FreshAz Education Ltd
New Zealand
Winner of
the DEANZ AWARD
Distance Education Association New Zealand,
by what's now known as the:
Dreaming Big
Thinking beyond the four-wall, one-site typical deal for learners.
What if...
What if schools quit the four walls, one-site thinking...from as early as 8 years old? Let's consider our school sector first. Our Early Childhood sector is a 'God Send' - for those who use it. They typically kick start how beautifully enabled a child is before their next journey. The age 5-13 year old sector does, on the whole, a sterling job setting kids up for the chunky stuff ahead - with extreme difficulty, a majority of the time.
I must admit to being staggered, at how many students enter my 7-9 year old class, not knowing their alphabet, or how to double, halve or know the number bonds to ten. There are some who are not able to tie up their shoe laces, will cry if they don't get something first - or cry if they're not chosen for something to their liking - and as for sharing, interesting... I've got one who's decided to avoid much, by saying 'it's not my thing'.
What's spooked these kids? Why are they taking twice as long to cognitively and emotionally cope as 7-9 year olds once did? Where's their laughter? Where's their fun? It is that we're perhaps wanting them to grow up faster; are we imposing what's sweet with us, on them? What if our approach differed?
Let's Meet Jakob...
Who's Jakob? He's the cute kid the cowboy hat above when just 6 years old...
He's now an 18 year old, mad keen hunter, stunning carpenter, welding engineer, stunning designer, next level entrepreneur - already a registered sole-trader and contractor to a thriving equine business. He's recently 'invested' almost all his part-time job income into getting lease blocks and buying all the stock units now eating grass...if not another set of mint items for his ute.
Highschool life had included Agriculture, Maths and Engineering - befitting of his interests. Watching a gruesome movie was far from his intended purpose though, and to write an essay that on didn't resonate with him at all. Interesting - to the point he just didn't do it. Attendance wasn't flash; nor was his patience. Singing in assembly created wrath at home - for, well... 'what good is that if I'm a farmer'? Teacher-Mum's push back efforts, fell on deaf ears. That said, walls too have ears - he's 'lived' how FreshAz has rolled and sees much of what he does at school, as very , very 'old school'. Torn between a rock and hard place, are we all - his school included. To his credit - built as early as 7 years old, he built a reputation for him that 'set him up' - beyond what school could offer.
'Dream Big' - for Jakob...
If Dreaming Big was an actual reality for Jakob, setting him up for life outside school could easily have included:
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a traditional classroom for theory based applied learning e.g: Farm Focus, an accounting software
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joining other farmers at the local Regenerative Farming seminars - his Dad would have taken him.
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learning from practising engineers at his local Lamberts Engineering workshop - Dad's his taxi...
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teaming up with Cabernet Meats for the art of home kill and processing - Dad's still his taxi...
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working in the field with any number of Fencing Contractors - Dad would probably pitch in too!
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stock rearing insights from Credible Trainers in this field - his Dad would've made it happen...
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precursor motivators for his actual happy space to be - the agricultural & engineering sector.
In short...
...Jakob wouldn't have been skipping 'class', grumbling about athletics day and singing, and simply pushing back on school every Sunday night - albeit more. He, like all students once hinting a favoured long-term purposeful idea, need an individualised programme and design - enabled to roll with it. What if, FreshAz could be 'Az-Big-Az' - supporting the coordination of it all, for such students? Start local, one class of students, or cohort, age group, sector of interest etc, at a time - go national - and inspire global educational design accordingly? All, long before the teen hits the full-time paid employment sector.
FreshAz Education's View
...while back in the classroom, is being messed with. There's an endeavour encouraging us to 'pull our head in', conform a norm - and follow mandated schedules of posts on home and school platforms, to the latest 'ERO says that the walls should be bare - it's a BSLA thing'... So, gone is the art work, gone are the guides and the lanterns holding the 'what, where, who, why, when...' prompts? We have mandated powerpoints give to us, to click through day by day. We do however stand our ground in part (the walls haven't been stripped) or invest restrained energy into fields - albeit offshore, where it's understood and accepted.
We're entrenched with experience, knowledge, research, insights to design and the science around learning. It's tough - when in the school sector, to be forced to dumb ourselves down - and just go with the flow of the school. It compromises much - and yet we aim to still do right by the kids... One must pretend to be a 'mere teacher' - without a voice, without experience and without involvement in serious research - of global proportions, where neuroscience and Ed Psych drives our stance...
As harsh as this all sounds, it is what it is. It's exactly the 'atmosphere' we were told by the advisors and those we'd partnered with, to expect - when stepping back into the four walls of a school. We've tried to share, coax, offer and add alternative perspectives in the mix, but the push back is next level dark...
Sadly, principals and colleagues rarely have time to think of reading the research 'out there' that's hugely effective, or read the narratives that profile alternatives to 'structured' whatevers... The mahi that the FreshAz team has done, is all 'too big' for many to fathom.
We've enjoyed 'stuff' we'd never have dreamed was even 'a thing or more', when in the classrooms ourselves. To shift pedagogy, to one more conducive to some 'wow factor' outcomes is hard 'yakka'! The cash needed is just as hard to fathom. How do we pull off the big dreams for education - against traditionalism, constant rejection and trend? If we can nail it, it'll be a game changer for 'attendance'.
Our Sabbatical
Back into classrooms, full time, we've been recently...
While on 'sabbatical' as such - experiencing the walk the talk (...the talk 'out there'), FreshAz educators are back in classrooms for now, as 'regular teachers'. We're in NZ, Australia, South East Asia. FreshAz still rolls on, albeit in skeletal form, with tutoring, horticultural, agricultural and offshore partnerships.
Action-based research has become part of the return-to-classroom journey. This, coupled with the journey our own biological and foster kids have weathered, highlights precisely why FreshAz Education is heavily bent on upping the ante with the minefield of our 'where to next'. We're itching to fire-up and action a greater wealth of opportunities for learning, now than ever. The dire stuff's a whole lot worse.
For the 'in-school' sector - there's nothing imminently possible for us. The sector's too bound by the paperwork, politics and people it answers to. The work teachers do is of sterling intent; leadership does its best according to research it does and advisors they partner with. For teachers, there's just little time to do full justice to what's ALSO needed - or could compliment and extend what's to do.
Our intent is to transfer our massive dreams into some more robust outcomes - in even a tiny slice of whatever world, individual or collective is up for it. We're keen to push boundaries and to model with a blue skies focus in the educational sector. It's modelling that's been subject to research and partnerships - within NZ and across many a global turf. It's robust and real. It's dynamic and engaging.
To spout credibility, we proudly claim to having won an award for the style that's 'us' - albeit simply good teaching and learning really - if given free reign! The award was scored on a collective Australian-NZ field, by judges who played big (and still do) on the global stage. We've got what it takes to roll with our mantra: to enhance for greater impact. Our dreams are big - we're ready to launch, pending funding.
