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
16 Mick
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Time collapsing and learning through family and sports clubs rather than school is what Mick attributes to the skills he has acquired to be successful in life. Mick says that reading writing and maths, particularly at primary school, was very much part of school years well spent. However the later years at secondary he said there was a lot of "fluff". He asks teachers to be relevant to young people's interests and what they actually need in their lives now and as adults.
A lot of the things that I feel are very, very important in life to get by, I learned outside of school, which is disappointing. I know now what JST is and tax and um all these, you know, how to get a loan and how to buy property and how to start a business, how to run a business. Like what's what's an overhead? Like I learned all this sort of stuff, how to become a leader, um, how to talk to people. I learned all of this outside of school through sport and the people around me that like I've asked people who have done it before me and and have been successful. I get on the phone and I talk to these people. That's how I find out. If you're not a curious person, you're not driven, you will never ever know. Um sorry, I'm a bit passionate, but it upsets me. It upsets me a little bit that I never learned all these basic life skills until I got out of school.
SPEAKER_00Was the 13 years or so that you spent in school-based education well spent? The idea comes from Guy Claxton, who wondered on the ERR, that's the Education Research Reading Room podcast, if adults would say that it is 13 years well spent. I'm Susan Taylor, a teacher of Japanese and a leader of languages, but this is not about me or any of the organizations I am, have been, or might in the future be associated with.com. Before we get into this episode, I'd like to acknowledge the Gunai Kernai and Banerong people who are the traditional owners of the unceded land where I live. I appreciate the knowledge and stories of all First Nations people and thank them. I would like to thank my partner, Gary, for much joy in our life and for the beautiful intro and outro music. And I am most grateful to the stars of this podcast who have been willing to share their experiences with such depth and vulnerability. And not least to you, the listener, who's chosen to spend this time with us. And please do share it with others so that we all might consider how these stories might change how we think about school-based education. Let's listen to Mick. Thank you for coming on today, Mick. Our guest today is Mick. He went to a government primary school in rural Victoria and for secondary school also went to a government school in the same sort of area in rural Victoria. Mick is now 32. So my first question, as always, overall, Mick, do you think your years in school-based education were well spent?
SPEAKER_01Great question. Yes and no. I've got yes and no. Would you like me to elaborate a little bit?
SPEAKER_00Oh, please do.
SPEAKER_01I think um, yeah, through definitely through primary school, you learn the basic fundamentals. Um, obviously, if it wasn't for school, I wouldn't know how to read, write, do basic math, um, and basic history and whatnot. So, yes, I think we forget quite quickly that we do learn a lot from school, um socializing, and I feel feel that's very, very important. Um towards high school, not so much, if if I'm completely honest. They I feel it really doesn't set you up for the real world. You can see that they try, um, but I think there's a lot of fluff in those subjects that you really do not need.
SPEAKER_00I'm dying to know what you think fluff is in the secondary school space. Be free. Feel like like this is about your story and your version of fluff. So go for it. Tell me what the fluff is.
SPEAKER_01All right, the fluff. Okay, so I think the subjects that they teach are very important. You know, you've got your English, you've got your maths and and whatnot.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_01Um, it's look, my my background, I'm a I'm a carpenter by trade, I'm now a registered builder. I've been a construction former, I now own a business. I use math every single day. Yep. Um, through high school, I did a lot of advanced maths, and I can safely say I don't use 70% of the stuff that they taught me.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01Um you can get a you can get by by using a good uh knowledge of of basic basic maths. Okay, if anything's too far advanced, this is where we lean on engineers and the like. Um you know, for the for the 80% of the the population, you don't need to to know that stuff. Um and if you do need to know that, that's why you go to uni. So, you know, when I say fluff, it's it's things like algebra and and and and um pi squared and stuff like that. Like, I've never used any of that. Um English, you know, teach. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in English that we don't really need to know. And I think there's more important things that we could could definitely be teaching people. Um I could go into that as well if you like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, please do. We're here to find out. That's the point of this.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I like yeah, English. So like social cues and how to speak to a boss and body language, and um, you know, if you have an issue, try and sort it out yourself instead of running to someone else. We're all we're all human beings, we're all on the same level. No one's better than anyone. Try and sort out issues yourself, you know, and that's a part of English, how to speak to people. And that's my opinion, anyway. Um, you know, maths teach us, you know, the difference between JST and tax, um, things that we're actually going to really need to know once we leave school, how to get a bank card, how to apply for a loan, um, capital gains. What's what's capital gains? You know, these things are very, very important. And I learnt all of these things outside of school. I can safely say that.
SPEAKER_00These are really similar concepts to what other guests have said. I don't know if you've had a little bit of a listen to some of the other guests, but that list absolutely is almost identical to what many of the other guests have said. Can you think back to Mick at 16 years old? The sorts of things that Mick was into then, the sort of attention you may or may not have had during a class. What sort of format would you have liked to see that information being presented to you at 16?
