Tom’s Free Range School of Life

I’ve had a thought,

Had an idea.

Hundreds of ideas.

A thousand lessons to be taught and to teach.

A million ways to live and to learn,

Infinite possibilities of opportunity and growth.

Feelings with value and excitement and cause.

This is going somewhere.

I have been stumbling through the fog of education and working with young people and trying to answer why I like it, what makes it interesting, what aspects am I good at, what the world needs? And I am trying to answer what it is I should do.

And then life gets in the way.

So I crack on with working and have some good hours and some bad hours. At times I am excited and then there are times that I’m not. And then I come back to this question. What do I want to do?

So I write down a list of the things I am good at. Teaching, building rapport with students, being honest, forming and keeping excellent relationships, working with students that have behavioural and emotional problems, getting people together, inspiring others, supporting 16–19-year-olds through a leg of their life journey, creative lessons, making things happen, listening, teaching outdoors…

But I do all of that don’t I?! I do it all on a daily basis, so why am I trying to answer this question?

So I think about the things I don’t particularity like and have to do…

Work to incredibly tight deadlines, stress over statistics of measured achievement and retention, teach to a curriculum that I didn’t write and don’t entirely agree with, assess completed work based on grades, tick boxes, plan lesson to strict timings…

And then I list the things I do that I do not have to do, but I feel is important (which also turn out to be the things I enjoy the most, as do my students). Going outdoors, bucket-list lessons, organising trips, money lessons, culture lessons, focusing on building self-esteem through teamwork and leadership, facilitating a fun education, life skills, well-being, supporting creative ideas, encouraging reflection…

And things start to look a little clearer.

And more exciting.

So I pick a friends brain and tell him my lists.

And it happens. I don’t particularly like the system, so I am going to create my own. One the world needs, that I am passionate about, that I am good at and I want to do. I want lessons that are taught in natural conditions, without restraints, that have the freedom to explore. And it feels right.

Free Range Lessons.

I am Tom. I live in Brighton and teach at a college. I have also worked in a behavioural, emotional and social difficulty school for younger learners. I love many aspects of my job and am lucky enough to get to teach topics including leadership and teamwork, expedition skills and navigation to a range of different learners. This means I get to explore outdoor learning and make a huge difference to a lot of students’ lives on a daily basis.

The outdoors is important to me, in my spare time I climb and hike with friends and always have at least one trip to the mountains planned in my diary.

And I have lived on the planet for just over 30 years, and it feels like it took me most of that time to work some of the real basics out. I’ve asked about and it turns out I’m not alone. In fact everyone seems to have lessons which they wish they could teach themselves back when they were younger, that would save them time, heartache and stress, and enrich them with tools to be happy and spend more time living and loving, to the fullest!

These people all learnt this through life.

The School of Life.

I want to give lessons to people who are finishing school to take with them in life. I want to plant seeds so that powerful, meaningful, inspired, brilliant ideas are born out of people who were given the opportunity to have free range lessons at the right time in their life. I want young people to reflect on what is important to them and what makes them happy, and then understand how to go places with this knowledge.

So where do I start? I have a bank of ‘topics’ that I ingrain into my teaching that I think are vital for everyone to have access to. But I want more, the world wants more. We need it.

So I am asking you, if you could meet the 16 year old version of yourself, what would you like to teach them?

Let’s teach these lessons, in natural conditions, where we have the freedom of movement.

Tom’s Free Range School of Life.

Please send me videos/messages of what you would teach the 16 year old you!

@tomsfrsol

tomschooloflife@gmail.com