Thirteen Years Well Spent
What was school like for you? This podcast chats to young adults about what, from school they use in life and what they have learnt since. In the cumulative stories of real people, lets find out if school is doing as it claims - prepare young people for life.
Thirteen Years Well Spent
14 Tom
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Tom's story brings to the fore 'relationships, relationships, relationships'. He explains why he got into and out of teaching as well as his own experiences as a student. For me, in particular, is the consideration of 'work-life balance' from a student's perspective. Is it reasonable for a competent student to not be pushed to be better than their age-expected knowledge and skills?
Yeah, I knew what was required to do well in a subject. Uh, what was the learning objective and the learning criteria that was going to be asked of in an exam or a test? Could I do it?
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Uh I'm good. Yeah, I could. Like, and and looking back, I regret that other people were distracted, but I don't regret that. It's the one time in life where you get to hang out with your mates for, you know, eight hours a day, five days a week.
SPEAKER_02The idea of 13 years well spent comes from Guy Claxton, who wonders if young adults would say it is 13 years well spent. My sincere hope is that this might reach the ears of all of us involved with school-based education. Who knows what might change? I'm Susan Taylor, a teacher of Japanese and leader of languages, but this is not about me or any of the organisations I am have been online in the future be associated with. If you would like to share your story under 18 to 30 years feed, please email me. 13 years will spend as one word with 13 as a word, not a number, at gmail.com. So before we get into the typical side, I would like to acknowledge the Ganak and I and Banerong people as the traditional owners of the unseated land where I live. I appreciate the knowledge and stories of all First Nations people and thank them. I'd like to thank my partner, Gary, for much joy in our life and the beautiful intro and outro music. And I'm most grateful to the stars of this podcast, the fabulous school leaders who have been willing to share their experiences and thoughts with such depth and vulnerability and not leave to you, the listener, who have tried to spend this time with us and to consider how these stories might mediate your thinking, our thinking about school-based education. Now that we've had quite a few guests on and some educators reflecting on those. I'm really excited about the sorts of themes that are coming through and wonder what sorts of themes are coming through for you. What changes might you be making as a result of those? Today's guest is Tom. Tom went to a Catholic primary school in regional Victoria and a Catholic secondary school in the same area. Tom is How old are you, Tom?
SPEAKER_00Uh 30 now. Yeah. 30 years. Just sneak in the age bracket you've requested.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Overall, Tom, did you think that your 13 years in school-based education were well spent?
SPEAKER_00Uh short answer, yes. But obviously very complex overall. Like I think it gave me the skills to, you know, read, write, communicate, comprehend, do maths, um, meet people, make friends, not make friends, um, have deal with conversations with people or work with people you don't necessarily get along with, or um things like that. So overall, I think it was really beneficial. Um, but maybe not in the ways it wants it to be. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that does. Can you expand?
SPEAKER_00I guess like the whole thing about school, really, at the end of the day, is can you get a good score in certain tests each six weeks to prove that you're good enough to go to the next level and then good enough to, you know, get an ambiguous score at the end of it all after year twelve that really doesn't tell you much about what you can do after school, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Um you're talking about the ATAR there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, which obviously is you compare it to everyone else, right? Not not a true representation of what you can do, or or not necessarily what even you're good at, or what you want to do after school. Um because you have well when I did it anyway, you had to do an English subject, you had to do a math subject um to get a score most of the time. It was a prerequisite for most courses.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, which some like I've I've got a good friend of mine that was and he's an incredible engineer now, but he wasn't very good at English. His ATAR score wasn't very good, but he was clearly in the higher or the higher end subjects, like maths methods and um physics and stuff, he he blew it out of the park because his English was quite poor. His ATAR was quite poor, which hence I mean it's an ambiguous number, really.
SPEAKER_02Um by ambiguous, you mean it doesn't necessarily represent what that person can do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and obviously you have different programs at school where people might have wanted to go into a trade or um into uni or not into like into um TAFE or something like that. That school doesn't really reflect what they could and couldn't do um or reflect what they can and can't do in the workforce either or in life. Um so that's just where I find it. Whereas in uni, for example, if I get 82 out of 100 in that course, uh in that subject, I get 82 out of 100, and the person next to me can also get 82 out of 100. Um, whereas obviously that's not how the ATAR works.
SPEAKER_02No, the ATAR is a ranking system.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that's yeah, that's where I mean ambiguous. But I've always enjoyed or always respected, or um always been taught even to um appreciate education and how lucky I was to be able to read, write, um, spell, talk. So I I do hence I think my educational 13 years was well spent because I now have a job and I um can communicate with people, I can read, I can write, yeah, and do maths, all those sort of things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but most of that we kind of learn at primary school, and the secondary school reading and writing and maths is a different sort of set of skills. It's really expanding on the basics and looking into a lot more detail. Do you think that the secondary reading and writing and maths was useful, or do you reckon you pretty much had it by primary school in terms of what you use in your career?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's funny you say that because that's exactly what I thought when I was thinking about these questions. Yeah. Was that you do sort of most of the time have that covered by you or grade six, and then year seven, you're using those skills to comprehend different questions, different subjects, to then understand, you know, biology, science, um, uh PE, health, um, all the geography, those sort of subjects. So you're right. I think you do get those basics down pat in primary school where it's a bit more rote learning and a bit more um, I guess, explicit instruction rather than you know, your own independent learning, which as you go on through school into uni, you get more and more independence, which is probably where I realized I liked uni for that reason.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, well, in in secondary school, you've obviously got certain subjects you have to do, a certain amount you've got to do to get that final A-TAS score in year 12. Um, and although you do have a bit more independence, you're still required to do X, Y, and Z tests throughout the year. Um when the teacher or the subject demands, not when you're ready necessarily for it.
