Episode 147: Working in Nontraditional Education Settings with Kimberly Gawne of Star Students
Kimberly Gawne is the founder of Star Students, a personalized education service dedicated to empowering K-12 learners through tailored tutoring and homeschooling programs. Kimberly has always been passionate about people and learning and enjoys the challenge of exploring new methods to unlock potential in others. This passion evolved into a deep desire to share her skills and enthusiasm, combining the art of learning with a commitment to help others achieve success.
In this episode, Kimberly and I discuss her love of teaching and education and why she started Star Students. She also gets into the importance of mindset shifts and offers some great tips for educators starting their own business after teaching.
Topics Discussed:
How COVID convinced her to leave traditional schools
Difficulties in expanding a business
Struggling wth imposter syndrome
Resources mentioned:
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.
Kimberly Gawne is the founder of star students, a personalized education service dedicated to empowering learners through tailored tutoring and homeschooling programs. Kimberly has always been passionate about people and learning, enjoying the challenge of exploring new methods to unlock potential in others. This passion evolved into a deep desire to impart her skills and enthusiasm blending the art of learning with the essence of guiding others to achieve incredible success. Welcome, Kimberly, so nice to have you here.
Kimberly Gawne 0:28
It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Lily. I really appreciate it.
Lily Jones 0:32
Absolutely. Well, I'd love for you to start us off by telling us about your journey as an educator.
Kimberly Gawne 0:38
Oh, boy, that's a that's a loaded question, but sure, absolutely. So I have always known that I wanted to be a teacher from a very young girl. That was something that I always wanted for a variety of reasons, but I think one of the motivating factors for me was that my dad was an educator, and I won't say a public school educator. He was more of an alternative educator. He's he did work, and he still works in finance, and so I remember him taking many nights when he was, when I was young in grade school, working with math and working with me and with math. And so that was something that I really struggled with Matt, that is, and the astounding level of patience that he that looking back now that I see that he demonstrated right, it's honestly amazing to me, but, but from a young age, you know, I said, I want to be like my dad. I want to be a teacher. I want to be able to help other people in the way that my dad has helped me, and so what else do you do when you say you want to be a teacher, other than go into the public school system, right? So that was my plan, until I graduated. Actually, I want to say until, literally, until the week that I graduated, my plan was to be in the public school system or in the private whatever, whatever should happen there. And I graduated in April, I will say, of 2020 so if you remember what the world was like in 2020 that was not, that was not the way that I saw myself graduating, right? And I kept pushing through my my six years of post secondary and my teacher's college degree saying, Oh, it's fine. It's going to be different when I graduate, right? It'll be different when I graduate. There were so many red flags along the way that were saying to me, you know, this is maybe not where you're supposed to be. But I just asked, it'll be different when I graduate. It'll be different when I graduate. It's fine. Mm, graduate. It's fine, and it was different, but not a good way, not in a good way. And at that point, I was kind of floundering, because I said, Well, why am I going to, like, you know, now I have these two pieces of paper and like, what am I doing? I can't go into the school system the way that it is right. I don't want to start my career. For me, it was I don't want to start my career off on this foot, but it was also the fact that during my teacher's college practicum, I didn't see the level of engagement that I wanted to from the kids, from the students that I was with, and I felt like a large portion of that was because of the environment, right? I was in a school where we had 30 kids to 35 kids per classroom. And this is not a knock on teachers whatsoever, because, like teachers in public schools, are handed an impossible task. Differentiate your learning for every single student you know to 30 kids in 45 minutes or in 75 minutes that you have. It's impossible. You can't do it for me that just was not, I was not comfortable with that. And I said, Oh, I don't want to start my career off on this foot, right. So that was something that I made, the decision. I said, Okay, well, you know, with a couple pushes from people in my personal circle, I made the decision to just not go into the public school system that I think was really where my journey as an educator, short shifted and changed from, I would say, mainstream, to more alternative, right? That that's kind of, that's kind of the summary, I would say, the Sparks Notes, version of what's all happened. Yeah.
