The power of creativity in the classroom

I have had the opportunity to partner and learn alongside NORPA in developing the UnderLibrary of Unofficial History [Music]. I'm from the Catholic Schools Office i brought along some friends from the Clarence Valley Council to do some investigations in your school. There's some kind of activity going on in your school that we need to find out more about [Applause] Saint Joseph's Mclean. The purpose of the project was to enhance the history syllabus through the art we don't know what's happening. One of the things that I've really loved is seeing the creativeness of the NORPA team in bringing the kids and igniting their imagination into the world of story in history. Today we had Zelda turn up with an absolutely fabulous prop which was a box that she used to tell a story. I'm telling the story of Zelda and Albus who are twins who live in an old library but this is set far far in the future and a series of events take place but essentially my brother gets lost in time the head librarian was a man named Finch, and the head librarian, he's thrown Albus my brother into a bubble which is a time-travelling bubble so he's kind of lost in time and my job is to find him, but I can't do it on my own I need to elicit the help of the kids. I think he found a way to get this message to me from the past to the future from today to tomorrow. You see a book is a kind of time capsule we put ideas inside them and send them to the future and whenever someone opens it to read, well those ideas have travelled through time. Through that story, they've really engaged in historical inquiry, one story, one truth, and now we're all on the same page. It also helps their imaginations and that's really important and that critical thinking, imaginative thinking, the idea that we respond to things that we don't have. History doesn't happen to us, but we are engaged in the learning and we have that voice and choice and take part in the learning so I think it's an amazing opportunity. Albus loves puzzles and loves riddles and loves mysteries so he has set these various puzzles and code-breaking activities for the children and I to solve so that we can find Albus. [Reading letter] Dear Zelda, before you leave don't forget to take the postcards you'll need them to solve some of the puzzles I've left, Love Albus. Yeah there's been postcards and other artefacts I guess that have been mysteriously appearing in the classroom that the kids have absolutely loved they've come from the office, they've come from a postman delivery driver, they've appeared in kids books, every time there's a little bit more been added to the story and it's been quite a mind-blowing experience for the kids. They've been amazed by everything that's happening and trying to make connections and full of questions and theories [Music] and the kids looked at became historical detectives and they looked for all of the clues that they could find on the postcards. In the morning I would come in early and put them on the board and the kids would enter and go another one's arrived and you know - just the excitement was contagious it was amazing. [Music] having all the clues follow a sequence to lead them down the path of discovery was just it was very clever and I can tell like so much thought and effort and planning had gone into it and it just ran went beautifully and they solved a whole lot of clues and puzzles and on the back end of that they were able to help her in the premise of the story to get to find her brother. You're going to need a clue from D,E, and F to help locate the cocoons on the map in teams and groups. There's also another skill that you want to promote because collaboration is the key you know more the more brains together the more brain power you have it was a planned event, but it mimicked lots of skills that we want them to do in real-life. They've actually engaged with the characters truly begging Zelda to go through time with her and to become part of the story with her or inviting her back into the classroom so that they can see whether the skills that they've employed throughout the show actually help to solve the problem that Zelda has. If you're listening to this that means you and your friends have solved the last of the puzzles that means you would have learned how to time travel and read my postcards and solved the timeline cards and made sense of all the clues. Look how smart you are! One of the really nice things about teaching this way is it really helps our kids to develop an empathetic understanding for someone else because they ask questions that they wouldn't normally ask when it's all taught in our flat recount mode, which is what our history syllabus says we shouldn't do, but we often do be a great launchpad for the kids into their writing in their creative arts, the drama side of things, and again the history with the research skills and investigating sort of events from time gone by and sequencing them in timelines and all that sorts of stuff [Music]. I think it's been a really successful project and a really great test of form and how we can bring theatre into schools and move theatre out of the box the black box and move it out into the real world and reframe the child's world as a playful, creative space where they're main players encourage our children to think differently to be creative and to use drama to help them understand their world and other worlds on every subject that you could possibly imagine [Music].

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