Welcome to our newest episode of a conversation with which is our Zing Learning podcast. We get together once a fortnight with inspiring individuals to chat about what they're doing in their careers, but also how they're enhancing equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging.
We chat about important DNI topics and get practical advice and tips so we can give DNI teams, HR leaders and leaders of organizations a greater opportunity to create a fairer, more inclusive and more knowledgeable working environment. Today I'm joined by Gareth who runs a fantastic organization called Tailor Education.
He works to provide relationships and sex education delivery, training and consultancy, and works with lots of different types of young people to provide some really fantastic conversational spaces. I've known Gareth now for a little while and I fell in love with the work that he does with Taylor Education. So without further Ado, kick back, grab a cuppa and enjoy this podcast and all of fantastic insights that Gareth shares.
Hey Gareth, I met you at the start of 2020 and that was when our business started using Impact Brixton as our base for our offices. You and I were in the same office. We hit it off straight away, or at least in my opinion anyway, and had some really insightful conversations around lots of different important topics to do with that kind of being a human being and our experiences.
But one of the things I really fell in love with was the incredible work that you do around relationships and sex education and in that space with your company, Taylor Education. So today I just love to talk about that a little bit. And before we get into it, I'd love to know a little bit more about your career so far and what's kind of led you to this point with setting up the business.
My career in sex education started not long after I first moved to London, which would have been about maybe 1314 years ago. I was going to be a photographer was my plan to be an artist photographer, but I was working in a very nice call center and my aunt, who works for a charity, one of the biggest sexual charity in the country called Brooke. She was working for them delivering sex education in schools and she thought I'd be good at it and convinced me to come along to a training.
I went along, did a two day training with some really great people and really enjoyed it, found it really interesting and definitely felt I had the skills to be able to talk. I wasn't embarrassed to talk about that stuff and it was something I knew what I was talking about, I didn't mind. So then I actually started to volunteer for Brook 1 hour a week following the training and then I started to get paid for ad hoc bits of work and then a full time position came up that I didn't know I wasn't.
That thing about being young. You don't know what you're not qualified for, if that makes sense. So I kind of went in with all these ideas, not knowing anything about like, budgets or local councils and their rules or all the stuff, came with loads of ideas of how this project could be delivered and got the job and then just found out, just found a massive passion for it. Just a huge passion to do that then. Chapter two, I guess, is when Brooke as a charity, I think as a place to work.
When I was working, there was incredible, like, amazing. All of us used to go on days off sometimes just to be in the office, just to be around those people and share ideas. And it was just a really amazing space to be in. And weirdly, the office was actually here in Brixton, and then I think the session had already hit, but the effects of it were now starting to get felt throughout local governments. And I think Brooke had made a decision to change its structure.
And I'm not going to say whether it was positive or negative, but it did lead to a lot of people examining their positions and choosing to leave or choosing to do other work or find work that was outside of charity. Because a lot of project based work, two, three year contracts. And I think a lot of people wanted to maybe change things that were more permanent or some people disagreed with the direction that charity was going in, like just normal stuff.
But what it meant, rightly or wrongly, was there was a lot of really talented, experienced practitioners who were leaving, and they weren't leaving all the same place, so that we didn't normal keeping their contact details or their work. When I decided to leave, I had a choice between doing the same thing and applying for other jobs or starting something myself in the hope that I could keep hold of all these great talent, all these people who are far more experienced than me.
My dream for Taylor was to start something that would enable me to keep hold of all these people that would lead me to get freelance work for them and basically keep us all working together, keep that amazing office vibe that we had. Cool. So what do you think it was then about all of you working together, and you said clearly they were incredibly talented. What was it that made you go in on your days off? Was it the passion of everyone and the work that they were doing? What was it?
Yeah, I think what I've noticed about different workspaces, I think managers hire people who are similar to them in some way. And I think, again, I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I think what it meant was that there was a lot of us who just had something common, like you and I. Right. I don't think it's an accident that we both work in the same kind of world, and we both share a lot of the same views.
Even when we disagree, there's a certain way that we're able to disagree with respect to others views. And just that happens, I think. And in our office, it was talking to you and being an office of you times that by about 20. And that's what the office was like here in Brixton is that we're all in the same world. We're all there trying to not to sound ridiculous, but trying to make the world better in some way. And all able to share ideas and roof of each other about how best to do that.
And sometimes you've got this thing you need to explain the changes of puberty to young people who have severe learning disabilities, for example. And then you've got an office of people who you can chat up and say, guys, I'm really struggling with this. And everyone has an idea. Not just idea, an idea that is fun and engaging, and we're trying to make things better. So, yeah, I think it was just a great place to be.
And we wouldn't go in our days off because we were rushed up our feet and we couldn't start working. You don't want to miss anything. You don't want to miss any great stuff that might be happening in the office. And it's an energy to be around. Right. Some of that in. And that's definitely how I felt here impact, because there were days when I probably was like, oh, no, I should work from home today. But I said, no, I want the birds. I need the people. And that sharing ideas.
I don't know exactly the words you just use, but you were basically inferring that it might sound a bit cheesy if we're trying to do something for the world, we're trying to make a difference. But that is genuinely what we're trying to do and what a lot of people here are trying to do. So I totally get why you would feel like that in a room full of people that were doing similar type of work to you, it really does boost you. It gives you that motivation. Yeah, for sure.
