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

Well, we made Māori bread the other day. We did make Māori bread.
But I, you know, told the children that we were making Māori bread (Tr:
T. 1/4/04). (Bold emphasis added by me to reflect the taped response).
The point here is that “telling” children was contrary to the espoused
philosophy, but centre staff felt obliged to do so in order to introduce Tiriti based
activities. In contrast to being fully child initiated, teachers in Case Study Two
stated that it was important for them to direct the curriculum. A practical time to
do this was during mat time when all children were together with teachers leading
the programme:
Brodie has begun with simple greetings at our morning mat time, so we
could introduce some new vocabulary each week (Jl: A, 1/6/08).
Mat time (also known as meeting time) saw an important new routine
become established. Waiata being sung was consistent with implementing Tiriti-
based practices:
You always start our meeting time with a waiata and it‟s the same waiata
that we‟re teaching the afternoon children (Tr: A, 22/6/04).
With planned activities in te reo Māori, such as greetings and waiata,
teachers in Case Study Two were advancing Tiriti-based curriculum. Although
teachers incorporated and extended children‟s own Tiriti-based play, such as
puzzles, books, music and dance, a focus of the programme was the activities and
experiences that Alison and Brodie initiated and directed. This clearly
demonstrates that although philosophical underpinnings are essential to centres, in
practice implementation may be more visible and accelerated by teachers directing
learning activities as opposed to relying on Tiriti-based environments to inspire
children‟s participation.
For Case Study Three, the programme was based around the routines of
the babies. Teachers followed babies‟ individual patterns of sleeping, feeding and
playing but babies were gradually encouraged to fit into centre routines. This
enabled social learning to occur, for example during mealtimes. These shared
times gave opportunities for teachers to introduce te reo Māori:
And they know what e noho means and e tu because we do it every time
we have a meal and we tell them sit/e noho and e tu responding to
that…If we say sit they don‟t. They remain standing and when we say e
noho they‟ll sit (Tr: M, 7/11/08).
With consistent use of te reo Māori terms for sit and stand infants in Case
Study Three were responding to their teachers‟ initiatives. Teachers need to be
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