[Intro Music]

00:00:08:11 – 00:01:02:25
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated in every classroom, in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates the successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series one of the Diverse Ed podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode, our co-hosts Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey, and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:18 – 00:01:19:01
Nick
Hello and welcome to the Diverse Ed Podcast. My name is Nick Kitchener-Bentley and I am a lead practitioner and drama / inclusion teacher at Sarah Bonnell School. I’m also on the steering group for LGBT ed.

00:01:19:26 – 00:01:31:25
Yamina
Hi, I’m Yamina Bibi and I’m an assistant headteacher also at Sarah Bonnell School, and I’m also a network lead for Women Ed in London. In this episode we’ll be talking to Kiran from the Marriage and Civil Partnership chapter.

00:01:32:18 – 00:01:45:03
Nick
Thank you very much. So just before we start, it’s always nice to hear a little bit about the people who are joining us. So we were wondering, Kiran if it’d be okay for you to just introduce yourself to the audience in one sentence, please.

00:01:46:13 – 00:02:13:19
Kiran
Firstly, thank you for having me both on Nick and Yamina, yes, I’ve recently become an assistant headteacher, I’m reading lead across the trust looking at literacy in particular. But my specialism is reading. A teacher of all year groups because I’m going back into year five and six after four years in key stage one. So I’m looking forward to that as well. And that’s more than a sentence. I apologise. I could tell you more. I’ll hold back.

00:02:15:17 – 00:02:22:19
Nick
No. It’s great. We love hearing. Do you want to tell us more? Because it’s great to hear about all of the people that are on the podcast.

00:02:23:06 – 00:03:10:01
Kiran
Yes. So Women Ed Network Leader. I’ve been with Women Ed for about five years now. I’ve made a lot of connections through Women Ed to the point where the job and the last four years of my career have probably been the best because of the connections I made though Women Ed. It’s that sense of community, but also that sense of connection based on values, which then sort of leads down to all the literacy work I’ve done with Just Imagine and Nicky Gamble who again is all for empowering women and enabling them for everyone, not just women. Everyone in terms of inclusivity. Yes. So and yeah, I think Women Ed has just been a great source of inspiration and connection and again, the reasoning for this book, I suppose, because without it, I suppose it wouldn’t be here.

00:03:11:14 – 00:03:21:08
Yamina
I love that. Thank you. Shout out to Women Ed. So just to delve straight in, really, what inspired you to write your contribution to Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.

00:03:22:10 – 00:04:18:21
Kiran
Someone believing in me if I’m being completely honest. So Hannah asked a few of us didn’t she and it was that idea of someone believing in you. I’d written a few blogs before anyway about fairy tales and princesses and I’ve got nothing against fairy tales or princesses. But I think it’s very, it becomes very stereotypical to the point where it limits young girls perceptions of themselves. So I think it was more about, well, how can I write this chapter in a way that in terms of academia as well, that is taken a bit more seriously, that these are limiting perceptions that young girls will have of themselves. And I’ve seen it through my career in early years all the way up to year five and six. So it was a worrying thread that I continued to see, yeah, it was more a case of serving these young girls and making sure that they understand that they’re more than their image.

00:04:20:05 – 00:04:56:01
Nick
Literally, thank you so much for writing the chapter. I’m so glad that you did because it is absolutely fascinating and the way that you unpack those different fairy tales and kind of open up for the reader ways that they need to be reframed, I found absolutely fascinating. So yeah, I’m really glad you wrote it and really glad that you believed in yourself as well. Yamina and I were also really interested as well as your own specific ideas about the overall themes in the whole chapter that your team that were looking into marriage and civil partnership wanted to explore. So what were some of those themes that emerged as the chapter was being written?

