[00:00:00] Kristin: Hello, and welcome to the second chapter. I'm your host, Kristin Duffy. And I'm here to remind you that it's never too late to start your next chapter and to share stories of interesting and insightful women who may just inspire you in your current chapter. This week. I'm speaking with Katie Wal grave.
Katie has had various career shifts of her own, both as a teacher and as a writer. However, her current calling is helping other second chapters, AKA career shifters, transition into teaching through her organization. Now. Katie. And I talk about her life as a teacher, the fascinating people who have chosen teaching is their next career.
And why teaching may be woefully undervalued to begin with.
[00:00:39] Katie: Now, I'm not for a second suggesting, oh, look, we've got this army of people who are coming into revolutionary schools and make them all better.
But it's a really fascinating kind of collision of different worlds. And it feels that if they can manage it well, which they can, this kind of positive collision is exciting to see what emerges.
[00:00:55] Kristin: Hi, Katie. Thanks so much for joining me on The Second Chapter. How are you?
[00:01:06] Katie: I'm very good. Thank you. How are you?
[00:01:09] Kristin: I'm well, now that we got past some audio visual difficulties,
[00:01:14] Katie: we went slowly, lower and lower tech I feel, but we got there. That's it.
[00:01:18] Kristin: Yes. So if anyone's listening and our sound's not great, just speak aloud. There's a podcast at all. so it's interesting to me because when I was asking you some pre-questions you said you didn't really feel like you had a career change. However, when I've been doing my research on you, I feel like you've had all kinds of interesting changes.
so I'm really excited to talk to you about your various. We can call them shifts if you prefer. And of course, I think you're gonna be really inspirational to people who are debating maybe a career shift as well.
[00:01:48] Katie: That's very kind of, you, you've had some incredible people on your book, so thank you for having me and I should be my best.
[00:01:54] Kristin: As far as the beginnings, the humble beginnings, you were a history major originally that kind of led you to history teaching, but what drove you to wanna be a history teacher? Or to study history, I should say. I don't even know if that was your original intent.
[00:02:08] Katie: I think the studying history part. I don't know, childhood, my grandmother loved history. She'd got a place at Oxford, but then left to get married. Cuz that was what you did. If you were a woman back then. And instead she spent her whole life writing a history of, I was gonna say her family, but her husband's family, really?
I think just those stories that families tell. I think that probably got me interested in history, but I don't really think I had any idea what I was gonna do beyond university that has already seemed like the kind of end goal with university. And then you think, oh God, something next. And then. Like so many things in probably everyone's life, but certainly my life total bit of chance, luck, whatever I was had a conversation with someone who was starting up this thing called teach first, which was modeled on teach for America.
But it didn't exist yet. And the idea was it was encouraging people into disadvantaged state schools was a kind of aspirational thing to do with the commitment that you'd taught for a couple of years. And that seemed to me. Great idea. I had spent my gap year in India. Teaching loved it, very different context, but nonetheless, there was something in it.
I'm the oldest of four, maybe that helps with the whole teaching body. Very bossy. My siblings would probably say, and then. Yeah. So I just signed up all the kind of other people were doing the, doing the rounds of the management consultants and banks and all that. I just couldn't see myself heading down that route.
And this seemed like a nice option. Not least cuz you left university in the July or whatever and started teaching and indeed earning a bit in the September. So yeah, it didn't seem like a very well thought through plan, but it worked
[00:03:37] Kristin: And you taught age wise, you taught older, right?
[00:03:40] Katie: 11 to 18, 11 to 18 is a secondary school
[00:03:43] Kristin: I've done a little tiny bit of supply teach, like assistant supply teaching and got put in nursery and I thought, oh, that'd be so fun. Really little kids. And I was just like, no, there's no structure.
I don't think this would be the age for
[00:03:57] Katie: No, I can. My littlest is two now and I would struggle with not teaching it something else. It's very skilled and important, but it's not my it's not my bag. No. So I did 11 to 18 year olds. I loved it. I I love teenagers. You would struggle with duck Andry if you didn't. Obviously you kinda love all teenagers, but I love that stage of life where people are beginning to make their own identity, their own opinions, discovering sarcasm and humor in a different way.
And it's an important, exciting term and it's obviously very formative and a really interesting one to be a teacher.
[00:04:27] Kristin: And you mentioned India, but were you in India more than once? Did you go back? How did that.
[00:04:32] Katie: Yeah, I did. I went researching. I went to get, when I left school, I took a year before going to university where I having earned a bit of money, spent most of it in Carala in the south of India. Then I went to university where I met the man who is now my husband, which seems. Astonishing cuz in retrospect, we were basically children when we got married.
