Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I’ve just been featured in the latest edition of Australian Books & Publishing, speaking about community outreach, daring to be different, and why rural Australia proved one of the most exciting places to create children’s and youth events for libraries.
It’s a subscriber-only link, but there is the option to sign up for a free trial.
You can read my profile piece in Australian Books & Publishing Online.
So, a big announcement has been in the works for some time: from 25th February I begin a six-month contract as adviser to Auckland Libraries, the largest public library network in the southern hemisphere. The mission is to extend and enhance Auckland’s already superlative library offerings for children and young people with creative, challenging, and sustainable activities for the future.
I feel confident that we’re entering an era of swashbuckling literacy adventure Down Under. Auckland is the city where kids play a Kiwi-themed version of Angry Birds in their libraries; the city whose librarians already talked Bryan Lee O’Malley into letting them use Scott Pilgrim as the face of their comic book events and wooed Amanda Palmer into giving an impromptu Get Loud In Libraries-style guerilla gig.
Before Auckland beckons, I’ve been looking at the latest developments in the UK and US. The Future Foyles workshop held on Monday of this week brought together publishing, retail, and literacy professionals seeking a vision for London’s next great flagship bookstore – you’ll see me quoted in The Bookseller’s report of the event – and finding much food for thought from a wider community outreach perspective.
In the second part of his guest post for Books and Adventures, Steve Saville of Alfriston College in Auckland, New Zealand, discusses the lessons to be learned from his pioneering comics in the classroom workshops.
Most educators currently involved in secondary schools in New Zealand would agree that creativity is a good thing and that it needs to be encouraged; that we need to nurture and encourage the creative young people who will solve the problems posed by our ever changing world.
We can all look to our own school environments and proudly detail how creativity is nurtured, encouraged, and celebrated in our schools. We provide ample opportunities for writing, artistic expression, the creative use of digital technologies, dance, and drama. Our schools have bands, singers, sculptors. We offer classes in creative writing and philosophy. It can be argued that we have countless opportunities for young people to express and develop their creative skills.
We can also think of numerous teachers that we would classify as creative in their approaches, talented educators who find new and exciting ways to get their learners thinking. Teachers who challenge thinking by making learners ask questions and by asking learners to seek the relevance and authenticity of material studied.
All of this is totally correct – but is it enough?
It may be creative to enable a learner to write a story, to perform in a play or to design a web page but who chose the play and who decided the topic and who wrote the brief?
There is a difference between asking a learner to produce a creative response to something on a particular day, as part of a particular programme of work, and allowing an individual to be creative.
More profoundly, how can creativity flourish in schools, which are essentially non-creative environments?
Today, we’re joined by Steve Saville, deputy principal at Alfriston College in South Auckland. For four years, Steve has championed the use of comics in the classroom through a series of innovative workshops which have allowed students to develop and publish their own high quality comic books. In the first of a two-part guest post, Steve tells the story of Alfriston’s unique comic book education project.
See more on comics in the classroom via the “comicsedu” tag on this site.
Like most teachers, I can think of numerous times that I have attempted to encourage or develop creativity with students, both in and out of the classroom. Like most teachers, my in-class efforts have fallen firmly in the realm of teacher-directed, and therefore dictated, creativity.
More recently, I’ve spent a few years encouraging learners to genuinely take control of the creative process, exploring creativity through the medium of comics. The aim has been to produce original comics that are of a publishable and professional standard. I have done this within a single school environment, Alfriston College. A potted history of our programme follows.
This is one in a series of posts supporting my article in the June 18th curriculum supplement to the New Zealand Education Gazette. Find more resources, interviews and features on comics in education via my site’s comicsedu tag.
Today, I’m joined by Raymond Huber and Hugh Todd, lifelong devotees of the iconic boy reporter, Tintin.
Raymond is a New Zealand children’s author whose novel Wings was a finalist in the 2012 Julius Vogel awards.
Hugh, a fellow Kiwi now based in Australia’s Blue Mountains, is a cartoonist, graphic designer and author of the Scholastic picture book Bring Back the Ball, Daisy Dog.
Raymond and Hugh agreed to discuss the enduring appeal of Europe’s most famous comic book character and his creator, Georges Remi, over an informal “dinner with Hergé”.
My article on Bryan Grieg Fry, the heavily tattooed venom expert at the University of Queensland, appears in the forthcoming print edition of Australasian Science magazine.
I’ve also written on using comic books in the classroom for the curriculum supplement to this month’s New Zealand Education Gazette.
To tie in with this article, I’ll be posting additional interviews, resources and guest writing on using comics in the classroom under the comicsedu tag.
Watch out for posts and wise words from the likes of graphic novelist Jessica Abel, artist-educator Nick Sousanis, staff from University College London’s “Supergods” workshops, and many more.
It’s been a little quiet on the blog lately as I ploughed through a swathe of writing assignments and tried (only partly successfully) to stay clear of the Internet.
I have a couple of articles out later this year for the Australian science magazines ScienceWise and Australasian Science, profiling scientists who featured in Carl Zimmer’s book Science Ink. Carl uncovered the weird and wonderful world of researchers who have their work tattooed on their bodies after he spotted a DNA helix inked on the arm of a respected neurobiologist at a pool party in the States. This led to a great book collecting photos of striking, beautiful and downright bizarre science tattoos from around the world.
Over on my Tumblr page there’s a new post with a brief interview.
Corin Haines of Auckland Libraries – whose Central Library recently hosted an impromptu gig by alternative cabaret act The Dresden Dolls – took the time for a quick chat about notions of what libraries, and literacy, can be.
See the post here: http://matthewfinch.tumblr.com/post/16633129913/new-zealand-has-a-reputation-as-a-remote
As I leave Australia and New Zealand for a while, graphic designer and former newspaper cartoonist Hugh Todd pointed me to John Clarke’s song, ‘We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are’, and got me thinking about the power of myth and storytelling.
After my discussion with New Zealand Educational Gazette and our recent features on NZ’s use of comics in education, it pleased me to see one Kiwi don the Caped Crusader’s cowl for a light-hearted prank during the Rugby World Cup.
TVNZ reports that a man in full Batman regalia visited a Christchurch police station demanding to see the commissioner and know why the “Bat-signal” – the White Lights of Hope commemorating the recent earthquake – had been lit. He’s not even the first Kiwi Batman, as the name has apparently already been applied to a 91-year-old community patrol volunteer in Waipawa.
The quakes’ impact on the Christchurch community is discussed from a literacy and outreach perspective in the recent Books and Adventures interview with Carolyn Robertson of the city’s library services.
Wonderfully, the Kiwi police appear to have responded to the Batman prankster with good humour. I’ve no idea if it’s deserved, but they’ve been building a reputation for tolerance and light-heartedness ever since an officer appeared on TV reminding a suspected carjacker to “always blow on the pie” when eating hot food from a late night convenience store.
You can find all the recent Books and Adventures posts on Comics in New Zealand Education here:
https://booksadventures.wordpress.com/category/nz-comics-education/
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 