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Hey everybody, this is a preview

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of British's strictest British's

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Katie. Was that the right word British's, right? That's

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it British's strictest headmistresses

0:16

This really interesting figure who

0:18

got in a bit of a spat involving.

0:21

Yes, you know this already Tina Turner

0:23

So it's quite a story. You're gonna hear a preview

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of it. What else will people miss if they only hear

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the preview Katie? We've also got an update from

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Canada about the alleged

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doing that either way. Enjoy the preview

0:55

Katie. I hate Canada It's a

0:57

dark cold miserable place. Can we

0:59

go to a sunny or happier place like say

1:01

England? Yes, let's do it

1:03

alright, so now on

1:05

to Britain's strictest

1:07

headmistress. All right, so Jesse

1:10

our story today. Yes takes place in the UK and

1:13

it begins with the death of Tina Turner Although

1:15

it has very little to do with Tina Turner herself So

1:18

as tributes poured in for the late singer

1:21

one of those was posted by a British woman

1:23

named Catherine

1:24

Burble saying are you familiar? No, we

1:27

partially share a last name and yet I haven't

1:29

heard of her It's the the Indian

1:31

side of you who share that So

1:34

as you will hear her particular

1:36

tribute led to quite a bit of drama,

1:39

but before we get to that Catherine

1:41

Burble saying is the founder and headmistress

1:43

of the Michaela school as she's commonly known

1:46

as Britain's head strictest headmistress

1:48

And she has a distinctively conservative approach

1:50

to education and despite having a name

1:53

that sounds like Mary Poppins Whiter

1:55

alter-ego. She's actually half Jamaican

1:57

half Guyanese Indian, which is to say she's black

1:59

and this will be important later. For

2:03

Burwell Singh, she has a background in teaching in state

2:05

schools. So that's what we would call public schools

2:07

here, particularly underperforming

2:09

state schools. And she first rose to prominence

2:11

in October 2010. At

2:13

the time, she was a newly appointed deputy

2:16

head teacher, so basically a vice principal, at

2:18

what the Guardian called the failing St.

2:21

Michael and All Angels Academy School in

2:23

Camberwell, South London. Now... Now,

2:26

Camberwell. Camberwell. Camberwell.

2:29

The UK education system is very confusing

2:31

to American ears. So for instance, what

2:33

they call public schools are what we would call

2:36

private schools. Lories. Is

2:38

that it? Wait, is a lorry a toilet or a pram?

2:41

A truck is a lorry. A

2:43

public school there is called a lift.

2:45

So what they would call public schools, we

2:47

would call private schools, and what they call academies,

2:50

which we would likely think of as private schools,

2:52

because academies sound very fancy, very expensive. They're

2:55

actually public in the sense that they receive

2:57

government funding and they don't charge fees,

2:59

although they can also have ties to churches,

3:02

which makes it a little more confusing. So St.

3:04

Michael and All Angels Academy School was

3:07

sort of what we would think of as like an underserved public

3:10

school. And in October 2010, Burblesing

3:14

gave a speech at this conference in Birmingham that

3:16

would put her in the headlines, and the speech was

3:18

about what she saw as a broken school and a broken education

3:20

system. So the Guardian reported, quote,

3:23

she told representatives that parents had no idea

3:25

life in most schools was, quote, totally and

3:27

utterly chaotic. She was particularly

3:30

critical of what she saw as a lack of discipline in black

3:32

boys and said the system was, quote,

3:34

broken and that it, quote, kept poor children

3:36

poor. Okay, so she's just like

3:38

a critic of this system.

3:39

A critic, but also, I mean, she's a teacher or

3:42

a vice principal. Yeah,

3:43

but she's

3:45

not shy about expressing her views about what doesn't

3:48

work.

3:48

Exactly. She also kept

3:50

a pseudonymous blog under the name Ms. Snuffy,

3:52

which is also her Twitter handle.

3:56

And she described the school on her

3:58

blog as the Alcatraz. as of the world

4:00

of education. And she wrote about

4:03

problems at the school, which according to her was

4:05

plagued by violence, teen pregnancy, parents

4:07

who didn't give a shit, etc. And

4:09

she wrote that teachers were silenced from discussing

4:11

these problems because the academy was scared of losing

4:13

students if the truth was known. By the way, she had only

4:16

been at the school for a couple weeks. So

4:18

at the conference, she received a standing ovation. But

4:21

back at work, this didn't go

4:23

over quite as well. The school's governors,

4:25

which are either elected or appointed volunteer

4:27

positions that oversee the school, they were pissed.