Lily Jones 4:18
Yeah. I appreciate that, and it's so interesting hearing your reflections. I think we can all probably relate to having things where it's like, you kind of talk yourself into doing something that doesn't feel quite right. And so I appreciate how you're like, well, it's gonna be different. It's gonna be different, right? Yeah, sometimes we just can't see the other options. And so we're like, oh, you know, we signed up for this program. We better go through with it, and then, like, we don't know what the other options are there. And so I'm curious, kind of, what you found to be the other options? You made the decision not to go into the traditional school system, and what did you do instead?
Kimberly Gawne 4:52
Well, that's, this is the part I like talking about. So I kind of, I honestly floundered for a couple months becausb, because I, again, I was kind of a little bit lost, because I was like, I've spent all of this money on this, these degrees, and now, what am I doing with them? Right? Like, I'm not going into the school system. What am I doing with them? And it was my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, who said to me, he's like, why don't you just start your own business? And and so here we are, four and a half, almost five years later, it was very much a natural progression of things, and I kind of fell into it, as you will. I started out with tutoring services, because, like, where else do starts, right? And it started out with just me, and very quickly, like, as in, you know, less than a year later, like by that summer, the year that I started my business officially, was the January of 2021 and by the summer of 2021 I had parents coming to me for homeschooling services. They wanted to completely just like they had their kids out of the public school system, but they said, here we want you to teach our kids. I very quickly realized I don't have enough time in the day, nor do I have their credentials, right? And so that was the start of a journey that led me to hiring more staff, that led me to delegating the wonderful art of delegating tasks to people, right? And that was really where my business I feel that my business has been much more aligned and has been much more successful, really. That's where my heart is: is homeschooling and supporting parents who have their kids outside of the public school system, so to speak.
Lily Jones 6:31
So tell us a little bit more about Star Students. What do you offer? What makes you different?s
Kimberly Gawne 6:36
For sure. Yeah. So Star Students, as I mentioned, we specialize in tutoring services and extracurricular educational service. I like to say extracurricular educational services. That's what. That's tutoring. When I say extracurricular, that's where the alternate services we provide. So that's homeschooling services. We have a variety of supports for parents who wish to homeschool their kids. Some parents come to me like those first sets of parents that came to me in the beginning of 2021, and they said, Hey, we want you to completely homeschool our children. Here's our kids. What can you do with them? Was essentially what the what deal was, right? So we that's where, that's where the idea started. Honestly, was a completely custom designed, inquiry-based curriculum that very much had parental involvement at the beginning in terms of choosing the curriculum, the resources, okaying the resources, for me, that's a pillar that star students has been built on, is parental involvement with the resources that we're using. That's typically why most parents choose to homeschool their children is because they want to have some sort of control, some sort of say so over the resources and the curriculum that their kids are learning and when right. So the higher level program that we have, like I said, it's very hands on in the beginning for parents in terms of the design, very hands on in the beginning for the kids, because they say, these are the subjects I want to learn about. These are the topics. These are the things that I want to learn about. We then, as teachers myself and my team, will take that and we'll say, okay, here are here are our professional recommendations for subjects, for topics, right? Here's how we can take these curriculum expectations so that your child learns. Let's say, for example, division and and cater it to their interest. Let's say I don't know, folks, I'm just pulling off the top of my head, right? But we cater the curriculum to the child, instead of catering the child to the curriculum. So, right? And you can do that at a higher level of of independence, right? Because we can take kids, you know, in smaller groups. So that's our higher level, our highest level, which is our done for you program. The secondary level that we have is for coaching services for parents. There's lots of parents. This is a rather large I was quite surprised when I first got into this. There's a rather large portion of parents who, for a variety of reasons, want to homeschool their own children, however, they aren't