20. #BecauseICan: Resilience in schools

Speaker A: So, guys, everybody, welcome back to the, um, to the. Because I Can podcast. Uh, really looking forward to this particular episode. We've got a friend of mine. I think I can call you a friend, Richard. A friend of mine, Richard Gerber, who. Who some of you will. Will know for his infamy, talking about change and as a. As a former educationalist and. And actually, you know, Richard and I met m. Essentially through keynote speaking. It's kind of what we both do for a living. Um, but. But actually, we sort of. Our minds came together really talking about young people, schools, resilience, um, and the foundation. And in fact, I sort of called Richard for help because I found it so frustrating trying to get into schools and trying to talk to young people about the importance of becoming more resilient for the future. Uh, but I didn't know where else to go, so I naturally thought, I'm just going to pick up the phone to Richard. So, uh, I've essentially bullied him into being on this podcast today. But. But here he is. So, Richard, thank you ever so much, uh, for. For joining us.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure, Tim. And just. It just struck me, the whole friend introduction thing. I think we are friends, just so you know. But it flashbacks. Right. And you'll appreciate this given your previous life. Um, a few years ago, I was doing a gig in Pakistan, and the Prime Minister was on stage of. Pakistan was on stage before me, and he was in hot water, which is not unusual for a prime minister in Pakistan. And it was a massive education event. And he had been in hot water because three or four days before, it had been discovered that he'd been embezzling money out of the education budget. Right. So he'd been going down, you can imagine, 2000.

Speaker A: They're not reasonably expanded in certain parts.

Speaker B: Exactly right. So there are 2,000 fuming educators listening to the prime minister. You know, that vibe that people will know if they've ever been to an event or done what we do. You know, the room. He's lost the room. Right. And at that point I thought, I'm not sure how I get this back. But he made it worse because he then had to introduce me. And he said, now it's my great honor to introduce you to a dear friend of mine, Richard Gerver. Imagine how that went. But I'd never met him before. But anyway, you and I are definitely friends.

Speaker A: Did you lead by saying, uh, thank you very much, Mr. Promise we're not friends?

Speaker B: Yeah. I did actually say to the audience, I want you all to know now he's gone. I've never met him before. There was a cheer. I won the audience back. We were okay.

Speaker A: Danger D. Dangerous honesty.

Speaker B: Oh, God.

Speaker A: Which I, I, I guess I wanted to talk to you on. Uh, we talk all the time. But I want to talk to you on the podcast because I wanted other people to hear this because, uh, as I've said to you before, we seem to have created a society at the moment where it's become quite selfish. Right. Uh, am I resilient? How do I become more resilient? Where's my hand out? I've got problems. What are you doing for me? And I'm obviously not taking away from anybody that needs help and assistance and they should actually get that. But I guess my big thing and where because I can came from was really about being a part of your own solution. And I found it increasingly frustrating that to talk about kind of what I would call as critical life skills, really, it seems to be kind of not acceptable within this, within the school curriculum because it doesn't, ah, bit the mold. Um, and I guess I wanted, well, originally, when I first spoke to you, to get your sort of take on that. Whether you say it's important obviously changes your thing. But, but also, yeah, you're a former headmaster at the end of the day, and it's, I want to say, am I missing the point or actually, does somebody with your background think that we need to be talking to young people about becoming a part of their own solution and becoming more resilient?