SPEAKER_02Yep. So you've mentioned that you use communication in your work at the moment. What sort of work do you do? And is there anything about the communication that you use now that would have been in the secondary section rather than the primary section?
SPEAKER_00Uh so I work uh in sport at the moment. Uh I'm working in membership and ticketing and basically data work at the AFL.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Um, so we've got a fairly big team, but I just find that in most things in life, the better you can communicate with people in a team or in a group, just the more enjoyable the workplace can be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um technically I could get away with not talking to anyone in my job, but it'd be quite uneventful and quite boring, and you wouldn't learn things. So I find that um being able to communicate well with people that have been in a position longer than me or know a bit more than me allows me to get better at my job as well. Um in terms of you like in high school, I guess you it's it's the communicating outside of class that you sort of get used to. More like building friendship groups and social networks rather than necessarily like you don't really learn about communication in it, which which probably would be one of the things coming up. Like, could what could you do more of in school? And that is probably communicating with people on different um um issues or how do you communicate with the workforce when you leave school and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So, what specifically do you mean about that? Because I find it really interesting what people are using and how they're using it and where that's reflected in school. So, as a teacher, obviously I'm interested more in what happens in class. And it's awesome that those skills have been built for you outside of class in the usual just everyday interactions with the school community. But is what was it in class or what could there be in class that would develop that communication? What specific skills?
SPEAKER_00Um I'm trying to think of like group tasks done back in classrooms. Oh yeah. Um where again, like often you could choose who to do it with, which might mean you do it with your friendship group in that class. And again, and I'd probably look at my experience was I knew what was required to get a good result, I guess, in school. And even if you're in a group task, there really is you're worried about your score at the end of the assignment or the the the test or the scoring period. So I wasn't never really fussed with communicating too much with that group if it meant that I was going to do worse um in a in a result in a classroom. So I'm just trying to think of like when you're forced to be in a group, you might not necessarily have picked. I think at the time you hate it and you don't put as much effort in, but it it makes a lot more sense later in life because you don't get to choose the people you work with.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um so I'm trying to think of those tasks in class. When you you were put in a group you didn't necessarily want to be in, and did I communicate the best I could have in that group, or or were people required to, or did someone just take over and take the lead, and then others just followed behind? Which, knowing me, it was probably me doing that and not really fussed about what the other people in the group were saying, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02So okay, so you were a bit of a take the lead person in that sort of situation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially if it was an assignment or something that I was gonna get graded on. Um as much as I did stuff around at school, I also wanted to, I was competitive enough that I wanted to do well in things. So I wasn't willing to let someone else's poor work impact my score in school, especially in high school when you're when you're doing those group tasks that might go towards your um your VCE result or result for the year.
SPEAKER_02Yep. So you've just touched on something else that I think about quite a lot, as the role of competition and comparison versus um the whole idea of personal growth, personal bests, getting better for yourself rather than um being the best in the class and you know the personal best rather than the winner. What do you think of that in the education system? Do you think comparison is a useful thing for somebody who does have competitive spirit, or is it ultimately better for you to have your personal best as the front and center?
SPEAKER_00Uh so yeah, 30-year-old Tom now would say the comparison stuff sucks. It just puts so much pressure on each person and unrealistic pressure and expectation.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Uh, Tom back then would have loved the competition, and like as much as I wouldn't have shown it, I wanted to do it better than the other people in class, especially if I knew I was good at the subject. Um 30-year-old Tom now knows that the better you can be each day at something, like that's the the true definition of progress. And I think what more schools could focus on. Because, as you would know, being in the classroom every day, not every student is at the same level. Um, so it's unfair to expect uh John, who's reading at a first grade level, to tomorrow show up and read at a sixth grade level, like Jessica, for example. Like it's just not fair. But if John goes from grade one to two over the year, unreal, he's improved. Um, and so Jessica might have moved up to a you know year seven reading level, however, it's gauge now. Um that would be way more important than everyone, for whatever reason, having to get a high score or be at the same point because just it's not possible. It just doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_02It takes a bit of sprooking, I find, as a teacher, to persuade the people in the room with me that my energy is about their growth, not about who's best in the class. But I do say that frequently, and I hope other teachers begin to say that too, because I think it's just such a big part of helping people grow as their person. I'm going to steal some information that you offered me before we started recording about going into an Iron Man competition soon. How does that sit for you in terms of winning slash personal best?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's actually like such a perfect example. Um, because I know I'm going to this race and I'm not going to win. There's 3,000 people doing it. It's the first time I've been at this distance. Um, and I've as I said, I've done multiple half Iron Man distances. For me, it's been have I gotten better each time or where have I improved in the race? Um, and like this week will be the same. I there's no doubt that I won't win. Um there's pro athletes out there, there's people that have done, I ran into a go, done 21 of these just last week. Um, but it is about improving personal best, whether it's on the bike, running, swimming. Um and then I compare that to the sport I've always played, which is footy. And really the only merit of success in footy is did you win the grand final? And you know, 17 out of 18 teams don't win the grand final.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Um, so again, very different aspects of defining success in the two sports. But yeah, it's a it's a really good example to to prove what I probably look at now compared to what I did before.