00:04:56:26 – 00:07:18:06
Kiran
It’s really great how Jackie put it all together, to be honest, because there was a thread that was running through about sort of disrupting the equilibrium. So Jackie edited it really, really well and a big shout out to Jackie because she was, she was phenomenal. And again, a great sense of and source of support. So we start with that fairy tale, that understanding that this is a part of our heritage. Isn’t it. In many ways, as young readers, it was unpacking what that actually has impacted on, it then goes into marriage becoming a feminist issue and some of the chapters talk about how women can lose their sense of identity as well, it’s just little things like the fact that your title changes from Ms to Mrs. But nothing ever happens to the men’s title. Interesting. It then goes into sort of family dynamics. And how inclusive are we when we think about the term marriage and how it relates to different families? So that’s similar. We talk about same sex marriages, same sex civil partnerships, but then looking at that from the child’s point of view. So having two mums, where is that in literature, how is that enabled in terms of representation within a school? And then it ends with again married couples as well. So in terms of like the range of voices that you have, they’re really inclusive. But then the married couple sort of go on there viewpoints about how they see marriage from a men’s point of view, a woman’s point of view in education and as leaders as well. Because there’s, there seems to be a thing, especially with women, where they get married, have their families and then their careers sort of stops for certain women and in certain settings. And again, I’ve seen it. I’ve worked in 5 or 6 schools now where it seems to be again a running theme where they have their children. They tend to go part time. They aren’t actually able to move up that ladder if they so choose to. But it seems like it, yeah, again, it limits it limits what you can do, which isn’t the case in this chapter because Sarah Mullin’s chapter sort of goes on to say that you can be more than just a wife. So it’s got loads of spectrums to it, loads of spectrums to it where anyone can read it, dip into it and take on somebody else’s point of view about marriage.

00:07:18:06 – 00:07:30:22
Yamina
Thank you so much for sharing that. And you kind of touched on it already, but we were curious to know what were the key things for people with this protected characteristic of marriage and civil partnership that your team really wanted to address?

00:07:31:20 – 00:08:59:05
Kiran
I think it was making sure that we see that person as more than just being married and that it doesn’t define you to the point where it limits you as well. So it’s those preconceived ideas of what a wife should be and what a husband should be and how that works. And again, bringing it down to children as well, not bringing it down, but bringing it towards the children’s perspectives, what role models are we giving them when they grow up right? What is it that we want them to see as potentials, as possibilities. Being married doesn’t mean that your career ends for a woman and for the man it tends to carry on. Being married doesn’t mean, it’s very heteronormative, isn’t it, when you think about patriarchal structures and things like that, it is still very heteronormative to the point where you think about capitalism and the way things are sold for gender still with children. And so it’s unpacking what it means to be married. And the way that the chapter is written is sort of like a prism of perspectives. It isn’t just this one view of marriage. It’s you take ownership of it as well, isn’t it, that from whatever point of view you’re coming from, I mean, you know, we’ve got same sex marriages in that chapter as well. And yet they’re not, they’re not represented in school, in education, in stories, yet they should be. So I think education to a certain degree needs to catch up with what’s actually happening rather than being comfortable with what’s already been.

00:09:00:10 – 00:09:33:17
Nick
I’m very interested by what you’re saying there. And if it’s okay to ask a follow up question on that, just because I find it really, really fascinating. You were speaking about the kind of the heteronormative kind of assumptions and the way in which kind of also for women, the way in which particular expectations have been underlined. And I was wondering, in your experience, based on what you were writing about, how far do you think those assumptions have actually impacted on young people and the children and students in our schools?

