On Monday nights, I go to my
local gym and attempt to do a Hip Hop dance class.
I am terrible at Hip Hop. Step class, no worries, but Hip Hop? I’m awful.
I find it difficult to keep the steps in my head, to link them all together and then to actually get them in time with the massively R’n’B influenced music everyone will tell you I hate.
Every week I show up. Every week I spend a lot of time bumping up and down on the spot looking confused, looking at the girl in front of me who seems to get it so easily, looking through the windows to see if anyone is looking at me looking confused. I get really frustrated. I want to walk out. But mostly, I just really want to be able to hip and hop, for shiz.
Why do I put myself through this?
Because I’m trying to understand what it’s like to not be able to read.
Say what?
In my job, I meet lots of kids who can’t read very well. Or at all. Teaching kids to read once they have missed out, is very very tricky. Not only does it require intensive remedial support, it very much relies on the student to be motivated to learn to read.
When you’re shit at something, you usually pretend you hate it, maybe you call it “gay” and pay it out, just to hide your inability…
When I was in year 6, I read 29 novels. For each I wrote a review in an exercise book and gave it a star rating out of 5. Reading for me is like Hip Hop for
Jonah Takalua.
Second pucking nature.
We laugh at Summer Heights High. Partly it’s that nervous laugh when we know the truth is being shown and that the truth is somewhat ugly. Poor literacy is a key risk factor for unemployment, depression and criminal behaviour. Jonah and his buddies might be mockumentary characters, but their stories are very real.
So I keep going to what I call The Gumnut Cottage Academy of Hip Hop.
Being out of my depth, being confused and not feeling in control at a class for an hour a week, gives me a sense of what it must be like for kids who are behind in reading and their school work.
It helps me do my job better. And slowly but surely, I’m getting more jiggy with it.