SPEAKER_02I also am quite a fan of Strava on the bike, and I'm definitely not up in the elite categories by any means, and definitely going backwards in terms of my fitness, but that's by choice. Um, but I really love the leaderboards on Strava because it gives me a sense of my own personal development rather than necessarily being the top in a leader table. Although I have achieved that occasionally, and I have to admit it gives me a bit of a perk in my step.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it does. I've I've actually got the Strava logo tattooed on my wrist there. Oh, amazing. Um, but yeah, like when I've got a good group of uh mates that cycle together, and you definitely do get stuck in the leaderboards after a ride to see, oh, did I move past him today or did I drop down? Or um and yeah, it is also I still love to compete. Um, but it's just have I improved now compared to am I the best? necessarily is a bit different.
SPEAKER_02And then the other thing I thought I think of in leaderboards, and I'm sort of steering back towards education this way, looking at ATA and that plan and those sorts of comparative test tables that schools have in their data sets can be used in terms of leaderboards towards this school or that school is in inverted commas beta because they have beta again in inverted commas data around ATAR and NAPLAN. And I have a feeling that that drives a lot of um teachers and schools' emphasis on increasing ATAR rather than the emphasis on personal best. What's your view on that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I guess even if I think about um a couple of the schools I go past quite consistently. One I used to run past near my old place, and things that were advertised on the board were um, say there's a sports game this week, and then it was we averaged 97.68 in our year 12 cohort last year. Like that's the thing that was pumped up on the so there's and and it might have even put sometimes it put students up that got certain scores, like it. And it wasn't advertising anyone that got below 90. Um you can be damn sure the people that did really well are up on that screen. And then that drives more people that want to go there that can say afford that school, um, better teachers that maybe get paid more at that school, and that sort of keeps driving that. Oh, we have to get this again this year, and then we're gonna get more students that can achieve that.
SPEAKER_02Just of curiosity, is that an independent school rather than a government school?
SPEAKER_00Or I actually don't know um what it is. It was in Box Hill, and that was advertised on the on the screen. The other one was um I definitely know it was independent. Yeah, oh yeah, that was very highly regarded um in the area. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, interesting. All right, let's go back to school experience. Can you think of a school experience that jumps out for you, primary or secondary? In class.
SPEAKER_00Uh in class, yeah. It's funny trying to think back to most of my things will go back to like the entertaining times out in class. Um, probably like being a Larrican with some mates, uh, rather than things I learned.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Tell us more about that. Why why did you choose to be a Larrican with your mates?
SPEAKER_00And I I I was one of those really annoying kids where I was quite good at getting my work done and then switching off and just muffing around my mates or uh annoying other people in the room. Um I was that really painful student that um I I always got the uh Tom's doing well, but he's distracting others, and I'm like, God, what's that not really my problem? Now on the other side of things, I really see how annoying that can be. But yeah, I think about times where I just was having a laugh with some mates in class and the friendships I made more than I think about certain things. Some teachers I had good interactions with, I think about um some sports teams I played on, but nothing really comes back in big moments of like, oh, that was my aha moment of how to learn stuff.
SPEAKER_02So your motivation was to get the work done as quickly as possible, ticket off so that you can basically muck around and enjoy your time with your friends and have a bit of a laugh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, I knew what was required to do well in a subject. Uh, what was the learning objective and the learning criteria that was going to be asked of in an exam or a test? Could I do it? Yep. Uh, I'm good. Yeah, I could. Like, and and looking back, I regret that other people were distracted, but I don't regret that. It's the one time in life where you get to hang out with your mates for you know eight hours a day, five days a week. Um and when I was teaching, I tried to bring that up to the kids going into year 12. I said, although the subject's really important and I want you to do well and do well in life, I said it is your last chance at lunchtime and recess and in homeroom to see your mates every day. Because as much as you want to see them and you think I'm gonna be I'm gonna be with them every day for the rest of my life, it just doesn't happen. Um, everyone goes their separate ways for work or um children or partners or you know, whatever it is, sporting life. Um yeah, I do reflect back on the relationships rather than the coursework, I guess.
