The Finance Bible

ZG #5 - Australia's Education System Plummeting 2/2: Exposing the Collapse (Part 2/12)

• Zeke Guenthroth and Oscar Don

Share episode

Australia’s school system is no longer just broken — it’s actively working against the very values that once built our nation.

In this second instalment of The Finance Bible’s cultural reality check series, Zeke Guenthroth is joined by youth mentor Curtis Piper to deliver one of the hardest-hitting education critiques you’ll hear anywhere. This isn’t a surface-level chat about schooling — it’s a full-body audit of the mental, moral, and academic collapse of the Australian education system.

We’re not here for sugar-coated solutions or woke buzzwords. We’re here to confront the truth — backed by statistics, lived experience, and honest conversation.

🎯 In This Episode:

📉 Academic Decline

  • The shift from linear to non-linear learning
  • How Outcome-Based Education (OBE) derailed standards
  • The quiet removal of exams and plummeting NAPLAN/PISA scores
  • Public vs private school gaps in literacy, behaviour and suspensions

🧠 Mental Fragility & Cultural Confusion

  • 38% surge in antidepressant use across the past decade
  • Over 4 million Australians on prescriptions
  • Why schools no longer build resilience or mental toughness
  • Identity confusion, self-diagnosis culture, and validation over truth

👨‍🏫 The Collapse of Discipline & Role Modelling

  • 85% of youth detainees come from fatherless homes
  • Boys are now years behind girls in reading and writing
  • Male teacher shortage and its effect on boyhood and authority
  • How structure, challenge, and boundaries were replaced with fragility

📚 Indoctrination Over Education

  • Pronoun politics and identity-based teaching priorities
  • The censorship of critical thinking
  • Why financial literacy, masculinity, and strength are missing
  • The role of schools in enforcing rather than educating

🌍 Global Comparisons

  • How Australia stacks up to Singapore, Finland, and Japan
  • What these nations do differently in discipline, standards, and curriculum
  • What happens when Australia prioritises ideology over evidence

💥 Key Stats:

  • 75% of suicides are men – it’s the leading cause of death for Aussie males under 45
  • Antidepressant use up 38% in a decade — 1 in 6 adults now medicated
  • Boys’ literacy performance now trails girls by nearly a full school year
  • Suspensions have doubled in public schools over the past 10 years
  • OBE introduced across states like WA in the early 2000s; largely failed and dismantled, but its principles remain

This episode is your wake-up call.

It’s not just about depression, discipline, or academic decline. It’s about what happens when a country’s education system turns soft, safe, and submissive — and what that’s doing to an entire generation.

Future episodes will go deeper into fixing these crises, but today we name them — because you can’t change what you’re too afraid to talk about.

🔗 Listen now and join the movement:
🎧 Website: https://assetroad.com.au/the-finance-bible/

📢 Found this valuable?
Share it with someone who’s ready for real talk. The longer we wait to address these foundational issues, the harder they become to reverse.
Australia’s identity crisis demands our attention now — before the qualities that made our nation great disappear entirely.

DISCLAIMER:
The information in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal advice. It does not take into account your individual objectives, situation, or needs. Always consider wh

Did you like this episode?

Zeke Guenthroth:

Welcome to part two of the education podcast. Along with Curtis Piper, we're just going to jump straight back into where we left off. Enjoy.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Welcome back to another episode of the Finance Bible Podcast. You're joined with myself, zeke, and your co-host, oscar. But before we get into it, please note that nothing in this podcast should ever be considered as personal financial advice. But if that is what you are seeking, get in touch, let us know and we will hook you up with the correct professionals. Sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Let's get into it.

Zeke Guenthroth:

We've already spoken a little bit about male teachers vanishing, Like they don't really exist. So only 17% of primary school teachers are male.

Curtis Piper:

Really yeah, so not even one in five.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Why is that? To be fair, like growing up, I was never like I want to be a teacher. No, Growing up, no, but also gender equality. No, Growing up, no, but also gender equality, or equity as we call it. Now. You know we need more women in engineering and stuff. So what's going?

Curtis Piper:

on here. That's a great idea. That's a very good point that you've just made, if we are going to bring more women into the workforce, like they are doing in the mining industry, for example.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, they're coming in a lot in the mining industry, exactly.

