Ep 186: Positive Masculinity, Secondary School Teaching & Battling Social Media [w/ Mr Hobbs]

0:00 Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Teach Stick Repeat. My name is Dylan and my name's Hayden and the cameras are slightly on a wonk to normal because we are in our new remote setup because we have got a guest today. And if you join the WhatsApp community, you can see a little sneak preview of what that looks like. I will share a picture, but we're going to because it will have happened by the time this comes out. We're going to talk to Mr Hobbs today. Yes, someone you've probably seen on social media because his Instagram's exploded in the last couple of weeks. He's been on TikTok for quite a while. We spoke to him about so many different things. Firstly, a lot of you will be quite pleased to hear yes, he's a secondary school teacher and yes, we finally talk about secondary. OK, I hope you're happy now. We talked about secondary school. We did. We had a comparison. I'm a little bit disappointed that I didn't say to him, So which one's harder?

0:44 I wish I said so what's harder? Because all of our listeners need to know, is it harder being a primary school teacher? So yes. It's that thing like when you have a baby, right? And both partners are like I'm the most tired. Yeah, it's worse for me. I'm working more and I have to do this exactly. We also talked about masculinity. He does a lot of talks to young boys about what it means to be a man and a role have have really good role models. That was my favourite chat out of the whole bit. That bit, to me, I feel like he brought such interesting perspective to it and he championed so much stuff on social media around that anyway that I already found captivating. So to actually be able to talk to the man, he'd be making his videos, I just thought that's fascinating. And again, it'd be interesting to hear what you guys think when you get to that a bit. English teachers, we talk about reading, we talk about social media as well. Obviously we all are on social media, but he teaches children who are way more likely to be on things like TikTok, Instagram. But what I will say, and hopefully it comes across when you listen to our chat with him, is that he is just the nicest man who's trying to do the most for our next generation. And I couldn't be more hopeful and, yeah, hopeful for him and, and, and what he's doing.

1:45 So, yeah, without further ado, let's dive into the chat. Let us know what you think. First of all, George, first of all, nice to meet you. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it massively. Secondly, and I say second because it's a it's linked to my question. You're secondary school and we've had so many people over the years say to us, I want a bit more on secondary school. I want to learn about what goes on in that blah, blah, blah. You're just primary and for a long time haven't we've hated. We basically just thought we'll stick there of that. Yeah. Yeah. But the expert we. Don't really know. Feeling is a little bit neutral to be honest. Right. There's a bit of a chasm sometimes between primary and secretary. So the first thing I just wanted to throw over to you was just what's a day in your life like or a week in your life as a as a secondary school teacher? Because primary, we teach everything. We're basically with our class all the time. Secondary seems very, very different. Do you know what's really interesting is when you say that I just think of when those year sevens come up. I'm obviously used to our context, but how crazy must it be for those year sixes who've just been, you know, probably sitting on the back benches, probably helping out with all the all the stuff, all the responsibility. And they walk into this massive building and they're suddenly expected to have their own books all the time in their bags moving between places.

2:59 So it is a massive jump up, I imagine for me. I love the variety that comes with that secondary school. Like every day, every lesson, you're just getting a new group of kids. Often like 32 new students are through your door. And for me, like one of my favourite parts is being on the door when they arrive. Like for me, I know there's a big teacher thing. Wait, make sure that you're offering a smile, saying hello. But that is my favourite part because you're just like, in what other job would you have the opportunity to see that many people? And usually as well, I don't know if you guys found this, but kids are usually quite happy to see you. Yeah, Yeah, I think that's quite nice. I wonder whether that, I'm not sure. When I worked outside of school, people were as as happy to see me as as they are now.

3:42 So that's probably why I'll stick around in the profession. But how much detail do you want to go into? Like do you want to know from the in? Terms of when you go into the building, obviously you're, you're, you're an English teacher, right? So the biggest thing from our point of view is, and we're, we're math centric, but English was a huge part of our career. And you know, so is history and geography and English kind of fed its way into absolutely everything. And when it comes to secondary school, obviously kids are a bit further along. And it feels like the further along kids got in primary school, the wider the gaps seem to get because it was more chance for children to become better at a subject and more able. And unfortunately for some children, a longer chance for them to fall behind and still not be catching up. So I'm just wondering, from your point of view, specifically as an English teacher, but also just as a teacher of children who are a bit older, how do you find that, that chasm that you might, you might see in your classes?

4:32 How much more often do you set in classes? Or is it mixed ability? What what? What does it look like? Yeah, I think in English we're particularly lucky because we've got that old idea and maths has it too, which is that you do need this for GTSE. So when people come in you've kind of, you've got that thing to fall back on. Now I've never taught any other subjects, but I can imagine that it is more difficult for them to hold the interest of a student, which for me, I always go down the route of what do you want to be when you grow up? And then from there, and we'll say, well, look, this is how I can help you. And I'm always bribing them to come with me. And then in regards to like the way I try and get kids engaged in English specifically, it's like always have to go for interest first. So like right now I'm thinking at year 11, my students will just be studying English language right now, which is so dense, can be so boring at times because you're analysing language constantly, constantly. And they don't mix them at the moment through literature and language.