SPEAKER_02So content really for you was not the most important thing. And what you're saying is school was you made a choice to sort of have a work-life balance at school in terms of get the work done, um, get a reasonable score in in tests and whatever grades, but really your purpose for being at school was that interpersonal side of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, 100%. Um I was really lucky as well with uh my parents, uh, because again, I've seen the opposite of this, but they were never pushed me to to have to get certain things in school. There was never like huge they wanted me to do well and they wanted me to not get into much trouble at school, but there was never pressure from mum or dad that like you have to get this score in in this subject, and we want you to do this, so then you can go to get this score at uni. Um, I wanted to go to uni, they never put pressure on me to do so. Um, and at the time I was also trying to play some um rep footy as well. That was sort of my main purpose outside of school. Um and I guess that's what I was more focused on. Like, yes, I ticked the box at school, which a lot of the time it can be ticking box exercise. Yeah. Um, but my main focus was outside of school and getting in the running for football training, getting to the gym for football training, getting to the pool for football training, and ultimately I wanted to get drafted, which didn't happen. But um that's probably where my focus was all through year 11 and 12, especially.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, amazing. And that's important to understand from teachers' perspective that doing the work and doing the tests that we've got in front of you is just not necessarily that particular child's or young person's thinking. Are there any teachers that stood out for you and why?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, it was actually nice to think back on a couple of teachers. Um I had a couple from high school, and I don't even think I had him after like year nine, but he was still at our senior campus from years ten to twelve. He was like English Humanities, and I honestly I don't really like English. Um I I avoided it at all costs because you had to read a you had you were forced to read a book and I didn't want to do that, which is funny because I read lots now. Yes. Um I love reading, but I didn't want to be forced to do it. Um we sort of more got along because he he loved football, like soccer football. He was a big Tottenham fan, I was a Liverpool fan. So it was more that we'd just have conversations about things that weren't school and work related. Um and probably another one who I probably gave absolute hell to 60% of the time, but she somehow still saw the good in me in the classroom and um just uh I guess cared about the person rather than although I could get the work done with great difficulties here in the classroom. Um I felt like she genuinely cared about me as a person. There was many others, but those two came to mind as soon as you sort of asked that question.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, fascinating. One of the things that your friend Cam was talking about earlier in the previous podcast, and his will come out before yours. He was saying that if the teacher didn't relate to him as a person, if they were just down on him for his behaviour as soon as he walked in the room, he would do the absolute minimum. Did you find that that sense of treating you as a person and chatting about footy was a way of connecting with you? And then you felt like, okay, I'll do just a little bit more in this in this particular subject.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a bit of trust. Um especially as you get to the um the higher year levels when you're you're sort of close to being an adult, technically.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um and you realise how important the relationships are, and I think you notice the teachers that do put in that effort to like, you know, oh, what does Tom do outside of his classroom? Um, and now that you've brought that up, like I I was the kid that, you know, if a new teacher came in, they were like, Oh, you're Tom. Okay, so we've heard about you, and there's already a preemptive idea of what I was gonna be.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, and then another one, another teacher I can throw into the mix was our principal who came, I think when I was in year 11, I want to say, and he was like, we were told he was this really strict principal, he's from Ireland. Um, you know, when you when he walked in the room, you stood up, all those sort of things. And I was like, okay, don't know about this guy. Uh and the first time I got sent to his office when I was in a I don't know, I was mucking around doing something, and he was telling me all about his high school experience, how he was this student that got kicked out of class, mucked around, and all of a sudden he had me on side. Right. And he just shared his experience through school, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, I can trust this guy. And I've I've emailed him since I finished school and spoken to him. Like he had that sort of bigger impact on me as a principal who was leading big school. Yeah, like I so I'd emailed him, yeah, I want to say like two or three years ago, probably. Um, when I started teaching, um, just he had a really big impact as well. I think he was just honest. Um and like again, could walk past him and say good day nowadays and have a conversation. Um, and I think my mum still ran into him before when she like because she's still back in Gippsland. Um, but he's another one that had a really big impact as well. And probably again that connection as a person rather than yes, he wanted the school to do well, he was the principal, and that's ultimately what reflected uh good or negatively or positively on him, but he built a relationship first, and then we could get into hey mate, like you're being a bit of a tool. Can we work that out?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you tended to modify your behavior a little bit more because you felt that connection?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, never perfect, but it it felt that I could at least um yeah, I could I I was like, okay, I'm willing to put in a bit more effort. I can see where you're coming from.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_00And again, I notice I know it more now, thinking about conversations I've had about education since, or seeing students in class, and like, geez, Tommy, really took away from that person's learning. But it's not something you realize when you're 17, 18.
SPEAKER_03Or 14 or 18.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, trying to make your mates laugh in class, or not understanding that you know, the 15 kids over there don't actually get this, and you're yelling out the answer. When the teachers clearly said, don't do that, and now I understand they're trying to get that 15 people to try, you know, think for themselves and get the answer, get to it. Um, whereas mine was selfishly, I know it, can we move on? But let's go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that sounds like a bit of information that you've got from the perspective of an educator because you went into that space yourself. So could you give us some more insights that you came to when you became a teacher yourself?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, probably similar things that um, and again, it's probably from learnings after school, but I I wanted to get to know the students I had in the class and build that relationship with them so there was a bit of trust. And it's I'm not just the the guy at the front that's saying you have to do this, and if you don't, you're gonna be in trouble, or you if you don't do this, you're gonna fail in life because I know it's not true. Um people say that to you?