I definitely missed that in terms of having a common goal. Like, I've got other companies with other teams and I'm running and it's great. We have a common goal. But when the common goal is less Noble, not that I think I'm Noble, but when the goal is less Noble than teaching people about well being and sex and relationships, it doesn't feel the same. Yeah, it doesn't feel as meaningful. Yeah.
I used to work as a head of learning and development, and I've had loads of experience helping people develop. And I remember I always loved that. I got loads out of that. But it was only when I started doing the DNI work and I started going, wow, actually, it can really make a difference. I can really impact something here that then made me realize that this is so much more meaningful than what I initially thought was mean. It completely resonates with me.
You mentioned puberty there, and you mentioned working with people with learning disabilities. Your organization covers a massive breadth of topics in this area. I'm just going to name a few. So we've got things like FGM, we've got appropriate Church masculinity, things like male privilege, contraception puberty. You've already said even things like friendships, LGBT plus awareness, all of that. The list goes on. There's a lot more than that.
So I'm really interested to hear because you talk to a lot of people about what we would class as taboo topics. And I'm just doing a crater for the listeners right now. Which topic have you noticed sparks the most kind of light bulb moments for the students that you work with, the thing that came to mind immediately and unfortunately, in some way to consent, you wouldn't think that you would have so many light bulb moments. But unfortunately, with consent, you really do. And it's on both sides.
It's on both sides. If there are two sides, I always have is an enduring memory that I have. It hasn't just happened once, but I remember distinctly the first time it happened when I was given a consent lesson. Three young men in that lesson, but one who was particularly emotionally impacted by it, realized he had sex without consent. And that's how I'm saying it for this in a courtroom. It would be another way, right, if they come out in that way.
And he genuinely didn't realize that when I described all the ways in which somebody might be resisting or saying no without a nonverbally saying no and all the ways in which perpetrators can read those things or all the ways that they can choose not to read those things, I think you know what I'm talking about.
I don't know if I should explain more, but he was just speechless, kind of like remembering this one incident and realizing that that person hasn't given consent and was actively saying that but not saying it, and he was really caught up about it.
Similarly and equally, you have life moments with primarily on women who realize that they've been through something where they didn't give consent, where they didn't want to give consent or they didn't want it to happen and have been able to put out their mind, been able to move on with life to be fine with the person in the lesson on Earth. Actually, that wasn't okay. And that's a big part of a lot of the stuff.
A lot of the more difficult topics, it's like giving people permission to feel a certain way about an experience or to say, yeah, the way that you remember it is that is what it is. So consent. Consent is the one that is like one of the most important but also one of the most heartbreaking to get into from both sides. Both sides. Yeah. That's so raw, isn't it? And I think, like you said, it's so impactful on the different parties.
And I know I speak for myself and every single woman that I know that is aware of consent and is aware of all of the nuances within consent that it's happened to us. It's happened to all of us in so many different ways. So, yeah, for that young lad to understand that and for that young woman to understand what happened, it's interesting.
And I was talking to someone recently about the whole Me Too movement and about how even for those of us that felt like we were really aware of all of those things, actually, it kind of made us go, wow, no, hold on. That's happened to me, too. Excuse the fun that's been coming, but that genuinely happened. And you're like, wow, that's not okay. That was never okay, but because it was so the norm and it was almost bred into men from a young age that this is the way to behave around women.
Obviously, not all men, of course, but as a general rule, women are supposed to behave in this gender conforming way and men are supposed to behave in this gender conforming way. And I think that's a big part of the challenge. But yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that sounds like quite a big one for you then.
Yeah. It's just one of those topics that again, it's definitely fortunate, but it comes out of unfortunate circumstances because consent didn't used to be one of the ones that every school requested or even thought about on the tick list. It became that way because before me, too, there's other things. There was other scandals that came up, but it definitely has to be too massive. Rising institutions and schools wanting to have consent workshops. Necessity breeds when they say innovation,
but I guess change, right? Yeah. Wow. I would love to be a fly on the wall in one of those lessons. And I think that there's something really powerful about a man going in to talk about that as well.
I feel like it can have such an impact on young men to hear it from a different point of view, because obviously we hear about these things a lot from the women's point of view, because a lot of the time, unfortunately, it's girls and women that experience this not all the time, of course, but a lot of the time. So, yeah, I think there is something really powerful in that. And I remember watching that video on your website for the University, you were talking to the rugby team.
And that video really opened my eyes up as well to how little men and boys are told about consent. And it's very much on that mindset of the woman and the girl. The restaurant we did at Kings College. The reason I think that work was so successful is because we didn't take consent in isolation. And I never really take consent in isolation or I'll come back to that how that workshop worked.
But I think as a rule, the topic of consent, we've focused so long on no. And what I really like focusing on in on is yes. And I think just as a starting point for anyone who does this work, anyone who does consent work, the point you're trying to get to with the consent workshop, in my opinion, if you want it to be positive and leave people feeling uplifted and not upset and not feel like sex is possible in your mind, as a facilitator, have this idea of yes.
The point I'm getting to is people can actively, enthusiastically, confidently, without shame say yes. Then your whole frame for how you teach shifts. Right. Doesn't mean you don't talk about no and how to say no safely. It doesn't mean you don't talk about negotiation. Doesn't mean you don't talk about male privilege or sexual harassment or all those negative things. But the point isn't to focus on no. There's a positive way to talk about consent and to teach about consent.
