The power of risk taking..

On my very last 'Tumuaki walk through' of learning spaces at Hornby High School, I saw many wonderful things. I saw engagement, focus, fun, laughter, and creativity.

One small interaction in particular has stuck in my memory. A Year 7 & 8 class  (with teacher Patricia) had been reading what you'd describe as a 'sophisticated picture book'. The students were in the process of re-imagining various parts of the story with their own images, and text, creating new metaphors (at least, I hope I have that right, Patricia). The atmosphere was focussed and 'buzzy'.. those in education will know what that looks, sounds, feels, like. It is the sound, the look, the feel, of an effective teacher at work, and it was what I regularly saw all around the kura in those walkthroughs.

I stopped to chat to a young one man who was drawing tentative lines, erasing, drawing, erasing etc. I asked why, and he said that he couldn't 'get it right' (he was copying some parts of the original image from the story book so that he could then re-imagine).

I suggested that in fact he should just draw it as he saw it. I got out my phone, searched a Picasso self portrait, and showed it to him.

(Source: Creative Commons, https://richmondartcenter.org/instructables/picasso-self-portraits-2/)

I said 'Does that look like a photo' and then said maybe that's how Picasso saw himself. I said, just feel free to draw what you see. No-one else can see what you see, so no-one can tell you that you are right or wrong. I also said, and anyway if it doesn't go right, so what? I told him to make as many mistakes as he could because the best way to learn is to make mistakes, but to stop erasing and simply draw. 

I (deliberately) turned away for a minute or two, and then looked back. There he was drawing bold lines, shading, sketching, his hand going nowhere near the eraser. And there was a smile on his face.

I'd encouraged him to take a risk, to stop being fearful of consequences, and just do it. I regret not going back an hour or so later to see what he had produced.

Isn't this the way with so many of us, and our learning and our creativity? How many of us tell ourselves that we can't draw? That we are tone deaf? That we can't do maths? That we can't dance?

That's why we opted early on to state that one of our areas of strategic intent at Hornby High School was to encourage risk taking. What deliberate acts of teaching, what deliberate acts of relationship building, do teachers and schools need to foster in this regard to support greater creativity?

Creativity means different things to different people, at different times, but if we keep it front and centre (as we can when empowered by the Manaiakalani kaupapa, and the 'learn, create, share' pedagogy) learners are the winners, kura are the winners, the world is the winner. This risk taking thing is pretty powerful, eh...

Final post as Tumuaki of Hornby High School

When I began this professional blog seven years ago I had one key purpose in mind.

It was originally meant to document our Hornby High School journey for our community to see and celebrate. Over the seven years it has taken on other purposes too. 

It has allowed me to clarify my thinking as I have written lines describing what I have done and seen, and more importantly what others have done.

It has allowed me to keep our vision (a centre of creative excellence) to the forefront for our staff team and our community. 

And it has allowed me to model something important that we expect from all of our learners (staff and students alike): the practice of reflecting and blogging, an essential piece of the 'share' component of our 'learn, create, share' pedagogy and of our participation in the Manaiakalani kaupapa. This in particular has been transformational, something that is life changing for many akonga and many communities.

The Hornby High School part of my own journey is now at an end, although I am hopeful that the Hornby Hornby High School journey towards creative excellence can and will continue.  

I am grateful that the Hornby High Board of Trustees has agreed to pass the intellectual property rights to this blog to me so that I might be allowed to continue to develop my own thinking in the place, building on this past seven years of mahi, and to share that thinking with others. Their generosity is gratefully received.

So this is my last post as Tumuaki of Hornby High School. Future posts here will be a reflection of my thinking not as Tumuaki but as a private individual.

It seemed fitting that I share this piece of my own creativity at this point in time - a poem I crafted to reflect the end of my formal time in schools, the end to a 44 year career, a career that did indeed start when chalk was the norm, when overhead projectors were the new technology challenging teachers, when quite. a few teachers still wore gowns, and when schools were so often dull dreary environments of well worn and chipped paint work.

Haere rā, e kia ora,  e hoa mā!!!!