But we traveled back to India. The first, the summer of, the end of my first year together as friends in fact, and came back as a couple. And so since then, [00:05:00] India has my definition been part of my life, sees Indian. And we've always had reasons to go back, but twice we've gone and lived there for a slightly extended period of time.
So my children are off often. I am technically a person of Indian origin, which I'm very proud of.
[00:05:14] Kristin: So just out of curiosity, the differences in teaching here versus.
[00:05:20] Katie: well, I mean, For one thing, from that sense of teaching, I would have. Up to 60 kids. I This was teaching in a very poor rural school. You have every kind of school in India from sort of world beating international private school, to where I was, which is a, a very poor rural school in a kind of building which had what do you call 'em kind of politicians between the classrooms, but not walls.
So definitely all the noises. And I would have say 60 kids in mind, but next door, another sixties, another 60. So the noise was pretty intense, and I was teaching them English as in history, but it was just such fun because in a way that is much harder for reasons, it makes sense, but you were properly part the community there.
So every, if I'd wanted to, I could have been gone out for, and a child's, family's home every evening. Because as the teacher, I was encouraged, assumed to be a part of the community in a way that we have put up more boundaries and they make sense from child protection points of view and everything.
Whereas when I went to teach, when I started teaching in London, I was teaching in Hounslow, which is just near the just under Heathrow airports, which is why the teachers always said it doesn't they're loud. They have to be loud. But This is not many miles from where I'd grown up in west London, but it was another world.
And truthfully, I belonged to it much less than I ever did to the world of my students in India because of, schools in school. And that's right. And as it should be under our system, it's fine. But it is. I think that was for me, one of the very different, the great differences in the experience was that I was absolutely a part of the school community, but not part of their community outside of school at all.
[00:06:49] Kristin: Do you feel like you were more appreciated as a teacher being part of the community? If somebody wanted to have you around for dinner or something that feels like a real appreciation versus I don't, I think most people would say teachers aren't enough in the us or the UK
[00:07:03] Katie: yeah, I don't know. I think partly it's just a totally different, I think there is in many ways a deeper appreciation. For education and what it can give you in India. I think that's often said and probably true. I also think that that I dunno. Yeah. Yes. Probably there is a different kind of appreciation and one of the kind of hope that I teach.
Has been, saying, gonna do on its own, but there's something about the status of teaching and the profession, which is wrong. I mean, I strongly believe it's one of the most important, if not the most important, and it doesn't, it doesn't feel like that in here or in the us, from what I understand either.
[00:07:42] Kristin: Yeah. Having both perspectives, I just feel like, I do wanna talk a bit about, how people perceive teaching, but yeah, just in my own experience, it's definitely not paid or treated as, the people that are literally shaping who the future will be.
[00:07:56] Katie: Exactly. You get this part, right? You don't need to bother getting a lot of the other parts, right? Whether it's to do with the criminal justice system or anything else, if you can really work this part out. And you know, it's always a. Yeah, we have a huge inequality of investment in the education system here and they create very different outcomes and it's just, you know, fundamentally it's not fair but yeah, it just status ought to be greater.
And I think, teach fair teacher for America, those sorts of initiatives around the world have done something to contribute, not totally coly, but they've done something to contribute. I kind of hope, for now teach, which is bringing later stage. Changes into teaching would be that, you know, if you have a whole bunch of lawyers and doctors, I know other successful people thinking now what I wanna do with my life is teach that does something similar to say, this is an aspirational choice.
This is an important thing to someone with a whole bunch of options. And they think what they wanna do with their life is this is something
[00:08:48] Kristin: and I definitely wanna get into the nuts and bolts of now teach. But first you mentioned in teaching English. And I know you had a PhD as well, or you have a PhD in creative writing, where did that fall in everything?
[00:08:59] Katie: I know, I think maybe I'm as much about kind of concurrent careers as as consecutive ones. So I, that came a little bit later. So I taught for about five years and. At the end of that time, I had been plotting with a friend, someone I met in pub writer who is a wonderful writer, William fines. And he was being paid by the American school in London, which is very fancy private school to be their writer in residence.
And to teach these students, it was extracurricular and they would publish a book at the end. It was all sounded lovely. And he was telling me about this cause I was interested obviously as a teacher And I got a bit chippy and was all well, it's fine, but but those students are gonna be fine.