SPEAKER_02Did teachers say that to you?
SPEAKER_00Not in so many words, not in so many words. Um but I got the oh, you've got so much more potential than this. You could do so much better in this, but I'm like, I'm good, I'm I'm comfortable where I'm at.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um like it it I it seemingly has worked out. I've got a roof over my head, I can eat and drink, and I can have go to work and stuff, I'm healthy. Um so it can work out. Um but yeah, I guess trying to build that relationship and um you still had students and like teachers off days, and you still had times where it's like, okay, we've probably pushed it too far now, can we bring it back? Um, but I tried to focus more on them as people rather than you know numbers on a test, as hard as that is in within the confines of the education system as a teacher.
SPEAKER_02Did you feel as as a teacher a bit of tension between get the tests as good as possible and the relationships actually much more important because you know that from a personal point of view?
SPEAKER_00That's probably where I fell out of joy with the with the profession was that uh I knew so many kids that like the getting a certain score was the least of their problems.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, there's so many things that they needed to get right first before they worried about a a science project or a I'm trying to think subjects like a PE subject um or test in year nine or a project. The importance of that compared to like, you know, they're having a really rough time at home or with their friendship group, or um, you know, their their worry isn't that class. And and a PE, for example, isn't everyone's cup of tea. Like a lot of students don't want to do the PE. Um as much as I want them to get involved and move. It's so hard to also force them when you know that they don't have any confidence playing a ball sport, for example, or so many other things. And there's that tension of, oh, but I've I've got to rate you based on these like four criteria that are already locked in, but also I know you as a person, this isn't your thing, and that's fine.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, which eventually led to me, you know, not teaching anymore and taking a big weight off my shoulders, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02Any more that you can say about why you chose to move out of teaching? Because obviously there's a workforce shortage in teaching at the moment. So people of your quality choosing not to be in teaching is really a problem that teaching is trying to solve. So, any more clues about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's that um that balance every day of worrying about the student, but getting confined into certain little boxes that have to be ticked. You know, like I have to be a class, period one, and this is the content I have to teach, and they will have a test on this day, that's how it goes. But within that classroom of, say, 25 kids, and we spoke about this before, you've got four different groups of kids, and even you could break it down further, at so many different levels of um understanding and capability at that time, and you're expected to bring them all to the same test at the same level in high school, anyway, and in VCE, which I was teaching at that point, they're getting the same test, no matter where you know they're at or what their strengths and weaknesses are, they're all getting the same test and getting marked the same on that test and how they answer those questions. Whereas I know that those students aren't all ready for that test. I had students that didn't speak English very well, and I didn't speak their language, so I there's already that tension gone. Um, so it was through Teams messages, we're both translating each other's um understanding or questions. So there's probably 20 minutes already gone from the 70-minute class. Uh from your first episode, um, there was a girl on, I think it was Ballot who spoke about neurodivergent needs. That's another group of students you might have in your classroom. Yep. And it's so easy to say, I wish teachers were there for me, but their skills probably weren't, they don't at the still now, that's not taught in in uni. Um, you go through how to explicitly teach someone, you go through pedagogy styles, you go through um the content that you've got to teach, but there's no, and you go through some classroom management, but there's no course for 25 kids, three can't speak English, um, two are neurodivergent, uh, one has a a parent who's sick at the moment, um, four of them don't have lunch today, six didn't sleep very well, two are worried about sport, and then you've got four kids that are really good and you don't need to worry about them, but they're also the ones that are probably going to be asking you questions and getting the better responses from as a teacher to do with the content because the squeaky wheel gets the oil, sort of thing. Like they're the ones that are engaging. So that's where you just it's just so much. You're more than just a teacher, you're a brother, you're a sister, you're a mum, you're a dad, you're a mentor, you're a there's so many roles, you're a well-being specialist within the 70-minute class. Um and those big expectations from parent, from principal, from the education system, from yourself, from the student. It's just so much. And I was so unhappy by the time I I got to leaving. Um as much as I loved the kids. Like just loved the kids. Like the kids were and they think that you're leaving because they're painful, whereas they were the best part about the day. And when you got to hang out with them and see some of them improve, like I genuinely missed that, but it wasn't worth the imbalance in my own life to keep doing it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, amazing. Thank you for such a detailed answer on that. If you didn't have to do the tests that were sort of forced onto people who really weren't ready for it, if there was a different way of assessing students that were actually relevant to those students, I know it's an impossible thing to even imagine, but if we could imagine that sort of impossibility, would you potentially have stayed in education a bit longer?