Curtis Piper:

So if that is the case, then surely we can see something happen for us in the male primary school teachers side of things.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, like Defence Force advertising, you see a lot of women-only roles going. Should they not do the same thing in primary schools for men, I think so, and high schools, I think it's come to and preschools and, uh, child care, like all these different things? I think that that's what we need if we're going to. I mean, I completely disagree with that whole concept, to be honest. Like, um, you can't just introduce people into a workforce to try and balance it out. I think it's the dumbest thing in the world that that is an interesting concept, isn't it?

Curtis Piper:

in and of itself, yeah, Like and lowering the standards that women need to make compared to the men.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, like Scandinavia tried it and it failed. It actually boosted the gender gap. So what they did was they basically enabled and removed the barriers that so-called exist for women going into like, like men roles and stuff and like, gave them more pro-choice education and what they actually saw was an increase in the number of women going into child care, teaching, nursing, and a decrease going into roles like engineering. That's interesting, yeah, so at the end of the day, it's choice at the end of the day like men don't want to be primary school teachers aside from 17 percent, otherwise they would be day.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Men don't want to be primary school teachers aside from 17% of them, otherwise they would be. And women don't want to be engineers, otherwise they would be Creating inequality. To create equality is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and what I mean by that is, if you create an inequality in what you need to access something reduced marks, free courses, women-only jobs, whatever the situation is you're creating inequality. By doing that, your end goal is to create equality, apparently.

Curtis Piper:

Yeah, I think I need someone to explain that to me.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, then it's going to be an endless cycle of inequality. If I'm growing up and I want to go in the defence force and I'm seeing 50 women-only jobs, I'm what is this?

Curtis Piper:

it's a. It's a silly concept. Maybe that's when you go down that avenue of transitionings, you can't get that jesus christ, boys are three times more likely to be suspended.

Zeke Guenthroth:

And that's a behavioral issue. Um, you know, men are constantly told that they're issue. Um, you know, men are constantly told that they're behaviorally bad. We're too boisterous, is the favorite word. Um, and we're violent? Yeah, although most of them aren't from violence, it's normally um class disruption, yes. Which then brings me to again the main reason that I got in trouble in school. I wasn't violent, by any means, never was. I wouldn't hurt virtually anyone in this area.

Curtis Piper:

No, I can attest to that.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Thank you, but I would cause a lot of distraction in class because I was bored.

Curtis Piper:

I can attest to that as well.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Very bored. So I'd be sitting there like, okay, cool, how do I entertain myself? And I would play up and make jokes and do silly things that were still. I back it today. I love it.

Curtis Piper:

I think it was great. I think there was a lot of days where it was actually beneficial for you to do so because, absolutely, I brought a smile to everyone's face Exactly, and I probably removed 55% of teachers being stressed by making them laugh Exactly.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, yeah, if you're in a position now as a boy where formerly you were doing linear learning, and that's what we're good at, that's what we're designed to do, and then all of a sudden there's non-linear way in English writing stories about how lions look like grass or something, and you know the sky is beautiful today and it resembles a pink ribbon and you know that leads into this and that and the other, and it's all some Very subjective, yeah, some wild story. Like you know, this guy walked past a fly and you know that's a sign for he's grown into an adult, Like he's small and he's big. There's so many dumb things and I'm sitting there thinking this is terrible, Like why?

Curtis Piper:

am I here? What was the like learned outcome after a? Are you specifically speaking about? Maybe creative writing?

Zeke Guenthroth:

Well, yeah, that's pretty much what English was 90% of the time, from my memory it really was, and also just kind of studying other creative writers and what they wrote yeah, you're studying a lot of Shakespeare. You're studying a lot of movies. You're talking about like camera angles and stuff. Do you remember that? Like you'd watch a movie and you'd be like, okay what did this low angle do, right?

Curtis Piper:

yeah, you would dissect the film and you would understand. A low angle means that character is superior or.

Zeke Guenthroth:

but even even then, like it doesn't necessarily mean that, because it's what did it make you feel? Yeah, and each person is going to feel something different each time. Like I could tell you, I could go out and I could survey 100 people and I'd tell you hey, you're an attractive person and you might feel really happy. Someone else might feel really weirded out. Someone else might feel like they need to report me to the police, that's fair. Someone else might be like you know what you are too. Yeah, well, that's probably 99 out of 100.

Zeke Guenthroth:

But it's all subjective, it's all subjective, like there's no, it's one of those pointless topics in the world and it's really crazy.