4:30

They said she insulted her colleagues and according

4:32

to the Sunday Times quote, tax her for

4:35

using photographs of pupils whom she named

4:37

in her speech,

4:37

which yeah, wait,

4:40

hip a violation for one thing, which shows she

4:43

was literally like my school sucks. Look

4:45

at Jenny here. She's a dumb pregnant bitch.

4:47

Huge bitch. Here's a photo of her. Look how pregnant

4:50

she

4:50

is. Jenny's mom is a cow.

4:51

Here's a photo of Jenny's mom. She's a bitch

4:53

too. Yeah. This might not

4:55

be good standard practice.

4:58

So I only saw that detail in

5:00

the Sunday Times. I generally

5:02

think they're a pretty legit outlet. It's possible

5:04

they got the detail wrong, but they reported that.

5:07

So she was placed on leave after this. And

5:09

then she resigned after she'd just been there for

5:11

three weeks. She said she was asked to comply

5:13

with conditions she didn't want to comply with.

5:16

You could come back, but you're

5:18

not allowed to call Jenny a bitch. I

5:20

can't do that. She's such a bitch.

5:22

And as news of the allegations spread,

5:25

the school in fact did lose students. So

5:28

as the Guardian reported in February of

5:30

the next year, so 2011, quote, the school is

5:33

due to close after just 16 parents named

5:35

it as their first choice in the latest admissions round,

5:37

a collapse of confidence, which the school claims

5:40

was exacerbated by burble thing.

5:41

Okay. So she's seen as like, as

5:44

this really annoying presence who

5:46

harmed the school before she left.

5:48

For sure. She has a long

5:50

history of being very outspoken on education

5:52

issues and free speech. Since

5:55

then, she had a stint as the UK social

5:57

mobility chair from 2021 to 2023. and

6:00

she quit earlier this year because she said

6:02

she felt unable to properly speak her mind,

6:05

but not before stirring more controversy in that

6:07

position by asserting, for example,

6:10

that girls like hard math

6:12

or math for UK listeners less

6:14

than boys, and that accounts for some gender

6:16

differences in fields like physics. Can't say

6:19

that. Can't say that. This

6:21

is James DeMaur treatment. More

6:23

recently, she made news after writing an editorial

6:25

for The Telegraph about trans-identifying kids

6:28

in schools. This one wasn't particularly

6:30

inflammatory. She basically said that the government needs

6:32

to come up with some kind of universal guidance on this issue,

6:35

so it's not up to individual schools and

6:37

staff to figure out what the hell to

6:39

do about trans kids themselves, which

6:42

I think that makes sense.

6:43

Yeah, it seems mild. I could also see people responding

6:45

negatively to it.

6:46

Yeah. I mean, I guess I can also see

6:48

these things are regional. There

6:52

are some local differences in how

6:54

a school district in deep red Texas

6:57

is going to feel about... ...pronoun

7:00

changes versus a school in Oregon.

7:02

So maybe it should be left up to the individual

7:05

school districts. Anyway, you're

7:07

getting the picture, right? She's blunt, and she's also been

7:10

a lightning rod for controversy. So

7:12

she's not an overtly Tory partisan. She

7:14

considers herself a floating voter, but

7:16

her approach has put her unambiguously

7:19

at odds with progressives. So I'm

7:21

going to play you a clip of her speaking at the National

7:23

Conservative Conference, or NACCON, earlier this

7:25

year. I think this gives you a good sense of her,

7:28

and also some of what she says here is going

7:30

to come back later. And just for context,

7:32

she's going to reference detention in this clip, and

7:35

that's because she opened her speech saying, I'm

7:37

afraid you're all in for a telling off from me today, followed

7:39

by detention. She was speaking to a conservative

7:42

audience here. So why do I need to throw

7:44

all of you into detention?

7:46

Because you haven't been paying enough attention

7:48

to the fact that our nation's culture is

7:50

not only created in our schools, but

7:53

that it is our children

7:53

who are leading the development

7:56

of that culture in our schools. Adult

7:59

authority.

8:00

is long gone. So here

8:02

I am, ringing the alarm. In 20 years,

8:04

many of us will be retired

8:06

or sadly dead.

8:10

And the children in our schools will be

8:12

in important and influential

8:14

positions in our institutions.

8:17

As G. K. Chesterton said, the

8:19

true soldier fights not because

8:22

he hates what is in front of him, but because

8:24

he loves what is behind him. Well,

8:26

I'm asking, how much do you

8:28

love your country? How much do you

8:31

love the values that you claim to defend?