So the thing with the work we do with male athletes, Atkins College, I worked with an amazing art activist called Phoebe Davis and a sports doctor called Alex Bomber. And it was really interesting because that work, the objective, let's say, of that work was to teach about sexual harassment and to hopefully see reduction in sexual harassment by male athletes on campus. That was the dream scenario for that work.
But the way that we approached it, the piece that I think is unique and hopefully inspiring to other facilitators, is that knowing that we were going to have a large group of men athletes in the room, we didn't want to go in and start by talking about sexual harassment and the problems that are happening on campus with their teams. And what we did was we made it about we spoke about what it is to be a man in a general discussion way.
What the difficulties of existing as a man or male identifying in this world, what restrictions the society can you feel? We challenge each other to kind of rally against some of those things. People express that they wish they could speak to their brothers more and check their. Okay. So we challenged each other to do that. In the week we talked about the stereotypes of being a man. We talked about. So you see it's slowly building. Right.
The stereotypes have been around the restrictions, and we talk about it from a perspective of let's help each other. Right. So then as we do that, we talk about toxic masculinity and how that can be a hindrance to men. Right. And how it impacts how it might impact them on the sports field. Like they don't feel they can express themselves when they have pain they don't feel.
They're allowed to check in their sports, their teammates, if they haven't have a bad game and talk about how that could impact and positively their results. And you're building any buildings, you talk about toxic masculinity, then you might as well the effects of masculinity on other people. And then it's like, okay, now how does that play out on campus? How does that give a framework? First of all, you talk about male privilege, right?
So if you can explain male privilege for the lens of how it impacts not only people around them but then themselves, what they could be missing out on by walking through the world with this privilege and not being aware of it, they start far more they're far more open to it, especially after all the work we've done beforehand. You're not going in there saying, today, I'm going to teach you my privilege because you will find half the room just shuts down.
But they trust you and you build up this report and you've hopefully given a lot of positive work to them. And then we start to talk about my privilege. They really want to know about it. So then you've got this thing about toxic masculinity, totally fine masculinity and male privilege. This is the concoction. Then you've got the gender norms that have been lived up by women. And then you put down the campus and you put the sports teams in that mix who are the kind of like Alphas on campus.
And then when you spend it in the round in that way, they understand sexual harassment. They understand the dynamic. They understand how it occurs, how other people might feel. It's far more applicable to them when you do the groundwork of explaining all of that stuff. So then by the time you get to talk about sexual harassment and then finally consent, you've really laid the foundations for actual understanding and hopefully actual behavior change.
And I do think we saw that, at least in the attendees, we couldn't work with every single male athlete at Kings College. And what wasn't shown in the research one way or the other is how much that work impacted the culture. Yeah, much bigger ask, but definitely for the attendees, I would say they all said it impacted their behavior. That's huge.
I think a couple of things from what you just said that I think the idea of them then subconsciously probably in some ways going and influencing the other athletes that couldn't come on the course. I imagine that the culture then shifted in that way. And, you know, it already worked with the people that attended. And then you've also just it's really interesting. You were talking a minute ago about male privilege and all of those.
And it's really interesting because the work I do, we also talk about privilege. We talk about it in lots of different ways, of course. And you're right, if you just kind of throw the word privilege at people. They just like they freak out, like they just can't deal with it. They feel shame and guilt and all of these unhelpful feelings that mean that we can't open a conversation. So, yeah, we do the same thing with that. We build a little bit of a road. We have a bit of a journey.
We build that trust so people can feel like, actually, let's talk about this. And it sounds like it was really successful. So that sounds like also what you do. And I'm sure what you do as well is you have to say, oh, this is a safe space. You won't be judged here or blah, blah. You prove it over and over again with really small ways.
Every time you don't react negatively to somebody's comment, every time you're able to challenge something in a kind and understanding way, you prove to everybody that they're allowed to speak and share. And safe space isn't created by just putting it right now on the board. Yeah. It's essential, I think, in any of the conversations I covered some of your topics earlier, any of those conversations you need that safe space. And the same with my stuff.
There are topics that we do, which when I first started doing them with clients, I thought, oh, well, these aren't contentious, so this is going to be much easier. So I put them earlier on because I thought, well, actually, this is going to be easier for people to have these conversations. Turns out they were. And one of them was around Allyship. And I remember thinking, how can people feel negatively about Allyship? But it was just such a lack of understanding around what it meant.
And because the word privilege is so attached to Allyship, people were very scared to step into it. So we managed to rejig it and do all of it much later. So we kind of had that really safe the evidence that it is a safe space. And that's the thing. My colleague Phoebe, she always talks about brave spaces, safe spaces. But she says it's a safe space, but it's a brave space. We want you to share, and we want to be brave enough to listen and to challenge you and challenge us.
I really like how she says it better than me, but how she frames that it helps as well. Yeah. And I think the way that you're doing it as well, it's very helpful with we're not going in and saying no, we're talking about what yes means. And it's not just for the facilitator to do a good job that's to help other people reframe it, because there are certain things we've been taught from TV and from schools when we were younger and from relationships that we see growing up that are unhealthy.