Curtis Piper:

Subjectivity is interesting though, because it means like is the truth that vast? Is it that wide if?

Zeke Guenthroth:

it's, if it's my, if it's my truth, how am I going to get 24 out of a hundred for not explaining something that you wanted me to explain? Hmm, but someone else can tell their truth and it's a hundred because it's what the truth is meant to be in that creative aspect. Okay, so like I just think it's the most pointless topic in the world.

Curtis Piper:

It is interesting, I think, the creative side of things I think it's valid to have in the school system, just because I mean creative minds such as all the inventors and stuff.

Zeke Guenthroth:

but that's like you were saying saying a linear path of thinking and learning, not so much this wishy-washy. Yeah, and I mean sure, have it in there, but do you then maybe have it in as a elective, not the only compulsory thing? Like we have math as an elective, english is compulsory.

Curtis Piper:

That is interesting, like yeah, hello, as long as english is you know, teaching the children how to communicate more so than to dissect film and write creatively.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Do you maybe remove english and make like reading and communication? Yeah as we said reading, one in three can't do it in united and on that, on that note, boys trail girls by 20%. Wait a minute.

Curtis Piper:

Boys trail girls.

Zeke Guenthroth:

So girls are doing Girls are doing 20% better than boys in reading in year nine. Okay, so I mean we're not doing well. Come on, lads, Not doing well at all. And yeah, anyway it ends up in males feeling disadvantaged, not doing well, dropping out due to lack of interest, which works well for our trade industry, which is struggling massively. But yeah, they act out, they drop out, they get bored, they disengage and that's what creates more and more problems. We're starting to teach a lot of issues in terms of fragility training as well, Like there's a lot of issues in terms of fragility training as well, like there's a lot of mental weakness. In australia, we are one of the worst countries for mental health in the world. In fact, I'd go as far as saying number one really, yeah, number one worst in the world.

Curtis Piper:

I don't, I don't believe that, but it's.

Zeke Guenthroth:

I think we're up there well, let's look at the statistics.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Let's we already know that there's an over diagnosis where there's anxiety, depression, adhd, like a all the self-diagnosis as well yeah, and it's also as simple as if you go to a doctor and you've got a template of things that you need to talk about and you've got a tick like I feel this or I feel this. It's pretty easy to take things that are going to give you what you want. That's a great point. Yeah, like it's going to be pretty common sense, like you know, if you're, if you're at the point where you're going somewhere to see if you have anxiety or something, I'm pretty sure you would know first of all, but second of all, if you want that diagnosis you're going to get it.

Zeke Guenthroth:

There's no way you're going to walk in there and go.

Zeke Guenthroth:

No, otherwise you wouldn't be there, yep, and you can do it one line as well. Like you already know the answer um, but there's also a lack of training, or virtually. I don't recall any training in school. That is for mental toughness, stoicism, responsibility like at home? Yes, absolutely, and actually you know what in in test environments like pressure cooker environments, then, yeah, a bit of mental toughness, because you've got to deal with that. Let's remove them. Let's do our home assignments. For math, yeah, the only form of it that there was is now gone. Even public speaking is on the way out in school. Really, it's reduced drastically.

Curtis Piper:

That's a shame. I remember the public speaking side of things was amazing. I remember I had one of the greatest speeches of all time. I was going to talk about that. Yes, I was going to say. The confidence that you kind of grew into that day was phenomenal and I think it should be a part of our education system, for sure it should be.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, that was uh miraculous.

Curtis Piper:

It was probably the most confident man in the world it was and it kind of oozed out of you and onto the class it was great, yeah.

Zeke Guenthroth:

And then everyone kind of got involved. They're like like, well, if he can do that, that's all good. Exactly, nothing's going to go wrong.

Curtis Piper:

You took away all the fears in the room and everyone was there to have fun and enjoy listening to each other's speeches, and that's how it's done.

Zeke Guenthroth:

In terms of psychological distress, 42.3% of young Australians so between 15 and 24, in the year 2021 reported high psychological distress. In the year 2021, reported high psychological distress. Let's just round it up Half our population between 15 and 24 reported high psychological distress in a 12-month period. Wow, what does that even mean? What is high psychological distress?

Curtis Piper:

I don't understand.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Are you in solitary confinement High?

Curtis Piper:

psychological distress. Okay, so this person must be going through the wars. They're in solitary confinement. High psychological distress. Okay, so this person must be going through the wars.