00:09:33:17 – 00:13:59:21
Kiran
Oh, a lot. I can speak from my personal experience. I’ve put it down almost as a case study in my chapter where it was year five and it was International Day of the Girl. And I asked the children, what do you think of when you think of a girl? And I specifically asked the boys and not the girls because I knew what their answers would be. But it had come from conversations that I had with some of the girls about their not being included in football outside and things like that. And I thought, well, why is that? Because when I unpacked it with the boys and their perception of what a girl was, it was basically they were describing a Barbie girl, a Barbie doll to the point where I was shocked because I thought, oh, my goodness, you’ve been in my class for a couple of months now. What have I done? What have I missed or what haven’t I done? I don’t know what my role modelling to you. But it wasn’t a sense of what haven’t I done, it was a case of that no one’s actually unpacked gender with them. And I think it’s really important that we distinguish sex between gender as well, because gender is a made up construct, it’s a societal construct. But then what that perception was doing for the boys was it was limiting their understanding of what girls are capable of doing. And within that 20, 25 minutes of conversation, the boys actually, you could see that they started to self-reflect to the point where their minds were blown quite a bit. They were like, well, why aren’t girls paid equally in football? And why. aren’t… so it then became that they were questioning the norms that were there. But that has been something that is seen in early years as well. Just again, with the way that plays that, the girls would always tend to go in the home corner and the boys were always in construction. And it was, it’s that understanding that they need different play to enable them to develop in different ways as parts of the brain that will develop because they, you know, they’re playing with construction and you could map it out, those myths about women drivers and the fact that they’ve got a lack of spatial awareness, but it’s probably because there’s certain parts of the brain that didn’t develop because of the fact they didn’t play with construction. So it was things like that it’s being aware of it and then sort of showing them actually you do need to be doing this. And the boys do need to come out of the construction and go into the home corner to develop those aspects of their personalities and that’s part of their development. So I think it’s being really, really aware of it that actually it’s quite pervasive. It happens without you realising, if you let it. But I think that’s why as educators, we need to be switched on to all of this, to the point where if we’re truly enabling children, if we’re truly enabling the young learners that we have in front of us, we need to challenge the assumptions that they’ve already been exposed to. Because that, I think, I’ll never forget the International Day of the Girl in 2017, because for me it was a case of these boys know what I’m like. I go rock climbing and things, so they know that their teacher does stuff that maybe not many women do. Then yet they still had quite a stereotypical view of a girl which again would limit them in terms of relationships and in all of that spectrum of understanding that they need. So it is very pervasive, I think, unless you are very aware of it, which I think this book does amazingly well, it taps into you in the sense that you need to be more critical and more challenging of what you see. We are sort of letting it fester. And then you have issues when they are older, when they are teenagers which I won’t go into. But then when they’re older and they’re men and they’re adults and they don’t understand what the word no means, and we’ve seen a lot of it in and we’ve seen a lot of it in the media now coming out. It’s on Love Island as well. That womens aid have got in contact with Ofcom about how the men are treating the women in Love Island. I don’t watch Love Island but do keep abreast of certain media issues. So it is very pervasive to the point where if we don’t challenge it when they’re younger and this idea of neuroplasticity as well, that they’re young enough to have their, it’s moldable, their ideas about society, their ideas about relationships and gender, and what it means to be a boy and what it means to be a girl is still very much mouldable at a young age. And when you get to the different types of formative years, then the impacts you can see in sometimes very worrying ways. I think we’ve got a really big responsibility to make sure that we are brave enough to be challenging it.

00:14:00:26 – 00:15:26:20
Nick
Kiran, you’ve spoken so well. And it’s really, really interesting to hear what you were saying about the fact that we need to challenge it and not just accept it and not just allow these things to be things that go on. And whilst what you were initially describing there in terms of, you know, you think it’s 2022 and young people are having some of these assumptions, how are they still existing? But what was that wonderful I thought, what was so powerful about it, is the way that you’ve offered like some really valuable ways of unpacking it and challenging it and talking about how this can be done. I was really interested, again, that you were saying how we need to talk about educators being switched on to and being aware of it. And that kind of brought to mind some of the takeaways that you wrote about at the end the chapter, and I’ll just read them out because I’m really interested by them and why you thought they were so important to you. What you wrote was: ‘as educators, we must be aware of societal constructs that we may unintentionally perpetuate and so limit learners perceptions of themselves. Fairy tales are not fixed. Neither are learners minds. Neuroplasticity could be used as a teaching tool.’ And then you write about equilibrium. You said ‘Equilibrium: every story we share as educators starts with equity, and equality weaves through the happily ever after.’ I mean, it’s really powerful stuff there and I love what you’re writing about. I was just wondering from your point of view, could you expand a bit more on these takeaways and tell us why they’re so important to you.