SPEAKER_01That's another good question. And I and I've thought about this. Um, cool. Yeah, well, we haven't been, but obviously, you know, 15, 16 schooling isn't on the front of our brain, you know. We don't we we're usually just there to socialize and and and chase girls and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, it's a very good question. We only consume knowledge if we're interested in it. Um look, all we can do is try, I think. Um for me, for me and how I was built, I would have consumed that knowledge. Um because I knew because I because I knew I would know that I'm gonna use this in in later life. Um like social cues and and how to run a business. Like that stuff's interesting to me. Um yeah, all the other fluff wasn't, and I didn't consume it. Um I think all we can do is is try Susan.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. So one of the little things, little side projects that's come out of doing this um podcast for me is to create some really short form videos, maybe about 10 minutes long, where some of the very, very basics of that. So I I'm not currently looking at doing content on GST, for example, but I am doing content on where do you find your income tax return um form that you can then download and do for yourself on the government site and not get um when you when you Google that sort of thing, like e-tax on Google, it comes up with about 20 different sponsored sites before you get the government site. So just showing people what the government site actually looks like and what to look for. 10 minutes. And I'm thinking something where you've got an activity which is the sort of things that a child of 16, because they are children still, yeah, might be interested in motorbikes, surfing, girls, having a great steak dinner, um, waking up in a comfortable bed. I don't know, different things like that. Sandwiching that with this is what you want your life to be, and this is some of the stuff that you need to know to get it there. What do you think of that idea?
SPEAKER_01I think that's beautiful. Yeah, I think it's really nice. 10 minutes, nice, short, sharp, straight to the point, um, and practical. Yeah, I like that. So like I was thinking even, could you even run in high school, could you even run a class called, I don't know, life skills or just just a completely different subject where it just sort of goes over all those basic skills that you're gonna need. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um okay, so some guests have told me how long that class would be and whether it's compulsory or not. What would your guess be?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. It's a good question.
SPEAKER_00All right, I'll tell you what some other guests have said and see if it chimes with you. They suggested about a half-hour class.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Once a week and compulsory for everyone.
SPEAKER_01I like that. Yeah, there's no negative there. Yeah, right. Yeah, there's no negative. I think that's it's very important. But then again, you think Tim Fall Hart, why aren't why aren't they doing this? Like, do they they really want you to know? Maybe not. I don't want to be that guy.
SPEAKER_00It's an absolute question in my head too. I am finding now I'm thinking about well, how do I make content in that sort of direction? There is a thing in Australian society about um financial planners and financial advice. And obviously, there's a lot of laws around that, as there should be. Is that making teachers feel like we don't know where to go in this space? Um, because only recently, in 2021, financial literacy has become mandated in the Victorian curriculum. So it's there in words, but when you look through the whole curriculum descriptors, out of a hundred things that you're supposed to learn, for example, in year 10 maths, there's about 3% of that that refers to financial literacy. And even in 3%, it's mixed in with other things that you would learn. So you might learn something like um percentages, but not necessarily how to apply percentages to an interest payment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. And that's usually the only place you're going to use it. So what? Yeah, this is what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Okay. Hearing the message loud and clear. Tell me some more about fluff. We're I'd like to go back to the English fluff. You said that there's a lot in English that you don't feel is particularly necessary. And then you described things about communication in terms of business communication, reading people's body language, um, being effective in how to involve people and make them feel welcome into any sort of business. So I'm assuming that those are the things that you'd like to see more of in secondary schools. What would you like to see less of?
