Are traditional schools preparing children for a rapidly changing future? In this episode of The Rose Woman Podcast, Christine Marie Mason speaks with Andrew Freeman about a different approach: helping children become confident, purposeful, and creative learners by starting with who they are.
Andrew shares his vision for Inside-Out Education, an approach that builds learning around each child’s unique Genius Zone and Path of Purpose, rather than expecting every student to fit the same curriculum. Through personalized, project-based learning and intentional skill building, Coherence Education aims to help young people grow into healthy, happy, thriving creators who are ready for an AI-driven world.
They also discuss Andrew’s vision of the “unencumbered child,” the role of parents in supporting children’s growth, and how education can nurture curiosity, creativity, relationships, and a sense of purpose.
About Andrew Freeman
Andrew triple-majored in Computer Science, Math, and Accounting while playing varsity basketball and tennis. He later earned an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and built a career in technology, with leadership roles at Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Netscape, and several startups.
Today, Andrew is scaling Coherence Education’s accredited full-time program toward a licensing model, with the goal of reaching more than two million children by 2030. He is looking for teachers, partners, and funders who share his commitment to transforming education.
Listen to the episode to hear Andrew and Christine explore how education can help children discover their strengths, find their purpose, and thrive in the future.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00:00) - Introduction to Coherence Education and honoring each child’s unique essence
(00:03:38) - What does coherence mean to Andrew
(00:05:09) - Andrew’s experience with traditional schooling
(00:08:32) - Andrew’s calling to transform education and his playful teaching approach at Hewlett-Packard
(00:12:36) - The founding of Coherence Education
(00:16:15) - The school’s approach to developing children’s potential
(00:20:32) - Helping children discover their “genius zone”
(00:24:19) - Supporting families through connected communication
(00:28:56) - Providing every student with a life coach
(00:30:44) - The vision of the “unencumbered child”
(00:34:54) - The SPARC model and plans for school expansion
(00:38:14) - Spiritual connection as the foundation of learning
(00:42:59) - Making the school accessible to families
(00:44:23) - Preparing students for the future
(00:47:00) - Helping students who struggled in mainstream schools thrive
Helpful links:
Andrew Freeman - Founder and Director of Coherence Education & Master Path School
Genius Zone - Find your child’s genius zone
Turning Education Inside Out: How to raise a child who thrives in the age of AI, by starting with who they already are. Available on Nov 30, 2026
Mantra, Tantra, Ayahuasca: Ecstasy, Devotion, and the Return of the Holy Body
The Mystic Heart of Easter: A Four-Day Journey Through Love, Death, and Rebirth
Your host:
Courses, Retreats and Events by Christine:
Wake Down: Bringing the Light All the Way Into the Body - Preorder. Released November 21, 2026
Easter Intensive: Mystic Heart of Easter Retreat with Christine Marie Mason on March 25-28, 2027
Forge a Singing Bowl - A Bhakti House Immersion with Christine Marie Mason and Resounding Earth on May 19-26, 2026
Upcoming Events with Christine
Subscribe to The Museletter on Substack
Brought to you by Rosebud Woman, Award-Winning Intimate and Body Care:
The Rosewoman Library: The Embodied Menopause & Intimacy Library
Founder, Rosebud Woman
Co-Founder, Radiant Farms and Sundari Gardens
Host, The Rose Woman on Love and Liberation:
Listen, Like, Share & Subscribe on Apple Podcast | Spotify
Transcript
Andrew Freeman 0:05
All of a sudden, it really I I think Christine this combination of left brain understanding that okay this makes sense, and then the right brain experiencing wow we essentially can create magic by by dropping into our spiritual connection, all of a sudden it just really changes these kids. And they're once they have that breakthrough, I see their creativity and their projects just go off the charts, and their confidence and their self expression.