5:25 So when I'm with them, I'm always like, right, we need to hook into the subject that we're talking about. So say we're doing cycling, I'm going to make them watch a few Tour de France videos. I'm going to show them some some photos from when I was on holiday in France over the summer doing some cycling myself to try and make sure they come with me. Because I think, and I don't think this is exclusive just to secondary school, but if you've lost their interest, it is so difficult that we could talk strategies all day long. But I have tried to differentiate till the cows come home with a student who just doesn't want to know. And I'm, they're like, look, I'm not sure there's much I can do at this point to get you interested in complex or simple sentences, but I imagine that's the same for you guys at primary.

6:06 I mean, big time, yeah. It's just like Dylan said, the gap, the gap just gets bigger. And like, we, we, we're funny enough, we're having a conversation not long ago about really someone, someone asks us a question of like, what do you do when that gap widens so much as particularly if you are in secondary and you're teaching a subject, I don't know, maybe it's not even English. Maybe you're teaching a different subject. What I I, I can put my hand on my heart and say I don't really know the answer there. It gets to a point where I'm like, I honestly don't know. Like what do you actually do in that situation? Because you obviously don't just go Oh well, and and just ignore their existence for the rest of the year. You know what I mean? You obviously don't do that. So what do you do? And do you find it effective or what? So like in my school currently we are we set. So when they come in they are they almost immediately put in sets.

6:48 Like, I on a personal level do have a bit of a problem with that. Just my perspective is that to immediately set someone, look, I was someone who loved English at school, but I was set too. And there was always something about that that was like, it's really sad to me that English is my favourite subject. But there are kids in there who love science more who are in set 1. And I used to think like, oh, that's, that's so demoralising. And I look at my, some of my students now who are, you know, maybe Middlesex, maybe maybe even some people who need a little bit more support. And I just think like, I think actually we need to give them an opportunity to work with students who can lift them up. But then there's the other side of that as well, which is that I think the more able students do have that, that particularly I find sometimes parents as well, want their students to be constantly aiming for those a stars. But that comes from culture in schools, isn't it? Which is that you get these ideas that we need to be going for a stars and as and it's all about it's all results driven. But in regards to how you how you bridge that gap, Like you say, I'm a big poet myself and I write a lot of poetry. And in one poem I talk about this idea, which is that I would love to sit here and assure you that I am a ASDADHD specialist in that regard.

7:57 Like I know all the neurodevelopment pathways off by heart and I'm there to offer the support as am I. Like I want to say that and I want to be that person, but when you look across a class of 32, the variety is so large that you do just have to try and pitch it at the right level. You need to make sure there's appropriate challenge for those kids at the top. And then even more difficult is you need to make sure that those at the bottom aren't just, like you say, just being left behind. Because it breaks my heart to see students who I know that if I could support them more would be able to reach those levels. But like, there's 32 kids sometimes. I've got one class at the moment who've got 33 children. So one of them sits kind of at my desk, you know, on a chair. And I'm like, this is our reality. So, so that I, I'm sorry if you put me on here to give you the exact answer.

8:42 No, no, no. No, it's really, really interesting because what you've, what you've mentioned is quite a few things that kind of almost shatter my illusion of secondary sometimes. And it's, and I'll mention both here because firstly, it's this idea of setting. I, I love your outlook in terms of why you think setting maybe isn't automatically the best thing to do, because even from my point of view in primary, the automatic thing is to not set yet. And in my head in secondary, that's when you start setting. And I've seen from my point of view, there's been a lot of opportunities where I thought that actually in this situation, setting may well have helped for a number of reasons. And we talked about that before, but it's seen as you can't possibly do that. And in my head, secondary is, well, obviously you set because you get older and the gap widens and it makes more sense to do that. But here in your perspective of actually why it might not be the best thing is, is really interesting to me. And the other thing that you've kind of shattered in terms of the secondary school illusion for me is the number of children you in a class.

9:34 I just kind of want to focus on that for a second because again, if I think of secondary, I think of, you know, 20 in a class, maybe 16 to 2024, it gets a bit smaller, a bit more condensed, but it's, it seems to me from what you're saying that just isn't your reality. It's honestly, it's crazy to think the amount of human beings that can be in front of you at one time. And do you know, do you ever get that before where you stood in front of a class and you suddenly realised there's, there's 32 eyes, sets of eyes on you? Like, like, do you just, I just think like don't, don't like collapse or anything. But no, it's really, it's, it's incredibly difficult. And then what, what that leaks into as well is if you've got 32 students, particularly English, you're then marking 32 books when the assessments come around.

