Creativity, 'Learn Create Share', and reading

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini 

My success is not my own, but from many others

I don't think this is the first time I've made reference to this whakataukī on my blog, and today was another great example of why it is so apt. Today 191 teachers and support staff from across our Uru Mānuka cluster came together to upskill and make progress on the very tough nut of improving student reading. Improving the educational outcomes for our learners, and so improving their lives, is a collective endeavour. It represents the greatest opportunity to have a positive impact on a whole community, and as I have written before, there is very little in the way of answers that we don't have somewhere within our community, within our collective kete of strategies that cause learning.

However today we took a firm grasp of the issue of reading, and spent the day with reading expert Sheena Cameron and her colleague Louise, working together to upskill on how we can do this better. As Einstein is reputed to have said "insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result" (or something like that anyway). Our actions today (and increasingly consistently over the past decade) across Uru Mānuka, show the lie that was the neo liberal right wing reforms to education that tried to tell us that the market would give the best results. Markets work best (if they work at all) on the basis that each one of us is out for ourselves, and be damned to everyone else.

It is just possible (isn't it?) that one of the results of that approach has lead to the observation of Stuart McNaughton (Prime Minister's Education Adviser) in his 2020 paper "The literacy landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand, What we know, what needs fixing and what we should prioritise" that there is no consistent approach to teaching reading in Aotearoa. We are seeing the consequence of that in declining literacy standards across the country.

So where are we at across the Uru Mānuka kāhui ako? We have made great progress on writing. Our students are on average accelerating writing progress at twice national averages. Reading however is accelerating at something less so, so now it's time...  time to focus on reading. This focus began last year, and our teacher only day this year (postponed from March 2021 because of Covid) is a large building block in this work, expanding staff capability to improve reading. It is bigger even than that though, because it offers learners coherence and consistency as they progress on their learning journey through their years at school as the educators use a common or shared language in their work.

At Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka Hornby High School our own focus on writing has been pretty intensive, both at the junior level, and at the senior academic level. This is because we have the belief that great readers don't make great writers, you have to write to learn how to write. However similarly you have to read to improve your reading. 

Several specific reading strategies stood out for me. The first was the development of the skill of inference, the relationship between the author and the reader, the ability of the reader to read into the author's words the connections and meanings that the author intended.

This took me back to my own learning around creative writing (I do a bit of that as a past time, after completing a Massey Uni paper in 2010), where the basic approach is best described as “Show don’t tell” For example, don't tell me 'the sun rose'. Tell me that the 'growing daybreak bathed the landscape in a warm orange light that brought the bare branches of the trees to life'.

You can't write that sort of thing (I think) until you have learned the skill of inference, and that skill is what makes the relationship between the author and the reader so special. There is a cross over between the two. So teaching students the skill of inference might be expected to help them to write more creatively too?

Of quite obvious relevance to our Manaiakalani kaupapa is the reading strategy of activating prior knowledge. This caught my attention as well given the importance of cultural knowledge and the cultural lens that the child brings to the text. Valuing each child's culturl world view is essential to supporting them to make sense of any text. 

The biggest 'aha' moment for me was the discussion of the reading skill of synthesising. 

"Synthesising is when the student merges new information with prior knowledge to form a new idea, perspective, or opinion or to generate insight. Synthesis is an ongoing process. As new knowledge is acquired, it is synthesised with prior knowledge to generate new ideas

Synthesizing is the most complex of the reading strategies. It lies on a continuum of evolving thinking. Synthesizing runs the gamut from taking stock of meaning during reading to achieving new insight.” Stephanie Harvey and Ann Goudvis 'Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding', Stenhouse, Portland, ME, 2000. .. 

The first paragraph could easily be a restatement of our own definition of 'Create' from our 'Learn Create Share' pedagogy. It emphasises the importance of creativity for our learners. Every act of connection is an act of creativity, every time learners create meaning for themselves this is an act of creativity, every time our learners add new knowledge to what they already know this is an act of creativity.

The universality of our pedagogy, and the strength of our moral imperative to improve outcomes for our learners, are drivers so strong that we see teachers every day giving their best, and running at 110% in terms of their energy and their input. You can't do that forever, but you can sustain that for a period of time. It is a testimony to the 190+ educators across our kāhui ako (and across the motu, I reckon) that they do this day in and day out, often in the face of significant headwinds of deprivation, and (increasingly) of helicopter parenting.