Zeke Guenthroth:

They're in solitary confinement, they are and they are distressed yeah, like I, I don't think I've even felt low to moderate psychological distress, let alone high. Hmm, it's like what what is high?

Curtis Piper:

how is that so high? How is there so many people when, see, when people uh have like a common theme or, you know, a common problem, they kind of talk about it together and they get through it together and that's how things are solved?

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, but no, they talk to people about it and they get me involved in that. I also have high psychological stress.

Curtis Piper:

You think you're doing it tough. Well, look at this.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Trust me, my trauma outweighs your trauma. Trauma buddies, um, and he's actually probably my favorite stat as in. It's a terrible one, but it's my favorite for the day.

Curtis Piper:

Australia leaves the oecd in antidepressant use that's an outrageous statistic for Australia to have.

Zeke Guenthroth:

So let's run through some countries. All right, let's take a look at the world United States, united Kingdom, turkey, switzerland, sweden, spain, slovenia, norway, new Zealand, mexico, luxembourg, lithuania, latvia, korea, japan, italy, israel, ireland, Iceland, hungary, greece, germany, france, finland, estonia, denmark, czech Republic, costa Rica, colombia, chile, canada, belgium, austria, outrageous and Slovak Republic. We have more antidepressant use than every single one of them. Wow, what does that say about us? We are the mentally weakest nation in the world or in 38 countries, but I would call that the world.

Curtis Piper:

I mean, yeah, essentially. So I'm sure in other countries we probably still do have more antidepressants.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about it now. And my ancestors right, born in Germany, bombing, going on, flee the country, come to Australia on their own, nothing starting from fresh, and they make a life, they deal with it. Bingo, I'm born now. Yep, it's been generations, a couple, and I'm here thanks to them doing things. Do you think that in that moment they were feeling high distress psychologically?

Curtis Piper:

I think I would call that high psychological distress.

Zeke Guenthroth:

I was going to say I think if I was being bombed that would cause a lot of distress, yeah, and you're leaving your family, you're leaving everything you know, everything you have, and you're fleeing to a country that you know nothing about, on a ship infested with rats, people getting sick and dying. You make it the country like okay're like okay, what now?

Curtis Piper:

And they had no antidepressants, no antidepressants. So they just had to be mentally tough. Yeah, they just had to survive, accept what was and use it to their advantage.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, Cubans fleeing, getting to America, do you think they were stressed? Probably, probably. Did they have antidepressants? No, we were in australia ourselves, so we're not at risk of, you know, any form of war zone. You know, at the moment in the middle east there's a bit going on, but we're not there, um, thankfully, um. But even for us to have such a high level of dependence on antidepressants, like the people currently that are doing it tough in ir or Israel, anywhere in the world that's under pressure by that Russia, ukraine, are they going to be in the same position as us? Well, no, they're not. I guarantee you.

Curtis Piper:

50% of their people, 42% of their population, or whatever, doesn't report the issues that we do so I wonder what is the reason that australians are seeking out antidepressants for their high psychological distress between the ages of 15 and 24? Yeah, between the ages of 15 and 24 almost your golden years, you think I couldn't tell you. I could not tell you. 15, you kind of almost. You get your license around 16 and then eventually you get your freedom, all right. 17, and so that's great. Now you can go travel with your licence and remain at 16, and then eventually you get your freedom. I'm 17. And so that's great. Now you can go travel with your friends, and then you're out of high school at 18, going into uni. Is that? It? Is it the universities? Well, they're not doing uni at 15.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Well, that's true.

Curtis Piper:

That's very true. I remember being 15, 16, 17, 18 and I was the most carefree person in the world. That's what I thought.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Australians were. I thought we were very laid back.

Curtis Piper:

I thought that too, but maybe we're laid back because we're on antidepressants. I thought we would be able to take it on the chin and then just keep moving forward, but it seems like we have to go to.

Zeke Guenthroth:

You know what? Maybe in English they should start putting on Rocky Balboa, so that we can learn how to keep taking the hits and keep moving forward.

Curtis Piper:

I think so um, because you know nobody is going to get as hard as life.

Zeke Guenthroth:

But it ain't about how hard you hit it's hard to get hit um onto financial literacy. So there's no compulsory personal financial education in any school.

Curtis Piper:

That's outrageous. We need to get some sort of financial literacy in there, would it be?