Footnote to the universe

After yesterday's post, I received this poem created by Joanne C on our team, her poetical version of yesterday's blog post.

What does this say? It says everything about our organisational culture, about 'how we do things around', about who we are.

It says staff feel comfortable:

• being creative
• reframing what I have said
• sharing what they are thinking with me
• sharing what they are thinking with everyone else
• taking risks in sharing

What an environment t work in, what ba culture to be. apart of, what an amazing group of colleagues. Our vision as 'he puna auaha a centre of creative excellence' is alive and well. It is real, it is being fed, nurtured, cultivated.  How do I know? Staff are themselves prepared to indulge their creativity and to take risks in sharing. Thanks Joanne... ka mau te wehi e hoa!!!!

Sometimes the universe joins the dots ...

Sometimes the universe connects the dots for you. Sometimes, the universe screams at you, screams the message "hey hey hey stupid.. can't you see?" Call it serendipity, call it synchronicity, call it what you like, but I've had one of those mornings.

It began with an interview with a new grad for a teaching position. I asked the interviewee what they thought were the necessary conditions for creativity to flourish. Included in the answer was the observation that creativity is a very personal thing, it comes with and from our personal responses to our world. She also talked about needing to be able to connect with our cultural identity, having and knowing that sense of self. Hardly new I know, but I needed to be reminded of that.

Then a very good colleague (Anne) popped in with a small piece of mahi. She then thanked me for sharing my poetry, and gave me a copy of a poem that she had written 30 years ago, something deeply personal. It was a very good poem. And it left me with LES ('leaky eye syndrome'). It impacted for me at a deeply emotional level, it dug down into my emotional self, that place where the spark of creativity resides.

I then had to make a short trip in the car, and on the radio they were playing Mussorgsky's 'Night on Bare Mountain'. I recalled first hearing it as a child, and then seeing the interpretation of the music that appeared in the 1940 Disney movie 'Fantasia'. The music, the memory, the mental imagery, were deep, profound, and moving. I was right back as the young child who had first experienced the music, and the movie. Strong emotional connection enhances memory and learning (perhaps more than almost anything else?)

Finally on a walk around, I came into Patricia's classroom. She had the students interpreting a picture book, with their own versions of the story and the imagery. The students were deeply engaged, you could almost 'see', and you could definitely 'feel',  the creativity in the learning space. This was deep connection, deep meaningful engagement, built on the back of strong positive relationships.

Students with their 'drafts', all a WIP

None of that (I think) is rocket science. We have known all of this. It was interesting that the universe pushed all four of these things at me in one morning.

As human beings, while we talk of the struggle of the artist, the isolation of the artist, as lying at the centre of creativity, I am wondering if that sort of creativity is the exception. Maybe creativity is more generally the result of emotional connection, within ourselves and with each other.

And so this led me to the big question: how do schools build this emotional connection, this relational connection, for and with our learners? My premise (to restate it) is that we need to do this if we are to create optimal conditions for creativity, if we are to nurture and to grow wellbeing, connection, and personal growth for our rangatahi, and for our kaiako. After all, that's what our national curriculum says.

And the final piece of this stream of consciousness was a presentation three of us made at a wellbeing conference hosted by Christ's College yesterday. Our premise was that building strong relationships, and focussing on creativity, are the best ways of meeting the wellbeing needs of our learners, and our kaiako, 

I am always looking for coherence in what we do, and there it is right there. Our Wānanga structures, and our focus on creativity, support improved relationships, and emotional connection, essential for creativity, essential for personal growth, essential if we are to create empathetic young people. 

That doesn't bely the need for deep knowledge and high skill levels. These are an implicit part of this.

This is all about being human, about making strong emotional connection, about seeing what we have in common rather than what makes us difference. Surely this is key to a better society?

If we connect this with our Manaiakalani kaupapa 'Learn, Create, Share', we could reach the conclusion that our kaupapa, when effectively implemented, supports deep connection that enhances our humanity. Too long a draw of the bow?

And all of that leaves me with the big question that continues to haunt me" what does effective leadership that enhances wellbeing and creativity actually look like? And have we come close?