SPEAKER_01Um, what didn't I take in? I think probably undiagnosed a bit of ADHD. So for me to sit there and and read a book um and then write a report on it. Did I get anything out of that? I don't think so. Um just stuff, just stuff like that. Honestly, where I have to literally sit down there, like down at my desk for, you know, 45 minutes or or longer and actually write and write paragraphs on stuff. And um, I don't know. I don't think I'd I think there's more important things. Then again, not everyone takes the same walk of life as me. Um, so it's very hard. Like I said, we learnt a lot from school. Um, you know, getting up and doing a speech, I found daddy 90% of the kids don't want to do that. But I for me I I got a lot out of that. Um I did I did that every day for 10 years, stood and stood in front of 50, 100 blokes and did a pre-start. So if I hadn't done that, uh I was a captain of the football club, you know, standing up in front of men and and talk to them. I these things were very important. They probably probably toiled me um to be able to do that with confidence. Like I said, like we do a lot of there was a lot, there's a lot of good, don't get me wrong, but I can't think of it off the top of my head right now, but I I do feel there's a lot of fluff that we don't that we don't generally need to do. And I think there's more important things maybe. There's more maybe we should we could take some out and put some more important things in. Like I said, social as soon as you leave school, you've got to find a job, okay? I Susan, I have one resume come to my em email inbox probably once a fortnight. I do not read it, I won't open it because they don't come in and introduce themselves and say, Hi, I'm so and so, nice to meet you. If you can't do those basic fundamentals, sorry, I might be old school, but you've got no hope. It just shows that you know, for me, I'm thinking, oh, they've just done a bulk email to 10, 15 businesses. That's great, you can do that, but follow up. I had this conversation with a young fella at the gym, one of my members the other day. He's struggling to get a job. I said, he goes, Oh, I keep applying, I keep applying. I go, Well, give me a look at your resume. We had a look at his resume. I said, You haven't got a cover letter? Um, you've got no references, mate. I said, put me down as a reference. Um, I just helped him with his resume. And I said, Right, when you submit one, follow up, give them a phone call, or go into the business and shake their hand. I'm telling you, mate, they will go a long way. I had one girl do it. She sent a resume, followed up. She now works for me today. Amazing. You know what I mean? Just simple things like that. I think social skills is quite important because you use them every single day. Um, yeah, and how to sort sort out issues. There's so many, everyone's offended and everyone gets hurt, and and instead of running to someone to help, sort it out yourself. You know, there's learn to speak to people. And I think a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_00You've obviously got some um experiences in the back of your mind. Can you anonymously just describe some of those?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just like conversations that get taken like in in in the past, you know. Um, look, I I I was really good at my job, Susan, before I owned my business. Um I did I deep down, I I did a really good job. I was really good at my job. Um, and you know, you'd have I had a couple of an occasions where you know HR would come and address me and sit me down and go, geez, I come. I didn't even they've just taken it the wrong way. So instead of actually approaching me and and saying, Hey, what do you mean by that? That they've ran they've ran off. You know what I mean? And then it's wasted, honestly, it's wasted time. It's like yeah, but you just come and have a chat with me, and this is what I actually did mean. You took it the wrong way, and then you've ran off to dob me in. You know what I mean? Like, we're all human, we're all equal here. Let's let's sort it out. Just things like that, you know. Um it's important. Life's tough. You're gonna come across you're gonna come across mean people and tough people. Like learn to deal with that yourself instead of running off.
SPEAKER_00So, do you think schools could do more in terms of building those sorts of skills to deal with conflict, really? That's what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Conflict, that's exactly what I'm talking about. 100%. Like, there's so much, you know, you hear so many stories and stuff, um, you know, from friends and family and staff about conflict in the workplace. I'm like, what are you what did you do about it? So, oh I, you know, told told the boss, or I told the the principal board so why'd you do that? Sorted it yourself. Like, I want to have a conversation with them first. Like, what are you scared of? But like obviously I'm built different, you know. Um, I don't know. I just feel like I might be just an old bastard now, but pretty sure you're not. No, I know, I'm only 32, but I feel old. Um, I just I don't know. I feel like we're just getting softer and softer, Susan. That's that's my honest opinion. That's my honest opinion.
SPEAKER_00I think about um every day in the schoolyard, there's obviously conflict going on. I'm at a primary school, and the kids do come to the teacher first, or they do something inappropriate like push somebody, or you know, something that escalates the conflict instead of figuring out how to work with what's happened to sort it out. And yes, I'm working with children who are between five and twelve, and they don't necessarily have those skills. But I I guarantee you I am teaching them every single day, every single conflict. What did you say? How did you try and sort this out? Um, have you considered what it was like from the other person's point of view? How do you think they feel? It's constant. So those things definitely happen. There's also a lot of programs in schools. Um, you might remember some programs yourself. You're probably of the age where you had the you can do it programs in the primary school section about persistence and resilience and getting along with others and that sort of stuff. Um, these days there's things like the resilience project in many schools, there's a lot of well-being things, there's mental health in primary schools programs, there's um relationships that is specifically taught within a classroom setting. So there's definitely things that are being done in the school space. But then when you go out into the yard, you're still, as the RGD teacher, working with these young people to solve conflicts that they don't have the skills to solve themselves. So given that we're putting all that in, you'd think on the other end of school, you'd have people who had some clue about how to be empathetic towards the person who's annoying you and how to find a way through that's a win-win without throwing blame. Some people do and some people don't. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good point. Yeah, you're right. Um, again, like like um we're we're teaching, like you said, we're teaching these kids and stuff, and it's very important that they do it. But our first initial reaction is go tell the teacher.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_01Is that is that the right thing? I don't know. We're drumming them in to run to someone.
SPEAKER_00Um, it's better than pushing someone over.
