, living in different places where I get exposed to different education systems. So my dad grew up in Hong Kong with their education system, and he told me that some of the differences between that and my Canadian Western education, where it is a bit more free flowing and there is a little bit more room for creativity, whereas for him it was literally just rote memorization and, you know, copying things out and trying to replicate what was given to you.
00:40:51:21 – 00:41:17:01 Speaker 1 and right now I’m in Australia and then I’m in Sydney, Australia. There is a lot more private schools where you okay? If I put it correctly, you can pay to have a better chance of getting into the better schools because here their system is a combined individual brain school, whatever grade or reading that they get. And so now you’re not just listening to digital aspect of education.
00:41:17:03 – 00:41:43:03 Speaker 1 You’re dependent on your peers and the schools overall. How are they calculated and how much more elitist and then more biased could that be? Because if you’re looking for who are the people around me, they will affect whether or not I get integrated education, right. So I think just questioning can change your mind without without judgment to say, but at least starting to think critically and analyze what does it do?
00:41:43:03 – 00:42:09:19 Speaker 1 What would be the impact? What are the consequences, and how does that influence the way I see people of color, people of different genders, how is it colored, what they’re teaching me and how I hear about Israel and Palestine and China and Cambodia and all these other places. I never used to question those things because they were just given to me as fact, and only now through non formal educational systems.
00:42:10:01 – 00:42:15:18 Speaker 1 And I’m starting to hear and see things differently. It completely changed my worldview.
00:42:15:20 – 00:42:47:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, that is really amazing. I kind of want to ask you, in this last stretch about, you know, you’re studying economics. You’re learning it, because you enjoy it now and like the work that you’re doing to kind of, you know, redistribute power equitably. and, you know, doing the work of, allowing people to come in to their own opinions, and think critically and independently for themselves.
00:42:47:18 – 00:43:24:02 Speaker 2 and even like the things that you’re doing to, you know, reconsider, like your own conditioning of like, no, I don’t need to get the credentials that people think I need to do the work that I want to do, and that I see very confidently. Right. I would love to know, like looking at the economy and where we’re headed and how we in some parts of the world are doing the work to, you know, bring to make power more evenly distributed.
00:43:24:02 – 00:43:58:00 Speaker 2 However, you know, we want to define that, how do you see, schools or how we educate our young people? What is do you think is the ideal way to go about arranging a system that can allow them to become independent thinkers and hold equal power as everyone else?
00:43:58:01 – 00:44:25:23 Speaker 1 I just read an article for a career counseling magazine that I think would also be applicable to how we treat our students, and that are very young people, because the article is talking about labels and judgments and how we term our, individual issues, which may or may not relate to trauma, but these are the baggage that we all carry with us.
00:44:26:00 – 00:45:07:23 Speaker 1 How that ends up being stigmatized and turned into performance issues. And I can see that happening in schools as well. we see it. I don’t know this first hand, but, I know just from learning now, but, the perceptions of in particular black youth in America and whether they’re considered good students or not, the students, so many systemic things that have contributed to whether they can get into the neighborhoods with the right schools and then how they’re treated and how they’re spoken to, this goes way beyond, in my opinion, this is way beyond just competency of what grade they can get.
00:45:08:00 – 00:45:35:09 Speaker 1 I think we need to look at. How we’re teaching, who’s learning and and first and foremost, stop judging people. And to start, to learn how our words can be traumatizing. Not because they intended that way, but because of how the person can receive it. And that goes beyond whether you know that there’s too many things that happen.
00:45:35:11 – 00:46:11:14 Speaker 1 I think there’s some question right now about is trauma being too overused? I say no because the same people are asking that are the ones you’re like, oh, women are too sensitive just because there’s no any sexual activity going on. Like that’s always been happening. So when we start to get a bigger and more accurate picture of what trauma is of, how words, how behaviors impact individuals, in particular children, and whether or not it’s considered trauma, just that infection, then everything afterwards.
00:46:11:19 – 00:46:33:18 Speaker 1 Like here’s something that I can remember that indicates this is a sign of trauma, because I still remember this from grade four, where I wrote a little story that I was so proud of, about a lot of the historical fiction. And it’s in a family goes on a picnic in the forest. But I made a mistake because I said that they had, you know, chocolate pudding with them.
00:46:33:18 – 00:46:56:00 Speaker 1 And many of them said Jell-O pudding. I really put two and two together. They didn’t have fridges and Jell-O and pudding that you’ve had taken a picnic back in the 18. Whatever at the top of. And and my teacher said loud enough for the class to hear how how could I do like, of course, there’s no proof of pudding, and I don’t remember the exact words.
00:46:56:00 – 00:47:14:11 Speaker 1 I just remember how I felt. And then she said, it’s only because I have high expectations of you that I say this like for your own good, which is super reminiscent of all like, Chinese stuff ever. Like it’s only for your own good that I point out how ugly you are or how fat you are. Or you know all this stuff, right?
00:47:14:11 – 00:47:46:05 Speaker 1 It’s it’s because I love you that I tell you how much you suck. So that kind of stuff. I’m not saying that I happens now a lot in school, but I think there’s many perverse, like, less obvious ways that kids will feel judged. or they’re just not not encouraged, not supported enough. And those who start taking will label even neurodivergent potentially as a label, because I know some people who are know divergent that it becomes their identity or becomes a neurodivergent.
00:47:46:07 – 00:48:06:23 Speaker 1 I can or I can’t do something. And, so people are listening. It’s not at all am I saying that there’s no impact or that, that’s not a legitimate thing. It actually is. It’s when people weaponize that, or turn that against an individual, and then it becomes like, oh, I must admit, I’m like, oh, it’s because Rey is here.
00:48:07:01 – 00:48:55:05 Speaker 1 That’s why she is the way she is and becomes a label. This is an acknowledgment and a recognition. So what I hope most for people is for the people who are marginalized to understand that they haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not their fault. What’s wrong with what’s happening to them, not them themselves as people. And then for the people on the other side of like the people with the power and the privilege to get allow for the possibility that it’s way more complicated than they think, and to start to start looking much further beneath the surface and to start giving people chances without, assigning judgment and believing things about students or trying to make
00:48:55:05 – 00:49:18:22 Speaker 1 them fit into the education model and the textbooks and everything else that’s already there, when in fact they’re meant to learn freely and go through experiential learning, or maybe learn from elders and you verbally and not just believe that they know textbooks, which especially in the US, are being censored. They know.
00:49:19:00 – 00:49:27:21 Speaker 2 Thank you so much for listening. If any part of this episode resonated with you, please connect with us on social media at the links in the show notes. Until next time.