The Origin Story

Every great business has a great origin story. This is ours.

From a very early age I realised that my thoughts and ideas worked differently from other people's. I had a very strong imagination and found myself thinking about ideas and problems from a different direction than most people; interacting with concepts from the opposite direction, or the side, or upside down, or inside-out.

This became very apparent through school. Teachers would explain concepts a certain way, and expect me to understand and explain things back to them in the same way, and I would often become confused.

Wouldn't it be easier to do this instead?

Can't you see that this way is better?

Why would you describe something as this when it's so clearly that?

But isn't A the same as B? Why would you make it so complicated when it's just this?

But Why?

Unfortunately this was not often popular with my teachers. They often either couldn't or wouldn't try to work with me or explain things in a different way. There was very much an attitude of 'this is just the way it is - deal with it'. I eventually learned to keep my head down and not draw so much attention to myself. As long as I completed the work the way they wanted me to, they didn't have to know that I was constantly disagreeing with them inside my head. By middle school I had reached a kind of equilibrium.

Don't bother them, and they won't be cross with me.

However, thinking and working this way was not always as helpful as it might seem. Quite often I was ahead of the class, because I could see easier, better ways of thinking about a concept or doing the work. But sometimes it got me into trouble. Thinking about things from a different angle did not mean I was always right. Sometimes, I hadn't got the wrong end of the stick - I had the wrong stick entirely.

And because I wasn't bringing these things to the attention of my teachers, I could get into a fair bit of strife. I thought I understood A… except we were supposed to be working with B. (Where did you get A from?).

This happened more with the maths and sciences, where there was a definite right or wrong answer, than the humanities. Apparently multiplying by 10 does not mean just adding on a zero… (Even though it kind of does…)

In the senior levels I began to understand my own brain and specialities better, and I dropped all the science subjects in favour of a completely humanities-based VCE course load. At the more advanced levels, in subjects that allowed - even encouraged - different perspectives and ideas, I thrived.

By this point I had changed schools, and as great as the new one was, it brought to light one of the most problematic aspects of the modern school system.

 Rote learning.

The sheer amount of paperwork required in VCE was so overwhelming that I became disinterested and unengaged with the work. I still achieved excellent results, but less than they could have been had I been engaged and invested. By the the end of year 12 my entire focus was on achieving the marks I needed to get into university. I wanted to continue learning, and had pinned my hopes on the idea that university learning was different from school teaching.

I was right.

Beginning University opened my eyes to an entirely new type of learning.

Discussion.

University lectures are entirely designed to give students as much information as possible in any given lecture. How to record and understand that information and what to do with it is entirely up to each student. My VCE History teacher had previously been a university lecturer, and her classes were conducted in a similar fashion, only constrained by the demands of the classroom.

At University I realised exactly why she was my favourite teacher.

This is where I thrived. No longer did I have to submit reams of homework I considered pointless. The only submissions required were the assignments themselves - everything else was up to me. I spent many wonderful afternoons in the library stacks discovering new information, free to learn at my own pace, in my own space.

In my second year of university my residential college, which was affiliated with the Skyline Education Foundation, began a student mentoring program. I paired with two students over the next two years, and the nature of the program necessitated a discussion based approach. Through their feedback I discovered that this style of learning was just as valuable in a one-on-one setting as it was in a classroom.

Sadly the mentorship program ended after two years, and after that I finished university. I returned home to regional Victoria and focused on other career paths.

The Pandemic.

The less said about the COVID 19 pandemic the better. It did, however, introduce a new teaching and learning medium to the international consciousness. The lockdowns necessitated remote online learning and Zoom - a platform previously only used in corporate settings - became known to the nation.

During this time I partnered with a large online learning platform to begin tutoring secondary students in the humanities. I found that my discussion-based sessions were still very well received, particularly by the stressed VCE and HSC students who found themselves already drowning in paperwork. The chance to sit down and discuss the subjects without the burden of worksheets and essays became a stress reliever as well as a confidence booster.

However, the constraints of the company's structure and system became more and more apparent. Designed initially for maths and science subjects, and for the younger age brackets, the emphasis for both the tutor and the student was on goal setting, homework, and report cards. Necessary to keep track of younger students' progress, but superfluous for a senior English student with three school essays to complete.

I thought - why not start my own tutoring business?

One designed around a discussion-based system.

One streamlined for the senior humanities.

One that is flexible enough to cater to all learning styles and needs.

So I did.

Amelia Curran, Founder and Principal Tutor