SPEAKER_01I agree. I definitely agree with you. Yes, yes, you're right. Maybe it comes more from the parents. Like I have a young son, he's five, turning six, he's in he's in primary school now. And 100% hands down, I'm trying to teach him to deal with things on his own. Um maybe, maybe it needs to be driven from from more from the parents. Um and it yeah, it's a it's a tough one. I don't have look, I don't have the answers. I just I know there's a problem there, and we needed we need to sort it out, you know. Um I know like for me growing up, I can't remember running to a teacher once. Like I tried, you know, why did I why am I why am I different? Yeah, does that make sense? Oh maybe my upbringing. My upbringing, like I had a single, single parent. She was very, very strong, very tough. She built me the way that I am. Um maybe it came from my the my upbringing and the way I was, yeah. Um, and to you know what, it probably was was because of that. I yeah, I was never taught to run to run to anyone. And like, yeah, my my wife, she works in a in a school setting, and I hear these conversations that she has with my son, and it's go go tell the teacher, go tell the teacher, and then I'll sit down with him and have a chat and I'll find out. It's like, well, you could have sort that out yourself, you know? Yeah, but you're right, it's better than pushing back and kicking and and doing all that stuff. I I understand that, but yeah. I don't have an answer.
SPEAKER_00Can I bring it back to the business situation? Um, I can imagine a situation within any sort of business or even any employment context where somebody might have found a conflict, might have taken it on themselves to resolve that. Created some actions or done some actions, but it's not necessarily what you as a business owner might have wanted to happen. At what point would an employee in that situation um know when to take the problem on themselves and solve it and when to come and consult with a business owner?
SPEAKER_01I think I think if you get no traction after you've tried to resolve it. If you've got no traction and you didn't and it hasn't come to a um a peace deal, then well, yeah, that's okay. Now we need I need to tell me, the boss, or whoever. Yep. Um at least have it, you know, obviously there's different levels. If it's I'm not talking about, you know, if someone's done something sexual or something in the workplace, no, not on. You go and tell the boss like something needs to be, but I'm talking about, I don't know, a conversation that got taken the wrong way, or someone snapped at you because you weren't carrying something properly, or you know, just trivial stuff that just takes up that wastes time, Susan, where it could be just a conversation, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. You go and try and solve it first. You get no traction, it blows up again, maybe. If it blows up again, it's like, all right, we need we need management involved here.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01At least try yourself.
SPEAKER_00So one of the things that you said way earlier in the conversation was about how the basics, particularly in primary school, the basics of maths, communication, reading, writing, um, are definitely things that were worthwhile for you and generally probably for society. Can you think about your school experience itself? Think about some of the teachers that you might have met, some of the um activities that you might have done, and just give us a little cameo of a primary school experience and then a secondary school experience, positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Um, I probably shouldn't polarize it, but any any version of that experience, because all of it makes us as teachers understand a little bit more of what it's like for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, school for school for me, especially with the teachers, was very, very, very positive. I um I actually I actually loved all my a lot of my teachers. Um again, probably the way that I was brought up by my mother, um, I had a lot of respect for uh like elders. Um so I you know I wasn't a naughty kid. I had respect for all the teachers and I did what I was told and I listened. Yeah, I mucked around and whatever. But yeah, I had a very positive experience with with school. Um yeah, I you know, I like to I'd like to say I had a lot of friends and um yeah, I got along with the teachers. I still I still think of moments and times with my teachers in primary school. You know, I had a favorite teacher and he's still teaching there now, and my son goes there, and it's it just lights me up when I see him. Um and you can have an adult conversation with them, which is awesome. Um, high school is the same. So I I got along with teachers that I could relate with, um, that that treated us as young adults um that could actually have a meaningful conversation instead of, yeah, I don't know, the ones that just sort of tell ya, ever you try and relate with me first and and have a bit of a rapport, and then you know, the respect goes a long way. It's a two-way straight. Um yeah. I a lot of my you know, I had a few of my teachers in high school that were football coaches and um and cricket coaches and and just seeing them around the street and in sport and um Yeah, I had a really good upbringing in terms of with teachers and and and friends at school. So yeah, it was cool. I actually want to go back.
SPEAKER_00Nothing's stopping you. No, well, yeah, no, I'm I'm sure you've got a lot of things that are going on, but it's also cool sometimes to reach out to the schools and just say, hey, I'm doing this now, and it was really cool. I rem remember my school experiences. Like we as schools in the education space, we don't get to interact with the people that have left the school grounds. And it's lovely when that happens. Um, they might invite you back for an assembly little thing or something like that, but who knows?
SPEAKER_01Um, that's that's a good point. Yeah, I should do that actually. I should reach out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So connection is definitely one of the themes that have come through really, really strongly that it's been incredibly important for people to feel like they were seen as an actual person, have a real conversation, um, be interacted with as a young adult, not just numbers on a page or somebody to dump curriculum content into. So that's that's a really important point. I'm really glad to hear that that's part of what you're saying as well. And it seems that some teachers do and some teachers don't. So it's an area where the education system, I suppose, is still spending a lot of time saying this is really important. This is what people are saying, this is really important for us. And it's not just a program, it's actually um, I guess the intent as the adult in the room, the older adult in the room at least, to make time to hear and see those people and see the humanness in each person in the room. So thank you for talking about that. In terms of success, did you feel successful at school?