And it means that we follow that pattern because that's all we know. So actually, if we reframe the way we think about it, all of a sudden it becomes less to do and we are much more comfortable to talk about it and share. Yeah. And if you talk about consent, it also makes it sexier. How is it not better after hearing yes, like enthusiastic? Affirmative. That's so much better. And so it's just a really important shift that I really hope more people make in their education.
Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. I totally agree. That weird enthusiasm. I think that's what most of us want. And you don't just want the absence of no. Right. When I say it's about yes. I'm also talking about encouraging young women to feel brave enough to say yes, because there are some cultures where being too enthusiastic can be seen as a negative thing or at least can point in their mind that they're going to be judged.
And sometimes a lot of the work is about challenging that view to an understanding that culture as well. And I feel some people do this not pretending that culture doesn't exist because it does in many cultures. It does it's there in the same way that in growing up, a lot of men in my surroundings were trying to raise me to be someone who went after women and just in a really negative way. Right. In a really toxic way.
There are some cultures from Jamaican background, mine included, where women are being raised equally to not say what they want, to be ashamed, maybe of what they want to not have the tools to confidently say yes. And that has to be recognized, too. Yeah. Especially in the communities I'm working. And that has to be recognized. And I don't think that's a comfortable truth sometimes when it comes to our sector. Yeah. I'm listening so intently.
Obviously the listeners can't see this, but I'm like, yeah, not in my head, because it is so prevalent in so many different communities, in different cultures and things like that. And I've certainly been made to feel ashamed for the way I've behaved in the past and the way that I've maybe talked about sex, talked about relationships, the intimacy and things like that. And. Yeah, you're kind of told to feel shameful for some of those things. So I absolutely agree. It's a two way conversation.
And I think it sounds like the people are getting locked out of this. So, yeah, I mean, listen, you know, I'm a massive fan of the work that you do around this. I'm probably always going to be a little bit biased. I'm always going to kind of nod and agree with everything you're saying around this. Not that we agree on everything. No. But that's a tricky thing, though. You talk about me being a man in this, and I think there are some things that bring to table as a man.
I think there's things that bring to table as a straight man. And I think there's things I bring to table as a Jamaican black man, too. And it has meant that often in the room, I'm challenging really lovely people, but who don't have the full picture of the dynamics in other cultures. Sometimes for years, you're around the same age as me. So for years with this mantra, no means no. Right. But it's not that simple. Yeah. And if I say that in certain rooms, people would
be so scared to let me teach their young people. Right. Because if a man says no. Oh, yeah. No. Sometimes it doesn't always mean no. There are all these horrible memories that fit to mind and these men that fit to mind and these terrible views that fit to mind. And you think is Gareth one of those? And that's why I hesitate about talking about culture, because I think in order to reeducate people about sex and reeducate women about yes. And men about yes.
We have to face the fact that I'm scared to even say it on record, but we have to face the fact that for some people on some days, in some cultures, no doesn't always mean no. And that's a very difficult thing to challenge without invoking all of those negative, toxic kind of views that have been expressed about now and about women and about all that bloodline shit. That is not what I hope to evoke at all.
But there's a danger when you simplify anything in human relationships down to a tagline, you're going to lose some stuff and you're going to lose some people. You lose the situational part. You lose the context, you lose the ability to have an open conversation. And what you're doing here is allowing people to be able to be in a relationship or perhaps they're not and be able to communicate exactly what it is that they want or don't want. And on both sides. And I think that's the message
I'm getting from this conversation. Yeah. We used to run a discussion group called Taboo or not Taboo, which I hope to run more of now that Cove is over and you just get a bunch of people in the room and we have some statements up, and each statement would just spark a discussion. One of the themes, obviously, was consent.
And one of the statements I remember we should put up on the screen was no doesn't always mean no. And then we just let people discuss it, and then we'd also facilitate, obviously, and bring it back, bring it home, and kind of guide it to a certain extent. But yeah, that was always a conversation start. It was never a black and white. Oh, yeah. Everyone disagrees. You know what I mean? All sides of the room. So it just shows that that isn't a black and white thing. That was fascinating.
I would love to. When you do them again, I'll come. Yes. I definitely want to see what people talk about. I think probably the same for you.
One of my favorite things about the work that I do is getting to hear all of these different perspectives and all of these different kind of lived experiences and then watching people listen to each other and take it in and thinking, well, actually, you're going to leave this session or this discussion a little bit more knowledgeable now on what somebody else's perspective of this situation is.
And I think that is powerful because I don't think we communicate naturally very well, especially in schools and colleges and universities and places like that. Creating that brave space, as your friend Phoebe would say, actually is probably more important than anything else. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So I've got another question for you here. It's around the biggest challenge. So what is the biggest challenge that you face when you're talking to young people about these topics?
Now, I don't necessarily mean that they will bring to you, but maybe it could be institutional, whatever it is, what is it that really kind of stops the conversations from being able to have them? The biggest challenge I'm thinking about is it might just be the time that's allowed for these things. Schools have so much to do. There's just so much and there's so little budget and so little time and so much coordination that goes into this stuff. And they have to choose.
They have to always have to choose between what to teach themselves, what to get other people to teach, and how much time and budget they have for each topic. You've seen how many topics we deliver. And, you know, I would ideally never like to go in and start talking about contraception if I don't know that everybody knows about pregnancy. And then I would never want to talk about pregnancy if I don't know that everyone in the room understands sexual anatomy. You know, there are levels.
