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

5.4.2 Difficulties
Coming from an appreciative stance does not prevent difficulties from
occurring. As McNamee (2003) indicated, what does work is to use strengths to
resolve those difficulties. One of the recurring difficulties for participants in Case
Study Three was the dilemma of a curriculum that was unfamiliar:
Speaking another language is only part of beginning to understand; you
need to understand customs, other religions and food people eat. Why
they do the things they do the way they do it? How you speak to someone
may be offensive because they do not speak that way? Protocol of a
different culture to your own because what‟s not important to you may be
very important to someone else (Jl: M, 7/11/08).
As Margaret considered the implications of these for the bicultural
curriculum, she was able to call upon her knowledge of how the multicultural
curriculum occurred to help her:
Working in a multicultural environment can also be great for learning
about other people and their language. It‟s your different perspective of
other cultures (Jl: M, 7/11/08).
When teachers perceive cultures other than their own they can internalise
and appreciate differences which could include Māori culture. A potential
difficulty, especially when there are no Māori children as was the situation in Case
Study Three, is that Tiriti-based curriculum may not be addressed if teachers
perceive Māori to be only one of the many ethnicities that could be represented for
inclusion in the programme (Heta-Lensen, 2005).
Whilst teachers felt justifiably satisfied and proud with children‟s positive
responses they also had to deal with negative responses. As with Case Study One
not all the children were receptive to teachers‟ implementations of Tiriti-based
curriculum. Peggy was working with a te reo Māori alphabet:
The children did not respond well. Some of them moved away to get the
other toys. A teacher stopped by to correct my pronunciation but did not
support me by joining the group. I tried to finish the te reo Māori
alphabet chart with the remaining children (Jl: P, 08).
It may indeed not be te reo Māori that was the issue here but that the
exercise of working with infants and toddlers on any alphabet for a sustained time
to complete 26 letters was an unrealistic expectation. In their enthusiasm to
implement Tiriti-based curriculum in my experience teachers sometimes forget to
take account of children‟s interests and capabilities. Interestingly enough, as well
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