DFI#3 Media

Creativity has always been very important to me. On my first day of primary school, I took on the leading role in the class production of 'Are You My Mother'. (The original narrator was away sick, I could already read on arrival at school, and happily put my hand up to fill the gap.) I actually have a school report from my primary school days that says “Elizabeth has a fine sense of the dramatic”. We did not have a TV and so as a very young child, I used to put my dolls in the oven, shut the door, turn the light on, and narrate my own tv shows to entertain my siblings! I begged to learn to play the piano and then, much to parents' dismay, the violin, and any other instrument that the school had in the music room. At intermediate school, I joined my first ‘band’. We called ourselves ‘7 Day Dairy and the Milk Shakes’ and dreamed of becoming 70's rock chicks!

 

Eventually, I decided the stage was where I wanted to be and in my early days of teaching, I led a ‘double life’ of full-time teaching by day and acting at night, while weekends were filled with stand-up comedy and improvised theatre. To this day, my life outside of school has a strong focus on the performing arts and it saddens me when I hear teachers saying that they are so busy working at nights that they have no time for personal hobbies and passions.

As a classroom teacher, I was inspired by the work of Sylvia Ashton Warner. Her philosophy that volcanoes and children need vents of creativity, from her 1963 book Teacher, is still as relevant now as it was then. I can’t help but wonder if the reason that so many schools and teachers are reporting explosive student behaviours in the classroom is linked in some way to the decline of the arts in education?

 

I have believed for a long time that over time schools teach the innate creativity out of children. I frequently blamed the ‘dark years’ of National Standards for the absence of creativity in many classrooms. How could creativity flourish if children are being fed formula in order to learn how to earn the most points on a senseless standardised test?

 

At our school, one of our 4 RISE learner capabilities is Imaginative (Whakaaro Are).

“We dare to be creative. Being imaginative is not always about creating something new, but also, with a little ingenuity making old things work better. We are encouraged to reach far into the depths of our minds and come up with outlandish possibilities as well as practical ones. We undertake new and daring challenges and love trying to solve big problems. We do not always take the easy or expected option!”

 

 

I think that the Create part of the Manaiakalani kaupapa is one of the key reasons that I chose to involve Rawhiti School in the outreach programme when the opportunity presented.

Reflecting on My Learning

 

For someone who loves having the opportunity to be creative, learning about being creative using a digital platform was hard work! Today I was the kid who had to stay in and morning break and lunchtime to finish the work the others had all done in class. It felt more like a learning chasm than a learning pit! While frustrating, it has given me a real insight into how so many children must feel while sitting in our classrooms and not being able to keep up. It has shown me why rewindable learning opportunities are essential, and the tools focused on today are the ways to provide those opportunities for learners (young, and old!).

Eventually, I managed to get my About Me button in the right place on my blog page and went on to create my YouTube Channel and a Playlist of music we that could use in our school bell system that plays songs to indicate the end of break times. I did have to stop myself as I could have spent hours trawling YouTube music videos.

Google Slides and Google Drawing are my home learning for the coming week.