Get Out of Teaching Podcast Season 3, Episode 8 Tricia (Interrelated teacher)

Fly-on-the -wall coaching session with Tricia, who, has a bachelor's in math education. 

Tricia graduated in 1999. She has balanced a career, family, and returning to Education after an absence and home relocation.

Her desire to teach was driven by her own struggle as a young student.  She experienced  teachers that didn't have the strategies for her to be successful.

In 2011 she expanded to teach students in special education. It brought her back to that purpose of giving strategies to those with greatest need.

Tricia began exploring careers 2 years ago. She realized teaching is becoming more and more civic responsibility.  It was apparent to her when the pandemic hit and the news focused on students being out of school with a lack of food,  abusive houses, strain on mental well being during extended at home times. Little was said about the content of education.

She realized her  degree in education was outdated.  Her experience was all in teaching. It would have meant a massive pay cut to transition into entry level.   

So now with a Masters Degree on the horizon,  can she manage her time?

Aired on May 12th 2021

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Transcript

Elizabeth Diacos  0:00  
Welcome to Season 3 of the Get Out of Teaching Podcast. I'm your host, Elizabeth Diacos. In each episode of this season, I'll be coaching a teacher around one aspect of their move out of Education. You'll have the privilege of listening in on the powerful coaching conversations that move people closer to a life they love. So come along for the ride as we get out of teaching. 

Episode 8. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the show. And excuse my croaky voice. I'm very glad to have with me today on the show, Trisha who's going to bring to us a problem that she wants to solve. And hopefully we can resolve that during this coaching call. Trisha, thanks for coming and tell us how we met, maybe tell the audience how we met.

Trisha  0:49  
Actually, I've known Elizabeth for quite a while I was just saying she changed her hair. Um, for a little while now, I've been in the Get Out of Teaching for over a year now. And we did a little coaching call. And I know I've seen some of your podcasts. And it's true, she, she, we did not discuss me actually getting an of teaching right away. Through our coaching sessions, I found that maybe staying teaching was a good idea for a little while longer. So she reached out to me again that she's doing her podcast and one of her people suggested, "Hey, I would love to learn more about time management." And I was like, I need that podcast tomorrow, if you could do it. But she did it, she did it. I think it was last week, right last week's podcast. So we weren't able to, I was able to learn a little I've been listening to her podcast now for a while. So I've been able to learn a little bit about her. And so I was excited and privileged to be invited to your podcast for today.

Elizabeth Diacos  1:48  
Yeah, so we're going to address a problem. And do you want to sort of like I guess I want to ask you, what would make this an amazing call for you today? And what what would you like to walk away with at the end of the conversation?

Trisha  2:04  
Absolutely. So my background, and the reason I initially stayed in teaching after our first coaching was, I have a bachelor's degree from 1999, which is lots of years ago. And so when I tried getting out of teaching, I heard a lot of and I got a lot of responses that said I wasn't I wasn't qualified to get out of teaching with my very ancient degree. And, not going to hide it, and my experience exclusively being a teacher or in something in teaching since that time. So I've been trying to get myself in a place to decide to go back to Education, which is where the time management thing came in. Because I don't know if you know this about teaching, but as much as it's a 9 to 5 kind of job, kind of, we do a lot of weekend and after school work here in the US to actually make our job work, there's a lot of voluntolding is what we call it here in my little/local area, we get voluntold to do a lot of things outside of our school hours, or it's just expected like to write a good lesson plan. And to be a good teacher, you, you have to do it outside of the school hours, because you only get a limited time to make that happen. So there's a lot of planning. And so I've been trying to contemplate whether I even have the time to go back for a second degree. I'd take I'd make it work. 

Elizabeth Diacos  3:29  
Okay, so back to my original question, then how will we know if we've been successful in this conversation? Like what do you need to take away with you?

Trisha  3:39  
I think it's more about like what we were talking about time management was my big ticker. Like, I think just managing that I need to keep this job to pay the bills, which is I think, the gist of what the person said. And I also need to pursue more something in order to get another job outside of Education, because I've already tried applying for jobs and it didn't work. So it's about making that time for myself to get out of Education, while financially supporting myself in Education. So to be successful, it would be nice to explore some ideas of how to manage that time.

