Family, faith and teaching with Candice

Today I sit down with Candice, a business studies and accounting teacher in her eleventh year, to explore how faith, family, and community shape her approach to life and teaching. She shares the surprising moment that led her into the classroom, how humour helps her build genuine relationships with students, and why adopting her “good enough” principle has been key to keeping balance and joy in the job. We also talk about the hobbies and travel that keep her grounded and her advice for teachers who are feeling overwhelmed or finding their footing. This is a warm and encouraging conversation filled with practical wisdom for anyone wanting to thrive—not just survive—in teaching. 

Hosted by Debbie Ross
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Transcript

DEBBIE: Welcome to Nurturing Educators, the podcast that shares inspiring and insightful conversations with passionate teachers dedicated to education and well-being. I'm your host Debbie Ross and each episode we will explore the personal stories, challenges and successes of educators from all walks of life. You'll hear practical tips and strategies to help you thrive both in the classroom and beyond.

DEBBIE | Hi everyone and welcome to season two. I can't think of a better way to start the season than being joined by the amazing Candice. She's an incredible business studies and accounting teacher who's loved by her students and colleagues. Candice is a big family person grounded in friends, family and faith and somehow manages to balance teaching, travel and many great hobbies while inspiring everyone around her. I can't wait to dive into her story and wisdom. Welcome Candice, would you like to share a little bit about yourself?

CANDICE | Sure, yep. So I've been a teacher for, it's my 11th year, can you believe it? And I suppose sort of the theme or part of the theme of this podcast as well is I'm a devout Christian, so I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, probably more well known as Mormons and so that's a really big part of my life. I've come from a pretty big family and that's influenced a lot of who I am and what I do.

DEBBIE | Awesome and what inspired you to become a teacher?

CANDICE | It's interesting actually, I remember, I distinctly remember sitting in my, I never wanted to be a teacher and I remember sitting in my year 13 New Zealand history class and it was a pretty naughty sort of a class, you know, we didn't really do too much work and our teacher was kind of struggling a little bit to keep us all in line and I remember looking at him one day and I thought I'm never going to be a teacher but if I was I could do a better job than this guy.

DEBBIE | And you sure have.

CANDICE | The irony now is I sort of think it's actually a pretty hard job but that's where I was at in high school and then probably when I was 18 or 19 through church I got asked to be involved with our youth group. So that involved planning activities and spending a bit more time with the youth but also teaching them on a Sunday, so sort of Sunday school type of teaching and I sort of realised like I've enjoyed it. Yeah, first of all I enjoy it. I actually really like young people and I could sense like a bit of satisfaction from teaching and seeing them learn and so I think that's sort of where it stemmed from and at the time I was already doing a commerce degree and so it just sort of progressed on from there. Yeah and I've kind of never looked back really.

DEBBIE | What do you think helps with your teacher style and in terms of how you connect well with your students?

CANDICE | Yeah this is an interesting question because I haven't really thought about it too much but I think it's actually a little bit of humour. Yeah. I think having a bit, and I'm not saying that like I come into class and I'm trying to be a stand-up comedian or joke around all the time but I think having a little bit of humour with the students helps to put them a little bit more at ease, you know, and so I think that sort of helps to have a platform to build from and we know that obviously building relationships is a lot more than just joking around with people and having fun but I do think that that helps to kind of get a foot in the door.

DEBBIE | So how do family, friends and faith, like you've talked about just before, help shape the way you live and teach?

CANDICE | Yeah I think that it's, well first and foremost I think it has helped to make me a happier person and you know when you're a happy person everything in life just seems like a little bit easier. Yeah. And I'm not saying that I don't have struggles or I'm not ever sad or frustrated or angry but I think that having foundation in my life that I've sort of tried to build on the teachings of Jesus Christ, I think it's helped to give me a little bit of perspective on life, a little bit of sort of hope in the future and I think like an underlying peace in my life that even when things aren't going well I still sort of have that kind of reassurance that everything's going to be okay.

DEBBIE | And others can see that in you.

CANDICE | Yeah and I think and you know there's lots of staff members at school that I can see that in as well where they just sort of seem to have this this peace or this happiness that's not related to how good their life might be going at that particular time. I mean so I think that's really helped me to be able to show up at work every day and be a happy person. Grumpy people are always grumpy and they can't see the good in life and yeah they might be going through really difficult challenges but I think that influences the way you talk to people and how much of a tether you've got with people and things like that.