Speaker B: I think, I think it's absolutely core. I don't think it's ever been more important, Tim. Um, and if you actually look at it, the great crass mistake and error that we're seeing, particularly in developed countries and their education policy, is they are living exactly the life of people who end up, um, in real trouble with resilience because they are mistakenly believing that if we just get better at doing what we've always done, if we just become more efficient, then everything will be okay. Uh, what we've got is we're still living in a society where policymakers, particularly around education, are seeing a complex world. They're seeing complex generations of young people coming into education for a whole variety of reasons. You know, technology, the residue of what happened during COVID and lockdowns, the mental health problems that all of those things are bringing to young people. And their view is, well, if we just perfect what we've always done, if we just do what we've always done but more efficiently, things will Be okay. So the focus in education policy, particularly in the developed world, has been on, um, we just need to get more kids more qualified to get them through exams in bigger numbers. Because you know that that is the, because that's always been the answer. And so what's happened is that schools have, and I don't blame schools a lot of the time for this, right. Have jettisoned so much of the stuff that really matters because all of their time, all of that valuable oxygen is being sucked up by having to deliver the syllabus to get kids prepared for exams, tests, acquiring qualifications. And of course we've ended up in the perfect storm because we've got school communities now more focused than ever, uh, on academic development. And I'm not saying academic, it's not an either or, I'm just. But that's all, that's almost 100% of the focus at uh, just the time young people coming through into the education system are dealing with probably a more complex environment on a growing up level than any generation before them. And so we've kind of hit this perfect storm and it is why we have got to put resilience at ah, front and center of everything we're doing with our young people.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, it's almost as though the feeling I get right from the outside looking in and trying to help is if we were. Obviously we both talk to big corporate businesses, right. On a daily basis. And one of the things I always say to people is don't try and lead with your KPIs, your key performance indicators. All they are is the stopwatch. They let you know what's happening. That's it. And it seems to me as though education at the moment, and again, I don't think it's the school's fault, it's a product of the system. But it seems to me as though we're kind of leading with the KPIs. And by that what I mean is the school is being held accountable to the numbers, to the spreadsheet, to the. And I'm sure, I'm absolutely sure that the intention around creating that in the first place was good. It was a way of trying to measure the performance of the school. But what we're not doing is measuring the performance of the young people. And you know, in the military we always used to talk about it in order to, I'm doing this in order to achieve that. And surely the outcome of education has to be to create people capable of surviving in the world that's coming next. Because at the End of the day, that that's the reality. So therefore we need to be, in my view, equipping them with the skills and to bounce and to come back again. And if we don't teach them how to fall over and bounce back up again or keep going, then we're setting it, surely we're setting them up to a fail at some point.

Speaker B: There's two things to that. You're absolutely right. Um, I always say when I'm working in the education sector and particularly with leaders and particularly leaders who are looking to create vision and values for their schools, trusts or communities, first question I always ask them is what do you want your young people to look like as human beings when they leave you? Right? Whether you're a primary school, elementary phase, whether you're secondary, whether you're a college, whether you're a university, what do you want your young people to look like as human beings when they leave you? In other words, could they walk into um, a college or could they walk into a job application or interview? And, and weirdly people would go, oh, you must have been educated at X because of your attitudes, your behaviors, your personality, your preparedness, your resilience, your ability to collaborate, teamwork, problem solve, all of those things which I can imagine in a way is exactly, and you know, I'm just assuming exactly the way military training would go about. This is the kind of product, this is what these human beings need to look like when they come through training. They, in order to be able to thrive in a military context. Now the interesting thing is within education we just don't do that. We assume, we assume way too much. We assume children will acquire resilience, we assume they will acquire teamwork abilities, we assume they'll be able to problem solve, to be entrepreneurial and collaborative. And you and I both know that while some people may be born with those conditions, some may be lucky enough to in their private lives to experience the conditions that help those skills and attributes develop.

Speaker A: There's a massive irony, isn't there, that we allow everybody to take every available life hack, we take every available shortcut and make everything as easy as is humanly possible and then wonder why we, why we sort of don't develop resilience. And actually the reality is as we go forwards, if you're leaving school at whatever age, it doesn't matter, you're going to fail, right? That's the reality of m it. And some things you're going to win and sometimes you're going to lose and occasionally going forward is going to seem