Anyway, these are the kids who have it all. It's the kids in the school like mine who need it. And so to his eternal credit, he said they're paying me so well, I'm gonna consider it that they're paying for me to do another day as well. And came into my school and I rounded up some students where this is not a culture.
We had detention might happen after school, but there wasn't at that stage a lot. [00:10:00] Going on extracurricular there, a sport bit, football and things, it's not, whereas, somewhere like the American school, it's all about societies and theirs and that and clubs. Anyway, these amazing students came for some reason, there was a shopping trolley.
I remember in the room we were doing it, which none of us understood quite, but there was this shopping troll. So in the end, our anthology that we wrote was called. Actually knew it wasn't, it was called on a Wednesday. So we did it on a Wednesday and then the front cover picture was of a shopping trolley that will persuaded an artist for the new Yorker to do, which is rather brilliant.
Something magical happened. This group of six formers began to write. And first of all, they were writing I know, sort of Harry Potter ripoffs everybody was a wizard or something and they were all at park boarding schools in London and they were certainly all called things like Harry and I didn't.
There's one white student in that group, you know, this was not a school where people were called things like Harry and, hame or whatever. And in, by the end they were writing about the memory of a grandmother cooking. In Afghanistan or whatever it might have been. That was true.
And of course, by then, you can build in the fantasy sort of plot, but they were understanding something about their own stories and their own voices being important. And that being the kind of stepping off point for greater creativity. So it was very powerful, very moving and we decided that we would try and do this beyond just my school and.
Give up a bunch of writers, raise some money and try and launch this scheme in other schools. And so at that point, coming back in a very long winded way, your question about the PhD, I had also been working on an ma and writing and I got a book offer totally separate to write about. And I was writing about the daughters of Wordsworth and the romantic.
And so it seemed like a time there were these two projects. I had the first story, the writing charity and the book, and I didn't have children. I didn't have more museum. It seemed like a good time to take a bit of a risk.
And so did those. For together the book called, oh, I'm old time to write. I, it took me about five years. I think it came out in 2013. By which time first story had grown and was working in, I dunno, probably about 50 or 60 schools by then. And was becoming a kind of. Established things. So that was my, that sort of chunk of my life was and the book and the PhD went alongside one another.
I was very lucky to study under Catherine Hughes was a great biographer. And if I'm honest, it was the PhD was the most brilliant way of just holding the accountable self making, to have every sort of few months a session in the British library with Katherine, where she would know if I hadn't written anything was brilliant.
[00:12:31] Kristin: As someone who's only done bachelor's degrees, I feel. When I hear about people, doing something like a master's or even more so a doctorate and it's this, managing your own time. And this is your research time, or this is your writing time.
I would need that accountability, whether I was writing a book or getting a PhD because, oh, I've got months. Oh, I've got days.
[00:12:54] Katie: Exactly. And actually there were a big, good sort of foils. One another. If I wasn't feeling bad about the deadline for the book, I should feel bad about the deadline for the PhD. It was great, but I have a certain that my sister is a real doctor and I, , I'm always slightly wary of it's a very different thing.
It was a huge luxury and a fantastic thing to be able to do and a part of myself. If you like that, I hope. Return to at some point there hasn't been a lot of writing in the last few years, and I don't wanna completely lose that, that I dunno that part of my identity, I suppose
[00:13:23] Kristin: it sounds like you're writing or at least with the book it really happily melded the world's of history and writing and brought a lot of things together.
[00:13:32] Katie: it did. It really did. And I think the truth was from a sort of lifestyle perspective at that stage. I had. A job that I was passionate about and gave a look to. And I had the book that I was passionate about and gave a look to. Now I have children that matter more than anything else. And there's also space for a job, but I don't think right now it feels always there's space for the writing, but then what's exciting about what you are doing, what I'm doing all this is this sort of sense of life is long and in phases.
So when I get sort of Ang anxious about that, I think well, you all too soon, those little children will. Will not need me quite so much in quite the same way now. I hope you'll need me, but it won't be quite such a time intense things in the same way. And that's perhaps where I'm writing slots in.
[00:14:10] Kristin: Yeah, there's no rush. It seems like there's lots of other things you're doing that were really interesting. I love what you were saying about first story too, because one of my things in my production company is tell your story or tell our stories and because I'm so into the idea of us continuing to have us.
Story past 35, past 45 past 55. And I really, I love the idea of women telling their stories and that those stories don't end at a certain age, but it was really interesting what you said too about these kids that maybe had been brought up, knowing popular culture that they couldn't really necessarily see themselves then and getting the opportunity.