00:15:26:20 – 00:19:01:18
Kiran
Well, yeah, okay. I’ll go a bit personal, I suppose. I don’t know, Yamina, if you’d be able to say, I don’t know, echo some of it, but I think my, growing up, I have two sisters. So me and my little sister, we’ve been raised by single mom. And I couldn’t wish for a better role model if I’m honest. But culturally, there were a lot of things that were negatively imposed on her, I suppose, to the point where they couldn’t believe how she was raising me and my sister. To just be humans, it had nothing to do with gender. But from my understanding and my perceptions and my experience of the cultural norms that were around us at the time, we weren’t meant to be having an education. We weren’t meant to think for ourselves, we weren’t meant to question, we weren’t meant to challenge. Whereas Mum instilled that in us very early on and to the point where she’d walked away from her family. So when I think of family, it’s me, my mum and my sister and then the friends in the community that you build around you from that. So I think growing up with a single mom being as strong as she was to sort of challenge that and say, no, it’s not right, my girls do deserve an education and my girls do deserve to think for themselves. And I know I’m very assertive. I know I can be quite mouthy as well. But in a good way to the point where I’m in service to the girls and the young people that I’m serving and the fact that I’m going to Africa again. So, I mean, she had kittens the first time I went by myself, but she instills that in me. So it was my second year teaching. I really wanted to go to Tanzania to teach. But it is that bravery that she probably didn’t realise that she was doing at the time. That that was instilled in me from a very young age. And it’s something that I want to make sure that every child, every boy and girl, especially girls. And what I’ve noticed throughout my career and obviously becoming assistant headteacher now is that I didn’t have many role models growing up. Of a certain race or ethnicity to me, and I’m very mixed anyway. So even finding someone who represents who you are was difficult. But it came down to that idea of it doesn’t really matter about appearance or anything else. It matters about your core. And that’s something that needs to be instilled in the young girls, especially because there are still too many messages about what they look like and how they should look. For me, it scares me because I think it should never be about that. It should always come down to your core and it comes down to mind and it comes down to heart and it comes down to making sure you’re questioning things around you. Because if they don’t feel right for you or they don’t seem fair, then you should have a voice to question it. I think that’s why it was so important to write it the way that I had, because she did, my mum did disrupt the equilibrium for us from a cultural perspective. And yet I know my life could have been very, very different if she didn’t do what she did for me and my sister and what she’s doing for herself as well. So she wasn’t allowed to get an education when she was younger. And it was that idea you get married, you have your kids and that’s it. And that’s scary to think that it’s still happening. It is still happening. And it’s not to say it’s wrong, I know it’s a cultural thing to a certain degree, but when you mix it up with gendered assertions and gendered assumptions, it can be damaging. So, I don’t know if that answered it, I wasn’t expecting to get personal.

00:19:02:13 – 00:19:39:14
Yamina
No, Kiran you always move me to tears every time you speak honestly, what do you to me. I think so much of what you’ve said has really resonated with me and it will resonate with a lot of our listeners and it’s just so empowering the way you spoke about that and really your manifesto and your commitment to the manifesto is also really empowering. And you say you want us to share stories that create curiosity, not conventionality, and think what if. So, Nick and I were really curious to know more about your commitment to the manifesto and how you want to galvanise actions from the reader and our listeners, today.