Speaker B: really difficult, uh, I mean, just to build on that. Sorry Tim. To build on that. You know, one of the things I've always said to educators and students is learning is tough, right? Learning is tough. It has to be. Because the simple inconvenient truth is you learn nothing new by getting something, right. You only ever learn something new from the point of a mistake or the realization you, you don't know something, you can't do something, right. Which requires you to be able to bounce back. And the problem is that we're seeing, and you and I have both seen it at the corporate end, so at the end of that formal learning journey, right? And you see it in education all the time. What you're finding is people come across a problem or a challenge or something they don't know how to do or can't do and they think they failed, they give up, they melt into a kind of uh, period of self doubt imposter syndrome and they wait for somebody to come and help them sort it out. Right? If we're to. Can you imagine the learning potential lifelong of people that come through the education system knowing that at that moment of stress, at that moment of failure, at that moment of challenge, they actually, the psychology is, oh my God, this is the moment I am going to evolve and develop the power of what we could do in terms of unleashing human potential.

Speaker A: I think I read as one of Matthew say's books is, I'm probably about to spectacularly misquote, um, but I think it was bounce and basically. But he was saying they did a study didn't. And they looked into, into. And the kids that had been uh, old in their year and it was about sport actually but the old in their year at school rarely went on to make national level teams purely because they'd always been the best. So they'd never struggled, they'd never had to train hard, they'd always been bigger or stronger or, and I'm obviously sort of sweeping but, but therefore actually when they were suddenly in that really narrow pool at the top of the top of the pyramid where everybody trained hard and everybody was of a certain size or power or speed or whatever it is you need, um, they then kind of really, really struggled and there was a whole thing as well about um, I'm sure it's like younger siblings and where the younger siblings and essentially had to strive to be faster, stronger, etc. To catch up with their older siblings later in life. Statistically more of them made the, made the kind of national team at uh, whatever it was purely because their entire education in its widest context, they had to struggle to battle, to come on. So they learned not to quit and they'd learn to, to find a way, you know, round the problem, if that makes sense, to enhance their own performance and their own skills.

Speaker B: Exactly right. And, and I think, you know, again, I don't know about you, but we've um, we've both in our lives met some pretty extraordinary people with extraordinary journeys and stories to tell. What is almost universal about all of them is that somewhere in their early lives, one reason or another, they have overcome adversity.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and when I look at my life now, I was the eldest of two, born into a, uh, on the pet, on surface, a very comfortable middle class family. But at a very young age my parents went through a spectacularly messy divorce. Now what that did for me helped me calibrate the context of challenge and problem. Because I remember even as a child looking at the issues I was facing in school thinking, nah, not being able to do this maths question is not a problem. Being able to survive a crashing row at home as a child and keep my brother together and comp. That is overcoming a problem. And um, through my life I've used that context to help me put things into perspective. And I think that we're living it with a generation of young people today who are not getting the experience, insight or opportunity to contextualize the issues they're dealing with. I don't want to be crass and kind of superficial about it, but when they look on, um, TikTok at somebody their age who's got more money or a faster car or trout pow. To your lips, they, they immediately, you know, they, it's like, uh. And I think, I think we've got to help young people contextualize what challenge is and what adversity is.

