The Pathway of the Spider.

Te ara o tukutuku pūngawerewere

The pathway of the spider

In publishing this blog I must first acknowledge an earlier post [Dec 28] from Bee Thomas, 

‘Don’t confuse whanaungatanga with icebreakers’. 

In particular  her highlighting of the fact that whenever we borrow anything from Te Ao Māori we must always do so with respect,authenticity and fidelity.

Over the last few years I have used this whakatauki on numerous occasions and in a variety of settings to create a metaphor of a school in contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand.

I want to use it again here to explain further the vision and purpose of Flight.

Traditionally this whakatauki is used to praise something intricate and beautiful.

There is no doubt that our schools are very complex ecosystems just as there is no doubt that a school can be a place of beauty and joy.

We can take this comparison further though. Just like the spider’s web, the strength of a school is dependent on its interconnected strands. By itself one strand is ineffective and weak but combined and unified these strands become strong and effective. It is the interdependence and interconnection of the strands that makes a school strong.

At the same time the web is also complex and so is a school, it takes the skill of the spider to effectively weave the stands together; This then is where the leadership of all staff becomes important they are all the weavers of the web. 

Just like a web, a school is fragile and this fragility has to be protected by an awareness of each other and the strands we represent. The fragility of the web is real and it is only through a strong sense of interdependence that the web will survive, sound familiar? 

I can go further; the web is fragile but it survives because it can flex. The winds will blow through it but it retains its integrity. Just so a school, change and challenge will batter it but by flexing with the wind it survives. Schools need to flex and adapt but not lose connection and this will enable them to survive and thrive.

The purpose of Flight is to celebrate all of this and to work with schools to ensure that the collective strength of a school, the ability to thrive and be truly empowered comes from an awareness of all of the strands and their connections. Identifying which are strong and which need attention as it is only through this sense of interdependent strength that the web will remain effective.