And I'm assuming, that grew as the school's group, but getting the opportunity to tell their own story in some.
[00:14:51] Katie: I think that's exactly it, but you're right. It's women, it's all the people often hearing those stories, but you know, we don't, there is no one story, but you, [00:15:00] from the women's point of view, it's often been there. Then they got married, lived happily some way beyond that, but not always in the stories.
[00:15:07] Kristin: Yeah, exactly. And sometimes you don't see the faces or you don't, depending on who it is. The stories are so diverse in the world. And I think we still just scratch the surface of all the stories that we should be exposed to all of the time.
[00:15:20] Katie: No, I couldn't agree more. And that's where it's been really funny. Isn't it? When you're doing something, you see all the problems and anxieties, but since I've stepped back from first story, which I did in 2013 or something like that, it's been amazing to see it from a distance runner as it brilliantly is first by a colleague called Monica Paul, and then more recently banned Antonio by it.
And you see it from a bit of a distance and I think that's awesome what they're doing now. you know, it's, it's a good thing.
[00:15:45] Kristin: And I'm sure you must look back with a lot of pride and know that you were a big part of how it all became a thing to begin with.
[00:15:51] Katie: Something about beginning it, I think there is there's different types of people out there. There are the kind of people who are good at starting something up and the people that are good at keeping them going longer and knowing when one becomes the other, quite an important skill for someone who found something, I think not to stay on too long, thinking that you have the answers.
[00:16:08] Kristin: As far as founding things , you mentioned now teach tell me a bit about how that came to be and let everybody know what exactly it.
[00:16:16] Katie: Now teach, we began in 20, in fact, I can age it exactly by my twins. So we began it in 2016. So I stopped doing first story in about 2013 for a bunch of reasons. One of which was that I think. I was a better starter than I was perhaps the kind of person who takes things to be a big, old, big old organization.
But the other was that we were trying and failing and trying and failing to have a successful pregnancy. And that was tough. And part of the question you, you know, everyone says, oh, you didn't be stressed. Another miscarriage, you shouldn't be stressed and I'm not sure. I even think there's a link, but you don't wanna do anything that.
Would cause you to have a regret. Part of the reason stopping also that I felt like we'd got, I got to a bit of, I step out the call and my friends were having children and they probably all weren't, but it felt like it. So the opportunity came up to go to India with my husband's work and I got a job teaching and only university there.
And we thought if we're not gonna have children, we should go and do something that would be harder to. With kids. And I kept coming back for IVF. I still had some embryos here cause we'd gone on down that road. And of course, you know, we were that couple were, the last embryos and all of that.
And so I came back in 2016, pregnant with twins who, just the most astonishing miracle adult babies are, but these ones started particularly for. Anyway, so I came back to England with these tiny babies to have these tiny babies. And in March, 2016, there I was, and then was introduced to Lucy Callaway of the Ft.
You might have come a brilliant columnist. And she had been introduced to, we were introduced by somebody because she was interested in becoming at the age of 58 or 57, a teacher. And she didn't quite know what next steps and so on, whether it was a good idea. So. My main reason for wanting to hang out with her was adult conversation.
And so she came in the morning and we held one of these tiny little babies each and they really were little and talked to, and Daton by the time she left that evening, I think now had been born probably. And one of the things I mentioned the babies. So particularly because we had both also read this book hundred year life, which you've probably come across
[00:18:24] Kristin: Actually I've heard you talking about it. And I
[00:18:26] Katie: oh gosh, I.
[00:18:28] Kristin: believe that as a book, I have not read
[00:18:29] Katie: It's great. And I think they were really saying something that even then. Was more, no, you know, we we've, we've accepted. I feel like there's been quite a change in talking about longevity even in the last five, six years, but essentially in many ways it says what's on the cover, but one of the striking things was according to they, whoever they are statisticians, both those little babies born in 2016 are more likely to live to a hundred than not but yeah, we were think. How profoundly this is gonna change their ideas about work, education, careers, the order in which these things happen. And it won't be, I presume school study, job retire. I It's all that's changing. And we were talking about that amongst other things. And thought Lucy couldn't be the only nuty person in the world who wanted to Jack in a highly successful career, quite a C one, as she would put it and start all over again.
And we got tons of stuff wrong, of course, along the way. But I think in that little insight we were right. That there's more people than ever who reach a certain age over. It might be for them. And think I don't wanna be doing this for the next 20, 30, 40 years. But I'm not sure what I do want to be doing and actually there's time and the possibility of starting all over again.