Christine Mason 0:36
Dear friends, hello, it's Christine Marie Mason, and this is the Rose Woman Podcast. I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off in a joyful dance across the planet Earth, and not that long ago, I was invited to teach conscious parenting or tantric parenting at the Heartland Gathering in Nebraska, and it was such an incredible opportunity to speak about what is the purpose of coming into a body, what is the purpose of being a parent or having a child, and how do we avoid copy-pasting our experiences of children, the society, the culture, the belief system that we grew up in that are not generative onto our kids? How do we see their unique essence and bring it forward? How do we unwind the things in ourselves that are fragmented that stop us from doing that? And during that session, this wonderful man came up to me, and we began a conversation around how we can change that more in a more mass way, and he told me about his work in education, about his school, Coherence Education, which is an accredited school for eight to 18 year old children who are developing from a perspective of like what's their core soul's essence. And I was so moved by what he was talking about. As you know, Coherence is my word of the year. It's in the Mystic Heart of Easter book. It's in the Mantra Tantra Ayahuasca book. It's like coherence is it. It's been kind of the thing that I've been working toward. That when you have an unfragmented interior, then you have more visibility into what's real and true, and you're spending less energy fighting the things that are stuck in the shadows, and so that more energy goes to creativity and joy and play. Anyway, so I put it on the back burner to have a conversation with this wonderful man, Andrew Freeman, and he is my guest today. At the end of this, I'm going to point you to some meditations that you can do for yourself to imagine an atmosphere of total welcome, abundance, unconditional love, acceptance in your own childhood, and to get a preview from that of what it might be like to hand that to your children. I'm also going to read you a poem, so please enjoy this conversation with Andrew Freeman of Coherence Education. And if you have any questions about it or you want to get involved? I highly encourage you to reach out directly and see if this could be right for you and your children, or if you want to start a node of this program somewhere on Earth, or if you are in the wonderful position to be investing in education or creating grants for that kind of a benefactor to really see if you can direct some of your resources to Andrew and his team. All right, all up here we go. Welcome to the Rose Woman Podcast. So tell me a little bit about what coherence means to you. Ah,
Andrew Freeman 3:38
so I started meditating when I was 15 years old, in the most unlikely of possible ways. So my father, this very conservative Republican Midwest doctor, all of a sudden approached me with this idea, saying, "Like, would you be willing to go to this class that I've been taking? It's called transcendental meditation." And I was 15 years old at the time, and I've always been really open to new things. I was like, "Sure, Dad, let's go check it out." Little did I know that it was going to reshape my world so much. So I had been a really dreamy kid, just living in my imagination. And even though I did things like play sports, I had a hard time doing things like keeping track of the score in my tennis matches, for example, and then and then once I learned to focus my mind through meditation, my whole life completely changed. So that was really my first introduction to this idea of coherence. Like, what happens when you go inside and you get the different parts talking with each other and playing with each other in the right way, and you get into this expanded present moment. And what kinds of magic can unfold? So completely made it so that school was super easy. Sports it was just so much easier to be successful in those. And then I was a really shy kid too. And all of a sudden, I had the confidence to go out and talk to people. Although it took a number of years later until I had enough confidence to actually talk to a girl
Christine Mason 5:08
in general.
Andrew Freeman 5:08
So yeah,
Christine Mason 5:09
that's so funny. Well, I mean, let's let's talk about that because you're not the girl part, but let's talk about the piece about being a teenager and like coming of age and coming into an awareness of who you are and how to mind your mind. Like your own site says that you were a mediocre student as a teenager, but then you went on and completed a triple major in computer science and math and accounting and a two sports athlete and an MBA and then going to all these like major corporations. So, first of all, what was like school like for you? Did you feel seen or unseen? What were its pros and cons, and then what changed? I
Andrew Freeman 5:45
obviously took a lot of school with all the majors, and then then we shared an actual overlap at Kellogg Graduate School of Management for getting our MBAs. So quite a few hours in the classroom, and I pretty much hated everyone except for what? Except for a few a few exceptions where I I had a really creative teacher, but for the most part I thought sitting in the classroom was such a waste of time. So I would daydream pretty much the whole time and just make up different stories in my mind. And I was just really fortunate that I could just look at the book and the homework assignment and quickly figure it out on my own at night, but just I I was really annoyed that I had to sit through classes and basically have the textbook parroted to me when I was just going to learn exactly the same thing that night. So I didn't really like classrooms. I didn't like it. It just seemed really slow and almost just needless to me, and I would have rather spent that time outside playing or doing sports or writing stories or that sort of thing. So, so that's really informed the school that I'm in right now because I want for the students to have every hour that they're engaged in the school. I want it to be something that they enjoy an hour that they're choosing to do, and that is going to move them forward. So I think it was a real gift that I spent so many hours in school, and I and I didn't like it because it helped me imagine what would school be like for students in a way that they would really get a lot out of it, and not only that, but would have a lot of fun during the process.
Christine Mason 7:23
Yeah, a lot of fun, and also they wouldn't need to have this sort of compliant body, where like they could put your body in a chair, but they clearly couldn't put your mind in a chair, you know. And the sense of a sense of like speaking to the unique gifts of each child's essence, which I know we're going to talk about in a minute here. But so you did all that school, and you found a way to retain your essential essence and love of learning.
Andrew Freeman 7:45
Yes, yes, and I really think it's because I wasn't engaged in the classroom, so I didn't get a chance to get trained out of my creativity and my intuitive connection, and those those types of things. That luckily I I really retained. However, so many so many students lose that because, like you're saying, you're you're in a classroom and you're being taught to comply with a certain way of thinking, and you know a way of thinking that's not a natural kid way of thinking. Kids are supposed to be out playing and moving their bodies and being creative, and that sort of thing. And traditional school really puts them in a complete opposite environment.
Christine Mason 8:24
I mean, how did you make the move, Andrew, from doing the tech work into finally deciding to ground a school?