SPEAKER_00Um possibly. Um, I think if there's other ways, yeah, you can assess certain students and certain groups of students. Um not on the, like I said, I'm thinking of the report writing, and it was usually like four or five criteria, and they had to fit into one of those four. Um, yeah, if it was not saying it it's really hard for it to be fluid and free, but if there's other ways to grade people and you know, have they improved their social skills in in PE class? Not necessarily like they're still not very good at kicking the soccer ball, and that's fine, it's not for everyone. But have they like joined in the team? Have they supported from the sidelines, things like that?
SPEAKER_02Like yeah, so their personal growth in in one area or another. So um Louise, for example, just to pull out a name. Louise has chosen to sit at the side because she's too embarrassed to even have a try of kidding kicking the top ball, because she knows she's not good at it and she thinks everybody's going to laugh at her. And then one day she actually gets up, she does have a kick, somebody has a snigger that you notice that and say, hey, Louise has just made a really brave move here, hopefully we support her a little bit more. And that is Louise's improvement. If you could write that into the report instead of something that was, you know, some I've got this whole thing, I've got this whole thing in languages, which actually does what I'm talking about for languages. I'm so excited about it because it does allow students to show their growth and define what their growth is instead of necessarily being locked into a report like hand statement, which somebody else has decided for them, and it really doesn't relate to them. Anyway, I sidetrack again. What I'm interested in next is um learning outside school. What have you learnt outside of school that you feel you could potentially have learnt in school?
SPEAKER_00Uh I'll probably steal this from a um a guy named Ben Crow. Uh who's not Ben Crow.
SPEAKER_02He's come up in other episodes too. What a legend.
SPEAKER_00He's just my he's just my man crush. And actually, my mum got me his book for my birthday.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, I read it too.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, he's just incredible, but he's a big thing, and it makes so much sense. And it's sort of what I similar just not in as good a words I would think of when I was actually teaching, but like human being school compared to human doing. Yeah. Um we're we're not human doings. Like, yes, we do things, but it doesn't define who we are. There's so many things like who do you want to be each day? And again, I'm never thinking of that when I was, you know, 12 to 18 in school, but they're the sort of things you're just talking about there, with like a student who got up and kicked the ball. All right, today that person showed up and wanted to be uh involved. They wanted to like yeah, they were a bit embarrassed before, but even that stuff, if you are told as a teacher, um, because you've built a good relationship and because the student is comfortable talking to you about it, you've already learned so much more, and that connection's probably more important than them missing out on playing the game. Um that's one thing that comes to mind big time. Uh, and then just that probably you and you're never gonna teach this at school, but you can get through school, not do as well in the tests and in the ultimate ATAR score, or and you can still be successful in life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a big secret that needs to get out there, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It's like I I look back at and again, like made some poor choices in school, but it might have been the kids that were doing veg health studies, for example, like, oh, that's the you know, the dumb kids, for example. But I couldn't go do what they were doing, and I couldn't do what they're doing now in successful jobs in different fields.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, like I don't think again, you learn this when you grow up and I'm at school and being an arrogant little 18-year-old, but being smart isn't being able to read, write, do maths. You could be very intelligent in different fields and different things to me. Um, a builder is very intelligent at what their craft is. Yeah, I couldn't go do it, even if that person isn't as good as at writing as I am or reading. Um, I can guarantee their maths is pretty good, their accounting skills are pretty good, their time management organization, for example, is very good. Um that's probably the big thing.
SPEAKER_02Funny little story about this. My partner is a builder and it's a relatively recent relationship. So we've been together for five years. Um before he came into my life, I'd had a go at doing all sorts of just little building projects, such as building the garden bed or um the backboard for a bed, like the headboard board for a bed. He's come and looked at some of the work that I've done and gone, did you just lick that and stick it together? The screws that I used were totally inadequate. I mean, it didn't actually fall apart in my defence. But there are quite a few things that he's gone, I think we'll just buy some bigger screws for this and going, fixed it all for me. So yeah, there are definitely skills that you can have a gum, but you don't know what you don't know. And um, yeah, building is a really interesting piece. And the maths in building also I tried to do um again, a gun bed, and I completely forgot that I knew trigonometry. And I tried to use a set square in my eye, completely did not get it square. And he came out with a three, four, five trig thing to just to check the square and went, hmm, this isn't square. So if you look at the the screw lines on my deck, they're not quite, yeah, there's there's a little bit of adjustment that it happened.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and like I'm sure he's like my captain from footy is like he loves being just loves being a cheapie, and he's so good at it. And you just know that there's so much pride in what he does as well. That like not being straight, like that for him would be like that's absolute bizarre. It's like you writing on the whiteboard and spelling things wrong or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's your crime.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. But we both shrug about it now, so it just is what it is, and that's fine. Is there anything that you'd like to say to teachers, leaders, curriculum designers, and school policymakers?
SPEAKER_00I think the big thing is is taking away, it's so hard to be perfect, but taking away all the extrinsic pressure that's put on students, and it usually is in the forms of tests and scores and expectations. And also like I think what's lost is the question for us has been was the 13 years at school useful? But I think looking like it's looking back, there's so much pressure put on teachers and expectation put on teachers. Like I didn't realise again until I was in the profession how hard they worked. Yeah, like it is just insane the hours that are put in because they're filling so many different roles for 25 kids per class. Um and depending on how how thinly spread you are across subjects or year levels, um, I think it would be looking to people first and caring for your people first, and that's the teachers in the classroom and the students that they're teaching. Because if you're looking after your teachers better, and like we're talking in a perfect world, less students per classroom, less contact hours, more hours to prepare work, more hours to grade work, more hours to think about how they're gonna teach the three different groups in this each class. Um, I think if you do that, you're gonna get such better outcomes for the kids, and that's not necessarily scores, but just how they feel about coming to class. Um, they get a better relationship with that teacher because there's less of them in the room. Again, this is like a perfect world where there's enough teachers to do this and enough uh resources in the school, uh, classrooms in the school, tables, chairs, etc. Yep. But just looking after those teachers first and getting the right people in the classroom and making sure their work is balanced and they've got time to do all the things that are expected of them. I think that's probably where I'd start, because then you'll see the benefit to the student. Then you've got better students coming out of school that might want to go into the profession or whatever profession it is, they're better better prepped for it. And they're thinking about the people as well. They're thinking about the kid or the the student or the person before they're thinking about the the student, if that makes sense. They're they're being cared about as people, they're gonna care about their students as people first, and then they can move on to the education piece and what's required of them throughout the the year. I hope that I'll probably ramble on there.
SPEAKER_02But no, it that was actually really clear. The the catchphrase would be people first, and people first is the students as well as the teachers and everybody else who's in that school system.
SPEAKER_00I was saying you before when I was in education as a poor. The school I worked at um was very, very a very low rough, I'll say rough for lack of a better word, but a low socioeconomic area in Country Victoria and Gippsland.
SPEAKER_03Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_00And I I'd argue that out of all the schools I either attended or worked at on a scale of um academic results, it probably would have been the lowest. This is a primary school. Um, but the impact that that school had on the students was comfortably the highest. Um these are kids that as I said, but some of them were coming to like we had Breakfast Club, and it was the busiest I'd ever see one of the classrooms. Um, so students that might not necessarily have had lunch that day or or had breakfast, they may not have dinner to go home to or a really safe household. For them, the seven hours at school was like the happiest and safest of their day, even if some of them misbehaved in the uh literal sense of the word. But the teachers at that school, what they were working with and the impact they had on those kids was just like incredible. Like the the former principal who was a CRT when I was doing education support there, he would come in and occasionally there'd be breaks in class where he'd play the guitar and sing, and like I was captivated by it, let alone these three four kids these grade three four kids that I hadn't seen sit still ever were just captivated by this man. And just like he just got it. He just got the kids. He understood the role he played. And yeah, they still learnt things throughout the day. But like the yeah, the joy they had in that school um for a small school and a yeah, a a very poor area, the impact those teachers had on that school was just incredible. And like I think about that a lot. Um again, yeah, academic results wouldn't have been off the charts, but the impact on the kids was huge.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Is there anything else that you wanted to say that we haven't covered?
SPEAKER_00It's probably live. We could actually I could talk school for days, to be honest. So I think of of yeah, of course again, it's that perfect world of you you get one thought in your head and you hear of like Norway's school system and like Finland's school system, you're like, oh, I wonder if we could do that here, or what if we did this? And you can get down a rabbit hole both for students and for teachers and school leaders alike.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. What's next for Tom?
SPEAKER_00Um What's next? I I'll continue in my job now. I just I've it's funny you mentioned in school I sort of worked out that I had that school slash life balance. I think now that I've found that in a job and I probably doesn't fill me with the same purpose as working with students did or kids did. But the balance I've got with like personal life and job um just keeps it it's just sort of perfect for me. Um the amount of training I like to do, I like to spend time on my dog with my partner. Um like that's what's important to me. Still it's the relationship stuff and it's the sport slash activity stuff. And like work and school were sort of a okay, I need to do this because they're gonna they pay me and I need food I need money to get food and pay for my house and pay for my dog food and stuff. Um But I think yeah, just yeah, continuing that and continuing my training and hopefully surviving an Iron Man on Sunday.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure you'll be brilliant. So very much the human being rather than the human doing to flip it back to Ben Crow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's yeah, you can all anything can go back to him. Having a bad day, put him on a podcast, and you'll just you'll feel better in an hour, trust me.
SPEAKER_02Maybe I should reach out to him.
SPEAKER_00He's so good. Yeah, I could talk about him for days as well. He's incredible.
SPEAKER_02I love the playfulness that he has and the word expect banning the word expectations. Imagine if schools actually banned the word expectations, because we we in the school system use the words high expectations as a way of encouraging teachers to see the potential in students. But if we banned the word expectations, what would happen to schools? That's a a nice little question mark that I've got going in my head at the moment.