teachers. They don't know where to start really. They're kind of anxious about a lot of parents that I speak to in this genre of people, so to speak, they're anxious about how, like, how their how well their kids are doing, right? They want to make sure that their kids are not only on par with but above their publicly schooled peers. They don't want them falling behind. They're very sensitive to having their kids have the same and more opportunities that other children have as well, right? So that a school can't be like, Oh, well, your child is homeschooled. We We can't take them, right? So parents are very conscious of of the opportunities in the future that their kids will have. So what we do with coaching services here at Star students is we are your you know, your all in one support system, right? So we have the resources we will guide you. You know, I have a rather large network of educators and resources, as you would know. Right? You're a teacher as well. You have a massive network of people, really, of support systems that you can draw on, right? And I have found that that has been really successful in terms ofmom, typically it's moms, because, typically it's the it's the mothers of the children that are homeschooling. Moms have said, Oh, you know, this is so helpful, because I felt so alone, right? Homeschooling, especially when you're doing it and you're all by yourself, it can feel so isolating, and it can feel so lonely, and I find that that's the most that is the most common positive feedback that I receive is this is amazing, because I don't feel like I'm alone. I have someone who I can rely on, even if you know, might not know all the answers right away, but it's good to have someone else in your corner. And if you think about it as humans, that's what we're designed to do, right? We're designed to have other people in our corner, so it's we're not just the only ones doing what we're doing, right? So yeah, that's kind of the gamut of Star Student Services. We do have tutoring services as well, like I mentioned, for kids who are in the public school system. But my heart is really with the homeschooling side of things and with the thealternative side of education.
Lily Jones 11:09
Yeah, so interesting. I mean, I love thinking about this market, too, and I love thinking about how you're creating these personalized experiences. In our curriculum program, we do something called the curriculum blender, which is exactly like what you described, of like frogs and division, like how? What are the many ways that we can put it together, having those opportunities to put things together, I think it's really cool, too. And I'd love to a little bit to like your experience building this business. You know, you went into education thinking maybe you'd be more of a traditional teacher, and then decided to explore alternative education settings and then built this business. And so were there any mindset shifts that you had to make when transitioning from the teacher to a founder? You are really not holding back on the punches. It's just like you need me to be like, open and vulnerable and wrong,
Kimberly Gawne 12:01
Honestly, looking back, there have been, this is a pathway that has been, I won't say, characterized, but I will say it's a pathway that has been littered here and there with tears, because there, there were days when I was just like, You know what? I just, I just can't do this. And I'm not gonna lie, I still sometimes think to myself, What am I doing? Like, what am I doing to a certain extent, like the the sense of imposter syndrome, right? Especially since being, being a teacher who I literally like, I went, I have a lot of teaching experience, but I went from Teachers College right into alternative education, right? I It's not like I like many other alternative education teachers, I know that went from the public school system. They, you know, retired, or they chose to step out for a variety of reasons, and they have, you know, 20 plus years of experience, right? So it's a much different pathway when you go straight from, straight from education to like a business, right? I thought, you know, this is gonna, I'm gonna go from education to like a job to teaching, right? The mentality of, oh, oh shoot, I'm not. My my paycheck is not guaranteed, right? Like it's not the government, I guess, because when you're a teacher, that you're paid through through tax money, right? It's not.... My paycheck is not something that comes from, from the government. So that that was a mindset shift for me, because up to that point in my life, I had always been an employee, right? I held multiple jobs. I worked at McDonald's, I worked at Oxford Learning Center. I worked at Good Life Fitness. Actually, I worked at McDonald's and good life at the same time. That was interesting, right? So I would see some people, funny side story. I would see some people at the gym, like in the in the morning for my workout, and then I would go to work, like at McDonald's, which was like, the same Plaza, and I'd see that same