Yesterday I took 11 students up to watch 'Word: The Frontline's semi-final #2 in Auckland at the town hall. It was a long journey up and back all in one day - but so worthwhile. Much discussion on the schools who had entered and the winning team's poems. The three teams that made it into the final on Sept 14th included: De La Salle, Te Puna o Waiorea and Auckland Girl's Grammar.
The spoken word competition was broken into three rounds with teams competing in each round. They could have single, duo or full team groups participating in each round.
The one thing our Ōpōtiki College students kept discussing was the LEVEL of support the students in the audience were giving to their school's performances on stage. The students kept talking about how surprising the support was, the level of excitement and pride the audience had for their mates on stage. We talked about how we need to change the culture of support at our kura to fully acknowledge the incredible mahi our peers do. This I think was the biggest takeaway from the day. Because the students want to do cool stuff like Spoken Word Poetry, speeches etc but they said they would never get that level of tautoko from their peers. So - we decided it needed to change because like one of the girls said, "We need something like this in Opo."
Absolutely. We're working on it ❤️
Funny thing - some of the girls fell for one of the Poly boys from De La Salle and were giggling each time his team went up on stage. It was crack up actually because they'd come over to sit by me and watch him walk past us. When I figured out what was going on, I of course tried to embarrass them 😂 but I didn't need to. When De La Salle's last round was over, the participants left the stage and walked down to their parents. His parents had been sitting behind us the entire time and what's more - the young man sat down behind us too, kissed his whanau and they talked to him about how incredibly proud they were of him. The girls were so embarrassed and it was hilarious watching it all unfold.
We were brought to tears by two performances - another young man called Mafi (not sure of spelling!!) from De La Salle and the last group performance from Te Puna o Waiorea. Mafi discussed the shadows and how his young siblings helped lighten his load. TPoW shared their whakaaro on Papatūānuku and how she has been savagely assaulted.
We loved the group performance by DLS who combined both Tongan dance with spoken word and it was a very inspired formation and use of stage.
The Auckland Girl's Grammar group and solo performance just blew me away. The young woman's solo performance at the end combatted the expectations of Pasifika women and how the cycle perpetuates with each new generation.
Quotes I wrote down include:
Do you not taste the metallic tang of the blood of the people you stayed silent when they were killed?
We come from broken homes but our sisterhood is the glue that holds us together
History doesn't repeat itself, humans just don't change
Grandma's hands hold our hands for a little while but hold our hearts forever
A disaster is coming - the disaster is already here.
Other highlights:
- The students kept telling me about how fancy the wharepaku in the Auckland Town Hall was 😂 When we finally left to go and have a look after the perfomances - they had reserved the downstairs space for the poet's afterparty
- The elevators and escalators and Lime scooters 😂 Opo kids in the city ❤️
- The students were in awe of the beautiful architecture in the Town Hall
- I got better at hill starts and backing out of parks 😂 Only four bunny hops - the kids counted 🤦 Manual vans for the win 😂
- Lots of singing in the car and opportunities to talk about their dreams for the future
A MASSIVE shoutout to the students who came with me and to their forgiving whanau - Auckland traffic and the rainy weather caused us to be off schedule on our return but a safe arrival home.
It was such an incredible opportunity and seeing the light in the kids faces is why I do offer these opportunities at kura. Yes - it's a lot of organising and planning but providing opportunities to explore and develop new skills, increase confidence and inspire them to achieve even heigher heights - priceless.
Ngā mihi anō