8:33

Do you love them enough to tweet under your own

8:36

name? Do

8:36

you love them enough to change your child's

8:39

school to one that's less woke and ignore

8:41

the impact on your social status? Do

8:44

you love them enough

8:45

to do more than simply chat

8:46

to your friends who already agree with

8:48

you at dinner parties? For heaven's sake,

8:50

man, stand up and be counted. As Russell

8:53

Crowe says in the film Gladiator, a

8:55

clip I regularly play for my staff, hold

8:58

the line. Stay with me. What

9:00

we do in life echoes in eternity.

9:02

Will your life echo hollow with

9:05

cowardly

9:05

hypocrisy or will it echo with courage,

9:08

valiance and honor? The choice

9:10

is yours. Strength and honor be with

9:12

you all.

9:14

Now get yourselves to detention.

9:20

So yeah, she's a fiery speaker and

9:23

it sounds like the crowd lapped it up.

9:25

Yeah, conservative crowd. They love this shit.

9:27

So what does she do? I take it she

9:29

can't make a living just going around giving fiery speeches

9:31

about putting adults in detention.

9:33

You don't think you can make a living doing that? There's

9:35

an OnlyFans channel for that.

9:37

I think Backpage

9:39

is shut down,

9:39

right? Yeah. Okay, so she's

9:41

currently the head of the Michaela School

9:44

and that's the school she founded in 2014.

9:46

It's a British free school, which is like

9:49

the equivalent of a US charter school. So

9:51

it's a state funded nonprofit run by

9:53

an independent entity and it's famous

9:56

for its unapologetically strict approach.

9:58

It's Britain's strictest school. That's what they call it.

10:01

It's been very successful. It received

10:03

top marks from various offices

10:05

in the UK. It has some

10:07

of the highest attainment for any non-selected

10:09

British school. Most

10:12

notably, it has the highest value-added

10:15

measures, which means that students achieved more

10:17

relative to their primary school results than

10:20

any other school in Britain. They're

10:22

going into this school at one level and they're leaving

10:24

it achieving more. Does that make sense?

10:26

Yeah, I don't know how this sort of thing is measured,

10:29

but it sounds like the experts who

10:31

came up with these metrics think this is

10:33

a very, very good school. They think it's a very successful

10:35

school. Successful.

10:36

But as I said, it's strict as hell.

10:39

How so? Okay, picture a Waldorf

10:41

school.

10:42

Now burn it down. That's

10:44

a Michaela school. It's the exact opposite

10:47

of a creative, feeling-centered,

10:49

child-first education system. They

10:52

have what they call a no-excuses policy,

10:54

so even minor infractions are strictly

10:56

punished. So for instance, you forget

10:58

to bring a pencil to class? That's demerit.

11:01

Same for slouching or looking out the window or

11:03

grimacing and teachers are talking in the hallways.

11:06

So things that are not even against the rules at most schools.

11:08

At the Michaela school, you get demerits for

11:10

it, and two demerits equal a detention.

11:14

This debate is very similar

11:16

to similar no-excuses schools, charter

11:19

schools in the US, where there's this idea

11:21

that you're policing

11:24

black and Latino kids' movements

11:26

and activities and fidgeting in a way you never

11:28

would for white kids. And I

11:30

think this issue is genuinely controversial,

11:34

not just at a zoomed out level, but I think even a

11:36

lot of families from lower income backgrounds

11:39

are like, it's different. Our kids are

11:41

from a different background. They need more discipline, but at

11:43

the same time, you can also see how it's creepy to punish

11:45

kids basically from one

11:47

social standing when

11:50

other kids in wealthy schools would never be punished

11:52

for that same stuff.

11:53

Yeah. And this argument sort of in favor

11:55

of this is like, look, these kids, they oftentimes

11:57

don't have a lot of structure at home, maybe a single

11:59

family. home, a lot of poverty, and so this

12:02

is the place where they're getting structure. So

12:04

a writer for Time Magazine went to the school

12:06

in 2018. He described it this

12:08

way. Actually, Jess, you want to read this? I'm talking a lot.

12:10

The school day is run with military precision.