Elizabeth Diacos  4:15  
Okay, so, say three strategies for managing your time effectively. Would that be good?

Trisha  4:21  
Absolutely.

Elizabeth Diacos  4:22  
Okay. All right, done. So at the end of this conversation, we're going to look back and say, we were hoping to find three strategies that would help you manage your time so that you could achieve that goal. And then we'll know. We'll have it, you know, it's measurable. 

Trisha  4:35  
Absolutely.

Elizabeth Diacos  4:36  
So it's always good to have a measurable outcome. So I don't need to tell you that because you're teacher right?

Trisha  4:45  
(Laughing)

Elizabeth Diacos  4:46  
Yeah, awesome. Okay. So tell me in the past, when you've had a situation like this, where you've had to work towards something, what have you done that to make it successful?

Trisha  4:56  
Well you see, since I started teaching, in fact, that's part of my issue, is I haven't I've really dedicated myself to teaching. And here in the US, there are even like a lot of posts about it. Teachers give more than their hours, we were assigned to work 8 hours, we're only assigned work 190 days, but we just take on so much more. So that has been my struggle is drawing that boundary line between, like, when is it enough? That I've given enough to the school so that I could get into the personal time management to give myself time to do other other interests?

Elizabeth Diacos  5:33  
Right. So are you saying that... how long have you been teaching for?

Trisha  5:39  
I started teaching right after I got my degree in 1999. I got my first job in 2000. So about 20 years, but I took a little break. So only 15 years of actual teaching experience, but for 20 years.

Elizabeth Diacos  5:50  
So over that time, over that 20 year period, you haven't done anything else outside of teaching or any other, achieved any other goals?

Trisha  6:01  
Sadly, no, I'm a big believer, I was an, I was a believer in Education. I wanted to be a teacher since I was a little kid. And I got into it. And it just it became my life for a while there. And it was a bit of a struggle when I had my kid even because it was like, I'm not a teacher, I'm a mom, I took a little time off. And then when I came back to teaching, nobody told me when you leave teaching for a year or two, like things change in Education that fast. So when you come back, they ask you these questions you're like, I don't know, we didn't do that five years ago. And then people don't want to hire you. So you had to do well, I had to do a lot more research for my interviews at that point to find out what was the current trends in Education and kind of keep up with it to get my current job back again. So I've been doing that now for the last few years.

Elizabeth Diacos  6:51  
So you did extra research while you're at home with a child, young child?

Trisha  6:55  
Yes. 

Elizabeth Diacos  6:57  
Okay. So how did you do that? How did you manage that? Because I've had kids, that's not always easy.

Trisha  7:04  
No, and toddlers are a full time job, which is why I had to quit teaching for that little bit of time when my son was born. The good news was, my joke was, I did some part time work in between when he was little. And then my joke was when he went to school, I would go to school. So when he turned five, and finally went to school here in the US, for kindergarten, I was able to take the time and really prepare myself for job readiness. He did go to a daycare preschool the year before that. So, that's where I did that. When I sent him to preschool, I would sit home and do my research. And there's a lot of great websites here for the states and federal government about what current trends are in Education. 

And then I just followed that rabbit hole, until I got proficient enough for the questions. And I just want to, I will say this, I went on a lot of interviews, and interviews, I knew I was gonna bomb. Because that's important when you're looking for a job, you have to know what questions they're gonna ask you? Well, the only way to do that is to take an interview that you know, you don't want, and just be like, "Oh, let me do some research on these things." So I did end up going on about 10 or 11 interviews where I entered the interview going, "I may not get it, I may get the job, but I may not get the job, but at least I'll know what the, what what is it that they're looking for? What are the buzzwords what are the things they're asking me that I need to learn about?"

Elizabeth Diacos  8:23  
So you saw them as a research opportunity to to get more information about what what the kind of questions would be?