DEBBIE | And the kids pick it up quick, they really do. Yeah they're really perceptive. If someone's happy then it changes the mood of the classroom.

CANDICE | That's right and I think that's true for our relationships with other adults as well. You know it's a lot easier to interact with people that are happy. You know you don't have to be over the top crazy all the time, life of the party, but it's just kind of a happiness about life and a sort of a positivity about life as well. That even if life isn't good it's actually still good.

DEBBIE | So that probably brings us on to our next question. So how do you balance school life with your personal life?

CANDICE | Oh I'm like super, I'm so passionate about this.

DEBBIE | Yeah we were talking about it before saying you've got it down to a tee but it's taken time.

CANDICE | It has, yeah it has and I think you know for if I think about what I was like as a beginning teacher and perhaps what I would say to other beginning teachers as well is you probably won't have balance in those first couple of years. That's just the way it is and but to sort of you know stick with it and the balance does find its way into your life if you let it. So I think what's helped me personally is I'm not super ambitious about work in terms of I don't, I'm really satisfied with just being a classroom teacher and I know that that doesn't suit everyone. I know that and I think it's good to have ambition and drive and you want to progress in your career and you want to learn new things but for me being wired that way where I just want to be a classroom teacher with no added responsibilities it sort of means that I've got a bit more time just in general to spend on other things. You know if you were a head of faculty or a dean or a senior leader you don't really have the privilege to be able to switch off that three things. You know just that the job demands a lot more and I guess you do have to be on your emails a little bit more and so I think first for me I just I don't have that extra part of my life and I also feel strongly that my worth I guess isn't tied to like a position or kind of status within my job and so that's made things a lot easier as well but what I've developed over the years and I don't know this is a good thing it might come across as a bit of a lazy way to live but I kind of follow this good enough principle where you know as teachers we could be spending endless hours like you literally could spend as much time as you have yeah planning lessons and you know tracking your kids academically or developing resources and going to that sort of nth degree of preparation and planning. I sort of got to a stage where I was like I just need to draw a boundary around the work that I do and say this is good enough. I get it to a place where it's good enough and if I've got a bit more time or energy to give I'll try and make it a bit better but as long as it's enough I think that enabled me to switch the laptop off go home and then not have to think about work I mean being a teacher is it's an all-consuming job if you let it you know I was telling my students the other day like I literally had a dream about my students I never want to be dreaming about my students you know but it can be all-consuming if you let it and so being able to draw a boundary around it to say this is good enough it will get the job done yeah that's I think really helped me and I really love my job you know I get a lot of satisfaction from my job and it's a job where you can help people and you can make a difference and hopefully inspire other people and so I do really love my job but it's just one part of my life and to be honest it's not even the biggest part of my life you know I've got other things in life that I get a huge amount of satisfaction from as well and so it's just trying not to get too caught up time-wise and energy-wise yeah that's good advice yeah.

DEBBIE | So what's what's some of the things that you like doing outside of work what are some of your hobbies?

CANDICE | Well I'm so glad you are at the moment it's all about fishing yeah I just I don't even know really how I got into it but I've been into fishing for the last couple of years and and the thing is with hobbies you don't even have to be good at them I'm a terrible fisher but I love it you know I you know being out on the water and just kind of being out in nature and then the excitement of reeling in a fish and it's a hobby that I can spend with people that I love as well and so it's...

DEBBIE | You do it quite a bit with your nephews and stuff.

CANDICE | Yeah I've got some nephews that are really into it and so there and I've got a little boat which is nothing fancy it's just like a sort of four metre inflatable boat but it gets us out far enough yeah and so the little boys are they know how to get it all ready and they can get everything sorted and we sort of head out off the boat ramp and just spend a bit of time out there but I've taken you know sisters out and friends out and and the nieces as well and so it's been it's been a great hobby for spending time with friends and family and I mean I'm also into surfing and things like that again something that I'm not that good at but it's a it's a hobby that allows you to spend time with other people yeah my dad is a mechanic and he his big dream has been to do up a mini and so my brother my dad my mum and myself all have this mini I have a mini each that we're trying to kind of do up I have no technical skills so I just do what dad tells me to do yeah mostly it's just sanding but again it's it's something that you can bond over to bond over with dad and it's something that he really loves and I think with hobbies as well spending time with other people I think is really great but I think the good thing about hobbies is that you're also learning something new you know and you're getting excited it's something that you can get excited about getting up early in the morning on a weekend for you know it's not just you know if you don't have hobbies you might just be spending time with friends and family which is great in itself that's a really worthwhile thing to do but hobbies is like you're learning and you're growing and you're developing different part of your brain that's right yeah and so I do get a lot of satisfaction out of that and you know when I think about surfing and fishing and things like that it's like I'm not that good now but I enjoy it yeah and I will hopefully like I can progress progress I'm looking forward to a time where I am good at those things you know so yeah it's been fun to dive into hobbies sort of in your 30s yeah doing things that you know I didn't do growing up yeah it's been cool.

