Literacy for Life program tackles low literacy rates among Aboriginal adults
But at 45, he takes a seat each week alongside dozens of other adults in his home community of Yarrabah, all determined to pick up the literacy skills they missed out on when they were younger.
"It was pretty complicated and hard," Mr Sands said.
Yarrabah, about an hour from Cairns, is one of the nation's largest Indigenous communities.
It has also become fertile ground for Literacy for Life, an Aboriginal-led program that has helped more than 500 adults nationwide achieve functional literacy.
As one of its graduates, Mr Sands intends to return for another term and is encouraging relatives and friends to join him.
But he said many might be reluctant to acknowledge their literacy limitations.
"I tried to tell them, break that shameness, that barrier in front of you," Mr Sands said.
The Literacy for Life Foundation estimates between 40 and 70 per cent of Aboriginal adults have low English language literacy, a figure that is up to 90 per cent in some remote communities.
The foundation's executive director, Jack Beetson, said it was a real problem.
"We've got whole households that can't even read the dosage on a Panadol packet," Professor Beetson said.
"Yet our households are also the households that are home to more chronic disease than any other section of our community.
"Imagine being in a household where you've got sick children, sick adults and sick grandparents all at the same time and all of those medicine doses are committed to memory.
The program — based on a Cuban model called Yo, Sí Puedo (Yes, I Can) — began at Wilcannia in Far West New South Wales in 2013.
The concept involves having Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander locals delivering course content in a way that is tailored to the community.
Dwayne Street's life turnaround began when he took the program as a student.
The 49-year-old has since gone on to deliver the course to people like Mr Sands.
"I'm pretty blessful that I got the opportunity to teach my mob, and hopefully, this will spread right around Australia," Mr Street said.
The Yarrabah local admitted he found the classroom environment "pretty challenging" at first.
"But as we went on, I got used to it," he said.
Some adult literacy learners take the plunge back into the classroom to improve their job prospects.
Many are doing it for their children, including Mr Sands, who wants to set an example for his 12-year-old daughter Livvy.
Ashleigh Richards, 26, and her partner Lex Costello graduated in Yarrabah just two weeks after the birth of their third child.
"When I was at school, I was down in Rockhampton, with hardly no-one I knew."
The couple wanted to improve their literacy to read to their children and help them with their studies.
Literacy for Life Foundation director Wendy Ludwig said people who reached adulthood without basic literacy skills often developed coping mechanisms, such as taking forms home to be filled out.
"It's very difficult for people, after having developed those skills and strategies … to then say, 'I actually need help and I want to learn how to do it myself,'" Dr Ludwig said.
In 2013, the foundation estimated it would cost $1.3 billion over 10 to 15 years to eradicate functional illiteracy in Indigenous communities.
But over the past decade, it has run on a "piecemeal" basis in different communities where funding becomes available.
Literacy for Life has recently secured federal funding to continue for another four years in Yarrabah, and to expand to Cairns, Mossman and Mapoon in Far North Queensland.
Despite boasting a course completion rate of 59 per cent — much higher than mainstream government-funded initiatives for First Nations adults — it has never secured long-term funding to expand more broadly.
Dr Ludwig said changes were needed at school level too, such as a shift toward teaching Indigenous students English as a second language, instead of framing them as "bad speakers" of English.
"I think that is a really fundamental part of some of the challenges for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in schools," she said.
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