12:13

Everything from lessons to lunch is timed to the second

12:16

with the aid of large digital clocks placed

12:18

in each room. Teachers often give their classes

12:20

a time frame in which to accomplish a task. Ten

12:23

seconds to take out your books and open them to page 32,

12:26

before counting down backwards. The transition

12:28

between classes is also timed and completely

12:31

silent. A black line runs down the center

12:33

of the corridor carpets and children are expected to

12:35

silently proceed either side to their next

12:37

classes. Eagle eyed teachers stand ready to

12:39

reprimand those who walk too slowly. Every

12:41

detail is designed to maximize the amount

12:43

of learning time. In the student bathrooms,

12:45

there are no mirrors, lest they distract the students.

12:48

Again, this is very similar to some charter schools in the states,

12:50

I think including some in New York.

12:52

How do you think you would have done in a school like this?

12:54

Awful. I mean, I...

12:57

You need mirrors, you spend a lot of time preening.

12:59

Oh, just the primping before the school

13:01

day alone. I couldn't have done without that.

13:04

They also have students actually

13:06

serve. They have families are

13:08

welcome to come eat at the school and they have students serve them.

13:11

And some of this actually does seem borderline cruel.

13:14

Like in 2016, there was this big controversy

13:16

after the Daily Mail reported that they

13:19

have a policy that if a student's parents failed

13:21

to pay for lunch, they had them eat in a separate

13:23

room away from their peers, which

13:25

Burblesing argued was just an extension

13:27

of the emphasis on personal

13:28

responsibility. But it's not

13:31

personal responsibility. You're going to punish the

13:33

kids for the parents lack of responsibility. No,

13:35

that thing's very messed up. So is it

13:37

like mostly underprivileged kids who go to the schools?

13:39

Yeah, it's a lot of poor kids. Critics

13:42

of the school, much like critics of American

13:44

charter schools, claim that they self-select

13:46

for high achievers. So that's why they have

13:48

such good marks. Burblesing denies

13:50

this. We do know that over a third of

13:52

students qualify for free meals. A

13:54

majority of them are from minority ethnic groups.

13:57

And they also have a lot of kids with special needs. So

13:59

it's exactly. population that is most

14:01

underserved in most schools.

14:03

And is it like a popular

14:06

school if you ask the random Brit who follows

14:08

this sort of controversy?

14:09

Well, it depends on if the random Brit in the street

14:11

depends on their political leanings, basically. So

14:14

conservatives love her, progressives generally don't.

14:16

So besides the discipline stuff, the teaching

14:19

methods are what many would consider outdated.

14:21

So a lot of rote memorization, things like

14:23

that. And Burble Singh, she also

14:25

thinks that you should teach students

14:27

from immigrant or minority backgrounds British

14:30

culture and instill in them a sense of national

14:32

identity. She thinks this is really important. And

14:35

so as you can imagine, this is seen by

14:37

some progressives as a form of white supremacy.

14:39

Sorry,

14:40

wait. Okay,

14:42

I'm guessing

14:44

she's not saying abandon

14:47

all the culture

14:50

you or your parents arrived here with. But

14:52

isn't it normal to say, don't immigrants themselves often

14:54

want very much to assimilate and be a part of

14:56

British culture? I mean, she's an immigrant. Are people really

14:58

responsible? Born in New Zealand, raised in Toronto,

15:00

you know, from immigrant family too.

15:02

Hard scrabble. Okay,

15:05

I guess people get very touchy about

15:07

this stuff and maybe there's something I'm missing.

15:10

But part of the idea of a school is to sort

15:12

of like forge citizens

15:14

who share a common identity or values, but

15:16

I could be missing something.

15:17

Did you have to do the like Pledge

15:19

of Allegiance when you were in school?

15:21

At one point we did, yeah, I didn't. I

15:23

don't think that lasted very long in elementary school. Did

15:25

you? Yeah, we did. My sister

15:28

and I made a point of refusing to do

15:30

it. My parents actually might have called the ACLU

15:32

when they tried to make us do it. They did call the ACLU,

15:35

my mom definitely called the ACLU when my,

15:37

during high school, when my

15:40

high school was doing Christian Heritage Week, we

15:42

would do prayers over the loudspeaker.

15:44

We're gonna have

15:46

a Christian Heritage Week.

15:48

Christian Heritage Week is just like the

15:50

thinnest excuse to just do Christian stuff.

15:53

Right, right.

15:53

Prayer in school was a big, big

15:55

culture war issue at that point. It

15:57

was huge. In the 90s,

15:58

yeah. Yeah, and it was especially with

16:01

football games, could you pray before football games? Which now

16:03

is back in the news thanks to a local

16:05

Bremerton football coach.