And even then, I wouldn't want to talk about sex at all if you've not talked about emotional vocabulary or about relationship or about communication or respect or a million other things. And so you're never going to get the time to go through that and to check the learning of each individual. And so what happens is you typically go in, talk about pregnancy, contraception, puberty, STIs, and then you distill health relationships. If you're looking into an hour long those
last couple there, they're really important ones. Right. But you also need to get the messaging out. I still get it because, again, I have really similar problems or not problems for challenges with clients because it's Fame. They've got limited amount of time. Dni is one part of the strategy, and they know that it's really important, but so is health and wellbeing and so is this and this and this.
So it's about trying to make sure that messaging is getting out but still allowing that space for the conversations to grow because that's where people do their best learning is in those discussions. Yeah. What about this work that you do. What is it? Is there like one misconception that people think about the work that you do? Is there anything that people misunderstand? The first thing that just came to mind was, I'm sure you've heard it on the news.
People thinking that if you talk about sex with young people, they're going to go and have sex. If you talk about sex too early or teach kids in primary school how babies are made, they're going to go out and make babies. Yeah. That's definitely the most common thing and it's difficult. But the way I always describe it, I also have two ways to tackle that view. Is every adult knows a song or a movie that they watched when they were really young.
Too young, let's say, and they didn't understand any of the sexual references until they were older, right? Yes. Sometimes you watch something you watch when you're kidding. Oh, my gosh. It didn't affect them. It went over their heads quite rightly. And they grew up fine. And believe it or not, in the best sexual health lessons and with the best facilitator and the best resources, even graphic resources, what isn't meant for the young person will go over their head.
The things that they're not ready emotionally to learn. Honestly, we'll go over their head. The other story I tell is the same aunt who got me into this work in the first place. When her youngest son was around four, he asked her how babies are made. And being a sex educator, she told him how babies are made in detail, every step. And he was four. At the end of the conversation with, I think we should talk about this a little bit older. Here's the crucial part about I might get this wrong.
I think it was about four years later, it might be a bit less, but later on we were still very young, definitely eight or younger. He asked again her baby's mate, and she asked him what he remembered for the first time. And honestly, I can't remember what he said, but it was a typical four year old answer. So she told him absolutely everything in graphite. I showed him how the head of the baby gets pushed through the vagina and the vagina open. I showed him everything.
And four years later, he only remembered what a child could imagine. Does that make sense, talking to him in graphic detail. But a child's brain can only kind of picture what it can reference like. It can only connect. That's why for a child, a baby grows in the tummy. Because I know what tummy is and they can see a tummy and the tummy gets bigger. So it doesn't matter if you explain the womb and their vagina, they can't picture fallopian tubes. It doesn't matter.
They're fine. You know what I mean? And so his answer to her about what he remembers was something like literally what a typical. The head falls out. Yeah, exactly. It was just like so typical. But he just took what he could process at the age he was at. I believe at least that is what happens. So I have no stress doing these lessons with young people at any age because I know that they're only going to process what they can process.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when young people expose to things too soon that could be from having hanging around with older children quite a lot. It could be from accessing things on the Internet that they're not equipped to deal with. And these things can definitely 100% have impact. But they're usually repeated, they're usually sustained things, and they're usually not obviously an educational kind of safe setting with the professional, you know what I mean?
So, yeah, that's the main thing, the main misconception that people have, I think. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's really into the analogy you use with the movies and what you remember and then watching them again as an adult going, wow, I can't believe that I watched this as a kid and I thought it was just this movie that's really resonated with me because I guess I never really thought about it like that. Yeah.
I do agree that we should be teaching kids these sorts of things really early on because as you say, this is about being comfortable to talk about them, to build healthy boundaries and healthy communication habits so that when we do become old enough to start understanding it at a deeper level, we've got the emotional toolkit to be able to do that. And I think for a lot of us, especially going to a state school and I don't know about your school, but like I said, we're similar ages.
I remember sex education being this ridiculous class. And it was taught I think it was taught by my chemistry teacher. And no one respected the chemistry teacher anyway because she just didn't like her job and she didn't like children. So it was all very clinical. And then we just didn't really take any of the information in. Yeah. And to go back to the story I told my Auntie one more time, I forgot perhaps the most crucial point based on what you just said, is that he went back to her.
So he's now eight, who's definitely old enough to be embarrassed to talk to your mom about this stuff. But he went back to her. Why? Maybe that's because when he was four, she didn't bought the idea. She just told him. And so he feels comfortable to go back to her. Now, how many eight year olds are asking their moms how baby is made? Or are they embarrassed if it's a boy? Are they embarrassed? What you just said is totally right.
Talk about it early so that you let them know that it's okay to talk about and you take the taboo out of it. I remember being in year six, the girls went off to learn about periods, the boys went off to learn about sex, watched Tabitha and it said the man moves rhythmically on top of the woman. That's what I remember. Oh, my God, I don't remember that. It was a video. It was a cartoon. It was a video. I didn't know what sex was after that. And also that's totally false. The rhythmic thing.
Yeah. That's not always been my experience. I really do think that kids in general just process what they want, their emotionally ready to process. Their brains are just made to disregard the rest. Yeah. And I love that idea that you get to drip feed the right information as well. And it's the same.
