The Case for Slowing Down | A Community Conversation with Carl Honoré

What if the solution to burnout, stress, and over-scheduling is simply slowing down? 
Brian Konrad is joined by Heather McCaig and Dr. Phil McRae to discuss an upcoming community event featuring Carl Honoré, internationally known for his work on the Slow Movement.
Together, they explore why both adults and children are under increasing pressure in today’s fast-paced, tech-driven world and how education systems, parents, and communities can create space for reflection, mindfulness, and healthier learning environments.
🎙️ In this conversation, we cover:
• Why modern life pushes us to move too fast
• The impact of over-scheduling on children and families
• How slowing down supports better learning and well-being
• Why community conversations matter now more than ever
Make sure to listen if you are a parent, educator, or anyone feeling overwhelmed by the pace of modern life.
👉 Subscribe for thoughtful conversations about education, parenting, and building a healthier Medicine Hat

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Special Speaker
02:51 The Impact of Carl Honoré's Work
05:51 The Need for Slowing Down in Education
09:03 Challenges of Modern Life and Technology
11:42 Event Details and Community Engagement

This event is brought to you by the Alberta Teachers' Association.
If you have any questions, please call Heather at 403-528-0562 or private message me. ( Please Share)

Time: 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Ø 6:00pm Doors Open and Refreshments
Ø 6:30pm to 7:30pm Public Lecture
Ø 7:30pm Q & A
Ø 8:00pm Close

Tickets: $10 per person or $30 for four tickets
Registration: Limited seating.

Register at: https://abteach.cc/vl3r2s

Carl Honoré bio: https://www.carlhonre.com/bio/
Carl's Website: https://www.carlhonore.com/

