Ch-ch-ch-changes: Making the switch to teaching

Some of the most crucial work Teach For Australia does is in supporting individuals from other professions to make the switch to teaching.

These 'career changers' are a keystone in our mission to make sure every child in Australia gets access to a quality education. Coming from all walks of life and backgrounds, they bring diverse skills and perspectives that schools might not get access to otherwise.

But switching careers can be daunting. In our recent Alumi Q+A webinar, host Lewis Monaco (Cohort 2022) sat down with three of our career changers to demystify the process.

WATCH: Career Changers Webinar

A dentist, a 000 call-taker and a mechanical engineer walk into a school…

Edwin Auzins (2020) had been thinking about becoming a teacher for some time.

“I was actually a dentist for 15 years,” he recalls. “I sort of thought, ‘If I won the lottery, what would I do?’”

“The answer was to become a teacher. And I didn’t win the lottery, but I was able to do the Teach For Australia Program, and that was a massive introduction and help for me through that process.”

As luck would have it, he had just moved with his family to remote Maningrida, in the heart of Arnhem Land, NT, and was able to start working in the local school.

“It was a win-win all around.”

Miranda Watson (2022), from Melbourne, credits the program with a giving her a whole new direction as an English teacher.

“It’s completely changed my life. Before this I was working in emergency services; I was a triple zero call-taker – so completely different to teaching in most ways, but almost as chaotic.”

Originally wanting to be placed in Tasmania, the COVID lockdowns convinced her to get as far from Victoria as possible.

“I was placed in Katherine in the NT … I absolutely loved it.”

“I figured if I'm going to do this, then why not go all in. My mindset was that I didn't want to just do something close to home. "

“I wanted to have the whole experience of moving somewhere far away.”

For David Matthews (2018), he was looking for a change a little closer to home.

“I was a little bit unusual from most of the people in my cohort in that I was the oldest person,” he says. “I'm not unashamed to say that I was nearly 50 when I joined the program.”

“I'd been a mechanical engineer for 25 years, so obviously I became a maths and science teacher.”

“My children were at high school already when I started the program … I couldn't relocate interstate because my family was fairly settled in metropolitan Melbourne.”

Managing expectations

So how does teaching measure up to what they thought they were getting into?

For Edwin, teaching is like an iceberg: there’s more than meets the eye.

“I think I had ideas about what teaching was like before I became a teacher … Maybe 30% of that was true.”

“Your students, you know, they're growing and having life challenges all the time. In terms of being their teacher and being a support to these students, that is something I completely underestimated.”

But ultimately, this has been a pleasant surprise.

“I’ve found a lot of satisfaction in leading the next generation in terms of dealing with everyday questions, problems, issues.”

Miranda agrees that deep relationships with her students is what sees her through.

“Teenagers are really funny creatures and so that's why I'm in the classroom every day and I’m still working … I love working with teenagers and I love working with students.”

For David, things haven’t been as clear cut.

“The reason I became a teacher is because I want to train the next generation of engineers in Australia.”

“Coming into teaching, I was expecting that students would see me in the same light and what I found is that it's been a lot more challenging to teach students and get them to listen and be excited about maths and science.”

Support is crucial

David recalls a challenging experience with one of his students in his first week of the program.

“I went what the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this? I'm not making any breakthrough with these students … This is just not working at all.”

“Both my TFA mentor and my in-school mentor said to me that what you've got to realise is … its about building relationships with the students.”

“That's the really important part of the program I think that gets undersold is that support network that you have … without those [mentors], I wouldn't be teaching now.”

Edwin similarly credits his program mentors with his success.

“I had challenges with the university for one assessment and I was completely done. And I'm not the sort of person to give up and I was this close to saying I’m not going to finish.”

“It was my mentor at Teach For Australia who sort of basically sat me down and said, ‘You've come this far.’”

“Without her I reckon I would have given up. I'm so thankful now. I find a lot of purpose and value in what I do.”

For Miranda, it was the networks and Alumni that TFA introduced her to that helped her find a home away from home.

“My support networks were very much the other TFA teachers in my cohort who moved to the NT.”

“We were all quite close and we got to know each other really, really well … we did feel like a bit of a family.”

Want to hear more about Edwin, Miranda and David’s experiences, including Miranda’s tips for making friends in a new town and the panellists’ reflections on to whether relocate or not relocate? Watch the full webinar in the embedded video above.