Listen, we're obviously not going to get into it in detail now, but the idea of people and parents and I understand their point of view to some degree, especially when their tradition doesn't allow for this. But the whole idea of teaching children about LGBT plus situations and information is really essential at a young age because you need to understand it to be able to be respectful and to accept each other. But, yeah, it's an interesting one. And the word taboo probably is the tagline.
That's the word of this podcast. And I imagine it's probably a word you use quite a lot in your work. That's a really fascinating thing to me. That whole discussion around religious parents especially, and their feeling about LGBTQ education in schools, because I like to think it's really important to learn about that stuff. But again, I remember talking to a group of academics at the British Museum about this, and they're doing a product on sexuality and decolonizing sexuality.
I used an example of one member of my family who's got kids who I know is lovely, whose heart is lovely and whose intentions are lovely and who views people with treats, people with absolute kindness and everything right, who felt uncomfortable with the school teaching her daughters about homosexuality when she felt it was too early. So she called me and was like, what do you think? Am I right? Am I wrong? What? Am I right? And blah, blah, terrified.
I've been seen as homophobic and would have been seen as homophobic by a lot of people and a lot of the news coverage and a lot of the conversation around parents who had concerns about this was painting them as the villains, as homophobic, as anti progressive and stuff.
And I think that kind of coverage and the kind of conversation that we sometimes have on our side of things in this industry or this sector, because everyone's in the Echo Chambers in their bubble and knowing the kind of people I know and I'm sure you know, too lovely. People with genuine fears and concerns. Misplaced, perhaps, but so genuine, not hateful. If we change our approach sometimes to allow, you know, you might be the person that someone calls to alleviate those fears.
And we have to find a way of discussing this stuff in a way that's not only safe for the marginalized groups. This is going to sound crazy, but also safe for the masses. No, I so get it. I know we're talking specifically about one topic here, but it is of course it is, because the majority in whatever situation we're going to look at here are the people that can make the biggest difference. Yeah. They're least practiced at talking about this stuff.
How could you expect them to talk about it safely? Right there's? They have the least practice. So we have to allow them room to make mistakes, and they've got to feel safe to make mistakes because what will happen otherwise if they don't talk about it? Yeah. This situation here is a really great situation where this person, like you said, heart of gold. There's nothing in their mindset. It's just a misunderstanding around what it all is about.
So they came to you because they had a safe space, and that now means that they were able to talk to their child more comfortably about it and they were able to become more comfortable themselves. How incredible is that? If they didn't have you to come to and they didn't feel that they could bring this up, that child could have missed out on a really great conversation that then helps them in their generation.
Yeah. And that's what we all need to I'm in a privileged position in some ways because of my upbringing, because none of this stuff that we the stuff that we talk about all the time. For me growing up, none of this is a foregone conclusion. None of the vocabulary I have around this stuff or the understanding I have or even the political views I have, none of that is a full conclusion.
And I feel fortunate that I've just met the people along the way who have shaped my views on this stuff because I could have turned out very different. And I've definitely been in that place when I was younger, just not really understanding stuff, not having that exposure to different perspective when I was young, being called gay, oh, my God, the worst consult in the whole world. But I carry that with me, that experience of knowing what it is to feel that way.
I don't disregard that now that my views have completely changed. I still remember I could still hold those views a lot of time when I work with people in our sector, a lot of the time it's just me saying it's just me challenging that side of things and often taking that point of view, even though it's not what I believe. It's like trying to explain where it might come from or what might be behind it, because it's not always hate.
I think it's really interesting hearing you talk about that because, you know, I grew up very working class, and I'm so grateful for that experience just because of some of the great values that it taught me. And then, like you, I moved to London when I was quite young and just got exposed to so many different things. And fortunately, I embraced all of that. And I got to kind of make it part of who I am.
But it's really interesting because my family are fantastic and they're so great and we have some really great conversations now. But it wasn't always that way. It was very much the eye rolling. Oh, here he goes again on a soapbox. That bad. And this and the other. But we have some really great conversations now because I guess partially because I've been relentless, but also because I see both sides.
I grew up with that mindset, and there was no harm done in a way that was just the way that we were. And then I've also been so fortunate to be surrounded by so many different types of people with different life experiences that now I can communicate really well with the I don't think the word opposition is right. I think just people that think differently to the way some of the people I work with now think.
It's really given me a leg up not just for the business, but also with my friends and my family and people I have relationships with because I can see both sides now. And you use the word kind a moment ago. It does make me much kinder in a way to listen to their point of view rather than just going, oh, well, no, this is the right way because this is about human rights in this. That's not helpful when you're having a conversation.
You can't get people to understand that because they've never seen it, they've never experienced it. So for them, that is their reality. But yeah, it's always really interesting having those conversations. But yeah, definitely the relentlessness was probably such a massive change growing up. But yeah, I mean, they're definitely coming around to it now, which is really nice. It's nice to have some
really good conversations with them. Yeah. Oh, God, I could talk to you all day about this, but I've got one or two more questions that I want to ask you, because what I'd really love is to get some advice or some tips that people can take away because that's one of the things people like about this podcast is that they can genuinely do something with it. Okay.
So I think one of my questions is what practical piece of advice could you give someone who's maybe listening to this podcast, they're wanting to know how to get more involved in these types of conversations, or perhaps they want to start a conversation just to open these types of conversations about sex education or relationships, maybe with their kids, maybe with their partner, with some friends or even in the workplace. What practical piece of advice. Could you give them to get them started?