Zeke Guenthroth:

fair to assume that financial stress is a key part of antidepressant use? Well, probably not, because 15 to 24, you wouldn't be feeling financial stress. Maybe you would be, I don't know. Maybe 20 to 24. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, but then it would be 20 to 24 and not 15 to 24.

Curtis Piper:

15 seems too young. I think yeah.

Zeke Guenthroth:

So anyway, at some point it is. We know that a vast majority of divorces happen due to financial stress, and we know that there's a lot of financial stress in the world, especially in Australia today, with we're in the top five for household versus income gaps in the world. Top five, top five. Wow, that's not somewhere we want to be Edging on to number one. We're close. Who's beating us right now? I believe it's london. Really well, england as a whole, but yeah, um, but we are in a position we haven't had real wage growth for 10 years. Why? Terrible running of a country, I guess that's a fair point.

Curtis Piper:

I honestly sometimes think who is running a country? Yeah, and where are they leading us?

Zeke Guenthroth:

I know they're leading us. It's called a dark abyss. Yeah, I don't want to go there. But yeah, no real wage growth in 10 years, as in our wages have gone up, but inflation, house prices and so on and so on, we're actually still the same as 10 years ago. Terrible, but still the same as 10 years ago. It's terrible. But yeah, majority of Australians leave school without any understanding of super tax debt. I can confirm that. It's obviously my industry and 70% of teenagers actually report and say and indicate that they want to learn about money in school, but they're not taught.

Curtis Piper:

I can remember myself bringing that forth in class, thinking why are we learning about this exactly?

Zeke Guenthroth:

we should be learning about how to handle our money in a financial situation for when we are in the workforce on our own making a living yeah, it's all good and dandy to teach me about pi and calculating the radius of a circle and stuff like this, but, like hello, how do I make money? What is money? Where did money come from? What does it mean? How does currency conversion work? How do shares perform? How does property perform? What investment path is there? How do I save money? What do things cost? What is interest? You learn a little bit about interest, actually, because you do simple interest and compound interest, but they do it from a math perspective, not from a financial perspective. So it interest and compound interest, but they do it from a math perspective not from a financial perspective.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Right, so it's just numbers. It doesn't actually mean anything to you, unless you have a good teacher who is like hey look, this is what this means. You do credit card interest as well. But unless you're sitting there thinking this is what credit cards cost, this is a rort. You're just doing numbers on a sheet.

Curtis Piper:

I think it's vital that we find a way to introduce that into our education system.

Zeke Guenthroth:

I think that should be probably the number one thing in education that needs to change, and I know the perfect thing to replace it with Financial dependence. You're just going to leave us with something pretty fair. Yeah well, I'll let the audience figure it out. Our listeners are smart, that's true. If you've got a wonderful stat to hear and boy do I you're going to love this. One Second favourite stat for the day 42% of Australian 18 to 25-year-olds so just shy of half of people between 18 and 25 in Australia rely on Afterpay or credit card to cover basic expenses.

Curtis Piper:

Basic.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Basic, basic expenses. Yeah, no way. 25 in australia rely on after pay or credit card to cover basic expenses basic, basic, basic expenses yeah, just getting by day to day.

Curtis Piper:

Yep after pay, wow, yep credit card. That is very scary. 18 to 25 and nearly half.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, no way if they got taught financial education in school. Would that be the case? No, I don't believe it would. Those numbers would drop drastically. There we have it Public versus private divide.

Zeke Guenthroth:

We've already touched on it a little bit. That was actually my next written down point, you know you've got in. Public, overcrowded classrooms are under-resourced on occasion. There's cultural and behavioural ideologies very present, whereas in private school there's more like God talk. There's more academic performance, behavioural outcomes, actual structured environments, and discipline is the main difference. So that's a lot of the issues.

Zeke Guenthroth:

You know our kids are failing, not because they're not smart, but because we've removed every structure that helped them rise or that gives them the potential to be who they can be. That's just not existing anymore. But if we want future leaders, we need strong schools, not soft indoctrination, not soft mental toughness, not exposing us to our biggest flaws as men or whatever. We need to actually change things. Some of the things that change we've obviously talked about, you know remove gender and critical race theory, common sense, k-6, pointless Fund, male teacher scholarships possibly. Again, I don't think that works. But if we're going to keep doing the, you know, equity Genders in certain yeah, genders in certain roles then that's one that should be done. I think it's more important to have males in school than it is to have women in bricklaying. Yes, common sense, reinforced discipline, parental authority I think parents need to be more involved in schooling, like 100%.