Andrew Freeman 8:32
So even though I got a triple major in college, I really had no idea what I was going to do afterwards. I really got the triple major because I thought these different subjects would be practical for me, or they'd be a challenge, or some somehow I I wanted to show that I could I could do that, but I really didn't know what to do with that. And so as I was interviewing with accounting firms and tech firms and you know different, I applied to be a manager at a trucking company of all things, so I really had no idea what I was going to do. And then, out of the blue, I was walking through my dormitory at my college, and I had a voice of God moment where I heard clear as a bell in my head this voice say, "You're going to transform education for kids of all things." And I just thought, wow, that is so audacious, and it felt so good. It was like trying on the best set of tailored clothes. It just seemed to fit me, but at the same time, I thought, how am I going to do that? You know, I'm just a, I'm just a kid. Am I going to become a teacher? And I thought that seemed like a good idea at the time. But I thought, I don't really. I didn't like learning in a classroom. What I really like teaching in one. What I like to be in that that really heavy type of administration in a school. And I decided no. And just intuitively, I thought I was supposed to go out into the world and learn as much as I can, and then eventually I'll come back to teach kids. So, so that's really how it started. So I really had had that intention for a super long time in corporate environments. I kept gravitating into teaching roles, and I'll tell you a quick story about that. So my first job was at Hewlett Packard out of school, and I started off in a technical support job, which sounds boring, but I was having a lot of fun, and they decided to put me in charge of the training department, where we would train the HP sales reps on our products that our factory made. And our factory made the most boring products in the world. They were disk drives, so try to make a disk drive exciting. So these poor sales reps would come over, and they would just already partied out by the time they got to our division, and then and then the people who were training were doing so on slides. And these poor people, you just could tell, wanted to just end their life about halfway through the day. So I watched this. I thought, okay, and I asked the manager, "Can I can I teach this class however I want?" And he said, "Absolutely. We're the lowest rated training department in HP, so you can't make it worse." So I'm like, "Okay." So I I had the reps doing skits to learn the disk drive protocols, and I instead of a final test, we did it Jeopardy style, and I would just do these. I would make up songs and play them on my guitar about about how like a disk drive works with a computer or whatever, and everybody had a blast. And so all of a sudden we went from the worst rated training department to the top, and it it really pissed off the other divisions because they're like, "What is he doing? He's just doing a dog and pony show." But I'm like, "Yes, I am," and it's working. So, so I really, I really just had this idea that people learn more effectively when they're having fun than when they're engaged. And and why don't schools do that? So that really informed what I eventually did with my own school,
Christine Mason 12:03
I feel that delight and play in you, and I can imagine the relief from the PowerPoint relief. You know that would come in a space like that, and how delightful, how delightful. So, so we go. You go into deciding to create the school, and now you know this is a very feels to me like a very big responsibility to take, like the lead role in educating a child. That's such a formative commitment. How did you develop the curriculum? Who helped you? Who contributed to some of the things that you are bringing forth? A
Andrew Freeman 12:36
lot of really heavy hitters. It made it so my job was so easy. So this all got started because I have my own kid who was eight years old when COVID came up and was already hating school. I sat in on one of the school days and I just saw Jamie's soul just dying in the back of the classroom, and I just felt so badly. I have to find something new. And right about that time, COVID hit, and it all went online. And realized this is just absolutely not working at all. So decided to homeschool, and an amazing woman in Santa Cruz put together this underground school, and we worked with her to put together a curriculum. And during Covid in California, like unless you were quadruple shrink wrapped, you weren't able to get together with other people at that time. So we were we were doing it very illegally and underground at the time. But what we noticed is the parents mostly were teaching. We were teaching things like creative writing and filmmaking, and doing in art, a lot of the types of subjects that the parents were expert at, and the kids we just saw them blossom. They were super engaged. Jamie just completely became a new person through this process, but they weren't teaching a science class. And I was a really big fan of Nassim Haramein's work. If anyone has ever heard of him? He's this hippy dippy physicist who's kind of gotten it figured out.
Christine Mason 14:05
Visionary hippy dippy.
Andrew Freeman 14:06
Yes, absolute genius.
Christine Mason 14:10
Like the like. I'm sorry, but the guy who thinks that he's hit on exactly how to generate free energy. Yes. Right.
Andrew Freeman 14:16
Yes.
Christine Mason 14:17
Endless free energy. Okay, so let's not underplay. Yeah. We'll come back to it. Go ahead. Okay, so you need a science class, and you call Nassim. Is that right? I
Andrew Freeman 14:25
did, I did, and I and I said Nasim, I want to take your science class that you have for adults, and I want to create a kids version. And he loved the idea. He said, I've been wanting to do that for 12 years. So we talked a little bit more, and he learned more about my background. He hired me as his director of education.
Speaker 1 14:42
Wow!
Andrew Freeman 14:43
So, so I worked for him for a year, and I and I created this unified science for kids class, and and I had Nasim come and teach, and Alan Green and Foster Gamble, and a lot of the staff scientists who were working for Nasim, and. And it was incredibly successful this class. So there was again this perfect inflection point at the end of that year where Nasim needed to go off and and really promote this new paper that he had. And then all of a sudden, I wanted to teach way more than science because I saw how well this was all working. So I started. I started this school the next year, and the first class that we taught was called Coherence for Kids. That's why we called it Coherence Education, and taught it with Heart Math. We brought in Lynne McTaggart. We brought in Reverend Michael Beckwith. We brought in Foster. A bunch of other incredible masters of coherence to teach the kids, and again, it was very successful, and it just grew from there.
Christine Mason 15:47
I mean, those names are people like Lynne McTaggart, really working on groups of eight and how you create coherence in your body with your thoughts, and and you make change through the energetic intention of a group. And Michael Beckwith, I think a lot of people recognize from Agape, you know, sort of a leader in the in the modern New Thought movement. So they're bringing, they're coming together, and they're helping you create the generalized curriculum, right? Like how do how how do kids develop psychoemotionally and spiritually?
