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Chrissie Taylor

Yarrabilba SSC (QLD)

In Empowering Educators, inspiring Aussie teachers share how they build and nurture entrepreneurial mindsets in their classrooms. Here we ask Chrissie Taylor, teacher at Yarrabilba State Secondary College about her inspiration and how she creates creating authentic and connected learning experiences.

Q1. Can you give us three words that describe your life as an educator? 

 Rapidly-changing, exciting, learning.

Q2: What’s one of the best learning experiences you’ve ever delivered?

 I was teaching financial literacy to some Year 12s and came across this article by Scott Pape about buying a car. We moved through the steps and shared our findings. At the end of the year, so many students told me it was the most valuable lesson I’d taught them.

 It is literally about buying a car but the concepts of thinking ahead, projecting costs and making informed financial decisions can be applied to lots of different situations. I find that especially in low socio-economic areas, so much social status is afforded to having fancy things, so it’s a real paradigm shift for young people to recognise that having the latest and greatest product doesn’t necessarily equate to wealth.

Q3: What’s one book, website or podcast you’d recommend to educators keen to build the entrepreneurial mindsets of their students?

The Barefoot Investor has some really valid advice that encourages people to make and enact some short and long-term financial goals. If we teach our young people how to make money, but not how to manage it, then we’re only doing half the job!

Meet this week’s Empowering Educator, Chrissie Taylor 

Before going to uni, Chrissie dabbled with jobs in different industries including real estate, travel and hospitality. She’s always loved working with a diverse range of people and thrives on coming up with creative solutions to challenges. She believes these elements translate really well to the high school environment.

 Upon graduating from QUT as a History and English teacher, Chrissie spent her early career years in Townsville, before moving to Logan. Most of her teaching experience has been in state schools with low ICSEA ratings and she loves supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to use their grit and resilience to overcome challenges.

Chrissie is currently teaching at Yarrabilba State Secondary College,  and she has found it a privilege to help establish a culture of learning and wellbeing in the school’s foundation year.

 She told us “I’ve experienced so much professional growth through rolling out Future Anything: Activate this year, and it has been incredible to support our young entrepreneurs on their journeys. Don’t get me wrong – we struggled through “The Pit,” but with some guidance from Nic and flexibility in our thinking, our Year 8s have carved out rich and relevant opportunities for themselves to succeed. And that’s where the power is.”

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