Manaiakalani Create Staff Meeting

Yesterday, I had the privilege of hosting a create workshop for our Manaiakalani Create Staff Meeting. My session was on Smartphone Photography. 

It was quite interesting to learn that in the 1970s, New Zealand was leading the world in literacy and that was a time when The Arts was heavily incorporated in the curriculum especially at primary school level. Just last week, I was sharing with my school team that the Create part of the Manaiakani kaupapa is often overlooked and not given a lot of attention to when planning for student learning. I shared that the Create should have sufficient time for students to plan and create to show what they have learnt in their learning. It is also a great opportunity for our talented students to showcase their confidence and creativity. Every year, we have the Manaiakalani Film Festival. It is an absolute testament of how confident and talented our students are. 

Going, through the shared photo album from yesterday's create meeting, I could see teachers taking part in different activities, getting their hands dirty, smiles on their faces and I even saw some posts on some of my colleague's social media pages of them showing off what they did yesterday. A colleague of mine who car pooled with me yesterday was also feeling sick and was reluctant to go but at the end of the two sessions she attended, she said she had quite a lot of fun and glad she went. 

NOW, bringing this into our practice. If our students are getting involved in being creative, collaborating with their peers they too would have the awesome feeling we had yesterday after our create meeting.