In this episode of the Neuroeducation Podcast, host Angie explores the question of what we are doing in our education system that leads to ignorance and a disparity of wealth and experience among children. She discusses the need for change in our education system and how it can supercharge learning. Angie also shares a personal experience from her high school years that had a profound impact on her worldview. Tune in to discover the importance of embracing multiculturalism and the power of education to revolutionize children's learning.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:05 - Personal High School Experience

00:01:36 - Encounter with an Afghan Refugee

00:03:55 - Ignorance About Global Issues

00:04:49 - Becoming a Global Citizen

00:05:53 - Disparity of Wealth and Child Labor

00:08:03 - Daily Impact on Global Child Welfare

00:08:24 - Fair Trade and Consumer Awareness

00:09:19 - Education as a Tool for Change

00:10:22 - Inspiring Youth to Solve Global Problems

00:11:06 - Real-World Applications in Education

What are we doing in our education system that we can come out so

ignorant? What are we doing here in the West and

in the first world when we have so many children that

have such a disparity of wealth and experience? What is

education if we are just doing the same thing year

after year? If we don't change what we do in

our education system, we're going to be creating the exact same

result. Welcome to Neuroeducation, where

we're exploring the neuroscience of how to switch on the brain to

supercharge learning. I'll be sharing with you innovative teaching techniques,

effective parenting strategies, and educational advocacy. I'm

your host, Angie Dee. Together, let's revolutionize children's

learning. Hi

everybody, thank you for tuning in to Neuroeducation Podcast

with Angie Dee. I had an interesting experience in

my final years of high school. I would say I

had what you would call a pretty typical year 12 experience.

I did move from Sydney to Brisbane, which was interesting. But

I got to do some cheerleading in high school, got to date

one of the footy boys, it was pretty exciting, he

was a hottie. But something happened

in the end of my year 12 journey

that really shook my world forever.

So I met a bunch of guys who I actually

thought were from South America, but it turns out they were

actually from Afghanistan. But one of them had asked me if

I wanted to go along to an awards night and he had

been nominated for international student of

the year. And I said, oh my gosh, yes,

I loved everything multicultural, anything about other

cultures, languages, dance, anything multicultural, I'm

in. So there I was on the awards night

watching my friend who

actually got the award. And lo and behold, when

the award was read out, it had a spiel about

his life. And so I found out,

no, he wasn't from South America. He indeed was actually

from Afghanistan and he was from a group in Afghanistan, an

ethnic group called the Hazaras. And what I

found out that he had been through so much in

his life. more than I could possibly imagine in

my entire life. He had been through a

war where the Taliban had come, had taken his

father for questioning. His father was never returned. He

came from a village where so many women died because they didn't

have any access to hospitals. There

was no running water and he had lost

so many members of his family to so many different tragedies.

And he had come to Australia as a refugee because

he didn't have any other choice. In

his village in Afghanistan, the Taliban were making the rounds, taking

the eldest son from every family. And

they were back for their second round. And I think it

was his uncle that actually helped him to come out

to Australia. Now here I was as a grade 12 student

at the end of grade 12, mind you, about to

go out into the world. And I tell you, I had

no idea about anything that was going on in Afghanistan. I

had no idea about the war. I didn't know it had been through a social war.

I didn't know that it had been through a civil war that Russia

had tried to take over. And now the Taliban, I had no idea. And

so I was dumbfounded that

I could go through all of my education and be

so ignorant about so many facets of the

world. I was desperate.

I was desperate to be able to make an impact for people like

my friend, who had gone through so much, who

had lost so many family members and literally

been thrown across the other side of the world because the

only other solution was death. And

here I was in my privileged little life,

doing some cheerleading, dating a little footy boy,

actually dating a very strong, strong footy boy. But

here I was with no idea what was going on in half of

the world. So what are we doing in

our education system that we can come out so ignorant? Like

as a global citizen that I now consider myself to be, I have

educated myself on the current situations in

the world. I have done the research. I

went on to volunteer with the Oak Tree Foundation, which

is Australia's very first youth run aid

organization. And what we did is we went into schools

to teach them. what was happening and what we

could advocate for for our government to make sure

that we had greater impact for our local aid

and for fair trade and making a positive impact in

our global community. When

you look at something like the eight millennium development

goals created by the United Nations, you

can see what a huge disparity we

have of wealth in our world. A huge disparity. There

was one story that I read on

a human rights watch when I was doing the work with the

Oak Tree Foundation and it had the story of a little

girl from Tamil Nadu in India and

this little girl said, I don't care about going

to school, all I want to do is bring my

sister home from the bonded labour man. Every

morning at six she has to go to work and

every night at nine she comes home and if she doesn't go to work he

comes and he beats her. All I want to do is

bring my sister home. I don't have 500 rupees

and I will never have 500 rupees so I cannot bring

my sister home. The sad fact is

in this human rights watch it shared that well not

only is only 500 rupees about 20 US dollars but

that this girl is among millions that

were working in bonded labor because they

had no other choice as a family when you're

living on less than a dollar a day than as millions of people do.

If absolutely anything happens, if somebody gets sick or somebody needs

medicine, the only way they can get money is by going to

the local factory and signing bonded labor contract. These

parents have never learned how to read and write, which is why they only getting

a dollar or less than a dollar a day in their

job. And they have to sign their children over in

bonded labor, which has mean they're working off whatever the debt is

for labor. Because they can't read and write. Half of these contracts have ridiculous

interest rates. And some of these children are working for

20, 30 years to pay off a debt of $20. I

was horrified when I read that story. And I thought, what

are we doing? What are we doing here in the West?

And in, I would say, the first world. When

we have so many children that have such

a disparity of wealth and experience. And it sent me

on and a quite interesting adventure to look at what

are the daily things that we can do that make an impact to

children in other countries. Recently, I

have been running my own homeschool group. Uh,

and what was so fun to research during

that homeschooling was the process that

our clothes go through. our coffee, our

chocolate? What processes that go through from

growing and production to getting it to where

it is today for us to actually to eat, to consume

or to wear? And looking at is

it a fair trade process or are these people actually

paid a decent wage? And not

only is it a fascinating way for children to be able to engage

and understand the world around them, what's happening in

different countries, the reality of how people are living, how

much money that they're being given and how much people are

being paid for, how much of the money that

we pay are actually getting back to these people. And

so when we look at these kinds

of things, I think it's important to look at We

live in an incredibly privileged society and

what is education if it's not a help to life?

What is education if we are just doing the

same thing year after year? If we don't

change what we do in our education system we're

going to be creating the exact same result. So

as global citizens helping to create global

citizens in our students, we want to be creating a

mindset that says, okay, what's a

problem that we have in this world? And how can

we change that? Adolescents have some of

the most outrageous hormones, but we know adolescents also

have passion and belief in themselves that they can make change.

So we can use these crazy

outrageous hormones, this incredible belief in themselves, to

be able to take the world's problems and to give

it to children because you can look after story

after story of children all around the world creating

solutions to problems in their local and global communities.

The young boy who created, it's called Harness the Wind, I

think, on Netflix. Amazing system of

electricity over in Africa. Children in Bali that

are creating amazing solutions for all

of the pollution that they have. But we here in

the West and in first world countries, especially here

in Australia, we can use our educational system to

empower children to make positive changes for

the world and for the future. So next

time you're getting children to read something

on a nursery rhyme, or you're getting children to read something

about a novel or a narrative, you

can think, what is a real world situation we can embed

into this subject or scenario so that we

open the children's eyes to the reality of the world and

give them the motivation to make a positive impact. Thank

you so much for listening to this episode. It would be in a massive

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