Curtis Piper:

They do try, don't they? They try to have parent-teacher meetings and try and get the parents involved. I think it is important the school have a direct line to the parents and the parents have a direct line to the teachers in the school so that they can get involved in what the kids are going to be learning for that year.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, absolutely, I think that what they used to do, at least in my experience, was they would bring forward a parent-teacher night. Yes, and to be honest, I don't think it happened frequently, but they bring the parent-teacher night. Yes, and to be honest, I don't think it happened frequently, but they'd bring forward the parent-teacher night and they would give you like a piece of paper and it said what was going on and you'd take it home to your parents. They'd fill it out, they'd give it back to you, you'd give it to the teacher. That thing went in the bin every time Out of here. What kid in his right right mind who knew he wasn't doing as well as his parents wanted him to would hand that over? Exactly, I'm in like year five. I'm getting in trouble for I don't even know what I was doing. I don't know why I got in trouble in year five.

Curtis Piper:

That's outrageous. Let me be um. This is a problem. We needed you to be disciplined more and you can be 10 times the man you are now okay, ouch um, but I'm not gonna give that to my parents, I'm not gonna let, and they're probably like they're not involved in the schooling.

Zeke Guenthroth:

They're like, even if I did give it to them, what is this in the bin? Oh, we're busy. We've got to work. You know they might not be able to attend. A lot of parents couldn't attend. You've got overnight workers. You've got people who are struggling for money. They need to do three in a row. Somehow my parents had five Not happening, lucky for me. But yeah, I think it would be easy enough for teachers to have some kind of system where they have the curriculum, they have what the student's learning each day, each week, each month, whatever you want to do weekly, monthly, I don't mind Parents. Weekly monthly, I don't mind Parents. Log into that portal, government funded, and what a good place to put money by the way, by the government.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Where's it going now, oh?

Curtis Piper:

many places, many places that's different, no way useful.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Next episode the teachers log in. They get some feedback on their kid for the week or the month or whatever it was. They know what they're learning. They can ask them about her at dinner. Do you remember the old dinner table? You'd sit down, you'd have dinner and maybe oh, what did you?

Curtis Piper:

learn today. Yes, I don't remember those conversations around the dinner table.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Bring it back, yeah now people, my little sister, for example. We weren't allowed to eat in our rooms. You weren't allowed to eat in the lounge room, it was. You sit at the dinner table until you finished your meal and there'd be occasional talk of you know what you do at school or whatever. This little chick bang in our room eating food every night unbelievable, yep, terrible. Bring back the the table. Talk, um, but yeah, no, I think there needs to be some form of system. Um, you know, there was reports that were generated half yearly. Does bugger all because half yearly, like cool. You see the result. You see they're not showing up to class.

Curtis Piper:

You could have stopped at six months ago, pointless that brings a point I thought of when we're talking about private, best public schools. If there were any statistics you had on home schooling, was that beneficial to anybody? In one point or another, I think, because that point I'm thinking they do have to obey the curriculum still, don't they? By the government, but they could at least lead their children in the proper direction and probably leave out the points that we're making are redundant to their education.

Zeke Guenthroth:

I've seen homeschooling done. I've seen it done well, I've seen it done bad. Yeah, I think there's a vast wider gap, as in um, there was a kid that I knew that got homeschooled and when he was actually introduced to other people socially the weirdest outcome in the world, and that is an entirely understandable aspect of homeschooling exactly, um.

Zeke Guenthroth:

So you need to find a way to incorporate social schooling. Get him in sports maybe. Yes, do something, but it can also be done really well. Grant cardone home schools and he's a, his daughter is doing very well, and all this, you, all of his own students, all of his kids or students. They do very well in school and that's because he has the resources to enable it. He makes sure they get taught what they need to get taught. He takes out the lunatic garbage that's getting taught and he marks them, he sits in with them, he goes through the results, goes through what they've done and what they haven't done and he gives them a reward. He encourages haven't done and he gives them a reward. He encourages it, um, and he's encouraging him to finish early as well, like one of his daughters is doing it at the moment and she wants to be done everything by 15 wow, like she's flying through the entire house, the entire, yeah, and good for her, he just when she does well he.

Zeke Guenthroth:

He actually posted a video of this. It might have been yesterday or something. I saw it recently, um, but he's talked very many interviews. Before he pulls out cash, which not everyone can do, he might have a thousand dollars and he might say okay, well, you did really well here and here and here, um, so this a thousand dollars is yours. However, here you didn't do very well. That needs to be improved. And here you, you haven't done enough or you missed classes or whatever, or like whatever. The allocation of work that they had to get through wasn't done, so he said so I'm going to take this, I'm going to take this and you get 700. You can get this 300 when you're done.

Curtis Piper:

Yeah, well, there you go, that sounds fair, fair enough.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Not every parent has a spare K-1. Exactly, I agree. Parent has a spare cable. No, exactly I agree. Yes, but maybe do it with, like, there's other rewards. You know you can go hang out with friends or you can do this, or you can do that or something.

Curtis Piper:

Just the disciplinary action that a household can take.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, and even I don't think that, like discipline and reward is a very fine line, I think that it should be. In terms of discipline, it can be required and violence is obviously the undertone of everything in the world like if at some point it's going to get violent like there's an escalation occurring like violence underwrites everything, which is why discipline and male authority is so important, because it's like yeah, that's right, like if, if you let's just take an example I don't pay a fine tomorrow, what happens, you know?

Zeke Guenthroth:

um, the police will be involved, surely, eventually? Yes, so they'll do a court order. I don't show up at the court order, okay, um, they then come and make me come to the court order. How? How do they do that? Violence, right, I still don't pay. Well, guess what? My house is gone. They seize it. After that, I'm doing whatever I'm doing, or I hit someone, or something Like violence underwrites everything. Everything will get to a point where it's like okay, well, paper only means so much, you're going to do this, you're going to jail? Well, no, I'm not going to jail. Well, guess what you bloody are, mate. Violence like it's. Everything comes down to violence, yeah, um, and ultimately, that's what discipline ends up being. But discipline can happen in many forms. There's um disciplinary action. You can't hang out with your friends today, son you, you didn't do this or you were bad here. You're not going to hang out with your friends. How are you going to stop me?

Curtis Piper:

violence? Exactly, yeah, and it has to be, and without it going into the depths of saying abuse is what I would like to say yeah, no, absolutely no, like you're never going to abuse. But no, um, but definitely you have to make that physical and dominant stance and to show your children that you are in charge. Yeah, and like what Like?

Zeke Guenthroth:

you go out at night time and there's a conflict. You try to solve it verbally and guess what? There's an undertone of violence. In the end, if I don't apologise, I'm going to get bashed. Yeah, if he doesn't do this, he's'm gonna get bashed. Yeah, if he doesn't do this, he's gonna get bashed. Like it comes down to violence at the end of the day. But that's when you can bring, that's when you can bring in the reward aspect as well. Yes, if you do this, you can get rewarded. If you do that, you can get rewarded.

Curtis Piper:

Yeah it is that age-old adage of the carrot and the stick.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, that's right, and so I think it comes down to upbringing. On that end, if you bring your child up to be respectful, they should never experience violence. They should be in a position where they can find a way out of any situation. I don't think I've ever had to get violent before. I don't think I've ever had violence done against me as in outside of rumbling or disciplinary action as a kid or something like that.

Curtis Piper:

Right, I do remember myself. I've had a few flogs on the bum.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Oh yeah, wooden spoons broke and everything we're talking. Oh yeah, but at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to, and I think we also need to bring back competitive benchmarks and bring back exams. Exams are very important. Assignments are pointless. They don't show any actual education. They show what you can go home and do with a computer. Anyone can go home with a computer, get chat, tvt to write up something and find an answer for them. Get an older brother, a mum, a dad, a sister, an uncle, whatever. If you do the exam in the moment, you find out what you're doing. Don't know. Oh, but it stresses me out grow up.

Curtis Piper:

um, that'll just be an example of all right, you are one of the children that get stressed in these pressure cooker situations, for example, and these other people that are performing well? They're able to go on and succeed in life and do well for themselves, I believe.

Zeke Guenthroth:

You know what We've already got 42% reporting. High psychological stress, bring back exams, take it up to 50%. Oh no.

Curtis Piper:

I don't think that the antidepressants is exactly the way to go for those people.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Yeah, no, I totally agree, bring back competition, sport, carnivals, people are running, people are doing things. I think participation awards pointless. I think that oh, actually not necessarily pointless, but I think that first, second and third should be celebrated.