Andrew Freeman 16:15
Correct. Yeah, amazing, amazing. So walk us back to some of the practices that you're doing with the kids. I I read about Sparc. Maybe can tell us a little bit about that, or whatever you'd like to explain. We're in year four. We've just started year four of the school, and it's just been gradually building. We launched a full time program a year ago, so students could come in and just take individual a la carte classes like coherence for kids type classes or unified science type classes, which is the sim science or remote viewing or blindfold training. So many different things like that that people can just bring in. But they can also make this their school, so we have 40 kids right now who are full-time students. We got our accreditation a year last April, so I call us an accredited Hogwarts because we have our accreditation, but we teach things like remote viewing and quantum energy healing at the same time. So really, what what the vision is is to continue growing this out to be able to provide services to whoever whoever wants to go beyond this traditional education box and start really developing themselves as humans as our our best qualities which are in in my esteem these coherence type qualities where where what do humans do best? Well, we're connected to this unified field. We have love. We have this ability to be incredibly intuitive, to be incredibly creative. And in this age of AI, it's what's going to set us apart from the machines. And by the way, because so many of the traditional jobs are going away. I kind of see it's. We almost have no choice. We can no longer be lazy about our personal development. We need to have our kids be the best version human they can be as they move forward, and that's how they're going to thrive in this new future that we have.
Christine Mason 18:20
You know, I want to just point to something here on the way we see our children. You and I talked about this on the day that we met, but if you look at the way education was formed, the idea was that you saw workers and children as future workers to be used for your own benefit, and the view we take in conscious parenting is that children are the evolutionary edge of humanity; that they have their own essence, and that the magnification of their essence, not the copy paste of the prior culture onto their essence, but the magnification of their essence is the way we all advance the planet. And I think it's the first time what I'm hearing you speak to, it's not just the child's potential; it's actually going into like the magnification and upliftment of their essence that excites me the most about this work.
Andrew Freeman 19:12
Yeah, thank you, thank you so much for for seeing that. And I really, I really believe we're just we're all unlimited beings, and not only that, we all came in with a unique purpose and a unique genius. So I guess the question I keep asking is, well, how do we expand that for for each of these kids? Recognize their unique brilliance, recognize their path of purpose, and and build something around each of them to be able to develop them to to this amazing extent, just even a even a more dramatic version of the type of inflection point I had when I started meditating when I was 15. Imagine these kids when they start at eight years old and they learn to meditate and they get complete. Confidence in their ability to intuit and create, and and really build also the life skills around them that help them deal with people and money and their career and their health and the ways that we really probably didn't start learning to do until we were out of college. Christine, I don't know about you.
Christine Mason 20:18
No, for sure, I was a lot longer for me. You were turned on early, my friend. The zone of genius. I want to really double down on that. Like, what are the signs that a child is in their zone of genius? How do you find that?
Andrew Freeman 20:32
Yes, yes, it is so simple. Actually, I found that we can ask three sets of questions: What are you passionate about? And the way kids understand that is, what do you love doing so much that you lose track of time? So we so we get that list down, and then the next set is what are their natural talents. So then the way we ask that to the kids are, what what comes really easily to you? What what are you able to do that your friends have a hard time doing, and you don't understand why it's hard for them because it's so easy for you. So we get that list, and then finally, what are your values? And the way we ask the kids about that is, what in the world really makes you super happy when you see it, or super mad, or super sad? And so we get all these clues about their values, which might be around, you know, helping people or helping animals or restoring nature, that sort of thing. So once we have those three areas, it's like a Venn diagram. We actually feed it into AI, and we get a set of 10 potential projects for the kids to do. And when I when I tried this for myself, I got this idea, and I plugged in my own areas of passions, talents, and values, and the first project that came out is you should start an alternative school. And I thought, okay, this is pretty good. So,
Christine Mason 21:50
okay, how how many of you listening are going to go do that right now with your AI? How many of you? How many of you at 50 years old are going to go do that with your AI? No,
Andrew Freeman 21:58
we have a lot of parents doing that because so many people who've been stuck in a cubbyhole job that hasn't really felt like them, and they're wondering like, what is my purpose? What should I do? They they a lot of times get really good insights from this test that we give.
Christine Mason 22:12
Let's talk about the parents before we go on to more of the gene disc things. Okay, so I think I told you that I had been going into the prisons in California doing this like grip program,
Andrew Freeman 22:22
yes,
Christine Mason 22:23
and that one of the project, one of the components of that was that if you were taking the program inside the prison, your family was doing the same material outside, so that when you returned home, you would like drop into this container where there was a shared language, and that you had a much higher likelihood of being non-recidivist and and letting and the and the things things would land, and so I wonder how if you're doing that with parents.
Andrew Freeman 22:48
But by the way, let's just pause for a second, Christine. Like, wow, that is so spectacular what you're doing. Well,
Christine Mason 22:54
I did I I did that for seven years. I'm not doing that anymore.
Andrew Freeman 22:57
But still,
Christine Mason 22:58
but I did my I I learned so much from it, I will tell you that was the most mind-blowing shift in in in understanding systems theory applied to culture and individual act. That like no one was made in a vacuum. There was like any thought I had of like the individual moral character not being formed by the nurture, the upbringing, the culture, the opportunities, the norms was gone after that. I saw every single person who committed a crime as also a tremendous victim of their own upbringing, and it changed my own. Yeah, that that's a whole other thing to talk about. But in any case, oh, and the other reference point, just to drive it home on the education side, is I didn't grow up in a musical family, but I really loved music, and I followed the model of Dr. Suzuki. We did Suzuki music, and what that is is the kids go to lessons, but the parents go to every lesson, and you play the music that the kids are learning in the background of the home. So you're mimicking a musical household, even if you don't have it, and so that modality of like whatever's happening in the child's formative thing is getting deeply reinforced by the parents and the home environment. Even if it's also foreign to the parents, they become like part of the chain of good. So I'm I'm curious, you know, how do we bring all the parents along equally?
