Hastings Art Gallery column: Connection between art education and a year 9 social science class

Hastings Art Gallery education staff combine with Havelock North High School social studies students to showcase important wahine toa, strong women.

OPINION

Hastings Art Gallery audience and learning assistant Frances Martin combines art with social science with first-year social studies students at Havelock North High School.

As an education team at Hastings Art Gallery, it’s our job to deliver education programmes to ākonga around Heretaunga. Whether finger painting with preschoolers or supporting NCEA students with an academic critique, it’s challenging, fun and always a privilege.

Sometimes, we deliver one-off sessions based on our exhibitions or a permanent programme. Other times we are lucky enough to collaborate with teachers to create bespoke programmes to suit their curriculum needs.

As a team, we recently had the opportunity to work alongside the social sciences department at Havelock North High School, thanks to the initiative of teacher Sarita Burgess. We planned to deliver a 55-minute lesson to all HNHS’s year 9 social science classes as part of a unit focusing on wahine toa, strong women.

Students picked women either well-known or in their personal lives that they admire, respect or aspire to be like and then drew that person.

So, what place do art gallery educators have in teaching a social studies class, you might wonder? So much of what is exhibited in galleries references ideas connected to the social sciences curriculum; ideas around place, culture and society.

It’s cross-curricular thinking at its richest and most engaging. It also connects students to what is happening in the local community well beyond the classroom walls.

Turning up in a classroom of teenagers when you’re a stranger is never easy. You very quickly need to convince ākonga to respect you and engage in the content you’re trying to deliver.

It’s somewhat easier when we’re at the gallery; it’s our space. However, as a team, we’re prepared and flexible and approach the unknowns with a sense of fun, curiosity, and adaptability.

For the first lesson at Havelock North High School, we arrived in the classroom with not much more than a box of pre-prepared art supplies, unsure if our planning was even achievable within the hour.

Havelock North High School year 9 social studies student Sebastian stands beside the display of his and his classmates' art.

Without much warning, the students had to think of a woman - well-known or not - that they admire, respect or aspire to be like. Not necessarily an easy task for anyone to do at the drop of a hat.

The students then had to do a quick draft sketch of the person, something they’ve said or an object that represents them.

Once the draft was completed, ākonga needed to transfer their drawing onto calico (a heavy plain-woven textile), filling their space with colour despite the students not necessarily being great artists.

The results were wonderfully successful, giving us confidence that once the fabric was stitched together we’d have a playful, collaborative artwork that celebrated wahine toa as defined by the students themselves.

The women depicted in the work ranged from political leaders, writers, sports personalities, musicians and royals to mothers and peers. A surprising number drew Princess Diana.

Very sweetly, young men were more likely to draw their mothers. Nobody drew Taylor Swift. It reminded me how important it is to talk about the women we admire, both those around us and those that are globally recognisable.

A closer look at a few of the strong women HNHS students admire, respect or aspire to be like.

For the rest of the week, we came and went from the school, becoming increasingly familiar with the map and remembering to sign in and out at the school office. The students and staff were consistently willing to engage in our plan, often with a charming sense of humour and sometimes with very impressive drawing skills.

Arriving back at the gallery at the end of the week, we realised that we had hundreds of calico squares to stitch together and no time to do it. With a lot of help from the front-of-house support crew, however, we were able to carefully piece the work together.

When it was ready, we delivered it back to Havelock North High School, where, using a staple gun and some perilous school furniture, we installed the artwork in the social sciences workroom.

Seeing the finished product was quietly satisfying. It was a project seen through to completion, one that truly gives a sense of the team that inspired and created it.

It was wonderful to collaborate with ākonga and kaiako on a work that celebrated strong women initiated by some creative local women.

The world is full of wahine toa, whether known or unknown. Who would you draw?