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favor. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please, like, share, subscribe, and tell your friends about bring Back the Porch. We're not playing in the park anymore. We're. We're getting a job right away. And we're living on our technology, and we need our kids to slow down. So all of our groups together and really make a difference. And Carl's the Carl's words are definitely something that that speak to that. This episode of Bring Back the Porch brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. On the 9th of February, and the Alberta Teachers Association is bringing the very special speaker to Medicine Hat. And today we're going to talk about this special speaker with Heather McCaig, the district representative for the Southeast Region, and Doctor Phil McRea, who is with the ETA in Edmonton in the main office. Welcome. Thank you. Hi. Now, we're this is the first time we have done one of these podcasts like this. So fingers crossed everything will work out. And I want to make sure off the top that if people see that I'm talking to Doctor Phil, they got the wrong program. Yeah, exactly. I'm the right doctor, Phil. Yes, he is the right man for the right time. Let's just talk about the special guest that you're going to be bringing in. He is, award winning author. He has, got if you look, if you Google his name, you'll find lots of video clips of him. Doctor, I guess he's not a doctor. No, he's a journalist. I don't want to elevate him above his, his status, but his name is Carl. Honoré I watched some of his clips, and I found myself nodding, going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's right. Yeah. Right. So I think the people in Medicine Hat will want to see him when he comes here. So I'll let other Heather or, doctor McCrae tell us what is right about, Carl. Heather, do you want to lead off or would you like me to. Why don't you lead off and then I'll. I'll jump it. That sounds great. Well, first of all, thank you for having us. Brian, really, appreciate the time to talk about this. So, Carl is world renowned. He's an international bestselling author. Two times TEDx talk speaker. Tens of millions of people have watched his, work. He's he's known as the godfather of the slow movement. And these days, almost everyone complains about the hectic pace of our lives. You know, we live in a world where speed rules. Everyone is under pressure to go faster. But, you know, kids don't need more speed. They need more space. And what we thought we would do is really convene a conversation with parents and teachers and anybody. It's an open public lecture, really, to just talk about some practical tips on technology schooling over scheduling and, and bringing back joy, really helping, you know, parents and, and teachers and others think about slowing down in a world that is speeding up. And has sped up, dramatically since I was a little guy for, that's for sure. How did you manage to get this man to come to Medicine Hat? Well, Carl is so about ten years ago, we had him do some work with us and the nurses in Alberta because they were noticing in hospitals, and mental health care facilities, you know, lots of pressure, lots of anxiety. And so they were working with him and I thought, you know, we are seeing the same in schools. So we started doing some work about ten years ago. And then I was just in Switzerland, over the week last week. And sure enough, at the back of my session, there was Carl, who was also speaking in the same place I was. So it, you know, it's one of these moments where I think his expertise is very welcome, and it's, because he has written on this and really thought deeply about it. He's one of those rare experts that when you can find him and when he can, when everything comes together at the right time, we, we are able to bring him out and work with him in the public. As I tell us a little bit about the event in Medicine Hat. Sure. So the event's going to be held at the Medicine Hat High School Theater. So they have graciously, invited us to use that venue. We've got tickets on sale. It's $10 for one ticket, and you can get four for 30 if you want to bring some friends. And we will be having a reception where you can meet Doctor Bell and you can meet Carl and and talk to them a little bit prior to. And that's going until 630. So doors open around six 630. We will move into the theater part and, have the lecture for about an hour, have some Q&A time, and we'll wrap up the evening by about 8:00. And you want parents. We do. Want. Who else have you issued an invitation for? You for any adult rights? It would be really good for adults for for even potentially some teenagers of the age level that I teach. Because we're finding that in schools, our kids are being run ragged and, and just with their lives in general, schools work, that kind of thing. There isn't that, as you said, slow time like we had when you were a little gopher, right? We're not playing in the park anymore. We're we're getting a job right away. And we're living on our technology and we need our kids to slow down. So all of our groups together can really make a difference. And Carl's Carl's words are definitely something that that speak to that doctor. Phil, have you seen any evidence of the change in behavior after people have listened to Carl? So one of the things I mean, Carl actually speaks, he's a BBC journalist as well. So he's done lots of big documentaries. And, you know, parents flocked to him in the United Kingdom and, and come to hear him. But people from business are also spending time at his lectures. And part of the reason for that is that inside the workplace, we can see greater and greater levels of stress, greater and greater levels of work intensification. And, you know, even things like productivity are impacted. If, you know, if you're in too much of a rush and, you know, the, the, pressures, can really impact work as well. So I, what I find with Carl after he speaks is that people do what you did. They're deeply reflective. And they say, you know, I see my life in that hour, or I see my grandkids, or I see my kids or my students, or I see myself, again, you know, on this kind of treadmill, and we know it probably doesn't make sense whether it's, you know, even food. Right. Think about how how we, you know, devour instantly just to move on to the next thing. But again, we live in an age where technology has changed our attention spans in 12 seconds. Actually, I just heard that it's now four seconds. It was 12 seconds, which was, you know, less than a goldfish. And I'm not even sure what's less than a four second attention span. Yes, it has dramatic, radically changed. I remember reading go back in the 70s, an essay that somebody wrote about soup used to