The challenge for our staff now is to develop a hunch about what to do next to develop literacy skills, regardless of their curriculum area and specialisation, to think about something that might make a difference, try it, and see what the resulting data says. We are all teachers of literacy.

In the meantime, this is what collaboration looks like. This is the power of clustering schools together. This is what 'system change' looks like, at least for our Uru Mānuka community. It is a privilege to be a part of this group of professionals supporting our great community.

Our educational purpose: compliant economic units, or creative human beings?

I was recently privileged to attend the ‘Long term Insights Briefing; Youth employment, the way forward’ organised by MBIE, MSD, and MOE.  There was an interesting cross-section of people and organisations in the room (there were no young people in the room, but we were assured that there were to be separate hui designed to capture their voice, a collective sigh of relief could be heard and felt across the room when we heard that).

As you’d hope, it had me thinking (there would have been little point in going if I hadn’t been prepared to think about the issues!!). I listened to the discussion from around my own table, and the feedback from the other tables in the room, and some themes were pretty evident. There was a general view that education didn’t meet the needs of the group of young people who are most at risk.. There were also views about the willingness and ability of employers to take on young people, to mentor and support them in the work place, and many many more. The views on education were the ones that (understandably) most caught my attention. 

I heard the view that young people ‘graduate’ from secondary school lacking both the technical and the (so called) soft skills to take their place in the workforce. The general tenor of the comments was that schools are not fit for purpose.  There, I’ve said it!!! That sentiment fascinates me. It’s not one I’d disagree with for a single moment. What fascinates me is this. We now live in world in which see young people (actually people in general) as little more than economic units rather than as human beings. In my opinion this is very likely to be the result of thirty five years of market driven economics, and what I believe has been the ‘idolisation’ of the free market. A corollary of this was a discussion at our table that maybe young people at age 13 or 14 aren’t yet ready for the sort of ‘learning’ that we try to deliver, that they are not yet ready for such vocationally focussed learning. How many 13 year olds know what they intend to do in the economy as 20 year olds? How many 13 year olds know enough about themselves to be able to start thinking about that issue, let alone resolve it?

Now an understanding that we are economic units may might not in itself be bad, but I reckon that this has been to the exclusion of other far more fundamental things. I hold the view that being human, being allowed to be human, feeling culturally located and culturally safe, and being capable of forming strong and meaningful human relationships, are all things that are essential before we can learn. These are essential prerequisites before we can be the best that we can be and, if you are wedded to the free market paradigm, before we can be the ‘most efficient economic units that we can be’.

These things are the basis of the so called soft skills that people at the hui were talking about. They are also the same ‘soft skills’ that NZ employers are talking about. Take a look at the ‘Employability skills’ listed on the CareersNZ website. We are assured that they reflect what employers want in employees. Here is the list of the seven essential skills.

The seven essential employability skills

Here are the seven essential employability skills with examples:

1. Positive attitude: Being calm and cheerful when things go wrong.

2. Communication: You can listen and say information clearly when you speak or write.

3. Teamwork: You help out when it gets busy at work.

4. Self-management: You get to work on time every day.

5. Willingness to learn: You want to learn new things to improve your skills.

6. Thinking skills (problem solving and decision making): You try and solve problems or can see where something won't work.

7. Resilience: You get an angry customer but you keep calm, keep working and laugh about it later.

I don’t see any mention there of such things as ‘can differentiate an equation with two variables’ or ‘can draw a circuit diagram’ or ‘can illustrate the impact of an increase in income on a demand curve’. Now I’m NOT suggesting that specific knowledge is unimportant. It most certainly is. I am however suggesting that much of that specific knowledge has less importance than the capacity to be human, to communicate, collaborate, empathise, and think creatively and critically. I am making reference to the key competencies listed in the front half of the New Zealand curriculum. That document aligns really well with what employers want. And what they want are functioning human beings. Functioning human beings are most likely to be the highly productive little economic units that employers want, too.

