Becoming educultural through collaborative arts projects

Students at Manurewa Intermediate School were given a special experience, as they collaboratively researched, painted and celebrated a school mural project.
The mural project was initiated by local NZ artist Shane Hansen through the school’s principal, Iain Taylor, and coordinated by Dianne Macdonald, a professional learning leader at Manurewa Intermediate School.
The idea was to paint an artwork that told the school’s story ‘Listen to Culture’. Over the course of term three and four in 2009, 30 Year seven and Year eight students painted the 2.4 metres high and 20 metres long project in collaboration with Shane.
The aim of the project was to support students’ learning in arts education through a focus on culture. Shane’s influences include his Maori, Chinese and European heritage and he draws from a world of bold colours and what has been described as an optimistic post modern playfulness.
Shane himself grew up and went to school in Manurewa. He attempted the project in order to give back to the community that had contributed to his own development as a contemporary artist. During the project, the students were able to learn all about Shane’s style: the use of strong clean line and text, digital imaging, compositional methods and the printing and painting techniques involved when using large sheets of plywood.
The text for the mural came from Angus Macfarlane, professor of Maori Research at the University of Canterbury, and his concept of the Educultural Wheel and its four key principles: ‘Kotahitanga’ (ethics of bonding), ‘Whanaungatanga’ (building relationships), ‘Manaakitanga’ (ethics of caring) and ‘Rangatiratanga’ (teacher effectiveness).
Students working on the mural project were selected by teachers from across the school and did not necessarily know each other at the start of the project. The criteria were for the students to be interested in drawing and making art.
The words of Natalia, a Year seven student, sum up the ethic of bonding signified in the school’s Educultural Wheel. “I liked how people said they were really shy at first but when they knew everybody well, they could all work together. I know now that we all could communicate properly with each other.”
The mural arts project is only the beginning step in the journey of students and staff at Manurewa Intermediate School to becoming educultural. The school’s objective is to manifest teaching and research activities that are concerned with the exploration of culturally responsive concepts and strategies that positively affect professional teaching practice and student outcomes in the future.

PICTURE
An arts project to be proud of: the school mural ‘Pumanawatanga’ painted by students of Manurewa Intermediate School.