So we did it all backwards and wrong, really. So we had that first conversation into early summer and then launched it that. Autumn and started with our first group of 45 brave teachers in the autumn of of September, 2017, I guess. and since then we've changed the sort of model and the way we work.
But the fundamental is the same that we recruit [00:20:00] brilliant people. People who've had interesting careers, whether it's city and those sorts of things, or we've got a circus performer staff, business owners, all kinds of interesting people. Who've done tons of stuff and NASA. Scientist, the hostage negotiator.
She's good story.
[00:20:14] Kristin: I feel like they need to all come on my podcast.
[00:20:16] Katie: I know you really do. We can have a whole series of just like male teachers. Just send them to you. This is, I was told we had our conference last week. Amazing woman, Sarah. Who's been an Oxford Don and is, serious neurologist and is now becoming a chemistry teacher, cuz she actually thinks that she has more to offer there.
I just love it. So there's just amazing bunch of different, very different people. And it's been just such a huge privilege talking to people, seeing them, understanding what it is they want from this next chapter. And and helping them if teaching is, is right for them.
[00:20:48] Kristin: I come to now teach. Is it like they have this inkling of, I think I wanna become a teacher. What do I do now?
[00:20:54] Katie: Yeah, exactly. I mean, Everyone's got, of course their different path and for a lot of people, there's people have been saying to them for some time, or you should be a teacher, you'd be a great teacher. I feel like the world pack divides into those. Who've got a novel in them and those who've gotta teach them in them.
And maybe there's an overlap, a lot of them say people have always said, I'd be a teacher and I never, for whatever reason. They didn't do it. And so they're trying to figure out how the system in the UK is ridiculously complex, but also that people not sure everybody's first question, whether they're 35 or 65 is always, I think are probably too old.
Aren't they so, which our answers obviously? No, of course not. But they feel like maybe they're not wanted or their skills wouldn't be useful or they're just, I don't, they mean so many different things. Don't we, when we say, I think I'm too old, A mixture of, I don't suppose I can, then I don't suppose the community be welcoming of me.
I dunno. A whole bunch of things put up in that phrase.
[00:21:47] Kristin: there's such a stereotype as well. The old spinster teacher with the bun and wire glasses kind of thing. It really was, at least I feel like when I was growing up. There was this image of this old teacher who never really amounted to anything and stayed and was in the classroom and was very
[00:22:04] Katie: Yeah. yeah.
[00:22:07] Kristin: and so it is hard to picture yourself. No matter what, your age, you don't picture yourself, that person. So it's oh, is it a bad thing to be an old quote?
[00:22:16] Katie: Exactly. Whereas actually irony is in this country and I think America is similar, but in this country we have the youngest. Just about the youngest teaching population in the O E C D world, because we recruit people as graduates mostly, and we burn 'em out and they don't stay. So they are young.
But I think that there's a very, I mean, or that whole grown meeting is a horrible image for so many reasons, but you're right. Of course it is there in teaching and links to this idea of of whether. I think one of the things that attract people to now is cause you still become, people have often become, have teachers at different stages, nothing stopping anyone, but I think it can be very helpful when in the process of losing one identity and creating a new one to have a gang of people, to attack yourself to, or a thing to almost hook your coast on and say that's what I'm part of.
This is what I'm involved in. It helps you make sense yourself and to other people. Which is important. You know, you, you kind of You can explain yourself to yourself, I guess, and feel a little confident And then in a very practical sense, having this gang of people that you're doing it with, we offer all kinds of support that I know is brilliant.
And the program team are incredible. Absolutely. Truthfully, I think the single biggest thing we give them is each other is, people who get it, people who understand what it feels like.
[00:23:32] Kristin: Yeah. I I think bringing. Together. I don't know, that's something that I particularly like to do. I love to get people together. I have a triathlon club that I founded and, I coached them, but that's a small bit. What really is the rewarding part of this club is that these people have found each other and they do more, they do longer races or they train harder because they've got this group of people and I love the concept of, as someone who's constantly looking for the next thing and loves, reinvention, a group of people you can just be with who understand that you are going through the same thing.
[00:24:05] Katie: Yeah, I think that's exactly it. Cause we are. And if any way, I think our networks, you form networks at university, if that's your past, you maybe in your early job. And then in a way they often stay reasonably static. So it's quite hard to find a group of people who you, if you do something a very big shift.