Speaker A: But I think, but I think as well, and what goes hand in hand with that, I think is we're just not, we're, we're sort of legislating our way out of all of the problems. So we're handing labels out everywhere. So rather than helping somebody overcome adversity, what we're saying is, oh, uh, you've got this, wherever this may be. And, and I don't want to name. We all know what I'm talking about. I don't want to name it because the next thing is it'll go mad. But whatever that label might be, whether it's connected to mental health, physical health, whatever it might be, and we go, oh, Richard, you've got this. And uh, what then happens is Richard goes, oh, it's not my fault, I've got this. Now you, you may still have that, Richard, actually, but you're going to have that forever. So actually what we've got to do is help you find a way around the problem, not give you an excuse to give up. And, and, and my fear at the minute is we're handing out excuses to give up, whereas there's got to be a way for us to kind of unlabel some of this stuff and say, okay, so you're not very good at that, but maybe you are quite good at this and how do we use that to your strength and how do we use this to overcome that? Back to this point about sort of being a part of your own solution rather than going, oh, uh, here's the reason you can't do that. Uh, I was in a meeting just before lockdown and was fascinating. We talk about elite level sport and essentially elite level sport is not inspiring young people. Right. And, and the reason for that is back to your, your, we were joking about 5K times and, and the length of a podcast, but is essentially what happens. And I again, blanket terms. Um, right. But young people at the moment sit at home and they watch whoever it is do 5km in 14 minutes or whatever. The current world record is Liz McColgan or whatever. And, and, and, and, and they go, I could never do that. So rather than sitting there and going, wow, if I trained really hard, if I ate properly, slept properly, don't drink, if I do that, I could actually. We're looking at that and we're going, that's too quick for me. I can never do that. So they're not doing it. So, so ironically, we're not pulling young people through. And I want my fear, uh, is that we're doing the kind of same thing in the education system where people go, well that's really difficult, I can't do that. And then what we do is hand them a label. Uh, you're this, you're that. Oh, well, there's my perfect excuse, then I'll give up. And, and that's. It's a knock on effect. It's just, you use the expression it's a perfect storm, it's no. 1 factor. It's all of those things coming together. And my biggest fear is just at the one moment when pick your disaster. Geopolitics at the moment is absolute chaos. Um, people, I think people don't realize potentially how dangerous not being sufficient with their own food production is with what's happening across Europe at the moment. In places like Ukraine, you've got climate change, but literally pick your disaster. All of those things are going to require the next generation and the generations that follow to be super resilient and be upskilled. And, um, my fear is that we're robbing them of the opportunity to do that.

Speaker B: I think you're absolutely right. And it goes back to something I said before, which is not just that, but we're also teaching them, wrongly, that as long as they do more of what they've always done, or what we've always done, somehow it'll work out in the end. We've got to. We've got to create generations of people that have the courage to challenge, to question, to do new stuff, to. There's a wonderful. A few years ago, I interviewed an amazing man called Barry Barish, who was the 2017 Nobel Prize winner for physics. And I said to him, what were you looking for in the people that you brought into? Because I'd never met a Nobel Prize winning scientist before. I said, how did you get together a team of people that went on to shatter a paradigm and create what you created? He said, richard, it's one of the most powerful, potent, beautiful, provocative things I've ever heard anyone say. He said, richard, what I was looking for were people that have the courage to challenge the beauty of the proof. So how do we create generations of young people that have the courage to challenge the beauty of the proof? Because what we can't do is have them sat there going, yeah, the climate's in trouble. Yeah, What I'll. What I'll do is build myself a house on a higher hill, you know?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: What we've got to do is get people to go, no, this is hard graft. And it's going to require chat and it's going to require us out of our comfort zone and it's going to require us to do things differently and ask searching and challenging questions. And I think in a way, the problem with education always has been and continues to be, it's kind of a compliance culture in terms of this is the set knowledge, this is what you need to know, this is how you need to know it. Prove to me when you've got it and I'll reward you for it. So then what happens is we create a culture of people who basically rely on somebody who is more hierarchically senior, older, superior, has higher level qualifications, whatever it might be. And so we live in that culture where people go, whatever label you put on me, whatever descriptor you give me, there'll be somebody somewhere who will come along and tell me what to do and how to do it. And actually we can't live that way anymore future generate, we can't let alone future generations and we have got to create generations of people that think for themselves, challenge, understand the power of curiosity and learning and realize that it's only in that moment of failure, adversity that you are about to discover something new about yourself, about the people around you or, or about the world you live in.