00:19:40:12 – 00:22:00:13
Kiran
I think always start with the literature in your classroom if I’m honest, I think it’s an easy way to open up conversations in a safe way. And again, I mean, everyone knows which one is my classroom because they see the books on display. So I have Interstellar Cinderella. I have Old Tales for Boys. You can see straight away that I am making sure that we are disrupting the narratives that are there and it’s nothing to take away from those archetypes because there’s lots of literary value in them, absolutely, in the way that you engage readers interest. If we are thinking about it from a social point of view and wanting to have our children have an open mind. The whole point of education is to have an open mind. And the easiest way to start with is through literature and then obviously through the Diverse Educators: A Manifesto book, because there’s loads of links and loads of resources there as well. And I definitely think more needs to be done in terms of initial teacher training as well, that we are enabling the younger teachers coming through. And I do, I don’t know if you know, but I think in terms of retention probably would help because, I don’t know about you two, but it has to start with your why, it has to start with the purpose of what are you doing this job for. And I think the diverse manifesto definitely enables you to get back to that core reason of why we’re doing this job. So for me, literature in terms of what you are sharing with the children and there are a range of diverse fairy tales now and they’re becoming more inclusive as well. And I’m not just talking about different families and all of that, I’m talking about disabilities and what does that mean as well in terms of, I mean, when you think about certain stories as well about single mothers, because it did get on my nerves growing up, like, there were always alcoholic or depressed or something. That isn’t a great representation. And actually, again, it’s limiting the idea. Claire Price’s chapter is really powerful in the sense that she goes all out about lone parents and things like that. So I think literature for children and being brave enough to have that literature in your classroom. And role model how you would use it, use it as part of your story time, use it as part of your [sodas?], use it as part of your reading lessons. Then literature for staff as well, which I think starts with this book.

00:22:01:03 – 00:22:35:08
Nick
Your points are just brilliant, Kiran. Yamina and I are nodding away. You can’t see because it’s a podcast, but it’s just absolutely fantastic, you know? What you said about stories for young people and the value that that has in the literature is absolutely so essential, isn’t it. It is vital. How great to hear about your classroom. But I would completely echo what you’re saying about the literature for the staff as well, and making sure that staff are aware of some of these assumptions and what’s going on and how we can challenge it. It’s just absolutely vital. So thank you so much. And yeah, your ideas about the why as well, just fabulous. We could talk about this forever.

00:22:35:14 – 00:23:26:01
Nick
Something I was really interested in in your chapter and I think it kind of builds a little bit on what you were just saying there was you spoke about the dialogic space and that was a really important way for you to interrogate what you noticed about the assumptions that some of the young people were having. And you said that dialogic space emerged, which enabled the children to question their own assumptions about gender. I mean, the work you’re doing is obviously so valuable for children of all genders that, you know, whether they’re male, female, non-binary, it’s really clear that you’re being aware of how those assumptions can be really damaging and you’re challenging them. And I was just wondering if you’d be able to maybe tell us a little bit about why such dialogic spaces are so meaningful and perhaps give some advice to educators that are also hoping to encourage young people to interrogate some of those assumptions.

