“When we first sat down to design Red Room’s education program, Papercuts, we did so with our own ideas about how contemporary Australian poetry could be communicated to young people, and with the advice and expertise of individuals in the education sector including our program writer Tony Britten, an English teacher at SCEGGS Darlinghurst. The 2007 pilot program took an experimental approach to finding interested NSW schools, selecting individual poets and gathering feedback. Soon enough, we were going national – taking Papercuts to Victoria in 2008 and 2009 – and bowled over by the quality of writing and ideas about exhibition and publication that students were producing.
Our challenge now is to maintain the program’s boutique nature – hand-selected poets for different localities and class needs – while delivering to every school that is interested in taking part. Our bottom line is, if a school demands Papercuts, then we will take it to them regardless of their location. Who else is going to put our emerging and mid-career poets into conversation with kids about the real process of writing? How else can students understand poetic form except by intimately appreciating its craft?
Recently, we’ve undertaken two professional development sessions with English teachers, at Ravenswood (NSW) and Peninsula High School (VIC). Jo spent a week in residence at Ravenswood and was able to spend time with both teachers and students. What’s exciting about these opportunities is that the school becomes engaged with the contemporary scene and with the reality of the writing business rather than simply being at its receiving end as buyers, librarians and theorists. The benefit of sustained contact with a live poet – and the same could be said for a live artist, dancer and so on – is unique. I spent a day with a dozen teachers at Peninsula, including those with junior and senior secondary classes. What’s so valuable for us is hearing about what teachers need and miss out on when it comes to teaching poetry. As teacher John Russell told me, they don’t sit in the staff room and chat about the brilliance of Robert Frost – there’s no time, and it’s “not done”. But given the time and space to sit around together and enjoy discussing poems for pleasure, the usefulness of this kind of discussion to HSC teachers as well as Year 8 coordinators is clear. At both schools, these sessions also produced original poems by staff and the chance for them to share their own writing with colleagues.
Maybe the last word from Papercuts it to remind teachers, students, parents and poets that we are all readers and writers of some description; and that to deliberately and enjoyably read and write should never be seen as an indulgence or a privilege.”
Yours,
Bonny
Education Officer