Speaker A: And that's absolutely where my point around selfishness picks up, you know, because actually we do that as a team because for me resilience is a team sport, it always has been. And it's about enabling resilience in other people so that actually when we're studying together, when we're working stuff out together, when you get it wrong and can't see the answer and I help. And then the following day when that's the other way around, um, and we just don't seem to be working together as a pack or a team and that our educational system doesn't seem to be kind of, you know, I've got this thing about tribe, you know, people, we're pack animals, we need to be part of a tribe and we, we are so much more effective kind of together and, and even at work at the minute, it's fascinating. It was instant, the day, I'll be careful how I explain it. But essentially somebody fairly new to the workplace said I'm not going to finish this piece of work because I want to go to the gym at 6:00'. Clock. Uh, so I'll do it when I get home later at 9 o'. Clock. And on the surface you think, well that's okay, that's modern hybrid working systems, no problem, happy with that. But of course that person hadn't considered the effect of the person who's then got to read it at ah, nine o' clock at night. Yeah. So when somebody else said well actually that's not brilliant for me because uh, although I'm more senior, I've then got to go on at 9 o' clock tonight so that you can go to the gym at 6 o' clock and then I'm working at midnight and I've got two kids as well, so m. It's all very selfish and we don't seem to be considering the kind of knock on effect of working together, of looking after each other.

Speaker B: Yeah. And again you know, you look at sadly what's happened in schools, a lot of the work around collaboration, um, has kind of been bled away because we're now in such high stakes scenarios over test results and qualifications. What we're teaching children is that education and learning is a solo pursuit.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So is it any wonder that when they come out of the education system, they regard their lives as a solo pursuit? We know inherently that because of all of the impact of digital technologies and all that stuff that we've talked about. Right. We know inherently that young people are more self centered than they have been before. But then what we're doing is teaching them that. It's like the old Gordon Gekko thing, greed is good, but in this instance, it's all about you. It's all about your, you know, and actually collaboration is kind of cheating. So don't do that. Yeah. Uh, then they come through the education system and one of the most common things you and I hear from the, the corporates and organizations we work with is these people don't know how to collaborate. You go, well, no one's taught them it's not.

Speaker A: But it's not. They don't know how to. It wouldn't occur them to collaborate. That's that.

Speaker B: Great point.

Speaker A: Yeah, great point. It wouldn't even cross their mind to go, actually, we're much stronger together. So where do we, where do we work? You, um, know, one of my favorite expressions is covering each other's blind spots. You know, let's have a team where actually I'm quite good at this, but I'm terrible at that. But you're brilliant at that and quite good at this. So actually together we cover up, we sort of COVID our blind spots. And, and to me, that's got to be the answer. Problem solving, challenging kids, making them go a yard further than they went before. You know, next year, the foundation, the Sandstone foundation, we're going to set up, um, a set of, because I can, challenges. And um, we're going to try and we're going to talk to young Morgan, who's part of our cruise. You've met Morgan. And we're going to try and challenge schools, young people to set themselves something to do. I don't care what it is, something that stretches themselves just a little bit further to see what it's like to go one step more, to try a little bit harder, uh, and maybe, maybe fail initially, but then maybe succeed afterwards and see where that, see where that.

Speaker B: And by the way, you know, you mentioned Morgan, who is, who is an Absolute credit to her generation, uh, you know, the ones down from us. One of the things that really fascinates me about that is as she's come through, because she's now in the workplace, she's come through a really good education system. Right. We need to be talking to those young people about what is it you wish we'd done as an education system? What are you finding now about the world beyond education? And you think, I wasn't prepared for that? I didn't have that skill set. I wasn't given the opportunity to develop those attitudes and attributes. And actually by working more with young people. I think one of the really powerful things for me about Sandstone Tim, and the vision and direction you're going in is that you're collaborating too. This is about. But we want to hear your voice. For us to be able to develop and deliver the work we need to develop and deliver for you, we need to work with you. And that really excites me.