Curtis Piper:

Yes, I agree.

Zeke Guenthroth:

I think if you're the highest performer, you get an actual reward, whether it be like status status, which is very prevalent today. You do really well at something, you get status. If you're one of the richest people, you've got status. If you're one of the best athletes, you've got status. You're a great actor, you've got status. Yes, um they. They don't necessarily do that anymore in school, so now your top three get pretty equalized um outcomes and everyone else gets participation awards as well, so it's not celebrated. You have a? Uh, a lovely story about this that uh, I've heard a little bit of in in background, uh, at a pub once or twice, but I've never heard the full story.

Curtis Piper:

Yeah, so I was, um, just going to talk about how participation awards. I agree with you for the most part that they aren't really setting a good example, to the extent that we should be rewarding those people that have performed and put in all of it and that hard work to get that outcome that they wanted. But when I was a child, we had an athletics carnival and for some reason I was running with my jacket on and during the race rather than before I was deciding to take it off and in doing so I'd fallen over my feet.

Zeke Guenthroth:

I think I'm about six I'm picturing you right now, but six years old, so a little mini version of you, like a mario, maybe mario, and rather than trying to take your jumper off and trip it over it's great.

Curtis Piper:

It was great and um and uh. So I was like my head's in the dirt. I mean crap, quick, get up, I gotta, I gotta go, I've got to win. And so I did that and I beat a few other kids, which I thought was a great accomplishment at that time, but I didn't win. But Mrs Wells, who was an amazing and beautiful teacher, gave me a sticker. So the first, second and third got stickers and lollies. But she made sure to reward me for my resilience in that situation where I didn't get up and cry and walk ahead of the race or I didn't throw a tantrum in that you put your best foot forward.

Curtis Piper:

You made the best of a situation you were in exactly, and I thought that kind of attitude towards kids that maybe stumble but get back up is a good I completely agree.

Zeke Guenthroth:

I think if you're doing a um, let's just take a sports kind of like a race or something across country or whatever. You've got the top performers, you've got the people who really try, but they're just not. Let's just take a sports kind of like a race or something, a cross country or whatever. You've got the top performers, you've got the people who really try, but they're just not there. And then you've got the people who walk and are lazy and just can't be bothered. That portion of people, the laugh portion, give them nothing at all, in fact even tell them that was hopeless.

Curtis Piper:

Yeah.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Try harder Really. Yeah, Let them know. Let them know you can't. Yeah, sure, it's a sports carnival, but guess what? You're not going to be able to do that through life. People in the middle, hat on the back sticker or whatever. I saw the effort you put in. That was really good. People at the front that did the best, proper congratulations. Yeah, I think that's how it should be done. Anything else that you specifically think in terms of the education system or any last words or anything, words of wisdom from the young man you want to pass on?

Curtis Piper:

I think that my father gave me a great example of finding out where the truth lies, or at least where we can find our best selves. He said push someone or something to its limits and see which way it tends. So in saying that, he was saying to me look so we can either push you to do really well academically, and you are going to fight us tooth and nail to not and rebel, or in doing so, we've pushed you to your really well academically, and you are going to fight us tooth and nail to not and rebel, or in doing so, we've pushed you to your limits and you have then taken that on and chosen to be responsible, focus on your grades, listen and obey us, and that is what has helped me become a better person today I'm dead.

Zeke Guenthroth:

To a firm, good person, thank you. Thank you very much. It's written in the walls. Well, I'm not going to beat that. That's a nice little speech to finish it, so we'll leave today. I'm dead. To a firm, good person, thank you. Thank you very much. It's written in the walls. Well, I'm not going to beat that. That's a nice little speech to finish it, so we'll leave it there. If we've missed anything, or if you think there's something that we did not touch on that we should have, or you've even got a different opinion or some more stats or something you want to throw out, hit me up on the Instagram. I'll get a way to involve it in an upcoming episode and possibly even give you a feature. That's it for now. Enjoy your day and leave us a review. Cheers, dale. As always, we hope you enjoyed the episode and if you did, you know exactly what needs to be done.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Hit that follow button, subscribe. Share it to friends, family or even your coworkers, as sharing this podcast helps not just us, but everyone in the world to learn about their finances.

Zeke Guenthroth:

Thank you darling.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Oscar Don

Co-host
Head Shot

Zeke Guenthroth

Co-host