ICEnet Featured Member – Nikky Smedley, UK – interview

[Radka Jágriková]

Nikky Smedley on Creative Education – interview

Nikky, you have a lot of experience of working for and with children. What does this mean to you? And what would you say is the main difference for you between working with children and working with adults?

[Nikky] That’s an interesting one. A lot of my work has a great deal of humour at its core, and anyone who knows children knows that they like a lot of repetition – adults like to think they are more sophisticated than that. However, in England at least, some of our most popular TV comedy shows get a lot of their laughs through weekly repetition of ‘catch phrases’, so maybe there’s not so much difference in what adults and children find amusing and/or interesting.

With my Storytelling, I’m always careful to put in references that the adults can relate to, and I generally find that they enjoy my performances as much as the children.

In short, it’s my passionate belief that whilst tempering language in order for children to engage, challenge on all levels is important, and, as with adults, no young person likes to feel patronised or talked down to – I try to treat children in the way I would like to be treated myself.

In a special needs setting, as with any other, my mantra is to go to the person, rather than to the disability or mental health issue. Remaining sensitive to who the individual is that you’re dealing with carries across any situation, and even when performing, particularly on TV or film, it pays to think of how a singular individual is receiving and interpreting what you are offering them. 

In education, I’m a great advocate of student voice – and not in a tokenistic way – I think, again from an English perspective, we don’t give children enough credit for knowing what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, and who they want to grow into.

It’s important to develop adult ears alongside child voice, there’s nothing more demoralising than being asked for your opinion and then having it ignored. I cover some of these issues in various blogs on the changing cultures website.

 

Do you have a particularly memorable experience of working with children or young people that you would like to share?

[Nikky] To illustrate some of the above – and the moment when I realised it doesn’t always take a bit of paper to let you know you’re a teacher – my favourite classroom moment was in a tiny rural primary school with a group of combined year 3/year 4.

I’d been brought in to develop literacy, particularly in terms of imaginative content and creative vocabulary; the class were ‘doing’ Egypt. In order to engender an enthusiasm for language, I’d introduced the children to the concept of etymology, starting with helping a girl remember the difference between “exhibition” and “exPEDition”, by flamboyantly pointing to my foot – or “ped” in latin – and (asking them to do the same) explaining that’s also where we get the word “pedestrian”; similarly with “hand”/“man(us)” and “manicure”, “manual”, etc.

It helped that the following week, they studied body parts in French, so saw the connection with a simple addition of the letter “i” [pied = foot, main = hand]. I had become used to being kept on my toes with the question, “Where does that word come from, Miss?” and carried my etymological dictionary with me, just in case.

So – we came to the Sphinx and I looked it up in advance, finding out (isn’t it great how teaching forces us to learn?) that the word comes from the Greek root “sphig” meaning ‘squeeze’. I explained this when the inevitable question came, but confessed I had no idea why. One of the boys put up his hand and asked, “Miss, could it be because the Sphinx is three creatures ‘squeezed’ together?”

Brilliant. I am constantly humbled by what children are capable of when you give them the opportunity to figure things out for themselves.

 

This story illustrates nicely Inquisitiveness, one of the Five Habits of Mind (Inquisitive, Persistent, Imaginative, Collaborative, Disciplined) as referred to within Creative Partnerships programme and work of Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE). How do you believe your work in creative education, be it via Creative Partnerships, ‘changing cultures’ or independent work, has helped develop these qualities and other creative skills in children?

[Nikky] Prior to working within the Creative Partnerships programme, my experience in schools had been either as a straightforward dance/movement teacher, or as a creative ‘artist in residence’ for one-off projects. Whilst I believe there can be value in those projects, the real eye-opener for me was how much deeper and more impactful the learning could be, once a creative practitioner really gets involved with the school and education in general. It was a steep learning curve at first, but premises such as the Five Habits of Mind were really helpful in getting my head round the broader issues of creative teaching and learning.

 I believe that children are naturally inquisitive and imaginative, and the role of creativity in education is to validate each child’s version of these skills, and to give a forum, and, more importantly, permission, for children to use them freely. When it comes to discipline, collaboration and persistence, I think the key is to inspire children to find and employ these facets for themselves. If you can introduce a creative activity (in the broadest sense) where it becomes vital to the children themselves to motivate themselves, work together and stay with it until the job is done, then they are much more likely to accept and use these qualities than if you merely tell them they have to. I have found the best way to do this is for them to completely own the process from start to finish - their initial ideas, taken seriously and implemented; supported through development; and praised on completion, however that completion may look.

Observational skills are key here - looking for the points at which you can verify and encourage, offer assistance if needed and pick out the achievements, no matter how seemingly small, as and when they happen.

changing cultures recently worked with a massive (over 14 sites) hospital school to create and stage their first whole school production. Although from the outside, the brief looked like, ‘putting on a play’- because the young people’s ideas formed every part of the content - script, costume, set, film, music, lights, stage management etc. - they truly felt it to be theirs, and astounded themselves, staff and parents with what they were able to achieve - both in the quality of the end product, and the positive shifts in behaviours manifest through the process.

 

What advice would you give to other creative practitioners, either just beginning in the sphere of creative education or looking for some inspiration?

[Nikky] Following on from my previous responses (and my TED talk), it should be no surprise that my check list is as follows:

• You don’t have to have all the answers.

• Treat your young people with the same respect you would like to have afforded to yourself.

• Be a real human being. Children always report back that their favourite lessons are those conducted by educators who aren’t afraid to reveal something of their true selves.

• Play. Education is an important business, but children learn so much more (and so do you) where there is happiness and enjoyment. It’s okay to laugh!

• Make friends with as many of the grown-ups who work in or are associated with the school as you can – no matter what the perceived hierarchy.

• Use film, photography and other recorded media. Even if this is not at the core of your practice, children’s confidence grows when they can see themselves achieving.

• Learn about the school, the challenges it faces, and keep up to date with the current changes in education – teachers will respect you more if you know what pressures they are experiencing.

• Be explicit about the rigour behind your creative practice – it’s not always apparent to staff why you are doing what you’re doing.

• Be prepared, but don’t over-plan – be ready to be flexible if the children want to take things in an unexpected direction.

• Develop your observational skills – visual, aural and physical, and feed what you observe back into your planning. Listen very carefully to what’s going on, and respect it.

• Make a mess, safely, and show that no one gets hurt if you take a well-judged risk; it’s fun!

• Learn to express what you do in words and, where possible, give staff a piece of writing suggesting how they might build on what you have done.

• There’s nothing more inspiring than young people; let them know that you give them permission to offer up anything to you, and it will be valued.

• Remember what we do is a privilege – it helps on dark, wet early mornings on the way to somewhere you’re not sure you’re welcomed by all!

ICEnet-Featured-Member-Nikky-Smedley-interview.pdf