supporting tiriti-based curriculum delivery in mainstream early ...

kindergarten fathers responded to the welcome speech and the children from the
kindergarten sang a waiata. After the hongi the kapa haka group performed with
poi and finished with a haka. It seemed to me this was seen by both the school and
the kindergarten as an important occasion, with much of the school being involved,
including the principal and several teachers. The importance of the experience for
the kindergarten parents was also expressed:
I come from Australia and I don‟t sort of know much about the Māori
culture and he said after being there I‟m feeling very cultural now (Tr: B,
22/10/04).
The comments that some of them just made coming away from the school.
A few of them just said, you know, I‟ve never done anything like that and
that was a really neat learning experience (Tr: A, 22/10/04).
For the teachers, too, this visit to the school and the relationships
generated through the preparation strengthened the possibility of interacting with
the tangata whenua at the local marae:
And just the ending, being invited to the marae. I guess the next step is to
come to the marae (Tr: B, 22.10/04)
This desire to make connections with the local marae had been a strong
part of their ideal Tiriti-based curriculum, so this was a truly fitting ending to the
action research cycles. However, in order for this to occur, Māori parents first
needed to be strongly connected to their iwi and hapu and this cannot be assumed
by early childhood teachers. Second, it takes time to develop relationships with
whānau Māori to a sufficient level to develop to the next stage of iwi and hapu
connections. Finally, there needs to be reciprocal relationships with iwi and hapu –
asking what centres can do for them as Māori as well as asking what they can do
for early childhood centres (personal communication, Heta-Lensen, 2009).
Although the developing relationship was strong at the end of 2004 this had
virtually disappeared by 2008.
5.3.3 Challenges to Sustaining Tiriti-based Curriculum
Since the action research was completed there has been some contact with
the centre, in particular late in 2008 and early in 2009 when I caught up with both
the teachers to discover where they were at with Tiriti-based curriculum. I was
aware Alison, the head teacher, had left and the centre had been restructured to
accommodate more children and a third teacher. It was disappointing that the
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