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Last term’s NZ Principal magazine featured an article by Professor Peter O’Connor of Auckland University, on the value of the Arts for addressing trauma in young people. He described how drama and the Arts can be used to assist young people to confront and overcome disturbing emotions evoked by experiencing terrifying disasters such as earthquakes and now, COVID-19. Principals have been calling for a revival of the Arts curriculum in schools for many years. For a decade, the Arts have been submerged under a blanket of accountability systems, as the globe turned its focus on a standardized structure of education, highlighting student achievement scores for reading, writing and maths. As the obsession for data grew, the curriculum narrowed to those subjects which could b e easily measured. The value of music, drama, performing and expressive arts have taken a back seat and largely disappeared. Now that Aotearoa has ab and one d t he g l ob a l reforms which led to the standardization approach, the yawning gap left by an absence of the Arts has become more obvious. What defines us as homo sapiens and distinguishes us from other species, is our humanity as expressed through the Arts. It is this humanity that global education leaders want to focus on now. A wonderful example of using the Arts to address the outfall of a tragic event is the Kaiapoi North School’s ‘River of Emotions’ story, as told in mosaic. In the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, Kaiapoi North was changed forever. Most of the historic brick buildings were demolished and the town’s centre was rebuilt. Sila was a student at Kaiapoi North school and said that it was her younger brother’s first day at school on February 22, 2011 and after that he was too scared to come back to school. Sila explained: ‘It took a lot of encouraging and persuasion to get him to go back to school without being afraid.’ Carol Mutch, a former teacher in the Canterbury region, recognized the trauma being experienced, not just by the children, but also the teachers. She realized the power of story telling and set out to assist those affected to work through their fears and losses by talking through their experiences. Kaiapoi, one of the most severely affected areas, was in her sights. She contacted Jason Miles, principal of Kaiapoi North School.
‘Carol wanted to assist the principals and teachers in finding a way for the students of their schools to express their thoughts and feelings about the experiences they had had in the earthquakes. Simultaneously, Carol went about collecting the stories of those experiences from different sources within the school – teachers, students and other staff alike – to help inform the knowledge base that existed about the role of schools during times of crisis.’ Initially, a seat was placed in the playground where children could sit and reflect on their experiences. ‘- a quiet place to think and remember what had happened, and what they had lived through, without fear.’ Before long, a project was underway, which would be led by the students. It would involve the children recreating their stories in Art. And so, the ‘River of Emotions’ mosaic was conceived. The first step was to gather ideas for the artwork. This involved expert-led group interviews with the children and staff. It was in this group interview process that the initial ideas for what was to go into the mosaic were found. ‘The children decided that they wanted the mosaic to depict their experiences, a “story without words” as one of the girls stated, and that the story should be told using the “broken bits of our homes”. During the interview, the ideas about the mosaic were scrawled across big pieces of white paper.’ The therapeutic nature of the children being able to reflect on their feelings and experiences and share them with the group, was the start of the healing process for them. Creating a pictorial representation of those feelings was the next stage. The children decided they wanted their story told in four panels: early Kaiapoi, Kaiapoi before the earthquakes, Kaiapoi during the earthquakes and the children’s hopes for the future of Kaiapoi. ‘Themes such as community and aroha were also explored. It was the love, support and encouragement that the children had felt and seen within their community that had made so many of them feel less afraid in the aftermath of the disasters. These were things that the children felt were important to portray.’ An artist, Sarah Yates from the University of Auckland was then introduced to the project. Sarah quickly realized this was not
her story to tell and the artwork must involve the ideas of every child in the school. ‘Those ideas were then also divided into which of the four panels the children thought they would best suit. Soon, the classroom was littered with drawings of flowers and car crashes, rainbows and broken houses, people both smiling and crying. Each drawing represented something that one of the children had experienced, or things that they hoped they’d have the chance to see in Kaiapoi in the future.’ The children then had their own lessons in the mosaic art form from expert, Sarah. This was not only educational for the children but helped them translate their ideas into art. They also learned about colour as a depiction of emotion and how best to incorporate colour into their finished work. On completion of the design, in paper form, it was time to translate the work into the real mosaic panels. ‘ . . . students at Kaiapoi North began work on smashing and cutting the various tiles and pieces of crockery that had been bought for or donated to the project. Students smashed different coloured tiles, ceramic, and damaged crockery into small, usable pieces . . . ’ This is where the next stage of therapy began. ‘Preparing the tiles for the mosaic offered an opportunity for the students to release the anger that they, often unknowingly, still had pent up inside, in a constructive, healthy and eventually beautiful way.’ As one student observed:
The children expressed that there were so many positives that came out of the River of Emotions project, including seeing the earthquakes as a way to make things better; changes made because of the earthquake giving hope for the future. Children reported that they felt stronger, and more equipped to deal with what life throws their way. They even suggested that they were lucky: ‘Lucky that they and their families were alive, but also lucky to have seen, received and given the love and support that radiated throughout their community in the aftermath. Lucky to have had that experience of crisis, as they would know what to do in the future . . . Lucky that their experiences would help further the knowledge of people across the world and be able to help others who might be in similar situations . . . ’ In the fourth panel of the mosaic, the saying ‘Kia kaha, kia maia Kaiapoi’ appears. ‘This message still resonates with those who worked on the mosaic as they continue down the River of Emotions that is their experience of the 2010-2011 earthquakes.’ Every child attending Kaiapoi North School at the time of the earthquakes had experienced serious trauma, shock and at the very least, psychological harm. Through the careful application of story telling in Art, they have been able to work through all their negative emotions and feelings and turn them into positives. And that is the power of the Arts.
All the pieces of the artwork were already broken, meaning that if another earthquake were to happen, it wouldn’t matter if the pieces of the mosaic cracked or changed.’ On completion of the project, which included the ‘reflection seat’ children were again asked about their experience of the artwork. Perhaps surprisingly, it was not the process of making the mosaic that was most memorable but rather: ‘ . . . things that had happened with their friends and classmates as they worked. Whether it was finally being able to talk about something that had happened to them during the earthquake as they drew a picture, or someone making a joke that everyone found funny as they glued down a piece of tile. It was the connection that they felt with others, and the support that they both provided and received that remained in their minds.’