SPEAKER_01Oh no. No, I didn't. Um I was the type of kid who who just did so I sort of did the bare minimum just to get a pass. Um I was really good at math. I did a bit of advanced math and stuff, but that's nothing to brag about, to be honest. Um no, I don't think so. No, I knew I think as soon as I got into high school, I sort of knew as a country kid I was gonna use my hands. I was good at, you know, using my hands, so I was gonna be an apprentice that I just didn't know what. Um yeah, I knew that from a young age. So I just sort of did the bare minimum to get through, um socialized as much as I could and just try to enjoy school, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Another of our guests, and I'll just put this to you as as well as a concept because it really made me rethink uh the sort of pressure that I put on kids.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They said, kind of similar to you, that they did the bare minimum, but it wasn't that they thought they couldn't do any more than the bare minimum. They actually made a very deliberate decision of I don't need more than this. I need to be roughly at my age group, I need to have these basic skills. But beyond that, I just want to have as little friction with the teacher as possible. So I'll just get done what they say. So I'm out of their hair, if you like. And it made me think about work-life balance as an adult and how you can make a choice about how much time you put into work. Obviously, you need to work within the work hours that you're working, but once you finish that, particularly in education and I'm sure in businesses as well, you could literally spend every waking hour working on work. And you kind of need to make a choice about where does that sit and where does family time sit, where does that sit, and where does my own fitness, for example, sit. Um, so is that kind of a deliberate choice that you think you made when you were younger?
SPEAKER_01And that's geez, that's what I knew where you're getting with that halfway through that sentence. Um to a point, I sort of to be honest with you, sir, like when I said I I knew from a young age that I was gonna use my hands, I was really good at sport, I was really good at football. Um, through high school, I I really genuinely had this belief that I was gonna play AFL and I did my I did my very best to to get drafted. Um unfortunately taught after you know when I turned 80, I didn't get drafted. So I to be honest, I put a lot of my energy into into that, into thinking you know, I just coasted through through high school because I was like, oh, I don't need it. I'll I'll get a I'll get a pass, but I know I'm gonna I'm gonna play I'm gonna play footy or I'm gonna I'm gonna use my hands or I'm gonna you know what I mean? I'm not going to uni. I knew I wasn't gonna go to uni. So let's just get a pass. Who cares? Let's put our energy into something else. Put it put our energy into yeah, sport essentially.
SPEAKER_00Really, it was a deliberate decision for you as well, though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think one 100%. Yeah. It was.
SPEAKER_00Because when you're yeah, it's so interesting. And I think it's a valid decision. I as a teacher we tend to be focused on developing learning. So get better at whatever it is that you're trying to help the people in the room get better at. And obviously, you've got a very wide range of skills in the room. So you're definitely working with the children who might not have their age-expected skill in whatever particular skill it is. There's the middle group who are coasting along quite fine. And then there's the higher group, and I really have a passion towards that higher group of okay, you can do this. So, what's your personal next step? And I want to be there with you on that journey to your next step. But perhaps for some people, it's not as important to put the pressure on at that higher group and to let them be more um open to choosing different things. So it's just something that's in my head of I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. And for some people, of course, it will be the right thing, and for others it won't. But it's just an extra little thing that I hadn't considered. And that's one of the reasons that I'm doing these interviews is I don't have an agenda. I don't have um a set of stories or a set of learnings that I expect to hear. I just want to hear from people their stories and how it works for them. So having said all that, I'm going to pivot again. And talk to you more. What would you like to say to teachers, leaders, and curriculum designers, school policy makers?
SPEAKER_01I want to choose my words carefully. Look, I think I think we're doing the bulk right. Again, I'm going to refer back to the word fluff. I think there's too much fluff. So if we can keep if we can keep the school curriculum more relate relatable, you'll get more out of your students. Um, and when I say relatable, I mean things that we're actually going to use when we leave school. I know I'm probably going on a tangent here, but I just I just remember Den, we had a teacher, a fill-in teacher, an older, you know, he he was retired, he'd come in whenever a teacher was crooked or whatever. I can't remember what you call those teachers, but a relief teacher. He every time he came in, I used to my eyes would light up when he'd come in because he would teach us things that were relatable, that were realistic, things that where does water come from? Like ask that to a student. Where does where does your water come from that you drink? How much is how much is it does it cost you to leave a light on overnight? Is it worth you getting up out of bed to turn that light off? He would teach us these things. It's I just had that memory then, and geez, was I engaged. I was like, this is the stuff I want to know. You know, how does it yeah, just like a basic overview of you know, these simple things in life that we take for granted? Like, I don't know, Susan, just keep just keep the curriculum, keep it simple. Keep it relatable. I don't know. Uh does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00You seem to yeah, you seem to be talking about curiosity and and he was able to bring in some sparks of curiosity through asking almost random questions about um how is it that you've got these shoes on your feet?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, but like none of us would know. We just take that sort of stuff for granted, you know. Um and then obviously as a tradesman, you find out outside of school. I learned a lot of my a lot of the things that I feel are very, very important in life to get by. I learned outside of school, which is disappointing. I know now what GST is and tax and um all these, you know, how to get a loan and how to buy property and how to start a business, how to run a business. Like what's what's an overhead? Like, I learned all this sort of stuff, how to become a leader, um, how to talk to people. I learned all of this outside of school through sport and the people around me that I I've asked people who have done it before me and and have been successful. I get on the phone and I talk to these people. That's how I find out. If you're not a curious person, you're not driven, you will never ever know. Um sorry, I'm a bit passionate, but it's doing it upsets me. It upsets me a little bit that I never learned all these basic life skills until I got out of school.
