Visit from the Minister to launch the Pasifika Education Plan.

On Thursday last week we had the minister of Education Hekia Parata come to our school to launch the Pasifika Education Plan. We had a special assembly after lunch. We were very proud that our Manaiakalani Film Festival movie got shown. Crusader and Jarna did an amazing job introducing our movie for us.

Manaiakalani Film Festival 2012: I Can

Here was our entry into this year's Manaiakalani Film Festival.
Our inspiration for it came from a special visitor we had to our school, Joshua Iosefo. Joshua is a prefect at Mt Roskill grammar and a poet. He wrote a poem called Brown Brother which he recited to us. His poem said said not to listen to negative stereotypes but that you should aim to be whatever you want to be. We thought this would be a cool theme for our movie.

Thanks to Crusader, Darius, Awhina, Kingston and Jarna who were the main lyric writers, to Vivienne for the videoing and last but not least a huge thank you also to Jarna who edited it for us.





We would like to acknowledge that this song idea came from "I Can" by Nas from 2003. We took some of the original ideas in his music video and incorporated them into ours. Here is a link to his video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLmRoVMfsD8

Joshua Iosefo

 Inspiration. It comes in many forms, words, people, films, books, but today, my thoughts on inspiration have changed drastically. All it took was a visit from a young man, standing up to all those who create and believe in stereotypes. Joshua Iosefo. A young polynesian boy who has changed my thoughts, and prospect of the world that we live in. It made me think twice about how my family, friends and I are judged. Though I am not a brown Samoan, it still hits hard.

‘Brown Brother’ The poem that would change the way we think and feel. It deffinately changed me. My prospect of the world, was that there were good guys, and bad guys, and I did understand that, but I always thought that if it happened to me, it would always be someone elses fault. That all changed a few weeks ago.

My class had been watching a movie of Joshua speaking at his school, Mt Roskill Grammar. He was doing his prefect speech. We observed and then had to write a bit about our thoughts on his speech. A few days later, there were comments on our blogs from Joshua’s Mum. She had read some of the students blogs from our class. We exchanged a few messages, and eventually we asked if Joshua would be able to come and visit us. A message was sent back to us. The answer was YES. We were so happy with this reply that we had to organise a date. 

That is how this day came about. Questions were asked, and excellent answers were given. I asked one question, and I think that the answer that was given, was better then any explanation I have heard in my life. I am so appreciative of what Joshua and his whanau have done for us. We have all been very privileged with this visit and I have had a very thoughtful message sent to me. I have learnt a lot. For example If want to be a lawyer, then I can be a lawyer, all I have to do is to keep going even if no one thinks that I can. There is nothing that I can’t do.

A big thanks to Joshua and his Family, I have learnt a lot and I can’t wait to see more from you. :) Thank you!!! 

Animation Workshop

Our extension students took part in an animation workshop run by some of the animating directors from  Bro' Town. Here is a account of what they did by Darius.

Animators Apprentice

“I can’t wait to head into the Tusitala room to meet the Bro Town animators” I thought excitedly. When we got in the room it looked really cramped because of all the people in the room. The three instructors introduced themselves their names were Maka, Nills and Ali.  Ali was the main speaker telling us all about what they do and what they have done. Maka was like an assistant  always popping in saying something then going quiet. While Nills was the silent one taking photos

One of the favourite parts in the presentation was when they were teaching us about splitting lines, once I had figured out how to do the technique properly it became a really interesting thing to learn. It took a few tries but when I learnt how to finally master it everything became so clear.

I really like drawing and hope that when they come back they will teach us more about splitting lines and so that we can move on to more sophisticated drawings.


 

Animation Workshop, Darius from SchoolTV on Vimeo.

Check out this link to the article the Auckland Museum has written about the workshops too.

Brown Brother Response

We were very pleasantly surprised last week when Room 20 received an email about our responses to Joshua Iosefo's Brown Brother poem. And can you guess who the email was from?....Joshua's mother. We greatly appreciated her taking the time to write to us and the encouragement she gave us. Perhaps we might have some budding poets in our class too.
Here is the email she sent us.

Talofa Ms Squires and Room 20,

My name is Fetaui Iosefo and I was reading your classes blogs on the Joshua Iosefos  'spoken word-brown brother'.  We as a family read Osana, Kingstons, and today I read Sylvia and Melvins and decided that I would take some time out and email your class and your teacher to say how very proud I am of you all for showing great understanding of Joshua Iosefo's 'spoken word'.

I am Joshuas mother and it wasn't so long ago he was the same age as yourselves.  He didn't have a blog like you all do but he would write into a journal all his thoughts some were like poetic prayers and others were scribbles of inspiration he would pick up from people, or books he was reading.  We were encouraged by reading your blogs of the inspirations you all had chosen to keep in your heart and mind from Joshuas 'brown brother-spoken word'.

We think you are a fabulous class and have super fabulous teacher, we wish you all the very best for the future.

Kia Manuia

Fetaui Iosefo

Brown Brother Response by Crusader

Joseph Iosefo "Brown Brother"

Joshua Iosefo, a prefect a Mt. Roskill Grammar, wrote a motivational speech called “Brown Brother”. The first time he performed it was at his school. When he did his speech, his mate Rashad made a video and put it on youtube which then got the attention of Campbell Live. After that,  he got the opportunity to perform it on live t.v.

This speech had a message to it, and it was telling the brown people especially to stop limiting yourself by listening to the stereotypes because they are not true. Some messages in his speech relate to some of the messages that we have at our school here such as, Strive to succeed, Champions never Give Up and much more.

 My response to this speech is that, brown people like me can do anything you want as long as you have determination in what you do. It doesn’t have to be a sportstar or a music person but you can be anything else like a lawyer or even the next Prime Minister.

Here is the link to Joshua Iosefo's poem "Brown Brother"

Brown Brother Response by Lesley

Brown brother

Standing on the stage  was a Mt Roskill grammar prefect, Joshua Losefo preparing to say his talk. It came to the time where he had begin his speech but instead he had written up a poem called “Brown Brother”.While he was saying it some people were inspired. One of his friends  put up his poem on Youtube where we were lucky that it came  to the attention of Campbell Live.

The title of his poem was  "Brown Brother".He started his poem off with describing about his colour skin then he got into his main message it was to not listen to stereotypes, stereotypes is about a group of people whereby we attribute a set of characteristics to the group. In part of the poem  it relates to our Point England School korero (it our way to succeed ) which are : Champions Never Give Up, Strive to Succeed and most of all Herenga ki te Whetu which means Reach for the Stars .He also mentioned that some positive things about stereotype like we all love P.E,music,dance and drama.

When I watched it I thought I knew the meaning will be that  we should not limit ourselves and try our best, also to not be afraid to change and that you don't need to be like everybody else because if you do you won’t have a chance to shine. I felt inspired watching him saying that poem.