Te Rito Toi 6 - creativity as a thread running through all that we do

I love flash mobs. You know, those things where a single person starts a performance in a public place, and then another person joins in, and then another, more and more people join in until you get this amazing  .. thing .. this 'happening'... performance.. you get the idea. This is one of my personal favourites, and if you know what they are you will no doubt have your own favourite from Youtube too.

So anyway, I had this crazy idea. We want everyone in our community to see themselves as readers. It was part of our thinking about how we promote reading in our community, with our tamariki, and how we get them reading. After all, the only way you improve your reading is by ... yep.. reading, right?

And that was how our 'reading flashmob' was born. The idea was that a large group of children from across our kāhui ako would appear at our local shopping centre The Hub, sit down, and read. Simple.  And that's what they did, about 150 of them. 

They read silently for a short time, and then they got together in groups for some reading aloud and story telling sessions. The City Libraries team were a hit with their interactive storytelling in Te Reo Māori, and Samoan.

The storytelling was variously in English, Tongan, Samoan, Te Reo Māori, and Tagalog, key languages in our kura.

The session finished with some amazing slam poetry (a live performance) from Dietrich Soakai. The quality of his work was astounding, world class, captivating, entertaining.. I know that I was personally spellbound by Dietrich's skill as a storyteller, a performer, a poet, a magician with words.

Dietrich Soakai performing some captivating slam poetry

We didn't film Dietrich on the day (we were too captivated by his powerful words), but here is a Youtube clip of Dietrich performing his powerful poem 'Cultural Turtle'.

The event was shaped with the idea of 'windows and mirrors' in mind. We want learners to see themselves in their learning material and experiences, like looking into a mirror, rather than see others, like looking through a window. As I said earlier, we want Hornby learners and whānu to see themselves as readers, because they ARE.

I also think that there is another way of thinking about the whole experience.

At Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka Hornby High School we aspire to be a centre of creative excellence. We want creativity to thrive in ALL aspects of our kura, not just the traditional creative arts and technologies but also in the ways we approach solutions to other problems. 

The reading flash mob, I like to think, was an example of creative problem solving. We took a couple of existing ideas, getting children to sit and read, and a flash mob, and we put them together in the simplest possible way to create something new. I'm not quite sure if this is true, but I've certainly never heard of a 'reading flash mob' before. The approach I reckon is also consistent with our Manaiakalani definition of 'Create' and our 'Learn, Create, Share' pedagogy. combining existing ideas in new ways. A centre of creative excellence, he puna auaha.

We aim to embed creativity in all that we do, we want creativity to be a thread that runs through all of our endeavour. Are we there yet? No. Are we on our way? Hell yes!! In our own way we are planting seeds in the best spirit of Te Rito Toi in our approach to problem solving.

The event was also part of the Learning City Christchurch Learning Days, an exciting body of work hoping to connect us all on Ōtautahi as learners living , working and learning. in a networked city.

Our special thanks to Jason Marsden, centre manager, and The Hub, for being such supportive hosts for the event. We were ably supported by the team from City Libraries who created a pop up library in The Hub, and also had several of their team members lead some mazing interactive story telling in Samoan and Te Reo Māori. We had other storytellers and readers, including a number of our very own senior stunts .. tuakana teina!!! I'd also make a special of our very own Nicole Sowman who organised the work on the ground. People like me who have grand ideas need people like Nicole who make things happen. Thank you, Nicole.