Speaker A: Yeah, We've had some interesting conversations, you know, ones that surprise me, where almost kind of, I say me, as our generation, been held account, uh, been held accountable, but not for the things I thought I was going to be held accountable for, you know, and essentially sort of people saying things like what? You knew we would be isolated. You knew that we wouldn't. We would find difficult to socially interrupt. Why didn't you sort of tell us that? You know, why. Why didn't you stop us being our own worst enemies? You've got this experience. You've kind of just let us do what we wanted to do, almost knowing that wasn't going to work. You know what? So for me, I found that. I found that quite fascinating. It's almost 180 degrees, perhaps from the. Maybe the perception. So, yeah, maybe we need to ask.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think. And, uh, and that is part of the crucial thing about the future development of education. We need to be stopping to. We need stop to stop second guessing what we think young people need. And ask them, and particularly those that are fresh out the system and starting to dip their toe and experience the world beyond education, we need to be asking them, you know, what, what can we help you with? What should we have helped you with? How do we reverse engineer that for future generations? And at the heart of all of that is exactly what you've just said. It's relational stuff. It's around resilience. It's around the ability to know how to collaborate, how to admit without feeling weak or vulnerable or a failure, that you've got weaknesses and other people have got strengths. You know, one of the cause for me about collaborative, uh, approaches is we have to have the confidence as individuals to go, I'm so glad I'm working with you because I'm rubbish at that, uh, point. But you're brilliant.

Speaker A: Yeah, perfect. And actually that's, and I think as well, the reality is that's where security comes. That's where security comes from, you know, that knowing somebody's got your back, essentially. Um, and to me that's where an actual sense of security comes from. And I guess I've been fortunate, uh, the teams I've been involved with, you know, through my career. But the sense of security, the sense of identity comes from belonging. And by belonging to, you feel secure. Ah. And actually we read an article the other day, I think it was the Times, basically saying that the current generation is without question the most insecure generation of all time. And I suspect, and, uh, when we talk about perhaps more my lane, high pressure situations and making decisions under pressure, etcetera, People don't necessarily want the answer. What they want is reassurance and direction. And I wonder whether we're guilty of not providing that reassurance and direction. So creating a lane for young people to operate it and to say, look, I want you to explore, I want you to go left and right, but there's a cliff over here and there's a forest over here. So how about we stay in that lane for a minute and then whilst with it, whilst, uh, you're maneuvering within the lane, let me provide you with some reassurance and some guidance to find your feet. And whilst you're doing that, which bits are you missing and how can we help? So actually generations then work together to solve whatever problem is that comes next. Whereas, uh, my fear is handing out the labels and taking our hands completely off, we're actually not providing reassurance and direction which ultimately leads to insecurity, which ultimately creates more. The problem. Exactly the problem that we're looking at. Maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker B: No, I don't think you are. I think you're absolutely right. And I, I think that dependency and compliance culture is where we're struggling. You know, that dependency thing. Oh, somebody else will solve it. And if I give them my problem, they'll deal with it for me, um, if I have a label that gives me a reason to feel the way I do, make me better, it doesn't give me a strategy. You talked about that really powerfully a few minutes ago. You're not giving me A strategy to understand the power of what, uh, my label means or what I have or my condition and how I can use that strength to. To. To support my weaknesses or to find somebody who actually plugs the gap for me. Their strength is where my weak. You know, we talked before about, you know, Richard Branson. Richard Branson, who has dyscalcula and dyslexia, right. His genius is in branding, marketing, all of those sorts of things. He openly will tell you he doesn't really look, doesn't understand a spreadsheet because of his labels, which he got later in life. But what he inherently knew was if I employ the best people, people in the world at the stuff I'm rubbish at, I'm gonna build an unbelievable operation.

Speaker A: Richard. I always joke my. My wife can frequently be said. I was about to say my wife frequently tells me she hates me, which she does, but that's a completely separate story. But. But she quite regularly says to me, you know, I hate you. You're good at everything you do. And I say to her, no, no, no, no, no. I only do the things I'm good at, which is. Which is fundamentally different. And therefore. Therefore do my very best to surround myself with people that are much better at the things I'm not very good at.