like, person come in for like, oh, nice to see you here. Like, I'm working. What are you doing? So anyways, anyways, yeah, so I worked multiple jobs, so getting used to the mindset shift of from employee to at first independent contractor, because I didn't quite own my own business right out of the gate, right? It was, it took time to build, and it's still building, and like, life happens, right? So there were things that I had to get used to from that mindset, for sure, right? The employee mindset, going to a business owner mindset, and balancing that kind of freelance contractor in the middle while I was making that shift, that's one thing. Another thing that I really had a lot of difficulty with, honestly, and that I still semi struggle with to this day, is delegation. And I ...I just want to do it myself. I just want to do I am the person that I have to do it myself, and I have learned through practical experience that I cannot do it all myself. So it's about building the right team around you, right? It is about having the right support systems around you, in terms of virtual assistants, in terms of teachers, in terms of colleagues, right? Other mentor educators, other teacher educators that are not necessarily working with star students, but are kind of working alongside star students, right? That was a really big shift for me in terms of getting into like, okay, is this, is this my, my go to now, I guess is, is this my pay grade, or is this something that I should be handing off to someone else so I can operate at my pay grade? Or even if it's at my pay grade, is it my zone of genius? Right? That that I want to say is, is, that's the third thing I will say, and the last thing that I think I'd say, the most important thing learning how to guard my time and my energy for the things that actually matter and the things that are actually things that I want to do. Right at this stage of my business. I'm at the point where I can afford, so to speak, to do the things that I want to do and the things that I don't want to do, I will either hand to someone else or I will they can wait, right? They're not important. Because I have found that doing the things that I am good at not just because the things I want to do are the things that I'm good at, right? So when I say zone of genius, that's what I'm talking about. I do the things that I'm good at because those are the things that light me up. Those are the things that are going to be the best use of my time and my energy, right? That being said, I do still teach, because that's one of my favorite I like. I went to school to be a teacher, right? So some business coaches that I've chatted with have said, Oh, you need to step completely away from the teaching side of things. I'm like, right? And maybe that's not the right answer for everybody, but for me, that's the right answer. Now I'm very careful with how much teaching I take on, because obviously I need to run the business as well. But for me, teaching is such an integral part of who I am, and that right there was a mindset shift. I can't do all the teaching, but I can arrange it so that I can still do some of it, and I still get to do the thing that I love the most, which is the teaching.
Lily Jones 17:38
Yeah, I appreciate your candor and reflections, and I relate to a lot of it too. Of like, I can imagine you, yeah. I mean, you can choose, right? Like, that's part of the beauty of starting your own business. You get to choose what things feel like things you want to do, and what things feel like you don't want to do at some point. But I think at the beginning, like you shared, like you're doing it all right, at the beginning, because you're figuring it out. And so it gets to a point it definitely did for me, of like, okay, I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to do all the things, I'm going to be the one posting on social media, and I'm going to be the one leading the classes, and I'm going to be the one making the sales, you know, all the things, because there's no one else at the beginning, right, like you're seeing, does this work? And then once you figure out how to make it work, it gets to a point where it's unsustainable for one person to do it, and you start to get clarity, or at least I did, of like, what things I actually enjoy doing, and what things I could do more effectively than perhaps somebody else, and so that, I think comes into the zone of genius, of like, is this something that only I can do, and does this move the needle? Or am I spending my time like organizing video files? Like, that's not the best piece of my time, right? I could be like bringing more people into our programs, which then could pay for many people to organize video files or whatever it might be, I think recognizing where you are in that point in the journey too. Because once you start making some sales and you know that your business idea works, it gets to a point where you literally can't do everything as one person. And that's really where the delegation and the zone of genius comes in.