Andrew Freeman 24:19
Yes. Well, we're we're doing that somewhat right now, and I want to definitely pick it up a few notches. Most of our focus right now, working with families, is with I call it connected communication. It's like nonviolent communication, but I just like connected communication better as a word. What I found is we could teach kids to start expressing themselves in terms of feelings and needs, and active listening and that sort of thing. But if that isn't going on anywhere else in the household, it's a real uphill battle for them. So, for our connected communication class, the whole family is is highly encouraged to. Attend, and for the most part, they do. Also, for a number of other classes that we've had, we bring in guest speakers to work with families. For example, we had somebody come in and and talk about Ayurveda and the different dosha types. Just, I think it's so important for families to realize that everybody is a unique individual, rather than a chip off the old block, so that parents aren't aren't seeing their children as extensions of them, but as these unique individuals, so that Ayurveda work worked really well too. I really want to expand, and and by the way, Christine, I was so inspired by your talk at Heartland that there's a way that we can start making sure that that kids clear trauma early on, so they don't have to carry it into adulthood. And I would love to figure out a way to start integrating that type of work into our school as well.
Christine Mason 25:58
Yeah, this is so beautiful. We talk a lot about coherence in my language and the tradition that I study as eliminating all fragmentation in the self, and that trauma is effectively fragmentation where you have taken and carved out pieces that are too uncomfortable to look at, and that's we call trauma. The isolated pieces, fragments that aren't part of your whole worldview, what you oppose or resist or hide in the self, and and when it happens, you know people think of trauma often as a, you know I was in a war and I had this big this big bomb went off and I couldn't overcome it, but it's actually a much simpler definition. It's it's whenever something happens to you that the nervous system does not have the capacity to integrate in real time, and and so it can be something small like a shock to the system, but there's no parental gaze to meet you and support you, and so you close off around and anneal that, and you can teach them very early to both notice when that's happening so that they can integrate in real time and to ask for help, which I think is beautiful, or to do a practice of clearing what you know what's stuck in the system that can happen very early. And another thing, I'm just going to like say this and like turn it back over to you is that another thing on that is kids give way too much credit to the idea that adults know what they're doing.
Andrew Freeman 27:21
Yes, yes, absolutely. You
Christine Mason 27:23
know, they're like they like they think like parents know it, and so they're often like not trusting their own knowing. And they could say to a parent, "Hey, what you just said was a little harsh for me," or "Are you sure that's true?" Or what evidence do you have for that? In in Ray Castellino's work on a healthy family, he says, in a healthy family, all people's needs matter equally: the parents, the child, the mother, the father. And notice in how many families is imbalanced, like the dad's needs matter, or we're all kowtowing to the mom, or the children's needs matter, and the mother and father like give away their life force and their desire and their eros in order to meet that. But in a healthy family, everyone can speak their needs and can challenge. There's no hierarchy. There's just respect, you know.
Andrew Freeman 28:10
Yes, I I love that. One of my favorite classes that we're teaching right now is debate and critical thinking, with the real emphasis on separating the ideas from the person, so getting getting us away from this old idea of cancel culture. Well, they don't believe like I do, so they're out of my life. Instead, having that curiosity of well, just like you said, why do you think that? What evidence do you have? You know, let's let's discuss and actually relish this opportunity to explore an idea together, rather than connect it to the person in some sort of a moral way.
Christine Mason 28:47
Yeah, that's a that's beautiful. Okay, another thing that you told me this blew me away. Every child gets a life coach.
Andrew Freeman 28:56
They do.
Christine Mason 28:56
Like literally, my jaw was on the floor when you said that. And what it would be like to have someone in your corner who checks in with you weekly? That's very that's very powerful.
Andrew Freeman 29:06
Thank you, and it's working really powerfully. The philosophy that I have behind this, and one of the advantages of having been an executive in the corporate world and having executive coaches, is I ask the ask the question: Well, what if we treated each of these kids instead of like a kid who doesn't know anything? What if we treated them as an executive? Because we know they have a unique genius. We know they have a path of purpose. And so, if I was an executive coach working with a Fortune 500 executive, I would ask them, "Well, you know what are what are your strengths? I would have them take this genius test for sure, and then and then where do you want to go? And then I would put together a very targeted plan around helping them get there. You know, find out find out how to increase their strengths and shore up weaknesses and help them along their path. So, why wouldn't we do that with. Kids and just like you wouldn't want to waste any hours of a busy executive, kids' time is so valuable. Why would we want to waste their time with things that aren't moving them forward, or or worse, are creating a pain response to learning? Which I don't get me started on traditional math classes, but I but I really think I really think if we treat these kids as executives, and that's why that's why I assign each of them a coach. You don't have to go through a midlife crisis to deserve having a life coach. What if you're what if you're a kid, and then we can do continuous improvement each week with them, and they have somebody outside of their family taking interest with them, and it it really works like magic.
Christine Mason 30:44
Complete respect to you for the respect you have for the child's essence. To treat them like the treasure they are that is amazing. You you said you gave a term unencumbered child that you have a vision for the unencumbered child. Can you expand on that?