SPEAKER_00That's why I'm doing the podcast. That's why I want to hear from people. That's exactly the point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I've got nothing else to say. I think you get the point.
SPEAKER_00What about the learning to learn stuff? Uh, do you do you feel like you learned how to learn at school? So you learnt that you could um contact somebody who might have done it before you to get a few tips or no.
SPEAKER_01I don't think so. No, honestly, I no. No. I think what what I learned was we had we had play lunch at 11 o'clock. We had to sit down and just sit at a desk. Um, you know, you get a test put in front of you, you can't collaborate with anyone, you can't ask for like, you know, it's just you and the test paper, and then you got lunch at one o'clock, and then you got to sit down at the desk and and listen and become a mouse. What do you do at a nine to five job? You do the exact same thing. They teach you you can actually, you know, run off and create a business. Look, tinfall hat stuff again, I don't know, but um, I think there's a yeah, I don't know. I think that's I don't know what I'm trying to say here, to be honest.
SPEAKER_00Um okay, so I'm gonna reflect back what you have said and see if it sparks a little bit further. I'm curious about the learning to learn side of things and how you learnt how to learn stuff. Um, so at the moment you're saying that school taught you when you got to go and play, and the rest of the time you felt like you were stuck at your desk being a mouse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So where did I learn that stuff? Yeah. Well outside of school, if I'm honest with you. The way I was brought up by my mum. Don't run for, you know, don't yeah, figure it out yourself. Figure it out yourself. School, um, sport was very, very important to me. Um, I learned a lot through the the football club. Um, I had I idolized men around me when I was a young age that I could talk to and I learned things. They had businesses and there were so many walks of life. And I was the type, I'm a curious person. So I'd talk and I could relate and I could talk to adults. And I learnt a lot through that process. And that was why I became like I was the captain of the club at a very young age because I could relate and talk to people and people would listen to me. Um, I learned a lot of those life lessons through sport and outside of outside of school. Everyone's not built the same. I understand that. Um, but yeah, I don't honestly I don't think so. Like school, I don't think it they do teach it to do that. If I if I if I didn't have sport, I wouldn't know half the stuff I'd know now. Is that harsh? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00No, not at all. And there is a point of view where school can't do everything. So perhaps your family environment and your social environment, including things like sport, might also be part of how a child develops their skills for their adult life. Um and it is unrealistic. School is often the place where people say, well, teach them at school. So whatever it is that you're complaining about a lack of, it's often put on school's shoulders. So I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that there's so much that you've learned in other places other than school. The only part of that that worries me is not everybody has access to those role models or that family environment. And therefore, I do feel a responsibility as an educator in a school-based situation to uh just listen in and see if a particular child needs some extra information on how to be social or and and school tries so hard. Yeah. Teachers, educators, school leaders, we try so hard to get that sort of thing through.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So one of the reasons that I'm speaking so much about learning to learn is there's a current feeling in education where bring back knowledge, get a knowledge-rich curriculum is the current terminology of that. And that's basically saying, let's cram more into students' heads, make sure that they know it, prove that they know it. Um, and then there's a pull a little bit towards a different way of seeing things where, okay, well, you need the content, but the content itself is not the important thing. The important thing is learning how to learn something. So I teach languages, I teach Japanese. A lot of people in the areas that I teach are going to be driving tractors most of their life. So Japanese is really not one of the things that is high on their content knowledge list that they can see as relevant for their future life. And fair enough. What I'm hoping though is instead of saying, I want you to learn this, these 10 words, I want you to learn how to memorize as many words as you can.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that will be helpful for when you need to memorize something else, like I don't know, grass seed varieties or whatever it is that you need to have in your memory bank so that you can use that for whatever it is that you're using first.
SPEAKER_01So you've just been able to relate that with his walk of life.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Whereas most teachers won't won't do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But they'll they've been told they've got a teacher curriculum, and it's like, this is what it says in the book, this is how you've got it. So you you've been able to, and good on you to be able to go, okay, you might might not go to Japan. You probably don't need to learn Japanese, but you're gonna get something out of this class. And it's like, yeah, there's see not many people, not many teachers can do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks. It's one of the things that I've been talking a lot about more to other teachers as well as just doing it myself. It's putting on the board instead of we're learning these 10 words, we're learning this particular skill which is relevant to your life. Yeah, it's it's pretty simple.