00:23:27:06 – 00:27:24:27
Kiran
Dialogic spaces are, it’s giving ownership to the children’s voices. I think that the key thing that you do as a teacher is facilitate the discussion. And again, you have to be brave enough to then just let it be in terms of what will happen from that conversation and how you obviously manage it. But I think it’s definitely the time of day, the time of year, getting relationships is key. You need to know your children. And it might be like, I did that with the whole class. But if it was a different class, it might be that I do it in a different way where we do as part of circle time, it’s not a thing anymore, but sort of having those times and it’s important work and we have to teach the curriculum and stuff like that. But the fact is that this is what learning is about as well. It’s about that whole child. So I think definitely knowing your children first and foremost is essential because it might not be wise to do it a whole class to begin with, and you just do it as groups first. And I think it’s about picking up on what the children are saying and how they’re behaving towards each other. I think that one class will always stay with me because I had, they were stereotypical children. They were stereotypical of their gender. I mean, it scared me to the point where these are going to limit you in terms of your relationships as well. And you don’t want to preempt things, but you have to be real, you have to be real. And the schools I’ve worked in, you have to be real about it. And so it was giving them the tools to understand their emotions because a lot of the boys, they thought anger was it, that that’s the emotion that I have to feel, and it makes you a man and the rest of it. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. No. It’s that. And it’s again. I was, you know, the families were on board with it as well. I had had letters sent to me when I left the school as well, because the parents were grateful that someone was brave enough to challenge these assumptions. And yes, I think it’s been being brave, but it’s making sure that you’re giving the children ownership. And I think of a dialogic space. It’s about giving them ownership of what they’re saying and giving them the responsibility as well, because they need to understand that their words have power. And if it’s kind or unkind. So the point is that you have power in what you’re saying and it’s about being responsible with that power. But if you don’t enable them to speak freely then they’re never actually going to exercise that power in a responsible way. And that’s what I find, because especially with the boys, once they realised what they were thinking and how they were seeing it. And I think my reaction probably gave a lot of it away because I was completely shocked by what they were coming out with. It was like L’Oreal and Hairspray and pink, and it was perfect. That was the word that I was like girls are not meant to be perfect. No one is. But if that’s the assumption you have as a boy, my goodness, that’s going to limit you in many ways as well when you see, regardless of gender, when you’re used to seeing other people. And so it was I think my reaction probably enabled them a little bit as well because I thought this, if this is what you’re thinking and you think this is okay to think that way, and then it was, it was then turning it on. So we did the same with the boys. So I asked the girls, What do you think of, What do you think of when you think of the word boy? And that was shocking. Boys shouldn’t cry. They should not cry at all. And again, it was the boys were like, well, that’s a bit unfair. So I think it’s that. The dialogic space from my perspective, from my understanding of it because you’re not going to get anywhere otherwise. So I think it’s ownership. It’s making sure the children own what they say and understand that they have power in what they’re saying. And then enabling them to reflect on what is the action, what is the meaning of what they’re saying as well, because words are powerful and people perceive them in different ways, but you need to be intentional about what you’re saying. It’s preempting it, just preempting what could be. And what if.

00:27:26:21 – 00:27:57:04
Yamina
I love that idea of words are powerful. I think we know that’s really, really important. And actually, in your chapter I really noticed, I know you shared this particular quote that really stood out to me. Diversifying the narrative in our classrooms is essential to enable impactful and constant renewal of archetypal narratives. I wondered if you could share perhaps more about why it’s so important to diversify the narrative in our classrooms, particularly in challenging those archetypal narratives which you’ve touched upon earlier.

00:27:58:22 – 00:29:42:01
Kiran
So it doesn’t limit anything, so it doesn’t limit possibility. I think if you look at that program on the BBC, about no more girls, no more boys. And the idea that some of these archetypes, they do limit what the children perceive they can do. I think it’s that really in a nutshell, that it’s important to diversify and to keep renewing it because ideas are meant to change. We are meant to evolve as people and ideas are meant to evolve as well. And I think I started with Snow White in 1937, because that was the idea of gender at that point. I think moving forward into, you know, the Disney princesses that we have now, we have so much more diversity as well. And you know, Tiana and Moana. And it’s that idea that this is a normal thing as well. Humans evolve, ideas evolve. And it’s important that children understand that. And I think it’s, there’s nothing wrong with those archetypal narratives in terms of the story and things. And in terms of curriculum, they are, they’re good for the mechanics of what you trying to teach children. But I think it can verge on laziness if you don’t update that bank of ideas, those banks of possibilities because then you just see, I don’t think you’re doing the children a favour there. And it’s. All well and good having the archetypes, but you need to make sure that you are enabling the children to see that things are meant to evolve and that’s only going to have a better impact on their, you know, what they can do in terms of their writing, in terms of their reading in terms of their ideas, in terms of their learning, because it can be a bit lazy to just do that. I will say it.

00:29:43:16 – 00:30:00:21
Nick
No, I’m glad you said it. I think it’s important to say it. And you were speaking about some of the changes there that need to happen in terms of the curriculum evolving and what other changes would you like to see happen in the school system regarding the protected characteristic of marriage and civil partnership?