Kimberly Gawne 19:03
I think what a lot of people forget too, and this is something that I've noticed recently, maybe just because my own life has shifted a little bit in terms of responsibilities and just like life right in general, I think people often forget that like you, you may be at a stage where you can do everything, but at what point are you willing to sacrifice other things? Right? Because most people have some level of family as well, right, like you probably, you know, if you're, if you're small enough, you probably could sit there and work 16 to 18 hours a day. I mean, I certainly did when I first started. Right now I don't do that anymore because I'm not capable of doing that anymore, because I have familiar responsibilities that prevent me from working 16 to 18 hours a day at my computer right however, I would encourage people to do that while they can, but also be aware that if there are other like, there's life. Life has to happen too, right? You can't just completely be in your in your computer or working on your business all the time. There's there's also life, right? And I feel like a lot of people in this day and age, they kind of miss that or forget about that, and I think that that's something that's something that's really important to just keep in mind, because life, life will keep going. Life will keep going. And you might wake up one day and it's not, it's not the same as when you left it.
Lily Jones 20:33
Yeah, it's the season of life that you're in now too. You know that's always changing. So thinking about whatever season you are in your life, you know, building your business to match that and to match your priorities, which changed too, you know, like when I started leave, when I left the classroom, my daughter was born, and she was a baby, and so my priorities were different. And I had less hours that I could work, and less times that I could go in person to places and things like that. And then now that my kids are in school, I have more time during the day, right? But I want to protect that, like weekend time more. And so, of course, it's different, you know, and it's always shifting. And so I think being able to kind of constantly have this reflection of, like, what's working, or what do I want right now from this season of my life and also for my business.
Kimberly Gawne 21:15
And how do I change that? How can I adjust that? And what a beautiful thing, what a beautiful thing, if you have that awareness, right? I'm not going to lie, that hit me like a ton of bricks. Because when I just hearing you talk about, you know, saying you started your business when your daughter was born, when my son was born, I tell you like I because I worked all through my pregnancy, right? I work online. I had a I had a beautiful pregnancy. Was so easy. I had no complications. Like, Jesus Himself gave me the best pregnancy on the planet. And, like, when he was born, I was just like, Oh, it's fine. He's just gonna sleep. No, I had the hardest reality check, yeah, so hard. I had to, kind of, I had to, kind of rearrange things, right? And I think so that, like me, that's a recent mind shift, mindset shift. My son's only 15 months old, right? So just because I'm, you know, five years into this business, doesn't mean that I'm not having to consistent, like you mentioned, consistently reflect and consistently change things for where you are at in the season of life.
Lily Jones 22:14
Mm, hmm, absolutely, yeah. And I don't think it ever ends. I mean, you know, like we had a educator forever network call yesterday. We're talking about seasons of life, and, like, our goals. And we had people from people who had just had their first child to people who were retired and thinking about like, oh, I have all this spaciousness in my life now. Now, what do I want to do? Right? And so it really depends on whatever stage you're in, how you might intentionally move forward. But I think that, like, reflection and intention is such an important part of it. Important part of it.
Kimberly Gawne 22:37
100% I'm glad you. I'm glad that you can also recognize that. I'm not surprised you're also an educator.
Lily Jones 22:48
Yeah, absolutely. And so thinking about our listeners who are educators, maybe thinking they want to start their own business or work beyond the classroom. Somehow, what advice would you give them?
Kimberly Gawne 23:00
I would say that the best piece of advice that I could offer someone who is currently in the classroom or perhaps retired, but wanting to step into that space for whatever reason, wanting to step into the thespace of being a business owner, the first, the very first thing that I would do is begin to deprogram yourself when you go from being an educator specifically, like in the public school or the private school. I guess this would go for anyone who is an employee, but like, I know for me, it was a really big shift to go from an employee mindset to a business owner mindset. That was the biggest hurdle for me to pass, and that was the first one I had to get over. That's the biggest piece of advice I could offer someone, is familiarize yourself with the types of things that it's the type of sacrifice, because it is a sacrifice that it's going to take for you to make that shift and for you to change that mindset. Because if you, if you don't, then you'll go into being a business owner with a sense of entitlement or a sense of almost anger. Because I know I'm speaking from personal experience, if you go into it with that sense of, I'm going to get this much out of it right away. Very rarely does that happen? Successes is 99.9% of people who are successful in business. It did not happen overnight. Being aware of those statistics is the biggest favor you can probably do for yourself as someone who's going from one mindset to the other.
