Education For Life with Luke Schoff

THE LIVEWELL Hervey Bay podcast recently sat down with Luke Schoff, Principal at St James Lutheran College.

The focus of this podcast was to explore the importance of staying educated, not just as a child but throughout your life. 

Lifelong learning is essential for both personal and professional growth. It keeps us mentally active, helps us adapt to new trends and technologies, and enriches our understanding of the world around us.

Today we see school principals as more of a CEO than a hands-on day to day educator.

“Absolutely, we have a substantial number of staff and students but it’s also a business that needs to run efficiently and meet KPIs”, said Luke Schoff.

“We have all the standards and the expectations that you would have with any other employer”.

“But the most amazing thing we’re doing is we are educating young people every day, partnering, educating and walking alongside them on their learning journey through to their real formative years”.

“That’s what I love about it, whatever school you’re in independent, Catholic, private it’s a challenging but a very rewarding job”.

“I grew up in rural New South Wales on a farm. My parents were primary producers and my older siblings went off to university and became teachers.”

“With that I just always remember wanting to be a teacher, I wanted to teach young children not secondary age kids teenagers scared me, they still do, as do the younger ones sometimes”.

“Education has changed, we used to have this idea that formal education was for primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary pathways and that was the only time for learning”.

“Now we are not just creating students we are creating learners and walking alongside them to be learners for life”.

“I like to use the term lifelong learners. People don’t want the same job for the next 35 years; they want different careers throughout the different stages in their life’s”.

“We have a wealth of information at our fingers tips now than what we did say 20-30 years ago”.

“Think back to when our teachers would tell us we wouldn’t have a calculator in our back pocket, well jokes on them, with mobile phones nowadays”.

“As we get older we need to remember that learning new things and stretching ourselves is so important”.

“The more you grow, the more it will assist your longevity and your perception of the world around you”.

“Even just engaging in some form of learning will keep you mentally fit”.

“A key point to think about in adult learning is not to do so in isolation, get out in community groups put yourself in a room with diverse people”.

“Be challenged, reflect on your learnings and be open to other people’s views and thoughts”.

When discussing the future of teaching with the possibilities and scope of AI Luke was very optimistic.

“There are so many amazing opportunities that AI has presented to us”.

“We are very familiar with just being able to do a search, but AI can refine that search so much more. Giving us a background of what those searched words really mean”.

“Another example, I just did it with my IT department with a little script that we simply put into the AI generator, sampled my voice, then my voice read that script back to us. It’s scary, but awesome. It sounded just like me!”.

“This could be a problem in education with students handing in super assignments but we know our students and would notice if their work had more finesse than usual”.

“Gone are the days where you are graded on just one assignment it’s a whole range of things now”.

“But what’s most important is we are teaching kids how to be ethical. Our job is to teach people how to be more human”.

“At St. James, our commitment to continuous learning is at the heart of what we do, and it’s one of the aspects I love most about my job and role here”.

“We’re not just focused on children’s education; as adults, we are learners too.