Andrew Freeman 31:01
Yes, yes. So, how much baggage are we carrying as adults that we gathered as children and are still working hard to get rid of? So, so back to this whole phrase was inspired by your work, actually, from going to your conscious parenting talk at Heartland. Is it really inspired me to think? Well, what if a child cleared their trauma as as it happened as as they were children, and they can go into adulthood clean, you know, with free energy and really this idea of the unencumbered child entering adulthood. I mean, my last name is Freeman. I I clearly embrace this whole idea of freedom, and I I love the idea that our kids are free. And I think as long as you're carrying a lot of emotional encumbrances, how free can you really be?
Christine Mason 31:55
Well, the all other things that I feel they're encumbered by are family expectations and the the dreams of their ancestors? You know, there are a lot of things that are sort of not considered traumatic, but that that encumber them.
Andrew Freeman 32:14
Yes, yes. I I think one of the things that is the toughest for kids is this whole idea of competition that is in most schools. So, in order to get kids to learn things that they don't really want to learn, there's this there's this competitive environment that's set up that's completely artificial around grades, around social status, and and maybe five or 10% of the students in a school are seen as wow, these guys are really on track, and they're straight A students, or they're class president, or they're a star of their sports team, or whatever it is. And then everybody else is considered sort of a loser because they're not fitting into that mold. And what I'm finding with our school, because we're we're honoring each child's unique genius, and they all understand that they have a unique genius, and everybody else does as well. What it does is it eliminates this idea of competing with the other kids. So, so we're all about them competing with themselves to see how far they can go and how beautifully they can develop themselves. But what I found is by not having grades and not having this artificially competitive environment, what I notice is that the kids, even though they're very diverse, we've got kids on the spectrum, we've got kids in 13 different countries, all different ages. We have a one-room schoolhouse. We've got kids from eight to 18 in the school. What we find is there's only mutual respect, and there's not only that, but they're cheering each other on because as these kids work and develop these amazing projects that they're creating in their genius zone rooms, everybody's like, "Whoa, look what you're doing!" And then that person's like, "Whoa, whoa, look at what you're doing!" It creates this environment of mutual upliftment, and I and I just see the kids' nervous systems so relax in that environment versus what you have in these competitive environments.
Christine Mason 34:10
You want 2 million kids, I heard.
Andrew Freeman 34:14
I do 2 million children.
Christine Mason 34:19
Okay, everybody out there, one little pinky on the corner of the mouth. 2 million kids.
Andrew Freeman 34:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Christine Mason 34:24
Are you going to do it in multiple languages? How do you see that unfolding?
Andrew Freeman 34:27
Yes, I don't exactly know. I just know that it really wants to happen. So, I know that different online platforms are doing really well right now. You know, Mind Valley. There are different online school platforms that probably have a million kids as well. So we we just have a different angle where we're doing more. You you talked about Sparc, so that stands for spiritual development.
Christine Mason 34:53
Go slow.
Andrew Freeman 34:54
S for spiritual connection, spiritual development. P is for project based learning. Kids learn by doing. A is for arts, so art, music, creative writing, filmmaking, really getting kids to flex their creative muscles. R for relationships, so that kids learn how to how to really have great relationships with themselves and others. And C for community. And so, so that's what we've built our school around these these different tent poles, and I think we're doing it differently than others, and it's definitely working. So I see our online school continuing to really grow. You know, again, we're fairly new here, but we are growing quickly, even though we're still fairly small. The next step, though, is we're in the process of setting up a network of in-person schools, satellite schools all over the world. We're just in the pilot phase of those right now. I I really believe that we have a model that will allow different organizations that might be homeschool pods now, or micro schools, or even charter schools, to adopt our programs and be able to get our type of learning and curriculum and all the systems that we've built to leverage those to have an in-person environment for the kids as well. So that's that's what we're building towards, and it seems like it's really wanting to happen.
Christine Mason 36:21
I feel like that's the the model is like there's a whole online through line, but then they get embodied direct experience with their local home pod, and I love that you're doing things like this 12 day trip to Egypt, these sort of really deep experiences with the families as a sort of a periodic drop-in together.
Andrew Freeman 36:43
Yes, yes. I can't even begin to tell you how excited the kids are to finally meet each other. You know, through through this in-person gathering. So, you know, they they develop really amazingly close relationships online. But there's nothing like actually being there in three dimensions with each other.
Christine Mason 37:02
Yeah, and I can I saw some videos in preparing for this of you showing them on a pyramid the way tools were used to you know cut the stone and and there's nothing like putting your hands on it right
Andrew Freeman 37:16
absolutely because yeah first of all you just see how beautiful and grand these temples and pyramids and all these magical things are in Egypt, but you also get to feel the energy because these stones have incredible energy, and these these kids are super sensitive to that too. So I really see this completely rocking their world, just like it so rocked my world the first time I went to Egypt.
Christine Mason 37:44
So much of what homeschooling is, there's a whole component that is cultification, like grooming children to believe in a particular way of being that is a particular deity, a code of ethics or morals that you know that is conformist, and when people say spiritual education, I feel like you are not talking anything about religious or conformity. You you have a different view of what spiritual education means. Can you speak to that?