00:30:01:27 – 00:32:27:00
Yamina
I mean, there are two things, I think. Role models, obviously, I think with any DEI work, you have to go deep and that will make you uncomfortable. And I think role models are crucial because you have that window of time in a child’s life. And they do, they take it on board, what your role modelling to them. I think it is crucial for schools to be doing DEI work to ensure that they are, they’re being real with themselves as well. Are they role modelling the limiting assumptions that are there in front of the children on a day to day basis that they come in contact with through social media and things like that. So I do think deep work needs to be done about challenging who you are and are you showing up as the best role model that you can be for the learners? Because children pick up on everything and without realising, little things that you do, little things that you say. And how you assert yourself as well. And I think especially for women. But again, I think there does need to be some structural changes to the education system anyway, because it’s ironic that I’ve heard stories throughout my career about mothers, especially, who feel that they’re doing more for the children in their class, rather than their own children. And with that comes lots of other issues as well, like the mum guilt and things like that which should not be a thing. But I think flexibility is something that needs to start growing within our system because I think that’s that’s an issue for attention, but not just for women, for fathers as well. Because, again, what sort of role modelling are we giving children when we’re saying that their dad can take only two weeks off for paternity, and yet both should really be primary care givers. And again, that’s a gendered assumption right there that the man will just go back to work. What is it that we’re trying to teach our children? So I think there has to be changes in the system as well to enable this inclusive understanding of what marriage and civil partnership is. At the moment, it’s still very patriarchal in the way that it is and it’s still very Victorian era. I mean, the timetables to a certain degree is still a Victorian era. I think that comes down to being brave. We’ve got to be brave.

00:32:28:24 – 00:32:43:15
Yamina
I love that, and talking about being brave, in an ideal world Nick and I want to ask, what changes would you like to see happen in wider society then outside the school system? In wider society, what changes would you like to see happen?

00:32:43:15 – 00:33:55:03
Kiran
Honestly, just question more. I think, don’t take everything at face value, to question it. And I think it comes down to knowing who you are as well. I think. There are a lot of things that are sort of like a blanket view of this is what gender is or this is what it means to be this type of person or this type of person. And I think it’s easy to sort of just go along with it without realising whether that’s right for you or not. And so I think it’s more about inner work. I just wish more people would do the inner work because I think what’s being projected outwards is there’s certain norms that are being projected outwards that are limiting. And I always go back to children because that why you do it, it’s limiting what they can see in themselves. So I think I just wish more people would do the inner work and I think that the book especially invites you to do that. If you’re reading this book and you read it intentionally, you have to do inner work, you have to and then be intentional with what you’re projecting outwards. Because it’s your responsibility. And I think that it’s easy to sort of go with systems and things like that because it’s the way it is and I think we need to question that.

00:33:56:23 – 00:34:45:12
Nick
I’m sure that will resonate with a lot of people. It certainly has with me this morning and to hear about the personal and why, you know, individuals can do some of that inner work as well is just fantastic. So a big thank you from me for that. I’ve certainly found it interesting and I just wanted to say a big thank you as well for talking about your students so powerfully. And you’ve been really personal in terms of the work that you’ve been talking about there, but also for those students and I’m sure it will resonate with a lot of people the way you’ve thought about what it’s like for young people, boys, girls, non-binary children, you know, whatever their own experiences are and you’ve certainly encouraged people to question things today and that conversation so yeah been absolutely fantastic to speak to your obviously amazing and you’re obviously doing great work and I just wanted to say a big thank you. Thank you very much for joining us.

00:34:45:29 – 00:34:55:15
Yamina
Thank you so much Kiran for being with us. We’ve been Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi, the co-hosts of the Diverse Ed podcast.

[Outro Music]

00:34:55:15 – 00:35:11:26
Hannah
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Educators Podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.