My name’s Aaran.
I did the Teach For Australia program starting in 2013.
I was a maths teacher at Glenroy College
and now I work as a pricing analyst
at the Water Corporation.
Why did I apply for the Teach For Australia program?
I’d been quite involved through my time at uni
with a lot of community initiatives
and so I really got a lot out of that whole idea
of giving back and it made me feel good.
Teach For Australia, to me, was a great way
of being able to contribute to the community.
One of the most rewarding aspects of Teach For Australia
for me was just the connection that I had
with the students that I taught.
Being able to shoehorn that connection
that we had into a valuable teaching outcome for them
and so they were able to understand things better,
that was probably the highlight for me.
Relocating for Teach For Australia
was a little bit challenging
but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
I had a lot of support from the organization itself.
Actually, moving away did help me focus on teaching itself.
Having removed myself from the networks
and the programs that I’d been involved with in Perth,
it helped me really focus on teaching
and doing what needed to be done.
So the most valuable skills that I developed
through doing Teach For Australia were really
the importance and structure that was needed
to be able to achieve a task or a goal.
I did struggle, actually, to be honest,
with being organized enough to carry out my classes
but through the two years of my time,
I really improved in that area because I could see
the value that the structure was giving to both me,
in terms of my professional ability,
but also to the students I was teaching.
(gentle music)
Aaran was at a crossroads when he left university. He had a Maths degree, and wanted to do something meaningful.
“I’d been involved with a lot of community initiatives at university, and I wanted to give back,” he says. He decided to apply for Teach For Australia.
“I had a great rapport with my students, no matter their age or academic background. I leveraged that into learning. I have a passion for mathematics, for its power and beauty. Having a chance to share that with young developing minds was, in a word, awesome.”
The program offered him the gratification of doing good, and also let him build up his skills.
“While I was always confident speaking in front of a group of people, teaching helped me understand the importance of connection in building rapport and working towards achieving a shared outcome. I had to very quickly develop better time management and prioritisation skills as well as general organisation. These skills have held me in good stead throughout my career.”