Trisha  8:30  
Right? Otherwise, you're just blind searching for a job. And you're like, I don't I don't even know what I'm supposed to be looking at. And there's so much information out there.

Elizabeth Diacos  8:37  
Yeah. Okay. So at that time, you carved out space because your son was at daycare or kinder. And, and you obviously were focused, and you did your research and made it happen. But now the situation's kind of there's multi layers there, because you presumably still got that child.

Trisha  9:01  
And I still love my kid, he's, he's amazing.

Elizabeth Diacos  9:04  
But you still got the child to look after, and you're back at school teaching. And it's a big job. So I guess the question is, then, how are you going to create that space again, given that you've got this extra stuff happening? So what, where do you see those possibilities arising to create that space?

Trisha  9:24  
Well, Elizabeth, this is why I'm on the call with you. 

Elizabeth Diacos  9:58  
Yeah, all right.

Trisha  9:27  
Um, because I am... and this is, I mean, I'm gonna say this. I was sitting with a friend at dinner tonight. And she said the same thing I feel, like, I don't want to take it on and fail. Like, it's one thing to fail at, "I'm going to go on an interview and fail it" but then I know I have to come home and study to get to the next job interview and maybe fail it. But at this point, I'm thinking about going back to school, which is a commitment of money. And a recent a recent thing I read today was like, your money is your time, like you earn that money by putting time into your job. So when you're giving that up, you have to think of it in terms of time. 

And so when I think about putting 20, it's like $20,000, for a Master's degree, that's like, half of my income, like half of my annual income would go into this loan that I would have to take to go back to school. Am I really willing to give up 20 of my hours of work a week to really put 20 more hours into a Master's degree, and find a way to balance the mom and the school and the full time job. I'm a little nervous. And maybe once I get into it, I'll be like, oh, it wasn't so hard to eke out a minute. But right now in my life, I'm not seeing that time. 

Elizabeth Diacos  10:41  
Yeah.

Trisha  10:41  
Anywhere.

Elizabeth Diacos  10:42  
And it's the cost, like the financial outlay. But presumably, there's some benefits, you'll get a pay rise.

Trisha  10:49  
Yes.

Elizabeth Diacos  10:50  
Is that on completion?

Trisha  10:53  
Yes, on completion, I just the next school year. So we get contracted from year to year. So if I complete it in two years, then the school year after that would be the year they would up my pay.

Elizabeth Diacos  11:04  
Right. So you get a little bit of a sweetener, to help pay off the debt. But it's not enough, obviously, it never is.

Trisha  11:12  
No, but it's a nice enough amount that it makes it worth it. Like, I have a friend in private industry, he, he works in big data. And he said to me, like I have to go back for this training anyway, just just to get another job. Like if I want to change positions, I have to pay for the training, and I have to pay to take the test. And then I may or may not get another job or a pay raise, like I'm not going to get a pay raise for my current company. The only way is if I change jobs, and then I'll get a pay raise. And I'm like, Well, if I go back for my Master's, and the worst that happens is I get my Master's but no other job interviews, they're going to give me a pay raise, regardless. Once I get the degree, instant pay raise, and he's like, it makes no sense for you not to go back to school then. And I'm like, but the money doesn't equal. Like the money coming in after the degree doesn't quite equal the money I'm gonna have to put out to get the degree.

Elizabeth Diacos  12:00  
Yeah, yeah. But that's Education, isn't it? I mean, that's how it always is. We have a different opinions...

Trisha  12:06  
Oh we're already massively underpaid, right? Like, I'm only making half of what he makes as a data processor. So...

Elizabeth Diacos  12:13  
But you will try to get out. Eventually this is a pathway out, hopefully. 

Trisha  12:17  
Right.

Elizabeth Diacos  12:18  
Yeah. 

Trisha  12:18  
Absolutely. 

Elizabeth Diacos  12:19  
And then, you know, all the rest that will come with that will be it'll be different. So can I maybe I should share something because I, you know, I did the Master's. We have five children. Um, I'm trying to think, sorry, I've got a cough lollie in my mouth so that I can still talk. It's got anesthetic in it. But I think we had just the last year of my Master's, my youngest child did her last year of school. So the year before that, my second youngest child did her last year of school. So they, it was a bad idea to correspond my Master's with their final year of school, but at the time, I wasn't really thinking about the impact of all that. But anyway, we were all studying hard together. 

I used to get up at five o'clock in the morning. And we also live with my elderly father in law, who is a really early riser. So there was no peace, you know, there was not a moment of peace. So the only solution was to get up at the crack of dawn, and maybe I'd get an hour before he came out and started crashing around in the kitchen. And so that's what I did. And then the other thing I did was I made appointments with myself. So you know how you went out for dinner tonight. It's morning here, but you know, was your night, right? So when you went out for dinner, I actually put in my diary, like dinner dates with my Master's. 

So I would, I would schedule a date, you know, once a week on a Wednesday night or whatever it was to study. Because otherwise I just knew I was never going to get it done. I'm hopeless, like I procrastinated, I had the most immaculate Tupperware drawer you've ever seen, because I'd that at any, anything except for, for write that essay that had to be written. But that's how I did it. I so I carved out a little space in the morning, most days, like maybe three days a week, for just an hour. And then one night a week as well. And that was it. Sometimes Saturday morning. I could, I could squeeze in a little bit before everyone woke up, you know, because they all sleep in on the weekend. 

But yeah, that was the only time and I you know, I did it in two years. I didn't get an amazing mark. You know, I wasn't kind of the top student. But you know, Ps get degrees, right. So I passed and that was what made it. So what do you get from that? Because I mean, you know, I've been kind of where you're about to go.

Trisha  14:53  
That's and that's why I like meeting with you. And I've been talking to some other people who like I said, I've been trying to juggle though whole thing. Um, I like that idea, my issue, and I will say I've done other things, like I, I'm not just a teacher. And if you don't know anything about American Education, I'm a Special Education Teacher. So on top of our regular day of a job, we do have a lighter service, because we don't have to, we get to teach with other teachers who do the bulk of the planning and the and the teaching part. But we have a lot of paperwork, legally binding, very important, legally binding paperwork. 

So my biggest issue is a lot of my time that I come home, I still end up dedicating to getting that other component of my job done. And I have found that like, through my career, if I try to make an appointment for something, I'm not good at keeping myself accountable. And I have friends who are good at this, they're like, I, one of my friends is like, if I don't keep myself accountable, I take a cold shower, and I'm like, I would just get out of the cold shower, I'd be like, not keeping my appointment. And I'm like, "Nah, that cold showers gonna suck. So I'm not gonna do that either." So I don't know how much of my own like, that's the other issue I have is like, I know myself, and I'll, I'll be like, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna head to bed early today. So I can get up early tomorrow." 

And then tonight comes and I'm wide awake. And I lay in bed. And I'm like, what's the point of sitting here and I get up and I do stuff. Like you said, I I'm like you, I very much have a very, when I have a big project, everything in my house gets cleaned. It's funny how that works. I'm like, I'm very much like you. I procrastinate by doing the things I love, taking on projects that I like, and then the important things like, don't get done. So I guess your point is, like, well, you were making these appointments for yourself. How did you keep yourself accountable to your own..? Because for me, I would just be like, "ah, I know, I said, I was going to work on class tonight at six o'clock, that's my appointment time to clear out and go somewhere quiet and work on it. But I also the dishes and the laundry and the kid and the, you know, the school stuff that I really didn't get done at school today." So like, did you have something if you, like to keep yourself accountable?

Elizabeth Diacos  17:10  
I think it was just otherwise I, the way our course was structured, we would go into for intensives. So we had two days out. So I would take like a Friday off school. And Saturday was the class, was our course. And then there'd be about a three week break. And then we'd meet again. People were flying in from other states to do the course. So it was a big deal, you know, we had those two days together, and then we go away. And then we come back a few weeks later. And so a lot of those things had to be done by the next time we met. So it kind of kind of had this built in structure of accountability. What I struggled with was over the summer break, when we didn't have that I should have been doing some research, but I kind of didn't have the motivation, because there was no structure in place to make me accountable. 

