President Jim Gash (left) and Headmistress of the Michaela School Katharine Birbalsingh (right) talk about discipline as a form of love. The series took place in the Seaver Board Room on Oct 23. Photo by Natalie Amoroso
President Jim Gash hosted Katharine Birbalsingh, Headmistress of the Michaela Schoo, in the Seaver Board Room on Oct 23. As part of the ongoing President Speaker Series, the talk centered around true education, its end goal and how teachers should guide students.
Birbalsingh founded the Michaela School in September 2014 with the mission of enabling self-disciplined and hard-working students, according to Michaela’s website. The school is in Wembley, England and covers Secondary education and Sixth Form. Birbalsingh majored in philosophy and modern languages at the University of Oxford and has been teaching for 30 years.
“Joline and I were visiting our campus in London, and we had the opportunity to spend a few hours at the [Michaela] school,” Gash said. “And I can tell you without hyperbole or exaggeration, we were blown away.”
Gash discussed his shock when he sat in on some of the classes. He said every student was focused on the teacher, and each time the teacher asked a question, everyone raised their hand immediately.
This organized and polite behavior is due to a strict regimen. Students are expected to walk silently in the halls between classes, are not allowed to gather in groups larger than four during free time and must sit with their hands folded when not writing, according to City Journal.
“All this may strike the visitor as somewhat drastic,” City Journal wrote. “But, as Birbalsingh observes, the alternative is not well-behaved children floating like butterflies, gathering the nectar of knowledge from the flowers of learning, but utter chaos — in which the teacher’s main task becomes getting children to sit down, pay attention, and not misbehave too violently.”
Birbalsingh’s journey toward founding Michaela began with her blog “To Miss With Love,” where she anonymously shared stories about her experiences in teaching and the issues she had with the education system. Penguin Publishers eventually contacted Birbalsingh and asked to turn the blog into a book.
Penguin’s editor connected Birbalsingh to the Shadow Education secretary with the Conservative Party at the time, where she was asked to speak at their conference. While she had intended to remain anonymous, Birbalsingh said the attention turned to her after the conference.
She was then forced to resign from her job as a public school teacher, Birbalsingh said.
“I was told I would never work in public education ever again. I had sided with the conservatives,” Birbalsingh said. “No matter how many times I kept saying, ‘But I’m not a conservative, I’m not a member of the Conservative Party,’ the point is that you cannot go to the Conservative Party conference and speak. And I had.”
Birbalsingh said she soon decided to open a free school, a newly-introduced system that mirrored American charter schools. She said it took three and a half years to set it up due to many detractors working against them.
“We’re doing what people say is impossible,” Birbalsingh said. “And the people come from far and wide– you get American teachers and teachers from Australia and all over the place, and they come to see what is possible.”
Gash then asked Birbalsingh why she had chosen to name the school “Michaela.” Birbalsingh said that Michaela was a former colleague of hers who had passed away from cancer in 2011 who believed that children should always be obedient.
“She used to always say, Katharine where is rigor?” Birbalsingh said. “Even in the early 2000s, she was always complaining to me all the time about the fact that everything was too relaxed, that children weren’t being pushed to really achieve their potential.”
Birbalsingh said that Michaela had gracious joy and iron resolve. Pupils would want to be in her class because they knew she was strict and they wanted to be held accountable. Birbalsingh described the role of a teacher to push back when children push.
“If we don’t push back against all their naughty behavior — because that’s what they do and that’s why we love them — but when they’re naughty they expect to say no and to hold the line,” Birbalsingh said. “And too many of us are cowards. Too many of us decide to let ourselves fall on either side and not do our jobs.”
Birbalsingh said that discipline is a form of love. She said that handing out demerits and detentions may not feel good, but putting others first means holding the children accountable and discipling them when necessary.
Birbalsingh said ultimate meaning and dignity are found through service and contribution to the various groups you are a part of — your family, your school and your country. She said the modern notion of “you do you” and “just be yourself” is ridiculous and selfish.
“Diversity is never a strength. It just isn’t,” Birbalsingh said. “You need unity for anything to work. Anybody who’s ever run a team, anybody who’s ever run anything knows that you don’t want everybody singing from a different hymn sheet.”
Birbalsingh said that unity is the strength of Michaela. She described how students are taught to work as a team and to understand how they serve and represent the team they are a part of. She said that when a student embarrasses themself, they also embarrass their classmates, the school and therefore, their country.
Part of teaching teamwork and service at Michaela is through family lunch, Birbalsingh said. Students gather with their teachers in groups of six, and each member has an assigned job. One will hand out silverware, another dishes out food and so on. They will then discuss an assigned topic for their lunch period together.
The lunch period concludes with students sharing one thing they are grateful for. Birbalsingh said children must be taught how to be grateful, polite and kind, otherwise they will not do it on their own.
Birbalsingh said that we often tell children how terrible things are for them and how oppressed they are, and we must instead tell them what to be grateful for and teach them how to see what to be grateful for. Gratefulness brings meaning, which brings the joy seen in classrooms, she said.
Gash read questions from the audience, including the following: Society needs people who can question authority, exercise independence and adapt to different systems. If these students learn such strict rules, when will they learn when it is appropriate to challenge these rules?
“The only way you can think independently about something is if you know a lot about it,” Birbalsingh said. “And in order to know a lot about it, you need to be willing to sit down in a chair to look at somebody and learn about it.”
Birbalsingh said that one must follow the rules, learn the rules and be able to independently think and form an opinion on the rules. She emphasized the importance of informed opinions and the lack of them we have now. Birbalsingh said creativity comes from order and knowledge.
The talk concluded with Gash telling Birbalsingh about Pepperdine’s theme Pepperdine’s theme, “For Greater Purpose,” asking what her greater purpose in life is.
Birbalsingh said her greater purpose is to spread the word about how to properly educate children and inspire others to be braver.
This story was copy edited by Lila Rendel.
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Contact Natalie Amoroso via email: natalie.amoroso@pepperdine.edu