Lily Jones 24:37
Absolutely and that it's a lot of experimentation, right? Like, just like you're saying, yeah, very, very rarely is the first thing that you're going to try going to be successful. And so, so often I see people who give up after that first thing because it's hard, and you're like, Oh, I put so much into it. And I absolutely, I, like, got so forward thinking in my mind that this thing's going to be very successful. Yeah, and then it didn't work out exactly like that. And that's okay, like everybody starts from that point of it not working. It's just how you tweak it right, and how you move forward, and how you figure out, well, what does work? And I think that perseverance and experimentation piece is so key.
Kimberly Gawne 25:15
Yeah. And that is that was is leading to kind of the next point of you have to ask yourself, you have to and you have to be honest with yourself. There's no lying to yourself. When you are an entrepreneur or you're a business owner, you can't lie to yourself, because if you're building it from scratch, from the ground up, like people you know, bootstrapping, so to speak, you can't lie to yourself and say that you want this for any other reason, then you want this because there will be times if you don't want it, 150%, you're you're gonna give up at some point. You have to make sure that you're honest with yourself, that this is what you want, and consistent check ins, right? Things can change, but making sure that you're honest with this is what you want. This is how you want to do things, rather than trying to lie to yourself and say that you should do this because it's the quote, unquote logical next step, or it's the best decision for you or or something, you have to want it right. There is an act of almost defiance. I want to say, in becoming an entrepreneur or becoming a business owner, you have to want it bad enough. I probably sound like, what's that guy's name? Um, Gary V. I probably sound like Gary V, but it's true. It's true. You have to want it badly enough for you to make it work. And if you don't want it badly enough, then that's okay. There's no shame in saying, hey, you know what I tried? This was what I did. This is, you know how I feel about it, and and I'm out, I'm done. There's no shame in that. If you decide that that's not for you, then it's not for you. At least you can say you tried and you're honest with yourself.
Lily Jones 26:52
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, and it's like, if you don't want enough, maybe you're thinking about, well, what do I want, right? Like, what do I want to commit to? And it kind of goes back to the season of your life, too. Life too. Like, things can evolve and things should evolve. And like, likely, the business that you're building today, or that you have in your mind, or whatever it is, is not going to be what you want in five years or 10 years or 15 years. And so being open to that evolution too, of like, well, what do I want right now? What can I commit to right now and then going for it.
Kimberly Gawne 27:21
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that's a really smart way of looking at business as you know, we're chatting about businesses here, but I think it's a really smart way of looking at life as well, right? You don't want the same things out of life. Oh my gosh. I look back to when I was 18, you don't want to. You don't want the same things out of life when you're 18 as you do when you're like 25 Yeah, right? Or when you're 30, or when you're 45 or when you're 60, right? Those stages of life are very different. And if you You can want, you know, the general same things. People want a good life, a comfortable life. They want loyalty. They want good friends, like those sorts of things, but in terms of career, in terms of ambitions, and in terms of dreams and goals, people want different things at different stages, and recognizing that is important, and being honest with yourself about those things is important.
Lily Jones 28:11
Absolutely, yes, absolutely. Well. Kimberly, it's been such a pleasure talking with you. Can you tell folks how they can connect with you and learn about Star Students?
Kimberly Gawne 28:19
For sure. Yeah. So my website is www dot star students.co, that's not.com, it's co's. that has all of our socials on it. You can email me if you want to get a hold of me directly. You don't want to necessarily go through the website. It's Kimberly, which is my name, K, I, M, B, E, R, L, Y, at Star students.co.
Lily Jones 28:40
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Kimberly,
Kimberly Gawne 28:43
Thank you for having me. Lily. It was a pleasure chatting with you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai