Feeling Stuck in Education? Explore The Power of Yes

My Journey Out Of Teaching Part 2.

I’ve been really blown away by the views and feedback of my first post . I’ve read some beautiful messages from people who resonated with my feelings toward teaching. The overwhelming word that seems to be coming through, is “stuck”. People feeling disenfranchised with teaching and education, but not knowing where to go next. And I get that. I found myself stuck in that space for the best part of 18 months.

During that time, intermingled with the feelings of career dissatisfaction, my partner and I had welcomed our first born son into our lives. His arrival changed my life and allowed me to access a level of love that I didn’t know was possible. It also took us from a dual income family with a mortgage, to a single income family with a mortgage that just seemed to continue to go up throughout 2024-25. It was a challenging time. My love for my son and partner was a 10, my stress about income was a 10, my exhaustion was a 10, and to be honest, I don’t think I was built to navigate the complexity of those sort of feelings. Perhaps no one is.

The Immediate Problem to Address

Once our maternity leave payments finished, a staggering amount of my take home income was going towards our mortgage. We had about $400 left per fortnight, before bills, before shopping, before fuel. There’s just no way that was going to be sustainable, and this is one of the most scathing indictments on Victorian teaching at the moment. Despite being out of the classroom, I’m still lobbying for that pay rise.

Plan number one was to increase our income, in whatever shape or form. I remember at the time we were doing the carnivore diet, which, as the name suggests, is a meat only diet. I would work different cash jobs, and use it to buy meat, which made me feel like someone from prehistoric days trading services for goods. Altogether, not an unpleasant feeling. At least we were moving forward.

In 2025, similar to the Jim Carrey movie “Yes Man”, I vowed to say yes to any work that came my way. I ticked off the following:

-Laboured for my brother-in-law’s building company.

-Worked odd jobs for family members in their gardens including painting, weeding and setting up garden beds.

-Washed dishes in a brewery owned by a mate.

The common thread throughout those work experiences was the close connections I had with the people who I worked for. I’ll be forever grateful to those people for helping us out, and I always made it a conscious effort to put in 110% at all times.

Prepped and Ready

When school went back, I needed something a little more sustainable. I always envied my tradie mates who would work “cashies” outside their day to day work to earn some money on the side. And so, I decided to start a tutoring business. The teacher version of a “cashie”. I called it Prepped and Ready.
I worked for $90 an hour. At the end of 2024, I accessed the contact details of my school’s entire Year 6 cohort, and sent an email offering my services. Didn’t quite run that by the principal, but, I did seek permission before starting tutoring. My principal was very supportive, as long as they weren’t current students at our school.
I started with 3 students; 2 of them were brothers I tutored back to back. It grew to 4, then 5, and ended up sitting at 6. In what was a really nice sentiment, I tutored those 6 kids from Term 1, all the way through to the end of Term 4, and ended up developing a wonderful rapport with the kids and parents. The $540 of extra income gave us just enough to get by, but it was not easy by any means. Teaching is a tough job as it is, and with a demanding class of 30 Year 6 students, a 1 year old son, a newly pregnant partner, and 6 extra hours of work per week, it was a heavy load to carry at times.

Computer Xplorers

As you would expect, the tutoring business dried up significantly during the holidays. A family friend reached out about an opportunity to work for Computer Xplorers, an upstart STEM based educational company running camps on the Mornington Peninsula. As was the theme of the year, I said yes.
I think they were quite surprised when I walked in for my first day. The average age and demographic of a Computer Xplorers instructor is 19-22 year old university students, and here I come, a bearded 33 year old with 10 years of teaching under my belt. I was quickly bumped up to lead instructor, which gave me an extra $5 an hour… You beauty!
I loved the experience. For teachers looking for extra income, a school holiday job is not as disgusting as it sounds. You work with some wonderful instructors who are either excelling in other areas of study or who are looking to become teachers. I had a wonderful time connecting with my new crew and sharing some tips and tricks along the way. You also work with around 15-20 kids with 4 instructors, so there’s plenty of time to hang out and just enjoy the day and activities.

The power of ‘Yes’

After working two camps for Computer Xplorers in Term 1 and Term 2, they came to me in July with a proposal. Would I be interested in stepping away from my teaching career, and joining them in the role of Operations and Strategy Manager for Victoria. It was a big choice. The company had been around 6 months in Australia at that stage, and was still trying to establish itself within the reasonably competitive after school club market. I was working at a school I loved, with my best friends. But, there was a pay increase, not life changing, but more than enough to get me out of tutoring game. And flexible hours. And the opportunity to help build something from the ground up. Being a creative person, I couldn’t pass this up. Again, the word “yes” came out of my mouth. We held the ‘interview’ over google meet with a beer in hand, and spoke about everything and anything for 1 hour, before they hired me.

If you’re feeling stuck

I’m not sure where you are in terms of your journey. Perhaps you’re feeling the dissatisfaction of teaching and are looking for something new. Perhaps you’re supporting a family looking for a way to make an extra buck. Perhaps you have a side hustle you’ve been dying to start.
What if, instead of making every fear based excuse not to, you just said “yes”.

Start. See what happens. I keep two journals which I write in daily. One is for my new ideas and creative thinking, about Computer Xplorers and Education Mate. Some of the ideas have already come to fruition, some may never see the light of day.
Listed on the front cover, are the following words from the poet Eric Hansen that have always resonated with me.
”But what if I fail? Oh, darling, what if you fly”.

And what would that look like? Step out of the fear state. What if YOU fly?

Education Mate

I hope you found something worth reading, and something to keep coming back to.
Everyone needs a mate in education.
If something you read resonates with you, please pass it forward to a friend.