I am often amused by the contradiction between what employers tell us they want, and what the right wing political pundits often (not always!!) seem tell us they want in terms of ‘standards’. That ‘free market’ mantra lead us down the path to ‘national standards’, and also drives our common assessment of the effectiveness of secondary schools by looking at their NCEA results. Such ‘data’ fails completely to identify those ‘damaged’ young people whom we foster and bring through to near adulthood as functioning humans. Yes they may not have the literacy levels we hope for, but if they are caring compassionate humans, that in itself may have been a massive shift for them when compared with where they began life’s journey. We all too often find ourselves simply trying to overcome the incredibly traumatic beginnings to life that our rangatahi bring to the educational table.

This brings me back to a paper that has resonated very strongly with me, Professor Peter O’Connor’s paper “Replanting creativity in post normal times” (October 2020). From that paper:

“The future of work is human. This inspiring insight follows Deloitte Access Economics’ analysis of changes to the nature of skills in demand since 1988, and extrapolations to 2030. From work of the hands (manual labour), to work of the head (cognitive labour), Deloitte Access Economics has identified an emerging need for work of the heart (i.e. soft skills such as judgement, resolving conflict and customer service).”  (O’Connor page 13)

However I am suggesting that even that position is far less important than the contention that what we most urgently need is human beings. We need people who are kind, empathetic, and can think, both creatively and critically, which of course brings me right back again to my regular hobby horse of creativity.

Even a brief read of Professor Peter O’Connor’s paper “Replanting creativity in post normal times” (October 2020) will show that supporting the development of creativity supports wellbeing.

“Upitis (2014) discusses how ..fostering creativity in students helps them to develop resilience, resourcefulness, and confidence—preparing them to address life’s challenges. Creativity also carries its own intrinsic value. Developing creative sensibilities and habits enhances quality of life for teachers and students. (p. 2).”  (O’Connor Page 17)

Another of my ‘fave’ educational thinkers and writers is Yong Zhao. In amongst his many profound observations and reflections is the notion that our current education systems (globally) are narrowing rather than broadening human talent. I’ve used this diagram before, and it warrants revisiting.

It ought to be our fundamental role to broaden creative talent, to amplify the diversity of human thinking and creativity. The benefits of such a broadening are potentially profound. And there is one of the many strengths, the may promises. that the Manaiakalani kaupapa offers with our "Learn Create Share' pedagogy, that possibility of developing and enhancing creativity amongst students and teachers alike. 

It begs the question of exactly who we are serving in education? What is our main purpose in education? Is it to produce compliant economic units? Or is it to support humanity to grow, to thrive and flourish? I’ll wait and see if any of that filters through in the ‘Long Term Insights Briefing’ material that goes to ministers.

We teach children, not subjects

It was one of those 'OMG' moments. You know the ones. You see something and think 'that has to be the coolest thing I have seen' (using whatever language your generation uses to express utter delight).

I was doing a walkthrough of our learning spaces (as I often do - it's my  reconnection with sanity when the admin ** gets a bit tedious). I walked into a Year 7-9 wānanga session being run by one of our team of secondary trained English teachers (shout out to you, Mr Taylor).

Wānanga time places learners with a 'learning advisor' for 7 hours a week in Years 7-9. In that time they will cover a wide range of activity, from that simple but vital relationship building, to cybersmart, to community impact and passion projects, to literacy and numeracy work, and a whole lot more on top of that. The teacher was standing next to a mobile whiteboard, and he had drawn the numbers 1 and 2 on the whiteboard in large numerals, with a space between them.  Had he taken a leaf out of the book of Dr Seuss?

I watched as he asked this simple question: "how many numbers are there between 1 and 2?" Students came to the front and wrote numbers on the whiteboard, or offered their best guesses about how many numbers there are between 1 and 2. There was quite a degree of curiosity amongst the students.

I was frankly gobsmacked, excited, overwhelmed.. why?

Here was a humanities teacher teaching maths. There was, I thought, a clear understanding from the teacher that he was teaching students, not a subject. His connection with the students was deep, positive.. it was profound.

I talked with the teacher the next day, and he commented that the discussion then went on to what we mean by infinity. (Here is some information in the concept of infinity, and here is some information on this idea that regardless of how close two points re on a number line, there will always be a point in between them) For example the students asked if there were different sizes of infinity. This teacher loves philosophy, and there he was engaging 11-13 year olds in deep philosophy. In an email to me Luke Taylor  said "I'm loving the opportunity to weave philosophy through Wānanga."

