
Dreaming Big
Thinking beyond the four-wall, one-site typical deal for learners. July 2024



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. Here, in part, is when much change is needed - and it's not in the form of 'structured' stuff that's become the awful trend right now (all in moderation though - for sure).





Let's Meet Jakob...
Who's Jakob? He's the cute kid the cowboy hat above when just 6 years old...
He's now a 16 year old, mad keen hunter, stunning carpenter, welding engineer, stunning designer, next level entrepreneur and level headed wanna-be farmer and small engines mechanic. He's recently 'invested' almost all his part-time job income into getting lease blocks and buying all the stock units now eating grass...
Highschool life recently included Agriculture, Maths and Engineering - befitting of his interests. Watching a gruesome movie was far from his intended purpose, to write an essay that on didn't resonate with him, to the point he didn't do it. Attendance isn't flash; nor is patience; singing in assembly creates wrath at home - for, well... 'what good is that if I'm a farmer'? Teacher-Mum's push back efforts, fall 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. Thankfully, he's eyeing up the gem that's Growing Future Farmers - their future focused factor 'gets it'
'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 - we hope: Growing Future Farmers
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etc... one's getting the picture by now?
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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
...is messed with, by what's hip, or ideas are deemed 'beyond possible'. There's an endeavour encouraging us to 'pull our head in'. We do however stand our ground in part, 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, far beyond what most principals and teachers have any experience in, nor know as having even existed. 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 actually 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 - and we seriously understand that.
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? Any wonder student absenteeism is such a sad reality.​​​​​
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.