SPEAKER_00It's one that I really fought with when I was because that's exactly what we were taught in my teaching degree with high expectations, and that's what the principal class taught. Yeah. But knowing from him, it's like it's just it's and again, I look at this week. I my goal for a time, it's not if I don't get it, I'm okay with it. It's not next to it. It's okay. I have a I have a desire to do well, but I know that if it doesn't go to plan, it doesn't hit that goal, I'm gonna be okay. Um and I might be a little bit disappointed, but it's not gonna determine how I feel about myself at the end of the day. Um and again, it's I only learnt that after school. Now I realize why certain kids were like uh kids I went to school with who would break down post results in the test. I never got I never understood that. I I just could never understand why they were so worked up about it. Now it sort of has all come back full circle, and I'm sure that they had really high expectations from their parents, maybe, um, from other people in the class, from teachers. Like I was really lucky and didn't have that from my parents, especially, which I've seen have a really negative effect when teaching. But I think that that yeah, that now that I understand the word a bit better, thanks to Ben.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's like, oh, okay, that's that's a good place to start. Good luck. But it's it's something that would be really beneficial again for teachers and students alike.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for spending the time talking to us because it's such an interesting perspective from the teacher perspective, the ESO perspective, um, and the sport perspective, and really, really emphasized for us the importance of connection. Thank you so, so much.
SPEAKER_00No, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. It's good to talk and love the work you're doing so far and look forward to listening again.
SPEAKER_02Yay! Thanks. Have a great day. Good luck with your iron man.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much. See, Susan.
SPEAKER_02Bye. It's actually taken me two days to think about what Tom had said before I was ready to make this reflection. And I honestly think that I'm the person who gets the most out of these podcasts because I get to talk to people and then I clip up the different sections. So I really get to reflect on all of the different things that these guests are saying and how it impacts education. But rather than trying to give an overview of the things that Tom was saying, I mean, the main message he was saying was so, so clear. Absolutely everything, all the time he was saying it's relationships first. And part of the reason that he chose not to stay in teaching is because of that sense of trying to fit people into a box in terms of criteria of assessments and things like that. But that's not where I want to go. The piece that's actually impacted me personally the most is the question about work-life balance. So I'm very clear in myself that I want to have a very good work-life balance. And I was told quite early in my career that a workplace will take as much as you are willing to give. So it's up to the individual to make those choices about how much you do give to a workplace. And I've been quite strategic, I suppose, in how I organise my teaching so that I tick off all the things that need to be ticked off administratively, but I also create maximum impact. Well, in my view, anyway, I hope my students and some other people might agree with me as well. I hope to create maximum impact with relatively little preparation time. So if an idea comes out that requires a whole mass of photocopying, that is not the idea for me. I'm going to look at the essence, the mechanics of that idea, and see what I could do so that what I present in a class is maximum impact still. Hopefully, I've picked up the mechanics of the idea, but as low a preparation as possible for me. And it has kept me sane. It's been a really, really important choice that I've made throughout my teaching career. And I still love my work-life balance. I've chosen to put this podcast into my life side because I'm actually having so much fun with it. So I'm at a stage in my life that I've got a season where I don't have children at home and I do have the most supportive, loving partner, and I get to live in the house that I want to live in. So I don't mean that to be um bragging or anything, although I have to say it's amazing. But yes, so I get a great work-life balance. Tom clearly has set himself up for his really, really good work-life balance. But the bit that really my brain is just exploding over. The children also deserve work-life balance. Yeah, I'm pausing because I hadn't really considered that before. Yeah, they're in class for a certain amount of time and then they go out and play, and those sorts of things, and that sort of creates a very deliberate sort of work in the time that you're in class and go and play in the time that you're out of class or outside of school. But Tom's attitude when he was a teenager was very much let's get the work done as quickly as possible so that I can play in class as well. And do I really, as a teacher, have to be improving children at every level? I've taken on the idea that I should, and now I'm pondering. And I don't know that I have the answer at the moment. I reserve the right to change my answer. But the pondering at this stage is what if I didn't try and improve children no matter what their level? And I'm thinking of one particular person who recently was able to show that they knew 160 different words in Japanese, which is what I teach, way, way, way more than any of the other children in the class. Actually, there's a couple that were kind of approaching it, but lots and lots, really high achiever. Is it necessary for me to continue to push that high achiever? They might want to push. But they also might not. And do I, as a teacher, allow the space for those young humans to make their choices so that they can organize their own work-life balance as long as they're meeting at least their age-expected skills. Because it is important for them to have the skills that will give them a house or a place to live, and maybe a job, and maybe relationships that they're really happy to be in. And having a reasonably stable financial life is an important part of helping you to be a happy person. Not completely necessary, but it definitely helps. So I'm not saying let's just let all of the people in the room make whatever choices they want to. But when I'm thinking about those middle to higher students, I think there might be more of an element of choice that could be offered at least some of the time. And then the idea of growing in their learning and definitely growing in knowing how to learn and knowing when they do want to push themselves, how they might go ahead and push themselves to achieve a stretched goal in something in school or something in life. So that was where my thinking has gone to in this particular podcast. Thank you for listening. I hope that helps, and I look forward to you being part of the next podcast. Bye for now.