DEBBIE | I like that so oh one of the things we've bonded over heaps is our travel stories and I know that you've got a big passion for travel as well tell us a bit about that.

CANDICE | Yeah travelling actually again is one of those things I didn't really envision for myself it's just kind of happened over the last few years and I've been really lucky to have the opportunity to travel quite a bit to Hawaii and Japan and the UK and so and I've really enjoyed it it's I mean that's the best part about teaching as well right is good holidays good holidays the air feels a bit more expensive but the holidays are good and so it's been a really worthwhile experience to go travelling and to be with friends and to see a new place I think probably most of all though it's really helped me to appreciate what I have at home you know I think seeing the way other people live and what life is like for them it really gives you a sense of gratitude for how good we have it here you know and I don't like travel itself in terms of I don't like flying and I don't like airports but I love waking up in a new place you know and it's exciting and get to meet new people it's really cool so I've been yeah I feel very blessed to have been able to do that over the last few years and hopefully it continues the holidays are going to keep coming so...

DEBBIE | As a teacher what do you do to kind of set yourself some healthy boundaries?

CANDICE | Yeah I really work hard at keeping my personal life separate from work and that's not to say I would never discuss my personal life at work or I would never discuss work outside of work but I think with students I try and keep that quite separate and it comes back to those boundaries as well like I don't have emails on my phone or camera on my phone I can access my emails from my phone but I don't get notifications or anything like that and I often will leave my laptop at work so that I can't not that I would go not that I would work after school but it just helps when you walk out the door because like we said being a teacher can be all-consuming you know you're worried about your kids or you're worried about your lessons or something's not going well and you're thinking about it all the time and I just think that by turning off the emails and not taking my laptop home that's one thing that I can do to to create some healthy boundaries around work and around my personal life and I know some teachers are you know they're happy to talk about everything in their life with their students I don't really I like to keep that quite separate and again that's just one small thing that I can do to try and keep them and they're never going to be completely separate it's a part of me and who I am but I think those little things for me anyway have made a difference you know being able to switch off and I have a sister that's a teacher and she's a dean and you know we'll be hanging out and she'll get an email and she'll think oh so-and-so's emailing about this and and I can see that it's it's disruptive to her life a little bit she has to because she's a dean I have the luxury of not having that but you know whatever but but that's I think part of the reason why I don't really want to go into deaning or being a HOF is because I would find it much harder to draw those boundaries.

DEBBIE | For teachers who are having a hard time what recommendation would you give them in terms of support out there?

CANDICE | Yeah that's a hard one because everyone's in a different sort of stage of life and they're struggling with different things but we see teachers at our school that are you can see they're kind of on the cusp of burnout and and you think oh they're doing so much when you hear about teachers that you know they're working till 10 p.m at night and don't get me wrong like sometimes every now and then you have to do that you know and I can be a little bit disorganised as well in terms of I'll leave my marking to the last minute so I'm up till 10 p.m marking them you know but but I think if that's a regular occurrence and it is leading to burnout some people are energised by that you know my I had a previous head of faculty who was energised by the work and she loved the work I don't really get energised by the work but I think if it's leading to burnout I do think that you have to apply that good enough principle of yeah hey just do something that's good enough and some people are perfectionists as well you know and so they don't like to just do things that are good enough I think it's absolutely necessary if you if you don't want to be burnt out and for me I really want longevity in this career like I said I love my job and I want to be in it for a long time I don't have any plans to do anything different and so if I want that longevity then you can't become resentful of your job you know we have conversations in the staff room all the time teachers that feel resentful about the job and they can't seem to see the really good parts of the job because that's overshadowed by all of the stress and the admin and the work and these difficult kids you know and so I think whatever we can do to help ourselves not to resent our job and if that means turning off your emails or if that means applying the good enough principle then that's what you're going to do.