That feel like you, your tribe, if you like and at the beginning within that group, the gang, as you like at the beginning. Yeah. It's a lot about survival. Maybe there's an analogy with the running, you know, but for the teachers, February is the toughest month of the first year. is tough. It's really tough. You will get there kind of thing and practical tips on what to do when your lesson plan or the photocopy is broken or something. But more excitingly certainly for me is a sense of the possibilities when you have, I don't know, a bunch of data scientists thinking about how data is used in schools or when you have a bunch of former [00:25:00] TV producers thinking about how you might embed.
film within the English curriculum it can go on and on it's everything from the kind of curriculum technical skills through to the bringing in networks of professionals to, from careers perspective. All the way up to actually shifting the way systems operate sometimes in schools now, I'm not for a second suggesting, oh, look, we've got this army of people who are coming into revolutionary schools and make them all better.
And we be very careful that we're not suggesting that they can instantly change everything, but it's a really fascinating kind of collision of different worlds. And it feels that if they can manage it well, which they can, this kind of positive collision is, is exciting to see what, what emerges.
[00:25:41] Kristin: I love that. It is kind of saying for once, because I don't feel like this is always a thing, especially when you're applying for a job as a second career or as someone who's older. But I love that it's saying that your life experience is valuable because even if it isn't going in and revolutionizing things, if you do have ideas around what your, former career is gonna bring in all kinds of things that you wouldn't have, if you were fresh out of.
[00:26:05] Katie: Yeah, the best one in the world. It was a 22 year old teacher. There was stuff I just, I had no idea about or in resources I couldn't draw on. And it's nice actually, cuz everyone's a bad teacher at the beginning. Everybody, whatever age they start teaching you don't start off being a good teacher. And that's really hard if you've been very good at something else
first it's differently.
Hard. I mean, I think it's hard when you're 22, if you've never been very good at a profession. Cause you dunno if you'll ever. Manage anything that's hard, but it's differently difficult if you've been brilliant at something. And suddenly you're the bottom of the hierarchy and schools are hierarchical and you can't figure out the technology, let alone how to keep your year nines under control.
That's quite brutal for a while. But actually being the one who can say when they're looking for speakers for a six form, something or other, oh yeah, no, I can easily find us a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant, whatever, you know, That's helpful. And then as time goes by, of course, yes, those skills, the things you are bringing in the part of yourself, the way you relate to the world, the way life it's.
Yeah. It's just hugely valuable. And I think part of our job is to say that even though in the first couple of years, it isn't sometimes obvious to now teachers. That their previous skills are valuable or will ever be valued. I'm always interested in this point of not so much the, that aha moment of career change, and I'm gonna do it, but the sort of one year on slug part, okay, everybody was interested.
And I said this now I'm just doing it. And I don't think I'm actually very good at it. What now?
[00:27:34] Kristin: Do you find just with the groups of people that you've worked with, I'm just interested from a perspective of, a lot of people I've talked to on the second chapter maybe were told they could only be as far as, several years ago as a woman. I can be a nurse, a teacher, there was that kind of a nurse, a teacher, a wife, a mother kind of thing.
do you find people that maybe avoided becoming a teacher the first time around because they were rebelling against this? You should do this.
[00:28:04] Katie: Yes or even a kind of sense of being the good girl, which maybe meant that if you could be something and I use strongly heavily in quotes here better than a teacher, you know, if you could get into I think it's just wonderful teach several of our wonder teachers, you know, They did the good girl thing.
They worked really hard. They got the best grades to get the best job, which wasn't necessarily something they loved, but it was the hardest thing they could do. It was the, and they suddenly get to certain age and they think I never even really enjoyed that. I would've liked, you know? and then they begin to think about what do they like, what indeed have they enjoyed in their career.
And very often it's mentoring younger colleagues and teaching them the ropes and so on. which isn't exactly. Rebellion at that early stage, perhaps, but almost rebellion later of saying all I've done is obey the rules and pass all the exams. You know, that kind of person, I think there is a kind of act of rebellion to say I, I don't use that anymore.
There's also a liberation, I think to, to sometimes, and I know talking to someone like Lucy be very open and saying when she was 22, she wanted the status that came with. Being at the FTN I think probably particularly as a woman, she wanted that, to sit next to some man at the dinner party who says, what do your husband do?
And she can say well, I am a colonist AST that, that, you know, she, she almost needed that first. And that's okay. Status does matter to us, but perhaps then you can redefine status later on and say, this is a more important kind of status that I'm gonna reclaim or something.
[00:29:31] Kristin: Yeah, cuz going back to what we were talking about at the beginning as well, teachers are woefully underpaid, so I know growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. So the idea of being a. Or to me was like, I won't have, I'll just continue not to have money, which there is probably a liberation in having a job that, has that status or has that money involved.