10:17 And so there's that on top of it. And then let's say hypothetically, you do have a behaviour issue and you have to call home. You've then got maybe a few more of those to do. And what ends up happening, as every teacher very well knows, is the workload becomes high and then you're sitting at home, you're thinking right, you need to pitch this at the right level for them. So when you're doing your planning, you've got so many students to to do, you always get overwhelmed at times. And that's where you do end up going. As all teachers know, you're never going to plan the perfect lesson. So you have to kind of, as I say, like pitch for the middle. But it's, it's a skill learning to how to challenge students. And one of the things that I'd love, you know, to talk about a little bit is, is this idea of we need to be trained to do specific things like if we're going to be challenging students, how do you challenge really, really well?

11:03 How do you lift the students off the bottom really, really well? Not just like questioning, not just really vague stuff, but how do you do that? And then if we do get that opportunity to be trained, can we have some time for it too? Time. Are you joking? Time in this profession. Absolutely not. I know how I know. And I don't say that specifically. I just say that generally for our whole profession, right? You've hit the nail on the head. It's it's, you know, we're yearning for training, but when it's implemented poorly, what is the point? You know, we need to learn how to do these things. Well, I was going to say like how well trained do you think people are for your particular subjects in secondary school straight out of uni? Like when you finish your qualification, you've got your QTS day one of the job, how well trained do you actually think you are?

11:48 Then the. Crazy part, the crazy thing is my, my honest reality is that I was a student who loved English because I loved the creative writing and I loved like plays, I loved stories and that was my passion. And you go to university and you do all this really high brow exciting stuff. Went to Cardiff Uni where they had this amazing like gothic literature unit where I loved my lecture, which was amazing. And then I came out and you get down to the nitty gritty of what you teach students in secondary school, and I'm just on the bus on my PGCE asking my mate what a juxtaposition is, you know? Yeah. And I'm saying they're going, that's going to teach this. And we've all done it before, but we've all we've all Googled something just before. We've talked, Hey, just got a noun. He doesn't know anything, he says. What's a noun?

12:30 It doesn't. Yeah, not that bad. It's crazy, isn't it? And then on the PGCE, you're learning pedagogy, so you're learning all this more high BRAF stuff. And they expect you to be, and rightly so, by the way, they expect you to be a subject specialist. But what you're learning at G, sorry, university English is certainly not what you're teaching at school level English. So for me, I came out feeling really unprepared. And The thing is now is I really grinded, like I really grinded to be, I wanted to be like, my catch phrase that I always come back to is I wanted to be an outstanding English teacher, not just an English teacher. I always wanted to be outstanding. And I applied initially for Teach First when I first did that, and I was just really excited by what they were offering.

13:14 And I was like, Oh yeah, that's where I want to go. I didn't end up doing that pathway, but I still hold that with me. And so when I was doing my PGCEI was working hours way longer than would be expected of you. And even now, if there's people in my school on the PGCEI, would never in good conscience recommend they did what I did, but stay in breath if they don't. It's a bit like, do you want to go into the classroom and feel prepared or do you want to have a social life and they both don't feel great if you're not. So funny we are like, you know what you're saying rings true to us. I know Dylan's thinking the exact same thing, right? Because we've been champions for years on this podcast of teaching people their rights and their contracts and what they should be able to do and what they should be able to say no to and when they should say no. But equally, anytime we're ever asked about our NQ to our training years, we always go, we always go revert back to saying, you know what, though we dived into it. We're like, I poured my life and soul into that year. And I still say to people, if you are able to do that and you want to do that, you should.

14:15 Even though on the same hand, the same breath, I'm saying to other people, whoa, you've been taken advantage of here. Like, you know, your workloads too high. So I think you can kind of have both because you do just learn so much, you absorb so much in that year. Well, I, I just think it's really interesting because for me, I always think that you choose when the difficulty comes in lots of ways. That's my kind of mantra for life. I always try to choose the difficult first, so I get the easy later. But like you say, you need to be really careful and really understand your priorities because before long I, I, I love this saying the enemy of the best is the good. So there's loads of good things in your life that you can give loads and loads of time to. But if you're not careful, you're going to find out that you neglected your family or your partner or your passion in life outside of school for Year 7 English, which by the way, like maybe that is someone's best. But but I do just find myself going, I need to prioritise constantly and sometimes my priorities shift as I'm sure everyone's do.