SPEAKER_01And there's gotta be teachers up there standing there writing on the board going, I'm wasting my time here. Like they've got to know, like they know their class better than anyone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And like you said, you're in a rural area. I don't know, 60, 70% of those people aren't gonna go off. Potentially might not be going to uni. Do you know what I mean? Like that you you sort of already know that what they're gonna do and what they're what they're destined to be. Let's mold the curriculum to them, let's help them. You know, like you said, a lot of them are gonna be sitting on a trap. How do you buy a tractor when you get out? How do we say money? What's interest? Do you know what I mean? Let's let's set this kid up. Like he's gonna be on a farm, he might own a farm. How do we get him there? Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00And even basic decisions of do you buy a tractor outright or do you buy it on credit? And what sort of credit would you use? Would you just use your credit card in your back pocket or would you use a personal loan? And why would you make those choices? I am so passionate about all of those things as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think I'll just you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's another whole big area that is quite a hot debate, I suppose, in education. And I'm curious for your experience, did you feel that there was a lot of competition at school? Did you find that useful to you or detrimental?
SPEAKER_01Competition in what way?
SPEAKER_00Competition for test scores and things like that.
SPEAKER_01Uh I don't think so. Um, I'm not really sure. I don't know. I don't think that nah competition in terms of I've got to do better than the person next to me to get a better score than him. Is that what you mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Some people have said that there's a lot of judgment in terms of comp of who's best in the room on whatever.
SPEAKER_01Honestly, the my walk along. life was if you can you know if I can kick six more goals than him I'm better than him. That was my competition. It was outside of school. And I think the people that I surrounded myself with they're all on the same page as well. What I yeah the the highest priority out of high school was you know we had a very it's not got nothing to do with the school curriculum but it's it might it actually sounds terrible when I when I think about it but we only gave a shit about Saturday and who we were playing against and you know I had people who played for Invelop, Bass, Wonthagi, Dalston, all these all these clubs and that was our competition. That was our rivalry, you know, to get one up on everyone else. It what what we did on paper didn't matter to us, especially as a m like as a male, I don't think but I don't think so. No one really gave a shit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So interesting.
SPEAKER_01I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00Is there anything that you haven't said so far that you'd like to say no I think we've covered it all Susan. Yeah cool.
SPEAKER_01No I just yeah I I don't know the the most important thing I could take out of this was yes school definitely serves its place. Yes and no I got a lot but I didn't get a lot out of out of school um unfortunately I learned a lot of my life lessons outside of school and I think if you can time collapse and and use the people around you for answers that's the most important thing. Yeah try and work it out yourself don't rely on others that's that's all I can say what's time collapse time collapse okay so for an example um I've just opened a gym um about 11 10 eleven months ago I tried to time collapse I I knew nothing about opening a gym I knew nothing about starting a business um so what I did was I time collapsed I rang people that had done it before me and were successful at it and I got as much information from those people as I could I knew I I was a good leader I had work eth work work ethic I know how to program um you know I knew the basics I knew how to run a team but I knew nothing about owning and building a gym so everything I hadn't I didn't have an answer to I found out by the people around me um procedures terms and conditions uh computer programs how to use a computer I learned all this from people around me and I and I got on the phone and I rang and I spoke and I went and met with people who had done it before me. That's time collapsing. Instead of it taking me two years to figure all this out it took me three months. Wow um yeah yeah it took me yeah that's right um and bang I was open so time collapse where you can save you save your time don't waste time it's important so let's promote that business tell us about it yeah so Mac Muscle Gym down in Wonthaggy um 24 hour access gym um we're opening a recovery center in two months as well at the same premises um and I launch Mac lab supplements next week so get around it if you're in the area get down there best gym in South Eastland.
SPEAKER_00Why is it the best gym? Because it's mine what what can I appreciate if I walk through the door in your gym compared to walking through into I don't know fitness first.
