Assemblage - Manaakitanga; Collaborative Consideration, Collective Control.

These photos are the result of students working on the same drawing at different times and adding their own ideas to them. We had five proposals as a base. Each of the three classes worked on these equally. Time limits in class were set and students had to really think about how they perceived shelter from a spiritual, emotional, as well as physical sense.

 

Students voted for their favourite drawing and had to justify why they made that choice and consider how they would eventually make the structure. The first and largest image above is their choice - number 4. It wasn't mine and I struggled with not putting  a case forward for one I liked personally! That would have undermined the intention of it being their collaboration. It was their decision and they felt that 4 reflected their understanding and intention in discussing shelter. The difficult aspect of this is that this is not a three-dimensional drawing. It is a flat design, with texture, space and form that needs to be made three-dimensionally. In studying Anthony Caro, there is a realisation that he is not just a sculptor, but he is also a proficient abstract painter. And in fact, he is often really just painting with metal and space. Unlike Aycock, the student's other Artist model to consider in assemblage practice, he does not however, plan anything, or draw anything of his sculpted pieces. He only makes from the materials he has and the idea he has, often based on lengthy discussion and debate with his Artist wife. I have not got her name on hand. 

From there students have been working on creating it our assemblage. The first part of this, was how do we make a floor happen?  Anisha suggested her dad may be able to give us some old wooden palettes. Framing up a floor with 2 x 4, would have been a long, technical process and would have used a lot more material than we had budgeted for. So we asked Anisha if he would let us have some and the next day he delivered us 6 palettes, that our photography class nailed together as a floor. I was a little stunned when he drove up with these. Brilliant community here at Hornby. He also provided some nails from an old nail gun, but when you use those without a nail gun, someone has to sit there and break the wire that bonds them all together like machine-gun bullets... sore, sore fingers.

 

 

 
 

  Nikita and Bevan to the left, and additionally Shavaughnm Mich and Brianna below in the shortest video ever below (I  need a new phone...)

  The painters who werent too shy to be photographed; Niomi (Photographer), Estelle, Ana and    Quaid.

So who did what; The painting class took on the making of the uprights for the frame. The designers and then the painters took it on from there. Due to time constrictions across term one, we have struggled to finish what we have started, but the plans seem to be progressing as to how we manage the roof. Three v-shapes that likely have a proper building name, have been made by students with left over bits from a children's swing, one made solely by Danica, which was pretty impressive. There has not been one of our current students, who has not involved themselves in some way. We do not have real building knowledge here, we are in fact making what we have work, to be what we need visually. Mr Rees and Mr Rozka have been really helpful when we come over to them asking for all sorts of their gear and advice on how to do things that we had not even considered.

Our plan from here is to glue and drill screws in for the roof, as this seems sturdier and that is what we need as we go upwards. We have worked hard to make plaited flax ropes for bindings around corners and tying things on or down as we need to, but we need a lot more. Matua Mike Murray was brilliant in showing our design class how to carefully and respectfully cut the flax for this, with a Karakia and only the grandparent leaves. The cross feature and the wire features are still needed. Sheets for walls seems to be popular as we can use a staple gun to get them up and they will provide good imagery to draw, paint and photograph for folios, which is half the purpose of this structure; that it becomes their visual grounding, starting point and muse for the rest of the year. So, we have to re-set deadlines as we lost more class time than we initially anticipated and certain tasks too longer than we wanted as well.

 

  Miss Botherway, Mrs Cairns, Logan                                                               and Jacob

Additonally, Teresa, Shavaughn and Anisha pictured here with the boys (Design class).

There are numbers of incidents of working together and being collaborative, and it is often on the spur of the moment that it happens. That sense of helping each other out has been increasing and is happening in a natural way often. However, there are times when the teacher still has to get things started before it happens. I wonder if this is a confidence thing? But still not happening is the students owning it and working on it during their own time. There have been some small incidents of it happening with the small photography class, but it was short lived, with interruptions in learning slowing this down. So there is not really the sense of collective control that we wanted. Time and personalities across three classes have disrupted this. Students are working on how they make this structure meaningful in their folio work for the remainder of the year and already there are the calls to not start certain aspects of their personal practical work until 'we finish it'.

In starting this assemblage standard, to cover Manaakitanga as one of our cultural conventions, I find that other aspects of what has now been defined as our 6 successful teacher criteria (but for me was initially relative to how the Treaty of Waitangi is, or is not validated in teaching inquiry) are necessary in making this a success. Kotahitanga is most specifically what I am considering now. I have already begun using it as a learning outcome for term two of the year 10 programme, now I see that it is a natural progression for this programme also - creating unity, while celebrating individuality - this is my understanding of Kotahitanga based on discussions with our HOD Te Reo Māori, Matua Corey Kamariera. I need to think this out much further, as to how to apply it here meaningfully. I need to think about a lot of things further, as the two main concepts in studying Caro and Aycock need to be something students draw from during the course of their work this year too. I'm making a list.

In terms of completion of this assemblage, we have revised our expectations and are working towards completion, but with student collective control, not teacher-run timetabling and deadlining. Cindy and I are very proud of what our classes have achieved so far, but well aware of the work required still...

CORE ED Modern Pathways to raising Maori Achievement

Janelle Riki's Presentation

Our Professional Development today focussed on Maori Achievement and digitally connected kids.

While the URL above is a link to it, most of the presentation was Janelle's spoken words around it. This was a very concise definition of why we should be using MLE's, which is one of the strongest points I took from it. Janelle was a very analytical and well-spoken presenter.

Slide 8 "...to be modern, anything were designing or building must be conceived of and developed for what we know and understand 'just now', drawing on our lessons from the past, an d considering the demands of the future.."

Explaining that our 'modern' spaces are about recognising what we need now and catering for the future made this seem a whole lot less 'catchphrase-y', and more about being realistic with our design, rather than just trying to force the modern practices we are already likely to be using into boxes that were designed for modern practice 50 years ago.

I liked that she started with "don't throw the baby out with the bath water" and took the time to break down how Maori culture and education values went from a traditional village system to victorian education systems, without anything in-between leading them through to this, and that this is likely according to some researchers, to still be impacting on the current state of affairs. I have read other pieces of research along those lines in reference to a number of other issues Maori are faced with, so while not a surprise, Janelle was really concise and confident with the information. Her point being, what can we learn from traditional village education systems that did exist? That students were relationally connected with their "teachers", were being evaluated for their natural strengths and then encouraged to play to those for the betterment of their society. They didn't necessarily 'pass' and 'fail' at what they were being taught, they just tried again and figured out a better way each time. Survival depended on it and it was a system of education that was 'fit for purpose'.

I do continue to wonder why we insist on teaching exam skills, and putting students through these; it isn't real applied learning, it doesn't resonate with you in 15 years time as something that altered your life, because it doesn't allow for you to practice a new skill or break down new information in a way that you will use for real, over again, in real life situations. An exam is almost like bad reality tv, without the captive audience; placing the 'ordinary. And when only 9 % of our Level One students credits came from external exams, I do have to wonder why? Level Two was 14%, Level Three I believe was 8%.

In relation to yesterday's PD on Feedback I then have begun to consider this; It is really easy for most of us to say that internal achievement standards under NCEA are easier. I say it. However, they are all aligned now and technically are not at a lower standard. Our students achieve them more readily, because we are working on them relationally. We are allowing them time to digest through feedback, and following up with that feedback, on the information/skill/problem being assessed and really learn it. It is naturally discursive, unless you sit there and just hand them out a booklet to work through and do your best to ignore getting to know your kids. So are they easier, or are they a more realistic learning processes? In Art, they are smaller chunks of learning, but I don't see them as necessarily easier. I don't think I will call them so again. You get the chance to reinforce the reflection process in class, over and over again if need be. 28 times to create a habit. You can give students the opportunity to critique themselves and each other. An exam paper only gets returned if you ask for it, and you cannot necessarily decipher the why or why not for the outcome. Our folios get returned with no feedback as to why decisions were made, but we know they were present in their process. It gets treated like a big secret we can't know, in case it undermines the sanctity of the 'exam'.

So in relation to the topic at hand, raising Maori achievement, I am not sure where this leaves the New Zealand curriculum or our assessment.

Slide 18, Janelle points out what she believes our students will need to survive their career pathway. Within this she graciously allowed that creativity should have been there and will be next time. While it fits brilliantly with the front end of our curriculum, it doesn't sit nicely with how we end up shoveling our students through as much NCEA as possible and prepping them for exams, from which they then only get 9% of their credits.

Is what we are doing with how many assessments are handled 'fit for purpose' for where we want our students to be at as people when they finally leave? Is what i am doing in our Art department fit for purpose in the same way? I believe it is, but I also think I need to analyse it further to really know.

Showing a Commitment to the Bi-cultural Partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand

The Treaty of Waitangi

•  Respect for the heritages, languages and cultures of both partners to the Treaty of Waitangi 

How is this relevant in my Art teaching practice;

I do often feel like when I am given a form to tick off for appraisal, that when I get to this section, are they asking me if I can say the Maori students names clearly and reasonably correctly? Who is planning on trying to prove there is more to it in my subject area? It's a little bit frustrating that we are essentially founded on this document as a nation and resultingly, as a culture, yet an acknowledgement of this document is something more like lip service. I am almost certain that people I have held in esteem in the past of my teaching career have all but encouraged this without necessarily meaning to offend. 

I find the wording does allow for that; '...respect for...' sort of allows you to ignore that there are two cultures here, if you don't want to personally allow it into your practice; '...it's not really that relevant to [topic] right now...' but the title of the criteria is to "Show commitment to...". The title is strong, the explanatory note is not. It allows for a weakness in holding us accountable to the Treaty.

This is also not about the fact that the right here and now of New Zealand is a multi-cultural here and now. It is about the founding document of the here and now and honouring this meaningfully. 

"...unlike many other countries, New Zealand does not have a constitution in the form of a single document. It has a collection of common laws, customs and legislation that establish the framework of government. The Treaty was the initial agreement that established British authority. This authority was later transferred to the New Zealand Parliament..." from http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/ 

So now, I think I will leave this particular post as a work in progress, on which I will add further evidence as to how I think this is expressed in my current practice. I don't want to create a separate page for it, as it is only one of several criteria we are expected to meet as professional teachers, and I have not done that for other criteria.