16:06

I'd take it that they also had a Muslim

16:08

Heritage Week or five times a day on the mic. They do

16:11

the call to prayer.

16:12

Yes. How did you know, Jesse? So

16:14

yeah, progressives tend to not

16:17

like her. One of the things that she does that she

16:19

has said that makes progressives uncomfortable is that

16:21

she said that teachers are afraid of disciplining

16:23

black kids because they don't want to be called racist.

16:26

So that obviously doesn't make her popular in some circles.

16:29

And I will say, like, at times she does

16:31

have a tendency to take the anti-woke thing a

16:33

little

16:33

too far. What do

16:35

you mean? Okay, so let's go back to that speech she made

16:37

at the NatCon conference earlier this

16:39

year. Here's another clip from that.

16:41

There are kids right now in some schools

16:44

with tails and ears pinned

16:47

to their heads and bottoms. This isn't

16:49

fancy dress. They identify

16:51

as cats,

16:51

you see. Kids

16:54

aren't allowed to wear trainers to school,

16:56

but they are allowed to wear ears and

16:59

tails because that's their chosen

17:01

identity. That's how they

17:03

feel they belong.

17:05

We explored all of our dumbest

17:07

stuff over there. Okay, so trainers,

17:10

first of all, are sneakers, also

17:12

known as lifts or chips. Yes.

17:15

But the tail- It's a very bad joke. I

17:18

know, but I love it. I just like the idea that every

17:21

one is lips. It's just funny to me. And

17:23

that's all that matters. We're not recording this for anybody. Keep

17:25

going.

17:28

So this is just the idea that kids identify

17:30

as cats, which is a common

17:32

trope that I've never seen any

17:34

hard evidence for. I'm sure kids wear this

17:37

goofy shit. Are they actually identifying as cats?

17:39

Yeah, this seems a little out there.

17:40

Yeah, I mean, it is 100% true that kids wear pointy ear

17:42

headbands and tails around. I've seen

17:47

that. I've seen this on the streets of Seattle. It's a look, a

17:50

look, as they say. And I would

17:52

guess that some of these kids, some of them probably do

17:55

take it too seriously. Maybe they identify as cats,

17:57

just like goths or preps or emails or whatever.

18:00

It's a subculture, but the real

18:02

question is like, how does the school respond

18:04

to this? And so she seems to think

18:06

that schools are like letting these kids like drink

18:08

milk out of bowls or lie down during lessons

18:11

or go around on all fours. And so she tweets about this

18:13

a lot because to her, this proves that

18:16

there's this permissive atmosphere in schools that

18:18

has just gone way too far. So here's an

18:20

example of something she tweeted. Jesse,

18:23

please read this. I've included a link in our notes here.

18:25

So this is Catherine Burble saying, at

18:28

Ms. Snuffy. Ms. Snuffy is a great username.

18:30

It sounds like a furry name. Yeah. Or

18:33

like

18:34

a director of snuff film. Alexandra.

18:36

Okay, this is a screenshot

18:39

she's tweeting out. Alexandra at Sarny 23.

18:43

My daughter left college last year. During her two

18:45

years there, quite a few students known as furries

18:48

dressed as animals and went around college on all fours.

18:51

Kids had to humor them and they were disciplined if they took

18:53

the mickey. It's like taking

18:55

the piss. Making fun of them. Like if they make fun

18:57

of them. Okay. There's a response from

18:59

someone named Farias Fee who says, we have had a

19:02

portion of inset training. I

19:04

don't know what any of these words mean. We have had a portion

19:06

of inset training dedicated to furries. My

19:08

larger school has pupils who identify

19:11

as furries and they have to be allowed to express

19:13

themselves. This is like an episode

19:15

of yes, yes, no.

19:16

Right. So inset, that stands for

19:18

in-service education and training. So it's like a for,

19:21

for like officials or whatever. So

19:24

the person who tweeted that is

19:26

a furry. That person is absolutely

19:29

taking the piss. They're taking the piss. Yes. And

19:31

so she posts this thinking, presumably

19:34

thinking that this is real because she doesn't realize that

19:36

she's like tweeting an actual

19:39

fucking furry. Which proves the furry

19:41

point that these people are very credulous. Right.

19:44

So she, yeah, so she really thinks

19:46

that this is happening. So that's what I mean

19:48

by taking the anti-wooks.

19:50

That's it. That's all the preview you

19:52

get. If you want to hear the rest, go to blocktonreported.org

19:54

and sign up. Thank

19:55

you for listening. you