Students were engaged, interested, curious, happy to have a go, to try, and come up with an answer. They did not have the usual reluctance to offer ideas, they were 'doing maths'. I'm not sure that they knew that they were doing maths, and that in itself left me wondering if therefore they had lost the typical 'fixed mindset ' that we so often see towards mathematics. You know the one .. 'I can't do maths', 'I was never any good at maths'. Yet actually we can all do maths, we all have the necessary mental ability to do maths. It's just that we tell ourselves that we can't. I know from personal experience that this is true. It took one good teacher to shift me from abject failure in the old School Certificate maths early in the year, to a stellar mark at the end of the year. We can ALL DO maths. That's what I saw in this wānanga class.

Here's another observation: the teacher was de-silo'ing secondary education. He was crossing those traditional 19th century artificial subject boundaries. This makes learning real for learners. I hasten to add that he was following the guidance of our HOD Maths, a maths specialist , who has set up a wodmnerful Google Site to support teachers and learner. This is a basic component of our Manaiakalani work, in which all learning is made visible. Maybe that is a future evolution for the traditional Head of Department, maybe that role might morph into a learning advisor for non specialist teachers? Maybe the HOD will be the one to ensure the integrity of traditional subjects? Mind you, that is a very euro-centric view of learning. maybe schools will structure themselves in a way that respects and values traditional knowledge accessed in traditional ways? After all, that traditional knowledge saw the earliest Polynesian navigators crossing the largest ocean on the planet.

And I saw all of this in part because (I reckon) the teacher realised that he wasn't teaching a subject, he was teaching children/pupils/students (choose your own word, there).

This is another example of 'creative excellence' in action, creative excellence in the ways in which we are evolving learning to be more fit for purpose for our young people.

Ka mau te wehi Mr Taylor!!!

Impactful PLD - none of us knows all the answers, but between us we know most of them

The trouble with a lot of educational professional learning and development (PLD) is that it is based on the assumption that you need an expert to come in and 'do it' to teachers. Lots of 'wannabe' consultants offer expertise that can turn out to be a chimera, an illusion, at the end of which you feel much as you might at the end of a week of eating potato crips hoping that would provide satisfying nutrition: rather empty and unfulfilled (and at times rather sick). Now don't get me wrong, there are also some outstanding providers of PLD, and at Hornby High School we work with a few of them.

However that's not how we roll all the time at Hornby High School, nor cross our Uru Mānuka kāhui ako. Today is a case in point. Today we ran our 'Teacher Summit '21' at which teachers from across the cluster presented a simple aspect of their work, their ideas, their best practice, to teachers from across the cluster, all focussed on our cluster wide focus on reading. Over 100 teachers from primary and secondary schools shared a piece of their best practice, and you know what? It ALL came from inside our Kāhui Ako. We knew all of this, and I have been privileged to witness some outstanding ideas that are stunning in their simplicity and their effectiveness.

This is not someone coming in and telling us our business, DOING PLD TO us. This was us sharing what we have established to be effective teaching practice, practice often the result of teacher inquiry. The fact that we are in this place, doing this mahi, is due in no small measure to our participation in the Manaiakalani kaupapa. The pedagogy and the support from Manaiakalai Education trust have enabled teacher and school efficacy and self determination, and the opportunity to improve our impact on learners. 

It is also a beautiful example of our "Learn Create Share' pedagogy in operation with our teachers. After all, if we are to be authentic in our use of the pedagogy, we ought to use it ourselves.

I picked up some very cool ideas, the sorts of ideas that make me wish I was in the classroom so that I had an excuse to use them. Big thanks has to go to all of the staff who so willingly participated, and to Kelsey our Education Programme Leader, who engineered the whole event.

Impactful PLD Aē. Impactful PLD because none of us knows all the answers, but between us we know most of them

Te Rito Toi 7 - cultural identity, creativity, and a language aspiration for Hornby High school

I wrote previously about the opinion I have formed that for creativity to thrive, learners need to feel culturally located , they need to feel safe and strong in their sense of cultural identity. There is lots of powerful voice out there about what that mahi looks like in kura, perhaps some of the most useful and transformative is that from Anne Milne with her work captured in her writing and presentation 'Colouring in the white spaces'.

There are many ways in which we can meet this challenge. I wanted to share this assembly address that I gave to both junior and senior assemblies at the end of term 1 2021. I hope you have the patience to read to the end, it's not too long.