Andrew Freeman 38:14
Oh, I'd love to. Really, I I do think that S and Sparc is is the most important letter really? Because if you get that right, then it just drives everything else. And as you know, if you've got a really beautiful, healthy spiritual connection, then the rest of life just goes really well. So, what what we do is we do a lot of left brain, right brain training around that, and and my definition of spiritual connection is that there's there's this amazing call it unified field or spirit or God or essence or there are all these different words for what what this amazing field is outside of us. So I get into the left brain stuff, which I think Nasim Haramein's physics does a beautiful job of describing. So we we get kids to understand the geometry of it and the fact that that every cubic centimeter of space essentially has infinite energy, and all information in the field has been proven to be available holographically, so anything you do in one part of space is just instantly spread out throughout. So you have access to all information, and then it's connected to all things as well. So, so I love that we get to show leading edge physics and science that that no, this field outside of ourselves is real, and is and there's infinite power, information, and connection in that. And then we get the kids to experience it through meditation, through animal communication, through blindfold training, and through quantum energy healing as well, and remote viewing. I think forget. I said that, but I'll tell you a story. One of our students is a little bit on the spectrum, and he's very serious. And he's also one of the funniest people I've ever met. He's got this wicked sense of humor, but he delivers everything completely deadpan. You know, ask him how he's doing. Oh, I'm fine. How are you? You know, nothing, nothing ever with an inflection point. It's all very flat. And then one day, how are you doing? He said, "I'm great. How are you? How's everybody?" It's like an amazing day. I was like, "Wow. Well, thank you." And what did you do with your friend who looks a lot like you? So he was like that the next day as well, and I sent a subtle email to his mom saying, "Yeah, notice, notice your son is acting a little different." And she said, "Oh yeah, he's been doing blindfold training, and he was very skeptical about the whole thing until he was able to tell really accurately the color of any piece of paper held behind his head." So what ended up happening is it is it just changed his paradigm just like that, thinking, well, wait a second, I'm not seeing these with my eyes. How am I seeing it? What is the nature of the universe? What is the nature of me interacting with it? And so all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it really I I think Christine, this combination of left brain understanding that okay, this makes sense, and then the right brain experiencing, wow, we essentially can create magic by by dropping into our spiritual connection. All of a sudden, it just really changes these kids, and they're once they have that breakthrough, I see their creativity and their projects just go off the charts, and their confidence, their self-expression. So, again, that that S is really the cornerstone of what we're doing.
Christine Mason 41:52
Gorgeous. I bet he found that like a little bit. That's kind of his zone of genius.
Andrew Freeman 41:56
Yes, yes. Although I have to say, with blindfold training, we haven't had a kid yet who couldn't do it. Some of the kids are essentially running through obstacle courses. They're reading books. They're they're they're doing everything pretty much that they could do without a blindfold on. They're doing it blindfolded, and and even the ones that it doesn't quite come as easily to, they're they're accurately seeing colors and shapes, and they can usually learn it really quickly. And the thing we're excited about is is this is going to be an ongoing class. Most of these classes the kids will do it for five weeks or six weeks, and then it will be over, and then and then they'll kind of forget about it. But with this, they'll continue, you know, developing as long as they want to, and I think I think really this whole thing in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker has his blast shield on and he's he's hitting sparks with his lightsaber, all of our kids are going to be able to do that exact same kind of thing.
Christine Mason 42:59
Okay, now we have Hobart's references and we have Jedi references. So to the magical unfoldment of all these kids, how are you expanding it? How are you expanding the school? I know you're getting grants. I know now there's there's like Texas and other places are considering accrediting you so you can access to those kinds of funds for parents, like how are people paying for it? The
Andrew Freeman 43:22
ones who can afford it, awesome. We're less expensive than most private schools. For those who need help, luckily we have some really wonderful donors who have helped us create a nice scholarship fund. When I find the right student, I really want to figure out a way for them to come. And so far, we've always been able to figure out a way for them to attend. The exciting thing is, most recently, there are a number of states that have a thing called school choice, where if if a kid wants to go to a private school, the state actually pays for it. So we're in 10 of those states, which is a new development. So we're in those states, but we don't have a lot of visibility yet. We're working on that. The exciting thing is, if if someone's in Texas or soon Florida or North Carolina or any of these different states, they they don't have to pay a penny to come to our school. The state pays pays for them to do that.
Christine Mason 44:18
That kind of left me speechless. Wait, what?
Andrew Freeman 44:20
It's a good business model.
Christine Mason 44:23
All right, beautiful. Is there anything else you'd like me to know?
Andrew Freeman 44:26
I am so optimistic about the future, and I just want to have a message to parents who are scared. And when I talk to parents, which I do a lot, most of them are really scared about the future because AI is taking away all the jobs, so schools are still funneling students towards what I call noun jobs, being an accountant or or an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer, whatever it is, and those jobs are getting gobbled up like little. Dots with AI being the Pac Man, and so they're thinking, what What are our kids going to do? And and I have to say that the kids in my school, I think they're going to just absolutely thrive because they're going to enter adulthood with completely developed genius zones, which are unique to them, and everyone looks completely different. And they're also going to have these skills around how to take care of themselves, and how to communicate with people, and how to how to do the basic life things that other kids like us didn't learn until a lot later. And what's exciting to me is they'll be able to partner with AI to accelerate their creative ideas and essentially have a team at the ready for them to get these ideas out into the world. If you knew the hearts of these kids that we have, they want to do so much good in the world. They want they want to help animals. They want to help nature. They want to help people who need help. So you've got these innovative kids going out into the world with with these great intentions, also great skill sets, able to partner with AI. And I really believe it won't take that many of these kids to start very positively changing the world and have a lot of fun doing it.