put your soup on the stove. You would leave it all day, let it simmer, let the flavors intermingle, and you could smell it, and you anticipated it. And it was something that was special. And now it's open up a can. Throw it in the microwave. Two minutes. You got your soup. So that's our world, I think in a, in a nutshell, how are we going to get our world to slow down in the world of education where you've, you know, you've got classes, the clock's always ticking. The next period starts in 14 minutes, and you've got all this stuff that you have to cover. Can we bring that into the classroom? We can. I mean, it definitely. It takes change and it takes change makers to work for those kinds of things. Right? Like our curriculums need to slow down. We need to find ways that we can work with kids at all different levels to be able to do that. And, being able to take that pause and look at homework and look at the way we do things and, and those kind of things can really make a difference. But we need people to hear about it. We need people to experience the message in order to kind of start thinking that way. Right. And the parents need to be on the same page as the teachers. And then that that translates into how we work with students. What are the interesting things? And Doctor Phil, you can kind of comment on this because you've heard that lecture two, I believe, he comments on that. People that go to Harvard that that the slowness piece, we're noticing that if people don't slow down, they're having worse, kind of entrance exams and they're, they're having a harder time getting into that college kind of thing. Right. So we need to to bring this into our schools and into our young people and really give them that opportunity to really slow down, take a breath, look at that mindfulness of the world around them at that moment, and really kind of understand what it means to live in the moment versus run, run, run and race, race, race all the time. Doctor Phil, you want to comment on that? Yeah, I think I mean, I totally agree with with Heather and there's a way to do it, but we have to take that responsibility. We live in an age now where our devices are constantly pinging us. We're constantly being asked. Our attention is in demand, right? And distraction is an enormous problem as well. I think every class there was a study done in the United States, every class collectively, let's say with 30 students, there'll be 1000 notices pinging their devices during that class. Overall, right from Snapchat and emails and texts and, you know, whatever, app they've got trying to draw their attention. So when we think of speed and when we think of just slowing down, I think of my youth growing up, you know, in the Rocky Mountains between Pincher Creek and Waterton in southern Alberta. Boredom was normal, you know, you didn't always have every second of the day something that was happening and that space of boredom led to creativity. And that creativity led to wonderful summer and winter and spring days, literally wandering out in, in nature. I mean, I'm lucky to be alive, but, you know, I do think that there's there's something to be said for other skill sets like creativity, from slowing down and bringing back boredom. Yeah. You know, I recall when my children were young, about 30, 35 years ago, we had a VHS video that, if there was music that, went along with the song and the song said something like, have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry. And my kids grew up with that, and I think maybe they did sort of slow down a little bit. But, I'm not sure today's world, if that same message can resonate with those children. Well, but I think it's and it's not even just children are youth in many ways. It's all of us. You know, we've all become a slave to this treadmill, to something, right? Whatever it is. And, you know, you see it. People driving, you see them in, in many ways and array. And yet that extra 13 seconds of slowing down would probably prevent all kinds of trouble, as we go. So, I mean, I, I notice it in our culture and because I travel all over the world and do different, different work supporting teachers in the teaching profession, I actually see this as a phenomenon around the world of people feeling higher and higher levels of anxiety and stress from always being on from always being going, and from these incredibly pressured, schedules. So it's not just the North American thing. No, I think it's actually I think this is a phenomenon of modern times in many ways. I wonder where that began. I wonder where what the tipping point was, how we started to speed up. And I think, doctor Carl says that, he was in the Roadrunner mode, and we understand the Roadrunner maybe. Yeah, exactly. I don't know when the 12. I'm thinking around 2012 actually, I think there was, I think that once we were hyper connected through cell phones and we were able to have instant communication, instant updates, you know, at that point of need, reminders, I think things started to change probably about 20 years ago. Okay. So now we had to put the brakes on it and slow down the bus. So again, the, Carl coming here on the 9th of February, people are encouraged to get their tickets early. They have a limited number, I would imagine. Yes, we do. And, how do they go about getting them, Heather, if they haven't got rid of that frog in your throat? Yeah, no, I apologize. So we have tickets on sale. They are on Eventbrite, I believe is the name of the supplier. And we will have a link, posted with this so that people can go and click on the link and a QR code. And if they need more information, they can always give me a call in medicine had of course, (400) 352-8056 two. I'm more than happy to talk to people about it. And really we're encouraging people to, you know, make it a make it a watch party, bring out some friends and, come as a group and, I guarantee you will, you will find your time well used and you will really enjoy the evening. It will be time well spent. It will be. As. We talk. Well, about time here. And, Brian, because this is your inaugural, zoom podcast to try it out. We wanted to give away two pairs of tickets. Okay. To your listeners. Yes. Okay. So, we'll have to work out the logistics of that because not everybody watches this at the same time. But maybe we'll have to do a draw or something like that. But I'll let the people with taller foreheads than me. Yeah, that sounds great. We can we can also supply a link to maybe that people can sign up on, and then we can do a draw from there. Yeah, that makes sense. I think you're going to have, a full house on the 9th of February and, Doctor Phil McCrea and Heather McQuaid. I thank you for your time and, bringing this to our attention. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay.