In the Kimberley

I came to the Kimberley with a fairly clear idea of what the next couple of weeks would look like.

I’m here for two weeks doing art therapy with small groups of students. In my head, I had imagined quiet (if challenging) groups, getting to know a few young people, making art together, building relationships and gradually finding out what might be useful for them.

My first day was… quite different.

For starters, I was nervous about being in a school environment. It has been a long time since my own teaching days, and I was already wondering how I would fit in.

As it turned out, I had a lot to observe.

I spent some time shadowing one amazing teacher, who I think is amazing. She seems to know everyone. She moves around the school with this wonderful ability to be everywhere at once — helping someone here, checking in with someone there, knowing all the students' names and having something positive to say to so many of them.

Watching her was probably one of the most useful parts of my first day.

She showed me something that I know is important about relationships in a school that you can't necessarily learn from a program plan or a timetable. It's about knowing people. Knowing their names. Saying hello. Noticing them. Being someone who is consistently there.

I also spent time observing classes.

In one class, there were around 18 students from different year levels, sitting at tables watching a video about the parts inside a computer. The task was essentially to watch, remember the names of the parts and recall them later.

I found myself wondering about how different learning can feel depending on whether we understand why we're learning something, whether we're interested in it, and whether we feel invited into the learning.

One of the teachers referred to himself in the third person, which was a new experience for me and made me smile.

School is full of little moments that are unfamiliar when you're coming into it as an outsider.

At recess, though, I got my first little taste of what I had actually come here to do. Three girls joined me for some art. One girl had go. Another started but didn't finish. And another drew an apple. And you know what? That's okay.

That felt like a much more useful reminder about art therapy than any perfectly planned activity could have given me. We can offer an invitation, but we can't decide how someone else will respond to it.

Another class I supported in was probably the hardest part of my day. There were around eight secondary school boys, and the classroom felt very different from the art space. There was a strong focus on rules, behaviour and consequences before the maths lesson even really began.

I found myself feeling uncomfortable with some of the approaches being used and questioning how I could work within a system while still remaining true to my own values and ways of working.

Several of the students struggled with some very basic numeracy. I found that confronting because of the myriad of ways I know how young people can get to that age without having the foundational skills they need, and I wondered what their experience of school and learning must have been along the way.

That question stayed with me.

Then there was a hands on class. There were saws and hammers, students moving around, some walking out of the room, some play-wrestling, talking and laughing. Some of the boys were speaking to each other in Creole, which I couldn't understand, and I found myself very aware of being an outsider. Yet, individually, many of these same boys were warm, funny and engaging.

That contrast interested me. It made me think about how different a young person can appear depending on the environment they're in.

Perhaps this is part of why I'm here. Not to arrive with a preconceived idea of what these students need. Not to “fix”, and certainly not to assume that because something looks like challenging behaviour from the outside, I understand what is happening underneath it.

I came to Halls Creek thinking my work would be about small groups and art therapy. Maybe it will be. But perhaps the first part of the work is simply learning to observe. To listen. To notice the relationships. To understand the environment. To work out where I might fit.

By lunchtime, I was supposed to be running an art club. I had imagined the three girls from recess might come along.

Instead, a group of little ones arrived. So we pivoted.

This is probably another lesson I am going to have to learn quickly here: things don't go according to plan. And maybe that's okay.

At the end of the day, I attempted to walk back to my accommodation. I got lost. Completely lost! I somehow ended up back at the school. Which, given that I had no phone reception and a truly terrible sense of direction, was probably the best possible outcome.

I walked back into the staff area feeling overwhelmed and, if I'm honest, quite close to tears. I wanted to go home. It had been a lot.

I had arrived expecting to do art therapy and instead spent the day trying to understand a whole new environment — one that challenged me, made me uncomfortable at times and left me wondering what on earth I was going to do for the next two weeks.

But perhaps that's okay too.

Sometimes entering a new place means being willing to not know. To notice what doesn't sit comfortably. To question your own assumptions. To look for the people who are doing things differently. To find the small moments of connection. And to remember that you don't have to understand everything on the first day.

So I'm trying not to judge my first day by whether I achieved what I came here to achieve. Instead, I'm thinking of it as the beginning of listening.

#ArtTherapy #Kimberley #SchoolBasedArtTherapy #LearningThroughConnection