15:09 But if you're not really careful, and I think one thing that you guys are doing, when I first saw you guys, it was amazing because you were talking about this idea of like, be careful that you're not being taken advantage of. It just makes you think, oh, OK. Like, because this idea of teaching is a vocation you're almost lulled into. I'm doing God's work, so this is the best. Yeah. Finding that fine line. Isn't it, it's, it's putting yourself what, what the, the danger with that is? Because I've seen this a lot. I've seen you talk about it as well. And I never want to put people down when they're talking about teaching as this unbelievable job because I truly think it is. I think it's magical. I think it's, it's one of the best jobs a human can have in terms of service and helping other people and becoming a better person yourself through helping others. But what I see people fall into to a lot, and it's the only thing I'm really, really wary of, and I want people to be aware of this themselves, is they fall into that trap of thinking because they're in a service role and they want to help other people, that they're not worthy of their own help sometimes.

16:07 And what I would say to people all the time in teaching is if you were someone else, what would you say to them? And a lot of the time a teacher would say, chill out, relax, it's OK, your best is good enough and you're pushing yourself and eventually it'll be worse for you. And that's all. That's kind of our message. And hopefully that does come across. And from what you're saying, do you ever feel like you got to that situation where actually you did have to just stop yourself and go? I've got to make a choice here. On paper, maybe as a teacher, it'll be the best thing for me to do this and this and this. But as a human being and someone who respects myself and wants to look after myself, I've got to say no and have a line. I think what that for me comes down to is where I see my value as a teacher and where I think my USB comes is that I think that it's really important to just do. How do I put this?

17:00 I want to put this in the right way. I don't want my students to think I'm perfect. I don't want my students to think that I've got it all figured out. I don't want my students to think that I don't feel stressed, don't feel anxious. So I'm constantly letting them know and trying to show them that in order for me to pour out of my cup, I've got to have something in my cup. So I talk to them about the fact that I do poetry outside of school. I talk to them about how I do rugby outside of school. I'm trying to learn. I live in Cardiff and my partner is a Welsh speaker, so I'm trying to learn Welsh outside of school. I'm constantly trying to challenge myself in these ways and I think through that. I'm modelling that I don't make teaching my life and and sometimes when I do let that happen, it gets on top of me. Like I recently did a post on social media where I said I thought about quitting teaching four or five times today.

17:43 I think it's so important that people don't look at me as their teacher and think, God, that guy, isn't that guy perfect? Just because I'm by the way, I like around school. I like to think I'm very smiley lots of the time behind the smile. I might be stressed or anxious, but I'll tell them that, like I welcome them with a smile because almost the smile's for them. Because as teachers, we know that like I love the the theory that kids are a mirror. If you smile at them, not smile back at you. If you frown at them, they weren't. And I'm always like, well, if in that case, I can make their day by smiling at them. But if they come into my room, sometimes kids have said to me in the past, you know, Sir, you're always happy. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

18:23 And I'm not like saying that in an unhinged way, but I'm telling them, Oh no, no, like I feel anxious today, like for sure. So don't worry if you don't. So when you talk about that, that workload and and it getting too much for me, I think I've kind of got it. I like to think anyway from for myself, I know when and where to give back, but I just think where it does come from problematic is where we're almost championing this idea of if you're not, you guys talk about this, if you're not taking stuff home, doing it until the early hours, you're not giving it up. And I'm sat there like those people look so, so good for about two weeks and then they call in on the. Phone teacher martyrs. We call them teacher martyrdom.

19:05 Yeah, exactly that. The fact that you champion self-care and the fact that you champion you're not there to be perfect and you're showing your own flaws. And actually, you know what? I feel like this today, kids. So actually I do this outside of school. This is cool that do you do you feel that all wraps around with all the kind of work you do around masculinity as well? Because I personally, I found myself roped into your content. I think even some of the like snippets of speeches and presentations and stuff you've done on your Instagram. It's inspiring, really. Genuinely really inspiring and I can see the passion behind that. Like I can tell that's something like you really, really, really care about. Can you dive into that a little bit more? I'd like to hear your thoughts generally on on those talks, what you what you talk about with with masculine?

19:48 Yeah, 100%. But I mean, this is this is something that I, I am a teacher and I think I would be a teacher my whole life. I think if anything was to drag me into a different space, hopefully alongside teaching, it would be this, because it's just something as a man myself and as someone who. Like at school would have been kind of considered like a naughty kid, for example. Like I, I just see the narrative that's built around boys at the moment. And I just want to make sure that the narrative is accurate. The narrative is healthy, the narrative is helpful, not just kind of jumping on a bandwagon. And I'm not saying that everyone is doing that, but the back story behind it is that as I'm sure everyone did, we watched adolescence, the show, and I watched it all in one after another. And I kind of sat there genuinely stunned for about 30 minutes thinking.