But knowing that that class was coming up, and that all those people were going to be there, and we're going to discuss the topics I kind of had to prepare. So that did help having that structure. But the other thing was, I guess my kids were still, they was studying, I had one really bad night where my daughter needed to prepare for a Math exam. And it was her year 12, it's final year. And she needed her her notes to be professionally bound, in order to take them into the exam. It was an open book exam, they couldn't have loose notes, they had to have it bound. And I took it down to Officeworks, which is our local kind of stationary place. 

The equivalent of like Staples, I guess. And and it must have been like a, like binding date, there was all these people there, I don't know, it wasn't just me and the other parents with the Math thing. There are people with their PhD and I don't know why it was that that particular day. And I got there thinking it would be quiet at about 8:30 at night and they shut at 9. And I had an assignment due the next day, myself. And I'm like, this won't take long. And I was there for like an hour and a half. They didn't shut the store. They kept the store open to bind all these things. And it was just insane. If I'd realized I would have gone the next morning, early and done it but you know her exam was at like 10am. It was risky. 

Anyway, I got it done. I got home and she just screamed at me. I got it bound the wrong way. It wasn't the correct. It was fine. But she thought it was wrong. And she said I charge you and I said but I asked them and they do it all the time. And that's their job and they know that that's the right way and she said but I told you this different way anyway, you know, there's different kinds of binding? Anyway, it was very dramatic, very stressful. By the time I got home it was about 10 o'clock, the last thing I wanted to do was go out and write my assignment. And I've been trying to message my lecturer saying, "Can I please have an extension?" while I'm standing in the queue at Officeworks. Anyway, that was not fun. 

So there were days like that, that were like, you know, sabotaged by circumstance. And so I just had to suck it up and go, "Okay, this is how it is, it's not great." And I got, I did have to get an extension for a couple of things. But in the end, it actually paid off for me to just get up in the morning and do it because I wasn't always on the backfoot that way, you know, I wasn't always running late. That was stressful, too. So it was less stressful. And then I had, you know, people who would be like, my librarian at work would proofread for me. And so she, I would, if I wrote it, like, before I needed it, she would actually proofread my work, which was great. 

And then luckily, I had another colleague, who had done a course where she needed to use APA referencing and I'd been using, oh I can't remember Harvard or something at me my first degree, and I hadn't used APA. And I just, I was, what I done was wrong. And I'm like, and she said, this is an APA style. And I'm like, what, what? It was very stressful at the start. But you know, by the end, I was fine. But yeah, getting up was the only thing I could do. That's all I can suggest. But I mean it. Alicia, in last week's episode, talked about the Pomodoro method where she did like 25 minutes on five minutes off, to give yourself a break. I'm just wanting to do some other strategies like that, that might work for you.

Trisha  21:50  
I think so. I mean, um like, okay, so family, I've done other things in Education. So while I'm saying I haven't got my Master's, a few years back, I get did my gifted. And this is why I'm nervous. Because your gifted certification is basically taking a Master's level course, basically, but just one instead of like a two year program, you just do it for one year, and you get this extra certificate level. And that about killed me. But I was kind of like you, I was like waking up in the morning, getting my kid off to his daycare. So I could run into school, and teach all day, and then trying to pick him up after school and getting home and try to get the whole mom thing done. He was a little younger at that point. 

I'm more like you, like my kid is now 15 going into his second year at Secondary Education. So he only has two more years to go. And I'm so glad I did talk to you. Because my thought was if I wait until he's a senior, oh, that'd be so much easier for me. But clearly "No, don't do it then! Do it now while he's still in the like throes of school and like lower education and not like I have to be grown up in a year." So I'm so glad we did meet. I think that...

Elizabeth Diacos  23:00  
The stakes are alot more lower now for you, right? The stakes were pretty high in those few years and I couldn't believe, when I looked back, at how stupid that was to do that. Actually, I have thought of one other thing I did. And this might not work for you. But I actually took a day off. For some of that time, not the whole period. But I actually restructured my workweek so that I had a day off, they did still give me the classroom hell. I thought I might escape it, because the day I took off was the day I normally had them, but they changed the timetable. So it was, I still had all the difficult kids and and they gave the two nice classes to the relief teacher. He took my day. But you know, that's that's, I mean, that's what they had to do.

Trisha  23:49  
Right? Well, that was my definite, like last year, I just started a new job. So this, this, that we talked like two years ago when I was thinking about getting out of teaching. And then I realized in my interview process that nobody wants a used teacher who hasn't done much of anything in their career other than teaching. So I did accept this job last year. So I think that's when we started talking was last year. So I did learn that I need to work on something. But I didn't want to do it last year, because that's what had happened with my gifted, I got a new job and they're like you have to be gifted, certified by the end of this year, if you want to keep the job with us. 

And that killed me that killed me to try to do a new job. Be a mom. Be like it was just that was insanity. I'm not gonna pretend like just eking out time at that point, because you were a new teacher, trying to create new lesson plans and taking on the world, so I feel better about maybe starting next year because I've done with my first two years and although COVID just came this year, so that changed the face of Education worldwide. I understand. The good news is I was I was able to talk to a teacher who started her Master's this year. So you're right. I think that's the idea is that you need that support of somebody. And thank goodness, she's a year ahead of me, she wants the same program. She's doing the same program I want to do.

Elizabeth Diacos  25:06  
Okay. 

Trisha  25:06  
And she started it already. So she's, her, she just finished her year, this just this week, like that's going out to dinner to celebrate her and another person in our department who had just finished their, their semesters. So that was nice, that she's like a year ahead. So I was able to hear from her. She is not a mom, but she is an aunt to a child who's like, hers, you know, like her and her sister are really close. And they share raising that child together kind of when the mom has, you know, so I feel like she's in a boat, kind of like mine, like I have a kid too. But I have an ex-husband who takes him half the time. And I've got my first year at the school under my belt. 

So I do feel like that's kind of nice having I think having people like you said you had somebody proofread you, you had somebody to bounce your ideas off of. So I think that really helps like try to make that connection with her about like, "Hey, you took the first year? How does this look as an assignment?" Oh, yeah. And she got straight A's. So maybe it's like, "Does this look like what you did? Is that gonna get me the passing grade." And I think perspective, like you said, you don't have to have a great, you don't have to have a great grade, you just had to get it done, Trisha, you just have to get it like done.

Elizabeth Diacos  26:17  
University did offer support, but you had to have already written the essay. And then going and, you know, for me, it's like a, I don't know, 45-minute drive to the university, on after school I got in an afternoon traffic. So to take in an assignment before it was due to get somebody to look over it, and then give me feedback and then go back and fix it. I didn't have that kind of buffer in my, you know, in terms of...

Trisha  26:47  
That's an hour and a half round trip. That's how it'll be if I go to the school, she's going to...

Elizabeth Diacos  26:51  
- but also then go back and like edit it. I I was never, I never had anything finished with that kind of leeway. You know, I was handing stuff in at, like 11:59pm. So that Yeah, having some other support was really, was really helpful. And then I had to get my family on board too, like, you know, the kids would cook dinner or, you know, my husband would cook dinner or somebody would eat cheese on toast or something. 

Trisha  27:19  
It was, yeah, it was it was a live deal, today's a light meal, mom's got an assignment due tomorrow.

Elizabeth Diacos  27:24  
We have a code in our house. We had a roster for you know who was going to cook each night. And one night a week was just FFY (Fend For Yourself.)

Trisha  27:34  
I like that. FFY. 

Elizabeth Diacos  27:35  
It was like, I don't know, when I'm gonna want to eat. I'm just gonna write this assignment. Just you know. And sometimes...

Trisha  27:40  
I'll be eating that toast, right there, that's my dinner. You have to figure out what you're gonna have good for good for you.

Elizabeth Diacos  27:49  
And one time, it was so hot. I'm in a little studio now, I've got air conditioner now. But at the time, I didn't have it. And my computer shut down because it was so hot. It was like 40 degrees centigrade here. And I'm like, wow, the computer's shut down. Like I'm still going. But the computer's shut. And that took two hours to retrieve the data while it rebooted, and we delved into the depths of the inside of the computer to find it. So like, stuff went wrong. It wasn't just plain sailing, don't get don't get that impression by any means. But I think, yeah, just that consistency really paid off in the end. So back to our original beginning of this conversation. We were talking about what you wanted to go away with three strategies that might make this doable for you. 

Trisha  28:37  
Yeah. 

Elizabeth Diacos  28:38  
How do you feel about that?

Trisha  28:40  
I think we got to 2, right?

Elizabeth Diacos  28:42  
What have we got so far?

Trisha  28:44  
One of them was find the resources of people that you know, that can help you get through it. And again, I said I have a friend for that... 

Elizabeth Diacos  28:50  
They're like study buddies? Or...

Trisha  28:52  
Just study buddy.

Elizabeth Diacos  28:53  
Yeah.

Trisha  28:54  
And then nobody says you can't make an appointment with yourself. And that was that it's, you know, that's something I never liked to do. I never like to be like, "Mm, no, because I have my own thing I got to do tonight." So it's time to put down or like put, like you said, put it put it in writing. Like, this is my time. 

Elizabeth Diacos  29:14  
Yeah.

Trisha  29:15  
Nobody gets to be with me.

Elizabeth Diacos  29:16  
I didn't tell people I'm writing my assignment because they would say "Oh just come, come to the movies or whatever." I just say, I've got an appointment. You know, I'm busy that night. Like I didn't say what I was doing. But just for me, I knew that was my appointment with myself. It's such a powerful thing, you know, to commit to yourself.

Trisha  29:36  
And I think that as teacher, and I will say this because this is a get out of teaching thing. I think as teachers, that's our hardest thing. Because if you are a teacher, and you're good at it, I don't I don't mean to say that those teachers who don't do this aren't good at it. But I'm just saying, I know from my experience myself and the teachers who are good at it, we get invested. We get invested and we make it it's hard for us to say no, that's why we can get voluntold into doing something. I tell my people in private industry all the time, like, my admin came to me and said, "Can you do this?" But it's not something you could say no to. You can't be like, "no, I can do it."

Like, if you say, "No, I can't do it," then like you said, next year, you get to teach the fun classes that you don't want to teach. That nobody wants to teach. If you say yes, then you get a little higher on the ladder of "Okay, next year. Yeah, she did this." So I think it's hard for us to set those boundaries because we know our happiness in our career is relying upon taking on extra when we're asked so I think you're right, I think just saying "hey, listen, admin, I got I got an appointment scheduled for that. And so as much as you want me to stay after school for that event, oh, man, I got I gotta -" And I think if you say like that "I got an appointment." You don't say "Why?" cause that's an appointment. They'll probably be like, "oh, okay, you got an appointment. You can't conflict. We got you."

Elizabeth Diacos  30:56  
Yeah.

Trisha  30:56  
Um, so I think it's about being restrictive on what you share as well. I like that. 

Elizabeth Diacos  31:01  
Well, I think we might wrap it up there. Trisha's got two possibilities there, she's got study buddy as an option, appointment with yourself, and I'm going to add in Alicia's pomodoro method as another way of helping to manage time when you do 25 minutes on five minutes off. I think that's another really helpful strategy. But I think just being able to really prioritize yourself and give yourself the space that you need to achieve the goals that you want to achieve is such a powerful thing that you will actually be really proud of yourself when you do it. And that's really exciting.

If this is the kind of conversation you'd like to have, here are some ways we can make that happen. You can connect with me via my website, larksong.com.au or join the Get Out of Teaching Facebook group, or send me a message. You don't need to stay stuck in a job that makes you miserable. I offer a free 10 minute triage call to people who are ready to explore possibilities for the future. So let's have a chat. You've been listening to the Get Out of Teaching podcast. Please share it with your teacher buddies and for show notes and other resources visit larksong.com.au/podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai