Our Vision: Together we Nurture, Explore and Create for a Better Future

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about ‘The Learning Pit’ - a visual idea to help students see the power of trying new things, persevering and working their way to learning success. 

Part of effective Learning Design in a school is teachers creating lessons/learning environments where students want to take risks, want to try new things and are comfortable with the idea that failure is a possibility (but it isn’t the end). Another part of effective Learning Design is inspiring students to step out into the unknown…and when that happens, combined with the supportive risk-taking environment, magic happens. Three out of school examples of this have happened recently:

• In the staffroom yesterday a staff member asked me if I had heard about what Jaxom’s Dad Braden had done…I replied I hadn’t, then nearly fell out of my seat to hear that he had just swum Cook Strait! What an achievement…but (more importantly) what a great inspiration, and a great example of practice paying off. You can’t just swim the Strait…that is a goal, a dream and something to work towards (with no doubt some setbacks on the way). Awesome stuff Braden!

• It is no secret that I love the band ‘The Beatles’...easily the greatest band of all time! Just a couple of weeks ago they won a ‘Grammy’ at the latest awards for ‘Rock Performance of the Year’ - despite the fact that they broke up 55 years ago! The track is called ‘Now and Then’ (beautiful song) and it had a long journey. First written in the late 1970’s, John Lennon recorded it in his home. In the mid 1990’s Paul, George and Ringo added parts to it as part of a project…but technical difficulties and technology limitations meant they discarded it. In 2023 NZ’s own Peter Jackson led efforts using Artificial Intelligence to overcome the technical noises that ruined the 90’s effort and Paul and Ringo added some new parts. So…nothing in this process was easy, multiple challenges were faced and overcame, and eventually they had success showing that even failures can lead to positive outcomes.

• The last example is myself…I shared with the children last week at Celebration TIme that many years ago I played in lots of bands, and that a great friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in years was coming out from Ireland and we were reforming the band for a gig. The only issue was…I haven’t touched my electric guitar for around 5 years, and haven’t played it seriously for around 15! So..I had some work to do! Bits of practice started to help, but the first session with my mate showed just how rusty I was. The next session was a tad better, the practice was starting to pay off. Finally in the weekend we had our first practice as a band (our only actual practice with the four of us together), and played the gig that night. It was awesome fun playing together again, and I was also stoked to see my practice lead to enough improvement to pull it off. Persevering through the challenge, putting in some mahi and then enjoying the success after the mistakes.

Learning might not always look like swimming Cook Strait, like winning a Grammy or playing a gig after many years…but the stuff that sits behind those stories, that's what we want our children to experience and enjoy. Inspiration, challenge, failure, practice, improvement and success.