20:40 And then I kind of went online and over the next couple of weeks, I saw this massive cry. Put that in school, show that to kids. They're going to, they need to see this. And I sat there going, I sat there in dumb struck silence for half an hour trying to think of what to do with that. What on earth would that do for children? Like what would it do for the girls about what would they think? They're looking at their they're going, what's the message behind that? Should I be scared of the people that sat next to me? The boys are suddenly trying to figure out how are they trying to tell me that I'm a bad kid? Am I that? But just pending, you know, there might be some of those really emotionally mature kids who might be able to understand that that was more of a microcosm of things that do happen. And then as long as they do the right things, they won't end up like that. And I just sat there and I got really frustrated and I thought, this is so classic.

21:25 We'll run into this because it's on social media and everyone's talking about it and everyone will. And I'll be like, Oh yeah, yeah, show that to kids. And I was like, if that gets you out to kids, I'm going on strike, genuinely. But what I hate and my, my rugby coach said this to me when I was a kid. I went up to him and I said, this drove rubbish. And he said to me, so what's the problem? What's the solution? And I said, I don't know. He said, well, never come to me ever again with the problem with that solution. And I never forgotten it. He was a northerner. I won't be an accent, but Oh my God, it's struck me. I just thought, well, it was brilliant. And I, I, it's so formative. And I sat there and I thought, Oh my goodness, I think this has to be done by, by, by someone. And I was like, well, they're me. Maybe I'm thinking about it.

22:06 Why not? And, and the way I keep thinking about it is one day someone might come knocking in South Wales, where I live, and they might say so, So what are you doing about it? And, and I just think, well, we can't be that classic where everyone looks to each other and goes, well, I thought you were doing something. Yeah, you so like, and, and it, and it and it. And I thought about that for ages. And I thought about where did I find my value? Because I was one of those kids like I got, I got fixed term excluded from school for just being silly and stupid. And luckily for me, I thought about how I've got so many uncles. I come from a huge family, loads of uncles. I got a brilliant family unit around me. I had wonderful coaches. And I just thought even with that, I still kind of fell into those habits at times of just being stupid and not making the right decisions. But I did lots of digging and I thought fundamentally what saved me from going off, going off was role modelling and was people going watch this, you know, do as I do watch me. And and I have my dad who's like, like ultimate, you know, I wouldn't go, you know, I'm not going to embarrass him by calling him my hero.

23:06 But you know, you look up at your dad and you're like, yeah, but I can just be like you, like you're such a good guy. And I then read. So I'm going to go on for a little bit here because it's so interesting. I read, I read the, there's a, there's an amazing article called The Lost Boys State of the Nation, which was done by in England and Wales about our boys across our two countries. And it was staggering. Some of the things that they found, you know, boys are in serious trouble. They are twice as likely to be excluded from school. If they are excluded from school, the statistics around them going on to be actual offenders and end up in prison is huge, 96% of the prison population of boys.

23:48 It's so staggering. And I was sat there and I thought, again, this doesn't actually provide any solutions. It's just a state of the nation's clip. So from that I decided to start this thing, front foot pathways, which is something, and the tagline of this is using the values of sport to nurture young men who are resilient, responsible and strong in character. And those three things are taken from the State of the Nation report. And it essentially focuses on providing boys with the opportunities to learn about positive values. It allows them to understand some of the concepts that we're looking for in those values. For example, one that I love to talk about with kids is integrity. I feel like we sometimes think, well, let's just call it honesty and be done with it.

24:33 No, no, let's empower them. Let's upskill them. Don't patronise people to not think they can understand integrity. Let's allow them to understand that that's the one thing that they cannot give away. That fact I when someone said to me, I blew my mind, everything can be taken for you in life, but your integrity is yours and yours alone to give away. And it goes through these talks. I go and I do them in school, I do them at local rugby clubs. But what I find really powerful about the talks is that they are alongside sport. This is what I was going to hook on here is it seems to be sports centred almost. It almost would capture a lot of children's interest and boys interest. Well, I'm playing rugby, I'm playing sport. But actually not, not stealthily whatsoever because I think you're very clear about what you're saying. But it's a way, I think, to get to more children and people and boys in particular than maybe you would have otherwise. Yeah, 100%.

25:26 And, and, and even more than that, and this is really the point, is that boys get told constantly that you're naughty, you're this, you're that. They get labelled and I sit there and I'm like, how have we just told and potentially label the child, potentially mark that child for life as lazy when they have not missed a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday rugby session or football session or whatever sport it might be in their whole life. And it's raining and it's cold and they're there every single time. And I'm there like what we need to do this is sorry, I'm not preaching like this is all stuff that I think hopefully is universally accepted. But the idea that we want to empower our our boys to see the good in themselves and then to gas them up and say, we want to see more of that.

26:10 Like it's not a case of just saying, don't be this, don't be this, don't be this, because they're kind of left confused and going, well, what should I be? But going into their sport and watching boys train and I go, wow, God, when you, when you told me that, you know, you hadn't hit that line and therefore, you know, you've not done it, that was integrity. Well done. You've got those integrity. You know, when you, when you jump back after that shot, God, you got creamed. You jumped straight back up. That was resilience and allowing them to be like, Oh no, I am resilient. I have got integrity. And where Front foot pathways works is it's that translation from, don't you tell me you've not got integrity or resilience or discipline and then not show it in life. And it's about that middle bit of translating it over. And I think that if we can get that right, we could make our boys feel empowered to be really positive influences. And it changes that narrative.

26:59 It's no longer don't be toxic. It's now, God, I want to be positive. And I think that's an important point. I want to push you a bit on how you think that will maybe make an impact more widely on these statistics. You said that to me a horrifying, you know, 96% of the prison population being male, the, the amount of boys being excluded, the horrendous attitudes we see in your adolescence. Yet to microcosm, it's, it's fiction, but it is based on what happens in real life. What do you see as the bridge between the the amazing work you're doing and then eventually hopefully seeing an impact on the wider, more serious numbers? I think like there's a couple of things there. The first one being the, the exclusions link to incarcerations, you know, that's a direct link.

27:45 So we can do something about that because they're with us at that time. So can we work with them on the ground? And of course it's correlation, not cause, but it's, it's a, it's a statistic we can, we can look at there. So working with our boys from the the second we get them at primary even maybe, but second years, they come in year 7 and not identifying specific kids and making them go to a workshop or something, but just talking the way we speak to them, the the assemblies we put in front of them, the role models we're choosing to prioritise in our schools, I think is really important. And then the other thing with with it is I think our relationship with role models is really important because for me, I was really lucky. Like my dad was a teacher.

28:26 He wasn't a really rich guy. He wasn't someone who I looked up to because of his status. I looked up to him because he was really kind. I looked up to him because he used to tell me he loved me more than anyone, anything. And I think that sometimes we are in this culture of status. We're in this culture of financial success being what we're chasing, whereas if we can start to make sure that these kids can see that they can go up, grow up to be really positive men, they can grow up to be really great role models themselves because they are strong in character. Then all of a sudden we don't have the this, I mean, TikTok culture kills me. Louis Theroux's coming out with a Netflix thing about the manosphere and we've got some of these role models. I saw something awful the other day, which was a group of 30 something year old men sitting around talking about essentially, what do they call it when they when they wind someone up on the street rage baiting. And I sit there and I'm like, what if we want people to think that they can be something by doing that, what's that going to do to our society?

29:35 Or if we can start pointing out normal and say, look, no, we want people to be humble. We want people to to have a lot of discipline. We want people to be able to work really hard. And if you can actually convince them that it's true, then they'll want to grow up and be positive influences in order to achieve that that aspiration or that to be like their role models. Thinking back to that year six class that I mentioned earlier, social media was already, for me, a huge, glaring, glaring problem. And that's just from year 6. So as a secondary school teacher, how have you found that social media has impacted the kids, impacted the way they act, what they're getting from it? Is it a massive issue? Yeah, Well, certainly in my school context, like I won't go into too much detail on it, but we have had to bring in a phone ban, which I know loads of schools around the country have had to do. But it's just because it's, it's incessant, it's relentless and it doesn't switch off.

30:30 And so we know how hard it is to sometimes being on social media ourselves to not be checking your phone constantly. But yeah, some of these, some of these students would be under the table constantly whilst you're trying to teach them. And you then get into that battle in the classroom of being like, right, you need to come off your phone now. And you just what gets added to the to the classroom environment anyway. But then outside of the classroom as well. I mean, some of the problems that social media brings in Cardiff alone right now, we just had this idea, somebody, somebody posted this idea that half the schools in Cardiff, we're going to have a fight with the other schools. We had something here, I'm not joking, in our hometown, exactly the same. It split the schools, secondary schools in half, and they said we're having a war. It's like a TikTok thing.

31:11 We had that too, yeah. Like last week? Yeah. And you just sit there and you just think that must that would have been done by someone sat in a dark room just having a laugh. But then someone shares it and the next thing you know some, and this is what frustrates me, is people can do these things with no accountability. It can come from someone who has absolutely no right to have a voice like that to cause such a fuss. But all of a sudden it's all over and our schools are having to deal with it. And I just think actually we do just need to be careful with who we platform on social media. Obviously, I know we've touched on it before, but at the same time, this is the world that we live in and we do need to make sure that we're not just saying to people, no, you can't use it because you look at people like Simon Squibb for example.