Nice, easy one for you there. I tell you what, I just started talking. This is what I was thinking as you're talking, and it's not fully formed piece of advice. We might become fully formed within the sentence. We talked a lot about the discussion style and being open and being creative space and all that stuff and all that is really important.
But one thing I remember from the Taboo and Taboo sessions is everyone's opinions equal, everyone's opinions valid, and you challenge each other safely and all that stuff. But there is also this ribbon of what is fact. And I wouldn't be able to responsibly facilitate those discussions if I didn't have the knowledge of when it's time to insert a fact. You and I can go back and forth about consent all day. But at some point it's like, well, actually, this is the law.
We can talk about another topic. And at some point it might be like, well, actually, this is facts. Sometimes that's what helps guide conversations. So it doesn't get too far in one way or too far in the other. And so I think if someone is going to start having these kind of conversations, even with friends, I would say arm yourself with some really good facts. And then the art in this work is how you take that fact and articulate it in a way that it's digestible.
Right. And I think for that at there are people who've already done a lot of that work. There's a website called Bishu UK run by a guy called Justin, who I know, but it's a really good resource. He writes really well and simply. And so it's like you might be facilitating that discussion, but use other resources.
For example, Bishop UK, he's got illustrations and he writes in quite a nice way because I think a lot of the time you can know the facts or you can know what you're trying to get across, but the art is how you heard it. And I think that's why people like us get good at this stuff. It's not necessarily because we are when we're not.
I'm no better at relationships than anyone else, but I've spent so much time talking about it that I've been able that now I'm able to articulate things off the top of my head in a really clear way because I'm practiced at articulating, these types of views, these types of facts and stuff. And if I was going to start from scratch now, that's why I spend my time writing and rewriting how to explain this idea and that idea.
And again, going back to our time in the office, back in the days, a lot of the time is how do I say this? It wasn't always like, what resources. They weren't always writing lesson plans. How do I explain this small idea in the most recent way? And I found actually, because there are a lot of work with people special needs.
Normally when I create, I make a lesson plan for like year ten mainstream, and then I make a lesson plan for year ten sen, and then I make a lesson plan for similar development. But we've learned several disabilities, and it's always the wording that I use in that one that I end up copying and pasting into my other ones because that's when I've really tried to make it clear and simple and understandable that's when I get it right.
But I say, arm yourself with facts, decide the facts you're trying to get across and spend some time thinking about how to articulate it in the most simple way and you haven't got it. That doesn't mean that you then go and just give a speech. You just have those articulations in your pocket for when you need them. You just get practiced at that. Yeah. Listening to that, it's really funny because people always say to me, oh, you're so good at what you do and whatever.
And I'm like, yeah, but you know what? I'm probably not any better, really, than anyone else, but I'm very passionate and I do lots of research, lots of research on the topics that I talk about because I want to make sure I'm having the biggest possible impact on the conversations I'm having with people. You have to be credible when you're doing that. You have to know, as you say, you have to have those facts and like, you probably won't even use them a lot of the time.
But getting to really understand them allows you to talk really eloquently about subjects that could be a little bit divisive. Perhaps they're taboo or whatever else. So, yeah, I think that's a great piece of advice. And I would just add to that. Reputable data. Reputable. Yeah, of course, because there's so much misinformation out there so people can take the information from wherever they like. But social media is just a pocket, all sorts of rubbish.
So it's about finding those reputable places and really starting to learn that. And having conversations with people like you is a really great way for people to learn those sorts of things. Not that I'm going to suggest that thousands of people give you a call and ask for lots of free advice, but I do think that there is something in there.
I've certainly taken a lot away from the conversations I have with people that are doing work like yourself or we spoke to Joanne from a woman center a couple of weeks ago, even talking on our first podcast to a friend of mine that's trans and his experience. That's topping up my knowledge constantly of what it's like in those situations, because that's not my experience. Yeah, true.
And also making when you're talking to individuals, it's really important to get a breadth of experience from all sorts of individuals as well. Sometimes we can fall into a trap of I'm saying I fall into the trap of doing work around autism and spoke to some autistic people and parents. Autistic people in this occasion very quickly felt like an expert.
And then I think I was saying something, and if I was talking or if I was watching something, but I just heard someone had a really passionate plea that not everyone is the same. There is no version of autism that allows you to understand all autistic people. That's an obvious thing. But I think it's really important to get as wider breadth as you can of understanding from these kind of topics. Yeah, I think you're an expert. Yeah.
That's a really good lesson to learn in the type of work that we do. I learned that very early on is that whilst this is my business and this is what I'm passionate about, I learn a lot. I listen to a lot of podcasts, I read a lot of things. I go to a lot of events, I watch a lot of webinars. I take part in a lot of different types of learning. There's a really interesting book that I bought a little while ago, and it's around hidden disabilities.
There's a concept that I understood, but when I read the book, it made just complete sense into how to then articulate it to other people when we're talking about things like that. And the book very simply address lots of different types of hit and disabilities, obviously autism spectrum and stuff like that. And the key takeaway from every single experience where this person is interviewed, each different person is we're all different.