DEBBIE | Yeah I like it what about support support from other staff members or family what do you do when you need someone to have a chat with about being overwhelmed at work yeah just to offload?

CANDICE | Yeah I like I say I have a probably not the greatest example but I have a sister that's a teacher and she's busy and she's like a perfectionist sort of a person and she has an amazing job she's only been teaching for a few years but she's an amazing I can tell she's an amazing teacher she's an amazing dean and but I can I can see her kind of on the cusp of a bit of burnout you know but it's been nice to talk to her to sort of realise that I actually don't have it that bad someone's always busier than you someone's always a bit more overwhelmed than you someone's doing a better job than you but also I think like I said at the start having my church to or my faith to sort of lean on to give me a bit of perspective about life because you know often the challenges in life do stem from work and so being able to step back and have a bit of perspective and most of my friends and all of my family are members of my church as well and so it's really nice to be able to offload and talk to them I think having a network of support is really really important and maybe some people don't have a big network of support and I do really feel for those people you know like you don't have people outside of your job to necessarily unload those things I think it's a really difficult position to be in and so I feel really lucky that I've got church and can talk to because sometimes it is just you want to just vent yeah you know you just want to offload something you don't necessarily need your problems to be solved you might already know the answers you just want to talk about it you just want to rage about it for five minutes you know yeah so you're having having those people in your life are really important.

DEBBIE | What's one life lesson that you bring to the classroom?

CANDICE | Oh a life lesson that I bring to the classroom I suppose I hope something that's helped my students that I don't mind telling them particularly my senior accounting students is I wasn't good at accounting at high school I actually didn't enjoy it I copied off there was a guy in our year and he was like the smartest kid in the school and I used to try and sit next to him and just like copy his work and I think I scraped through with achieves at high school and I took accounting for all three years but I like to tell my students that first of all achieves are all good you know striving for excellence is great but if you're just an achieved student it doesn't define who you are and it certainly doesn't define your future you know but also you know maybe I wasn't the best student at school and maybe I didn't do well in a particular subject that I am now teaching yeah but I've managed to carve a carve out a really nice life for myself and I've managed to carve out a career that I really enjoy and so I think helping my students to understand that we are a lot more than just these individual grades that we get sometimes yeah you know that's really good and yeah so it's nice to be able to relate especially to some of the more struggling students in class to be able to relate to them like hey let's have a let's step back and let's try and look at the big picture here what is this one grade or what is this even this one subject or this one year at high school what is that in the big picture of things you know yes absolutely we want to do our best and we want to work hard we want to develop those those skills and to develop that determination but it doesn't doesn't define us you know and it certainly doesn't ruin our future yeah.

DEBBIE | I love that so that's the big experience I like to share with my students going on from that do you have any like proud teaching moments anyone that stands out?

CANDICE | Yeah I've I've got a got a couple actually one is actually not to do with me it's something that I learned from another teacher and she was deputy principal at the time and and she was so she she only had this one year 12 economics class and she was really busy and I remember walking into her class one time and she had spent time to sit down with a struggling student pretty much for the whole lesson and get the student to write down what she had on every day and where her commitments were she was a musician and she was an athlete and she had all these things going on in school was kind of she was pulling behind in class and so this teacher that I really respect spent time with this student and I just sort of thought that's amazing that with all this stuff that you have going on that you're able to leave the 99 and go and help this one student that's struggling and spend all and all of your time and energy just to her and she had that student she was that student was loyal to her for the rest of the year and into the next year as well she just adored this teacher and and I think that's one really big moment where I learned just how important dealing with the one yeah can be you know we get it's hard when you've got 30 kids sitting in front of you but just the importance of hey you can leave those kids for a while because they will be fine put your time and effort into just this one kid that you can really inspire and help and get over the line so that was really cool for me the other one probably doesn't paint me in such a good light but I thought I'll share it anyway so I was having a conversation with my year 13 accounting class and it was the start of the year as well the Olympics were happening and we were talking about the television of the Olympics and the Paralympics and things like that and it was I think was the way that I said it came across as I really prefer watching the Olympics and I really don't enjoy watching the Paralympics and said it in kind of a way that didn't really sound that nice and I was thinking about it after school and all of that evening and I thought do I mean what I'd said or why did I have to say it in that way I said I don't think I dealt with that situation very well and so the next day in class I went in and before class started I just said hey girls I just want to apologise for what I said yesterday about the Paralympics and I didn't mean that I shouldn't have said it that way and I'm really sorry and this the kids were stunned you know they were like oh thank you for apologising we did think that was a bit weird you know but I tell you I had them I had them from that moment onwards I think when they showing your humour showing yeah showing a bit of a bit of humility and apologising I didn't realise that that's what the outcome would be is that they would then have a I guess a newfound respect for me but there was that there was a noticeable shift from that day where I just sort of coming to the table with your flaws and being able to let your students see them and then apologising for them and trying to do better like that carries real power I think and so yeah that was a really memorable moment for me yeah it's a good teaching moment for me as well.