31:56 Think what you want about Simon Squibb. What he has done with his social media has been platforming loads of small businesses, which is amazing. You know what we have both, you know, all three of us have been able to do through social media is reach a, a wider audience and share what happens in the teaching profession. And actually, as you see in lots of comments, people are really grateful to see what happens inside the teaching profession. It helps people to connect and it helps people to go, oh, well, that happens to me too. Or, Oh my God, I feel like that. Thank God I'm not the only one. So social media is a huge power for good if used correctly. And I, I think it probably comes down to education as, as everything does, doesn't. It How have you found since the ban came in or, you know, maybe the ban was always there, but did you find as a teacher that it has been beneficial? Or do you think as a teacher?

32:43 Oh, actually, it's, it's restricted them in some ways or socially they're, you know, it's not as good for them. Now. What's your view on that ban and the outcomes because of it? Because we've spoken about it before. From a primary point of view, I can't see any argument why you would have phones in the room ever, but from a secondary I feel like the conversation does shift a bit more. Where do you stand and and and how effective it was? I honestly think it's the the best thing that's ever happened. To my school. Brilliant. You know, I think it's absolutely brilliant. It it just reduces so many arguments in the classroom. So just in terms of teaching and learning, I'm no longer having the battle of it. Well, it wasn't. I was just looking at my, looking at my feet. You weren't looking.

33:24 Through my camera. I'm just expecting my thumbs are still working. Is it all right mate? But then in terms of like for me too, you know the one thing I you know, I don't know. I'd love to hear your guys perspective on this too. But I try to not be on my phone during the day because obviously you're teaching. And actually when I first started out on my social media journey and it's since been ironed out, which is the, and this is from my end really is actually, I was just like, no, I shouldn't ever have my phone out. Like in the classroom really. Maybe if there's some reason, like sometimes we have two factor authentication sort of thing, but like really it's a case of don't have your phone out. So don't do those videos where the kids are in the background. Like I know some people do do that, but for me it's not something I do anymore.

34:14 But then I will have my phone out when I'm filming Tik Toks or or or Instagram videos. But it always happens after school. So I try to create that distance so that you don't get called a hypocrite in teaching. As you know, if you're if you're a hypocrite, you suddenly it always a very slippery slope, isn't it? Hey, I know you wanted to ask something, not that we're running out of time or anything, but this is quite a quite a juicy subject you. Wanted to. I was literally just think as well. Hilarious. We've left this to the end. Possibly the most obvious thing to talk about with an English second. School. Teacher, but obviously it's the year of reading and, and I really just want to know because as primary school teachers, reading consumes us genuinely. It's, it's obviously, obviously the most important thing that happens in primary school when it comes to education. We're not including safeguarding, things like that. I'm talking about academics, right? We need to be able to read.

34:58 It's the foundation for literally everything followed closely and you know, very closely because we're mathematicians ourselves, followed very closely by maths. But do you feel like the the big decline in reading for pleasure, is that noticeable because it's notable for us in primary school? Is it as noticeable in secondary school? Like I have a relatively short career, like I've been a teacher for three years, but it is crazy the amount of students I'll be like so who reads in there free time? It's just it's so few and it honestly breaks me genuinely breaks my heart because for me I'm such a big reader. Me and my partner sit upstairs every night and we read and when I was a kid I read and read and read and it was so exciting to me. And I do just sit there and I just think to myself is why is this happening? I think about is there anything I can actually do? What I always try to do is I try to recommend really specifically.

35:50 So one thing that I think that everyone and every teacher and anyone who is in any interaction with kids can do is read young adult fiction because you can then recommend. And I know that people will go argue, but I want to be reading something. But you forget recommending Dickens. If you want to inspire a child to read. If you go at Tale of Two Cities, they are laughing in your face. Whereas actually, for example, there's an amazing series by a guy called Robert Muchamore called the Cherub series. It's about young child spies and it deals with young you. Mentioned this the other day, it's amazing. Nate it's such a great book and sorry series and it deals with these young adult things and it catches them. And again, it comes down to that nuance of being like, no, I know you don't have to have gang.

36:32 It doesn't have to be gangs to get boys interested, but I think it might help. So like, let's just meet them where they're at. And like reading like this is the thing. And there's a great start and I wish I knew exactly where it came from, but it's something along the lines of the biggest predictor of future success in whatever way you define success is reading for pleasure. And if that's the case, you've got to remember it's not reading self help, it's not reading textbooks, it's reading for pleasure. Because if you are interested in it, it's snowballs, it compounds and and you just go and go and go. So for me in schools, we probably do have to start having a conversation about, we've traditionally gone for challenging texts because we talk about it being right for students to have access to these bigger texts. But what if we lose them because we miss the mark and they actually just go, like you said, to go back to the very start? Chasm's too great.