SPEAKER_01You get me now I um where it's uh how can I it's very sleek it's very comfortable um you feel good when you walk in everything's new um very clean um and the people around you I feel are probably all on the same page they want to get something out of life and leave better than how they walked in um and if I can help being at the desk and then that's just a bonus innit yeah amazing thank you what's next for Mick what's next for me it's a good question it's a good question I um I'm one to to write out my goals Susan I have I have plenty of goals um I have the ultimate life dream goal um and I'm just working towards them so I don't know I'm one to really listen to the universe whatever the universe sort of throws at me I I sort of look at and and try and dissect it a little bit you know I just I just got my registered builder's license just because the universe told me to do it. I don't know what's next but all I'm gonna do is keep growing my business try and be the best best version of myself and um hopefully yeah hopefully we have a gym number two in the next few years or or expand and grow the one that we've got now just just continue to be to get better each day. That's that's my that's my plan. Sounds amazing thanks cheers thank you for talking to us that was amazing yeah I had fun that was really good thanks so much for inviting me on it was awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah hopefully someone gets something out of it anyway and oh so much gold so many really interesting pieces Mick said of his gym that he wants people to leave better than they walked in what a wonderful way of conceptualizing every day at school what is it that we give each day that might make it possible for those people who come into our schools to leave better than when they walked in and also is there anything that we do that makes them leave worse than they walked in that's part of what I want to get to through this whole podcast is really teasing out through different people's stories what is it that school is and is not necessarily giving to people clearly in Mixed Story most of what he got after the basics of reading writing and mathematics he attributes to his social clubs his sports clubs and his family and the people that he was able to interact with and use as a mentor to learn the skills that brought him into being able to run a business and being able to run a building site and now have his building license I adore the concept of time collapsing. What a brilliant phrase I had never heard of it before and again another joy of talking to people and getting different people's stories especially reaching out to people who are not necessarily in my personal network and getting a lot of different sorts of stories. I learned so much how good is that so time collapsing as a concept of finding your mentors and not necessarily waiting for school to do that for you but figuring out who in your network could you look up to, who could you reach out to and being personable with that so another piece that Mick was talking about was resume is not just a quick resume that you send out to a lot of different businesses but where you're but where you're willing to go into those businesses and really share with them who you are and make a personal connection because in the end we are human beings and we seem to thrive on those personal connections. So clearly Mick as a business owner is saying to anybody out there who's looking for work create the personal connections because the person that he did give a job to was the one person who did spend the time to go and meet with him and make that personal connection. So super cool advice for everyone there is a lot in school where we talk about making the curriculum relevant to real life in inverted commas because life is real at every age not just when you leave school however Mick really talked about that a lot and how some of the later parts of secondary school curriculum in particular he called fluff. There does seem to be some evidence that people who leave school don't remember a lot of the content of their secondary school curriculum unless they're using it in their job. And Mick does use it in his job. He uses maths every day he said especially when he was doing building work but the sorts of things he felt were fluff were the higher level maths skills, the book reports in English and instead of doing those sorts of skills Mick was more interested in learning skills about how to present things so public speaking skills and leadership skills which he did acknowledge is not everybody's cup of tea it's not what everybody wants to be doing. But the skills of relating to other people are business skills. Being able to read another person's body language and being able to respond to that in a way that invites them into an interaction with your business obviously makes good sense as a business owner. So increasing that side of English rather than a lot of book reports, I'm pretty sure we've heard similar sorts of comments in other podcasts as well. So perhaps it is something for our English curriculum leaders to consider when they're looking at curriculum design for secondary school students. And while we're on curriculum design Mick had some very clear things to talk about in terms of maths curriculums or life skills curriculum things like what is GST, what is capital gains tax what is an overhead what sorts of things do you have to have in place in order to open a business and to run a business there's a lot of legal things that are behind that that are really vital skill information. Mick didn't say this but one of the areas that I've had to upskill in in terms of doing this podcast is design work. How do I put together a little business card so that I can hand it out to people and say hey would you like to come on my podcast? What does that look like? How do I design that so it's visually clear, interesting and provides the information that needs to be provided so there's a lot of different skills in that Mick is totally on board with my life skills idea and really thinks that the videos are a great idea. So we're still chugging along with the videos and hopefully we'll have some out and ready to try out. They're not going to be amazing professional ones because I don't have those facilities but hopefully having a go at it might inspire some sort of partnership in the future with somebody else who might be able to make it even better than I can. I was a little on the disappointed side I suppose to hear from from Mick from his experience that learning how to learn was not part of what he got out of school either. I do think that we need to be able to learn new things. The world changes the recent introduction of AI is a clear change in the world that we weren't able to teach in school based education to people in their 20s and 30s and 40s it's something that people will need to upskill in and if you don't know how to learn then how do you do that? Now in mixed situation he did know how to upskill and the time collapse concept is just one of the techniques that he was learning that however wasn't taught at school and no school doesn't have to teach everything everything but for the people who don't have the mentors in their life the family in their life even the sports clubs in their life where do you learn those skills if they're not taught at school so I think schools do need to look really carefully at what those life skills are and how they might be presented to students before they leave school. So I will keep on working on that and Mick is clearly extremely successful. He's a lovely person to speak with if you are in the South Gibbs Land area in Victoria Australia and you're feeling like doing a workout I think going into MacGym and coming out a little bit better than how you walked in sounds like a winning formula. So thank you to Mick and thank you to you the listener for giving this episode a listen. If you found it interesting please let other people know about it too and what resonated for you? What actions might you take as a result? I warmly invite you or anyone to share their thoughts by emailing 13 Years Well Spent as one word 13 is a word not a number at gmail.com and if you know or if you are between 18 and 30 ish and would be willing to share your story please also get in touch via email. Thanks for listening. Hope you will tune into the next episode too bye for now