DEBBIE | So if there was some little bit of advice that you would give to teachers starting out what would it be?

CANDICE | Probably a bit of advice that I was given when I was at teachers college yeah I remember being at practicum and it was so stressful I don't know if you remember practicum a lot but it was it was so overwhelming it was horrific so overwhelming I know drowning yeah and I just had no idea what I was doing and I felt like I was getting all of this feedback I was getting good feedback and not so good feedback but all I could hear was the negative feedback you know and my practicum lecturer at the time she came to me and she said Candice the students will be fine no matter how good or bad you are as a teacher the students will be fine and I am able to look back now and the teaching that I did in those first few years horrific I mean I was blissfully unaware of how terrible the teaching was but I had no idea what I was doing the resources I was using were shambolic and I just I just didn't know what I didn't know and I was doing such a bad job but I would always remember that advice you know what the students will be fine and even if my students didn't have a teacher that showed up for them every day they would still be fine you know the kids figure it out you know and some of them might not go as far as they could you know a good teacher but actually the kids will be fine and and you're not going to be a good teacher in the first few years it's impossible to be a good teacher in the first few years you can have good moments and you can do good things but I think probably in the first couple of years you're doing more wrong than you're doing right you know unfortunately that's just kind of that's okay it's a job yeah you get better through experience you can't read it out of a book on how to be a good teacher and you have to get things wrong and you have to mess up but I think the first thing I would say is the students will be fine and probably the second bit of advice is and it's kind of ironic based on the conversation that we've had so far but it's probably that in the first couple of years of teaching you won't have any balance in your life it will be all about your job and you just have to figure out those other things in your life as best as you can your job will be so demanding in those first couple of years and I don't really know that there's any way around it if you want to be a half decent teacher there's not really any way around that busyness of the first couple of years yeah but I would say to them it gets better and if it's not getting better you're doing something wrong but it does it gets better and it took me a few years to figure it out you know like I remember in the first couple of years I remember thinking I'm so glad it's the holidays because now I can get my marking done and I would save marking so I could do it in the holidays and I've kind of have progressed to a point where it's like I am not touching marking in the holidays no matter how urgent it is or no matter how long I've left it I'm not doing work in the holidays like my mental health cannot afford for me to do that and like I say you'll start resenting your job if you're using your holidays to work which is why I think a lot of teachers are unhappy and they're dissatisfied because they feel resentful that they do have to use their holidays to do so much work but if you can put a boundary around that and say well this is a non-negotiable for me we don't work in the holidays or at a max we work for one day if we really have something to get done but if you if you're constantly using your holidays and your weekends for your job you will start resenting it.

CANDICE | Those are the two bits that go. 

DEBBIE | Such good advice, I think it's a really good thing that we could probably finish up on too. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming in today and sharing your story with all of us. lots of wisdom and I think it's just so clear how much family, your faith, and passion seem to guide everything that you do. So I know that there'll be lots of teachers out there that will really be inspired and get some good little tips and tricks from this little chat today. And I love how you just managed to, you know, balance life full of energy and yeah, just love everything you do. So can't wait to see what you get up to next. 

CANDICE |Oh, wow. I don't know that there's anything to so many more adventures. I think in terms of the work, there's probably probably going to be a bit more of the same, but yeah, like having other hobbies and other adventures, like that's really what excites me. And so it's been really nice to be able to talk a little bit about kind of how I operate today and so thank you for having me on I appreciate it. 

DEBBIE | Yeah, it's been cool. Thank you.