Speaker B: Um, Exactly. Right. And I think that is. Exactly. But it all comes down to our starting point, which is resilience, which is linked to self confidence, which is the ability to be curious and the ability to learn. And unless we instill in young people those qualities, all we can ever do is. Is drill them. That's all we can do. We can drill them. We cannot expect them to thrive. Then when the timetable's gone, the syllabus has disappeared, things aren't. There's no certain, uh, part, you know, the pathway.

Speaker A: They're working from home with no guidance. Again, this is not a chat about geography and whether you should or shouldn't be at home, but you're sat at home on your own with. With nobody around you to help you or guide you.

Speaker B: But yeah, isn't that interesting? Because one of the things that our generations have instinctively done, particularly coming through that phase of COVID The increase of working from home, is we have sought out relationships with each other. We've connected, had con. Let's meet, right? So you know what I mean? Let's have a coffee, let's go and let's meet. Let's spend time talking without necessarily a fixed agenda. Because what we understand instinctively is the more you learn about each other, a. The More you trust one another, but two, you understand each other's nuances, strengths, weaknesses, how you can feed off one. Our friendship has come out of exactly that.

Speaker A: Well, I was going to say, Richard, that, that. But that's exactly why, why we're here.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because I looked at something, I tried something, uh, I, uh, thought I knew how to do it. I still believe what we're doing is the right thing, but I couldn't make it happen. So I sought, uh, so. So I sought out somebody that I thought m. Maybe does know how to do it, has got experience of it and, and it was like, please give me that guidance. And that's literally how our conversation started. He's like, this isn't working for me, but I'm passionate about it. How do I make it work? Let's find somebody that can help me. And that's, to me, that's a strength, not a weakness, surely. Uh, yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, absolutely. Right. And then of course, you know, I go, I've got to connect because I love connecting people. Because then what I find out, the simple truth is I have learned more from the people I've connected with than ever I've given them. And I mean that all the way back to an educator. Right. When I started teaching in an area of social deprivation, I learned more from the students I taught than ever I taught them. And I think it's that willingness and confidence to be open ended and interactive.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree and we'll wrap this up in a minute, but just, I'm going to put an appeal out there to anybody listening to this. If you want the foundation to come into a school and run a presentation on resilience, we've got loads of ways of doing it. We use Everest, we use Dakar rallies, we do all sorts of weird and wonderful ways of making it engaging. We're even happy to come and talk to teachers if we need to, to help them understand some of the toolkits we use around resilience. So please remove the barriers, stop saying no, and um, find a reason to allow us to come and help you. That's kind of all I'm asking. And I guess for me, having spoken with Richard, and I'm really grateful of his time, um, uh, we are on the right course. This is important and it has to happen. So please help us find ways to make this happen rather than finding excuses as to why it can't be a part of the solution. Richard, any kind of final thoughts from you before I wrap this up?

Speaker B: Um, I just want to amplify exactly everything you said. And as a former headteacher and as somebody whose wife is a current headteacher and whose daughter is a teacher, they would bite your hand off to get you into their school to work with their students. Because it has never been more important. And if I was a headteacher now, I'd be bringing you in five days a week, all day long, until we actually got this through and into our young people. So please, please, please, if you are a school thinking of sandstone, don't just think, get it sorted. Because our young people have never needed that perspective more than they do now.

Speaker A: Richard, that is just brilliant. And as always, I love talking to you. And um, thank you so much for your time and you've heard the message everybody from, from Richard and I. And if we lit a bit of a spot talking around education resilience and why it's important, share this podcast with people, get them to listen. More importantly, both Richard and I are super easy to find on LinkedIn, so get in touch. And if you're at a school who wants to come and see you, the answer is yes. So please just get in touch. Guys, thank you very much for listening. If you have actually been out doing your 5k run during the course of this podcast, then I think we've set a fairly steady pace for you. But uh, but thank you very much and we'll be, we'll look forward to next episode. Mhm.