And then being able to say, you know, I've kind of done that now. I can be a bit more comfortable taking something that I don't have to worry as much.[00:30:00]
[00:30:00] Katie: Sure. And I think clearly compared to say a 22 year old you're there's an element in which you have something you could probably return to if it doesn't like that. So it's, it's very liberating. Also a thing. I think that for a lot, People you hit a point, perhaps if you're lucky enough, dunno what it'll be like for the next generation.
But if you were lucky enough to reach an age where your mortgage is paid off, your kids move out, suddenly you probably are cash rich at them. You've been for years and years and years. And that's a moment that for a lot of people that think well, actually the big thing I wanted to use and make money for was to secure home and to raise my kids.
And if I've done that, then suddenly I'm a little freer. To think about what next, and that's a hugely luxurious position compared to teachers who've, 23 year olds, who've got to climb up that mountain. So, Yeah. And by no means I'm most suggesting that everybody is in a wealth position.
The fact is that teaching is probably better paid than people. Imagine, I often think especially if you do want to go up the ranks and by the time I head teach it right. It's comparable to, I don't know, civil service for sure. So it's a weird combination of, it's not only salary that takes away from the status.
I think it's more complex than that. Why we don't value teachers enough,
[00:31:09] Kristin: my feminist side says it's also been a traditional women's role, so therefore it doesn't have value.
[00:31:15] Katie: I'm sure that's right. Which is why one thing I'm really pleased about with now teaching, I know this is really about women in career change, but we have more men sustaining Korea than we do women, and they are much more often with us, the ones that would they acknowledge, they would've quite liked it.
They knew they would perhaps liked it at 25 and felt that you. They ought to do something higher earning and mostly it's bad, the gender pay gap, but there is just a tiny little bit in there that means that maybe we have. Lower expectation, which gives us freedom. Anyway, I definitely have had multiple times the conversation with a man who says, I just couldn't have done it at 25.
It would've been the failure, but now at 55, this is what I really wanna do. But of course, I think if you have a bunch of 55 year old men going into a career, I hope boldly, but I hope that does help boost the status because you are right. It's low status like nursing, cuz it is still overwhelmingly female.
[00:32:12] Kristin: And I think gender equality, no matter how it works out, if we can get to that point, because men are starting to do more traditionally female roles and vice versa and, however it ends up happening. I'm all for it. So I think that's a good balance and it's a good sign that, people in general are just feeling more free to pursue.
What's gonna make them happy and that therefore they should be better.
[00:32:36] Katie: Yeah. And I, you know, I think of the colleagues I work with and I teach all of the younger men. We're not a huge organization, but you know, they've all taken extended paternity leave. And, I think all that stuff is shifting too, which I find encouraging
[00:32:49] Kristin: So, Of course you've specialized in these career. I will use your word shifts even though I think they're amazing career and life changes, but that you've specialized in a you know, having these ideas around teaching, but for anybody who might be listening that is inspired by, all these people making career changes, what's your.
[00:33:07] Katie: Great question. I never, I was like listening to other people's advice. I'm not sure I've got any give, I think probably just talking, talking both because. When you're in that moment of thinking, I know I need to do something different, but I don't know what it's just having a hundred conversations with people until something sticks.
And I think I've had that conversation two or three times now in my. Life where you know as you're having it, that this could really change anything. I had it in a pub with William fines I had it with Lisa, Kellaway holding a baby. And more recently I had it with a journalist I'm about to try and start a thing called about now, like maybe called now foster, but about trying to get more people into foster care.
And it was just a conversation about why can't we can do this for teaching. Could we do it for other things? And I think it's when you have all those kind of late. Random, totally random sets. The more of those you have them. I think that's better. So talking, but then also once you're doing something, just talking to everyone who you can possibly persuade to be a supporter and advocate, give you advice, filter to cry on.
I just think surrounding yourself by smart people is a good thing.
[00:34:12] Kristin: Well, I would never not take the advice of, you know, that means I could chat in a pub.
[00:34:16] Katie: Right? I.
[00:34:19] Kristin: having a coffee with someone. I think, it is those things cuz I, as you were talking, I'm thinking like how many amazing chance meetings that have led to something and you do get the vibe like.
Oh, I'm saying something that it's exciting to me and you might never have thought of it, but somebody says, oh, I'm thinking about going into teaching. Do you have any advice? Actually I have a lot, actually. Maybe I should have a new startup
[00:34:42] Katie: Exactly. . Yeah. And it's so much about the chemistry of who you're talking to. Can you make it work and all of that. So I hope, I hope COVID, doesn't, get in the way of too many of those spontaneous chats. Although on the other hand, you can do it like this. Like we are doing now with people.
You don't even know where in the world they [00:35:00] are. So hopefully it's rings roundabouts.
[00:35:02] Kristin: I have to say that zoom conversations though, they're not the same as, an in person coffee. It has made me able to chat with so many people for the podcast and for work and for friendships and people that you just don't normally see that, yeah, it's opened the world up quite a bit.
So I can't exactly complain about that.
[00:35:19] Katie: No, it is amazing, but I think it's, in the same way, I suppose my ambition for now teachers is that they talk because I'm just, already, we begin to see the kind of wonderful randomness of when you have two people with very different paths, but perhaps at some point they, they've got something in common or maybe they're now working in the same school, or they have similar paths working in very different schools and they have one of these random conversations and.
Takes them off in a direction where they start trying to change something. And, we have these conferences every year and during COVID, they're excellent. Everyone's getting 10 out of 10 for all of our, you know, they're filling in lovely forms and saying all the speakers are great and that's fine.
But actually the whole point really is the conversation. And they happen in the coffee Q or over lunch really don't they? So I'm excited to have much more opportunity to do stuff with their teachers altogether.
[00:36:09] Kristin: this seems like a good point for me to ask. If you brought a quote for me today.
[00:36:14] Katie: I just think about that. I'm soy.
[00:36:16] Kristin: I feel like I need to stop asking this question, cuz so many people are like, oh, this was like stress inducing.
[00:36:22] Katie: I thought that I was, oh gosh, this is really stressing thing. And, do I wanna go sort of cliche and, inspirational more British tongue in cheek. So I cheat didn't had two. One was just that Woody Allen, if you wanna make God laugh. Tell 'em about your plans, which Lucy introduced me to.
And I just think is so powerful. This idea that we have some kind of a control over, you know, people always think, oh, just your instincts or be strategic kind of stuff. And I think so much of the time, yes. Luck. And I can tell them my story and vaguely make it so here now, but never feels like it at the time.
Does it? And I'm a bit devious about planning. It's kind. Or something, But the other one that just the person that I find very inspiring. And while he's talking about both genders, I think it plays to women in particular purpose is that the only growing natural resource is older people. And so often we see older life, extending life and so on as being all these older problems of older age and health span and all these things that are very important and difficult.
Fundamentally, we are very likely to live a lot longer than our grandparents did in better health. And there's a lot of luck involved in that and unequal and all that, but it's incredible. It's amazing gives the opportunities to the kind of conversations about life that we are having, but also as in our teach and I hope one day now foster it is this amazing resource.
We often think of it as a kind of drain, which clearly. Clearly it isn't and some of the biggest problems I think will be solved by older people. Yeah. We just need to recast it anyway. So I love mark Friedman and I love the way he talks about older age.
[00:37:51] Kristin: And just embracing all of the prior experience and life lessons. And I don't know. I feel like the more modern we've gotten, the more in a way we've stepped away from that because we're not sitting around a fireside with our grandparents anymore or living in the same community. I mean, I know even my grandmother, my mom's mom growing up, lived, within.
A few minutes drive. So she'd pop by when we were having a hard time and bring my mom something to service for dinner, or, you know, we're not seeing that, but then at the same time, we're starting to appreciate the older generation again. I hope, I think more so I do think what a resource and what a shame it would be.
If things like now teach didn't exist to draw on.
[00:38:32] Katie: I agree. I hope so. And I think there's a risk as you say that we also kind. If you look at the kind of cult of use and then almost that you don't want it to go either far, you also don't want get to the stage of all people, a wonderful wise kind of, that stereotype is bad too. We just, all here, we are muddling along together and helping each other and bringing different, you know, it's just adversity really.
Isn't it. We got. Them sort of mix mix all the generations up and keep 'em together. And we, yeah, we had the great privilege of living with my parents through lockdown and, astonishing that, the way those relationships work between grandparents and children is an important one. I think.
[00:39:07] Kristin: Well, I think what you're doing is really incredible. I think you've had lots of life and career changes to talk about. So I'm glad you were here to
talk about your many chapters. I look forward to knowing more about when the second book comes sometime in the future, knowing about now foster and everything as well.
So thank you so much for coming and chatting with me today, Katie.
[00:39:27] Katie: thank you for having me and thank you for this great podcast series that you do. It's fantastic.
[00:39:31] Kristin: Thank you.