Christine Mason 46:24
That's that's very beautiful. I I did notice another question coming up for me. I I'm curious about. There are a lot of parents I know where their children are struggling in school because they're fidgety, they can't focus, they're considered problem children, they have behavioral problems, blah blah blah, and I just want to know, Andrew, if you've had children who have failed out of the behavioral part of dominant school, have you have they been able to thrive in this environment? Is this a potential pathway for students who are just somatically not inclined to school?
Andrew Freeman 47:00
Yes, I I see it every day. I would say probably a third of our students just were a horrible fit for mainstream school, and it they just separated from it like oil and water. And with within our school, they are thriving. We're developing their unique genius, and and because they're being seen for their for their gifts, it's like they they they've relaxed into who they are. Sometimes it takes a few months. We had we have one kid in our school who who is homeless, and he and his mom were living in their car, and and he came in and he was very defensive and kind of trying overly hard to be funny, and I could tell it was just coming from a place of insecurity. Within a few months, though, as kids started to know him and really like him, he relaxed around that, and he's he's become a real leader in our school, and has developed this whole sense of confidence, and and things are going better for his family as well. I I have so many stories I could tell, but I I haven't found a kid yet that doesn't fit into our school. And again, is I think it's because we don't have a single curriculum that they're all adapting to. It's that each one has their own curriculum that that we adapt to the kid.
Christine Mason 48:22
Well, I'm excited to see where that goes and to see more data come out of it too, because I'm a data hog. No, because I'm trained in the data, and I think this merger of the data and the mystical is such an exciting opportunity to live in. Okay, well, I think our time is coming up, and I just want to appreciate you. Want to appreciate you for the curiosity and devotion that you've brought to this, for your clear and transparent love of the children, and your belief in a better future.
Andrew Freeman 48:52
Thank you so much, Christine. And I love what you're doing with your work and how you're empowering a whole set of people as well. And just kudos you as well. Thank you so much for having me on this beautiful podcast. By the way, I've been having so much fun catching up on past episodes. I really love
Christine Mason 49:09
it. You know, it's good to have a fan. I really like it. I would just say, and you do pay attention. You pay attention to things, and and I think there's a lot of overlap for sure. There's um like a particular kind of playfulness that you bring that is very appealing, and I think the going back to your early story of transforming those corporate dull training rooms to some kind of magic and music is like that seems to be the pointer to your dharma. You know, making making things come alive and making things fun.
Andrew Freeman 49:46
Oh, thank you for that reflection.
Christine Mason 49:50
Thank you so much, Andrew, for that beautiful conversation. I hope you're all as inspired as I was. I'd like to invite you to come to my site, christinemariemason.com. And find the downloads page. On that downloads page, you just sign up for email there, and you get access to it. On that downloads page, there is a one called the Atmosphere of Early Childhood. It's a 12-minute meditation that you do lying down. I highly recommend that as a way to access the experience of what it would be like to create a field of unconditional love and welcome for the essence of your own inner child, or for any child. So there's that available to you. There's tons of meditations on there at this point. Also, most of them are recorded during my live classes, and then I clip them out and I offer some to the public. So, voila! I would really appreciate it if you would subscribe to my Substack. The newsletter is the title of that. I have some very deep work for subscribers on there. Like I just did one on Living Tantra on beauty, the beauty path as a way of life, and it has a 42-page download for subscribers on how to walk that path of beauty with eight exercises to try at home to begin to point your energy to this incredible effulgent, gorgeous reality. So have a look there, and then finally, I am working so hard with Rosebud Woman, my beautiful lifestyle intimate care company, Rosewoman.com, and it's Rose Woman that creates all of the framework and the capacity for me to do the show, and I feel like we now have an encyclopedia of over 2 million words on women's health and sexuality. We have gorgeous products for gifting and for embodiment across the life cycle. I have a new book coming out called Wake Down, bringing the light all the way into the body, which is up on pre-order over there. We have this new botanical bath salt. It's a soak with magnesium and Epsom salts and baking soda, and it has real organic flowers. And Samantha put that together. Just very stunning. You know, new additions to the line are there. Please come and buy your holiday gifts from Rosewoman.com. Thank you a millionfold for being a node on the network of good. I am so appreciative that this show is hitting you and you're loving it. We were just named number one in relationships for October in Good Pods, and we are climbing on so many other charts. I'm not bragging, but this is all because you guys love to listen. You love to listen, and it means so much to me to get your feedback. So, if there's something in this episode that moved you, please share it with other parents, with other people, and get back to me. Get back to me. Tell me how you liked it. Make some comments on the show, rate the show, and may every being dwell in their zone of genius. May every being be held in a mood of sweetness and ease and balance. Om Shanti Shanti. Talk to you soon. Your children are not your children; they are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, for life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth.
Christine Mason 53:43
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might, that his arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness, for even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable. Khalil Gibran on children from the Prophet, 100 years ago plus 1923. If you don't have all of the beautiful writings in this book, he's such a visionary. So let us see our children as the edge of evolution and make their upbringing for joy.