37:22 You've lost me and I'm. I'm no longer reading. Or do we go? Do we have to then reduce the books? But then do you risk patronising those students you want to go? So we come back to the grey area, which I. Yeah. It's tricky. It's it's tricky. I am what I love as well. You know, we asked, we asked you to chat on this podcast because there's so many strings to what you're doing. That's interesting to us. Obviously spoke about masculinity. This version about your social media. We're touching on English now and a big, a big thing that drew me genuinely, as I'm a, I'm a 32 year old bloke. It still drew me in to see a grown man talk passionately about the arts and reading and and getting into a book and poetry. That drew me in because I don't see a lot of it. I don't see that online.

38:07 So when I see you doing it, even as a person who's fully grown and understands the benefits and I've been in education my whole life, it still made me think, Oh, it is beautiful to pick up an amazing book and get lost in it for the sake of just getting lost in it. Not because I want to my business, not because I want to have a self help book on how I can get up earlier in the morning, but because I wanted to be immersed in a world that I'd never been in before and enjoy myself. And I've, I've, I've watched your video sometimes and I've gone to bed and I thought, I'm going to put my phone down and pick up my Kindle. I'm going to pick up my book and read. And you've done that to me, a first two year old man who still understands it's important. So what I'm trying to get across now is, you know, we've spoken about reading for pleasure and how it's really important. I know it's important and I still none sometimes need that kick up the arse for someone to say actually you will enjoy it if you just do it and have a bit of self-discipline and pick up a book and read it.

38:58 And I think what you're doing is fantastic and clearly your kids are getting a great deal. And I don't know if you just want to talk for a second about the importance when you're posting these things. Do you do it just because you love it? Or are you thinking to yourself, do you know what? I'm gonna be that role model, like we said before, for these young kids to actually if one person picks up a book in your class, you've done your job. It's difficult, isn't it? Because I honestly do try to be authentic. And I think that if I was pushing a narrative, it would, it would crumble and, and break. You know, it's very hard to pretend you're writing poetry. Do. A. Poem that's what you get a lot and I go, don't tempt me, right, because I will and you'll be So there's that.

39:44 And then I think like, I'm just, I feel lucky because I love reading And I think that sometimes I, I feel bad for people who don't love reading because it's more of a challenge for them. And then I feel heartbroken for those people who can't read. And I, I sometimes think about this. I've got again the poem that I mentioned earlier which talks about these things is Do you really think not being able to read is what that student desired? Is a line from it where I'm like, kids want to read. They do because it's the limit of their language, is the limit of their world. And so we need to empower them. And there's some wonderful work being done in my school and I'm really learning a lot from the people putting that provision in place. And it's something that I am loosely. Again, you can't, you can't have too much on. But I'm so interested in learning how to help those children at the lower ends of reading when they come up into secondary school because we're not trained on how to do it.

40:32 Then you fall into that trap of if you've got a student, let's say he's 14 or she's 14 and she can only read at let's say A5 year old level, they, they don't love that reading. So you, you do fall into that really tricky situation where again, you need time. More importantly than that, you need space because they often don't want to have to be learning how to read in front of their mates. So it's such a, it's such a tricky issue. That's way more than just let's just teach them how to read. It's how do you teach them how to read? Who are the people who are teaching them how to read? Because if they don't trust that person, there's no way they're sitting down with someone they don't like or trust and going through their phonics at the age of 14. So it's such a tough one. And guys, when you figure out, when I figure out, let's jump back on.

41:18 It's never ending battle. It's never a never ending quest. Genuinely, I'm going to leave you with this last question. Raj, one of those, a quick one, given everything, will you come down to primary and teach and teach English at that level or would you think you'll just stay where you are for now do? You know, one thing I will say is on that I love the topics. The if you get me in on on Egyptian topic, Yeah, and do some stuff. There you go, you're in. Just wanted to say, George, thank you so much for your time and thank you for your insights. And it's so interesting to me, hopefully the listeners as well, I've got something out of it. So I appreciate that, definitely. It's so hobs to you, by the way. So hobs actually, I think we've transcended to that space the. Kids, the kids call me Hobnobs, so you can go. There you go.

42:00 There you go. That is it from now. From my end though, as well, just when I first stumbled across your videos, I remember sitting there and it did something for me where I went, Oh, I felt a bit more empowered. Like I used to be that guy who'd come in with a smile on my face and do whatever, and I never really thought about it. And you know what? You just changed my perspective on the way I see my professional life and I think it's really important what you're doing. I, I am a massive advocate for it. You do it in a way that's really digestible and really fun to watch. And having met you guys in person, what's really nice is you're actually both such nice guys. Not saying that you I didn't think you would be. You can click them up. You hate to make yourself. Say it, it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's it's been great to have to be on here and thanks for having me. Nice one.

42:45 Cheers mate, thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed that chat as much as we did. What a nice guy doing things that mean a lot to him. Absolutely fantastic. You can follow Mr Hobbs down below, putting the show notes, links to his social media and if you enjoyed the episode, why not leave us a review and share it with someone you think might also enjoy it. We'll catch you next time for another episode. See ya.