So my experience is going to be extremely different to someone else's experience, or it's going to be very close to this person's experience. So you will never be an expert, even in a topic that is very close to you and your experience, because it's going to be different when you know that you realize that's where the value is. The value isn't that I'm an expert because also anything medical, anything scientific changes because plans move on and stuff and society moves on.
And so the value isn't in being an expert. The value is in being passionate and being articulate. That's where the value is and being more researched, right? Yes. But it's not in being an expert, because if that was it, anyone can be an expert, but will they have the passion and will they have the ability to relay that in an engaging way? No, that's what the value is of things. It's how engaging you are and how passionate you are. Not really how knowledgeable you are in a weird way.
You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the same with the work that you do with Taylor education. You're able to communicate these messages. These people can go online and do the research and find out all of this stuff, but they won't necessarily take it in the same way. It's about finding a way to click with someone's learning and to really get them to reflect. Yeah. And that's something that clearly you're doing very well, so well done. Thank you.
Unfortunately, that is all we've got time for, which makes me really sad because I want to talk about all the other topics that you cover. Is there anything that you would like our listeners to kind of go away with if you were like, actually, this is the one takeaway I'd love for them to have from this podcast. Is there anything that you think this is going to help us to keep this conversation going? Yeah. Beware of the Echo Chamber.
And I guess just try to argue even to yourself the counterargument, because it will help you be more secure in your argument. Yeah. And I should remember that, too. Yeah. I think these sorts of conversations help us to remind ourselves to do all of this. We're human, we're not perfect, we're just passionate Echo Chambers. I repeat that. I Echo that back to you because it is important. And whilst we agree on a lot of things, there are things that we don't agree on.
And I always find those conversations really helpful. But that's the thing.
This is what is so important is that there's clearly some moment, some first conversation where we disagreed and we showed to each other that we were going to be okay with us taking opposite views and we weren't going to be upset with each other and we weren't going to Google and listen, I don't remember what it was, but there must have been one conversation where I decided where I felt comfortable to share my postal review. And you felt comfortable. And so it happened again and again.
And the same thing with my colleague Phoebe. There's definitely times when I've shared things with people and realized, wait, this isn't someone I can explore with because I'm only looking to learn and be corrected if I'm wrong, but you have to feel safe to do it. And it's really valuable to practice that to find those people.
I think that's why it's so exciting to talk to you about this stuff, because I know that if I say something that you completely, fundamentally disagree with, you are not going to change your view on me as a person. You're not going to decide that I'm a bad person. You're going to say, I know God is a good person.
So I'm more passionate to teach him about this because I believe that if he can get it, he's going to appreciate that he gets it now because I know that his heart is a good person and that's how we need to approach this conversation that I know there's a good person I'm talking to and their view on this thing, however toxic it may feel to me or negative it may feel to me or even triggering it might be to me. I don't decide they're a bad person because they hold a view that challenges me.
I'm going to keep going because I know that if I can get it right, they'll appreciate having it cracked. And I don't think our politics and our media and our social media really allow for that nuance. We are continually defining each other by our views and by our politics and our differences and our differences. Yeah. We're literally defining people's core by some view they have on trans rights. As important as trans rights are. You know what I mean?
As important as that is, can you define someone sold by their view, not as if they believe in their view on trans rights? Can you decide someone is a bad person? Because I disagree with you on that. Yeah. My partner disagrees with this sentiment. We've had very different lives. But my sentiment is and sometimes I have to really try hard to remember this because sometimes people piss me off. But I genuinely 100% believe that there's no such thing as a bad person.
Genuinely. Okay. I believe that there are challenges and ways that we have been brought up that change the way or make us behave in certain ways and that there are mental health challenges. But that genuinely is how I feel about things. And trying to convince my partner of this is my lifelong mission. I think I agree with you. I haven't thought about it for long enough, but I think I agree with that idea.
The first thing I thought when you said it was, well, mental illness when you said that, I think I agree with you. But what I'm sure about, as soon as you say that, is that it's better to move through the world with that view than not. That makes sense.
It's better to move through the world as if you have that view doesn't mean you're an idiot and you don't look after yourself and you don't stay safe and recognize that some people are doing bad things in the world and may do bad things to you, whatever else. But yeah, I think it's better if we move through the world with that view. You'll definitely have better conversations. Yeah. And longer lasting ones. Life certainly easier with that mindset. I won't lie because it hasn't always been
my mindset, but it's definitely easier now. Wow. Okay. That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hope it was a good episode. I think they'll agree that it was. I think we've got some really good takeaways. There some really good food for thought. And I think for me, I learned a lot. And I imagine people that aren't anywhere near this type of work, maybe they run their own business. Maybe they're just listening because they're interested in hearing more about it.
I'd be very surprised if people didn't really start to think about how they can start to make sure that these conversations are happening a little bit more. Okay. Cool. Amazing. Thank you so much. What another amazing episode talking to another inspirational person. What Gareth shares his thoughts, his knowledge, his experience is so incredible. And I hope that you've taken away just as much as I have from that conversation.
If you're interested in finding out more about Gareth and Taylor education, then head online and search for Taylor education now. And if you're interested in learning more about Zing learning and you want to see how we can come in and support your daughter diversity and inclusion work, then head to our website, which is zingrevolution. Co. Uk. That's it. That's all we've got time for this week, unfortunately. We're looking forward to seeing you on the next one. Bye.