Two decades in ag education

From boiler-maker to engineer and now agriculture teacher, John Wright is giving the next generation all the tools to succeed in Victoria’s Mallee.

A boiler-maker by trade before setting up an engineering business, John Wright didn’t undertake a traditional pathway in becoming a teacher.

But now with more than 20 years of experience teaching at Tyrrell College at Sea Lake in Victoria’s Mallee district, Mr Wright is providing excellent opportunities for the school’s 140 pupils to thrive in agricultural education.

While ag classes already existed when he started at Tyrrell in 2003, it was two defining moments in 2009 that saw changes to the ag program instrumental to its success today.

“We were finding when students were sent out on work placement, some of the skills they needed to learn, they weren’t learning on the farm,” he said.

“One (defining moment) a student came and said he didn’t like ag because he didn’t like cleaning up sheds all the time … Then we had a student who said he didn’t want to go back to school because there was nothing here that he liked.”

John Wright with year-11 student Jet Newick, 16, who is completing his second year of Certificate II in Agriculture.

These moments led Mr Wright and his colleagues to start running their own farming enterprise at the school.

“We started working with parents and organisations around town to develop partnerships in the agricultural space, and it just grew from there really quickly,” he said.

“One of the great things about living in a town like Sea Lake is that people just jump in and help out whenever they can.”

The help saw the program grow from students farming two hectares of land at the back of the school, to farming 60ha on the edge of town, with the latest technology and up-to-date tractors and machinery from the local John Deere dealership.

“Everyone up here is obviously using the new technology … and we’ve had lots of farmers who say how cool is it that these kids can get out there and they’re just straight into it. They know what’s going on,” he said.

Having received a $200,000 grant from the Victorian government’s Secondary Schools Agriculture Fund, Mr Wright said the funds were being split into the building of a new agriculture specific classroom, and into Food Ladder greenhouse where students can grow healthy and vibrant produce.

Mr Wright was a student at Sea Lake High School before it became Tyrrell College, and helping provide opportunities to students that he didn’t have drives him to provide a high quality of education.

“That’s probably the biggest driver (for me) … giving kids exposure to different things that they probably haven’t seen before,” he said.