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.

Te Rito Toi 5 .... cultural diversity, the sense of self, and creativity

We were in  Blenheim supporting our daughter running the St Clair half marathon (she managed a PB.. ka mau te wehi, Natasha!!). 

As we wandered in the vineyard area after the event I came across an artist in the process of creating art (painting) as people went about their business of celebrating, eating, and drinking. I plucked up the courage (I don't normally approach complete strangers quite like this) and asked her 'what do you feel as you paint? She looked at me, and I clarified 'not what do you think, what do you feel?' She replied "actually that's a really good question, I haven't thought about it quite like that before". As the conversation progressed it became clearer to me that she had thought about it before, but perhaps not in those terms. I also realised that I had perhaps asked a stupid question; this quote from 'Te Rito Toi Replanting creativity in post normal times' sprang to mind:

Gordon was trying to say the unsayable, struggling with thoughts that lay beyond the capacity of mere words to express. Pavlova, when asked what she meant by her interpretation of Swan Lake replied, ‘if I had been able to say it in words, do you think I should have gone to all the trouble of dancing it?’

(Clarence Beeby, Director General of Education, at the funeral of Gordon Tovey in May 1974).

I told her that, as best I could recall the quote (as a story rather than a quote, my memory isn't that good.)

Anyway, our conversation progressed, and she spoke in terms of her own inner self and her sense of self, how she 'felt' about herself, and life, about the world in which she lived, and her desire to say things that she couldn't say in words (in precisely the way that Pavlova is reputed to have done).

Professor O'Connor and his team have identified 11 dimensions that potentially activate creativity, and I have listed those before.

I have another 'wondering'. Whatever drivers we might be able to describe in our schooling systems, our innate creativity perhaps cannot be activated unless we have a level of self awareness, a level of confidence, in who we are. Specifically I wonder if we need to have a sense that we are culturally located, that we have at least some connection with our whakapapa, before our creative potential can be unleashed. I'm not suggesting that being 'culturally located, culturally safe', generates creativity per se. My wondering is if being in such a state and place is one of those 'necessary but not sufficient' conditions, and therefore if we could avoid some of the tendency to 'kill creativity' if we were better at this?

If so, this adds another dimension to the already overriding moral obligation on schools to ensure that they build and maintain culturally responsive and sustainable environments. Every child ought to be able to bring their cultural back pack inside the school gates. I'm sure all kura try. How well do we do? How well is Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka Hornby High School doing?

Is it also possible, in my own wondering, that creativity comes from an inner conflict as we struggle to see, to know, to come to terms with our own inner self, our place in the world, and our whakapapa? It was interesting to read in a recent edition of 'The Listener' (May 8-14 2021) about the role of conflict in creativity, particularly in group settings.

I'm not proposing that we set students up in conflict in order to generate creativity. It's just interesting.

I have also thought about the role of stress. I wonder if creativity is perhaps more likely to occur in some settings when we are close to the edge of our comfort zone. Is that the 'place' we have to be to find the motivation to seek new solutions, to find new ideas? Is creativity enhanced when we experience eustress (as opposed to distress .. "Eustress is a word used to describe stress that is positive, motivating, and enhances functioning while distress refers to bad and overwhelming stress that impairs functioning." https://www.choosingtherapy.com/eustress-vs-distress/#:~:text=Eustress%20is%20a%20word%20used,overwhelming%20stress%20that%20impairs%20functioning. )

I wonder if schools that support diverse cultural identity more effectively end up seeing higher levels of creativity from students (regardless of curriculum area or kura activity)? Is it possible that schools with more culturally diverse student and staff populations are more predisposed to greater creativity, assuming the other drivers of creativity are activated? How would/could we find out? Difficult, I suspect, if it is (as I suggest) one of those 'necessary but not sufficient; conditions. Mind you, could this be an interesting application of the CAST Creative Schools Index?

None of this is any sort of 'claim', there is no suggestion that any of this is some sort of truth. It is simply what I have 'wondered'. It also strengthens the case for the Manaiakalani pedagogy 'Learn Create Share', doesn't it? Our typically lower decile schools tend to reflect wide cultural diversity. Here's a thought: if any of my other wonderings are true (IF), then are our more culturally diverse schools the potential powerhouses for creativity and innovation across Aotearoa? 

Food for thought, eh!!