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

willingness amongst practitioners. Let us support instead of criticising
(R. 124).
In my experience, once teachers start the journey of implementation of
Tiriti-based curriculum, they develop more in-depth skills. By including whānau
Māori and consulting with iwi, early childhood teachers are more likely to deepen
Tiriti-based curriculum. Thus they can move beyond perceived tokenism. The
“tourist approach” (Derman-Sparks, 1993, p. 66) to culture, however, needs to be
avoided:
As staff we are very concerned with the „tourist‟ approach to our
bicultural programme. We feel a huge need for professional development
in this area to give us confidence to get away from the tourist approach
or tokenism (R. 210).
Participants questioned themselves on whether or not what they were
doing was truly reflective of Tiriti-based pedagogy. They thought it could be
tokenistic and this was illustrated by Chris H, from Case Study Three, who wrote:
Although I clearly understand the importance of maintaining a bicultural
learning environment in early childcare settings, I wondered if what I did
is just tokenism, just because what I was asked to do, that‟s why I need to
do something, regardless[of whether] I am good at Māori knowledge or
not (Jl: CH, 12/08).
Adopting a more positive approach represents a movement along what
Bevan-Brown (2003) calls a continuum of bicultural development. Thus the
tentative steps teachers enact in their practice of Tiriti-based curriculum were
consistent with this. This section has demonstrated that in the face of blame and
criticism teachers become afraid to move forward and sometimes even avoid Tiriti-
based curriculum altogether. This is consistent with what Tolich (2002) found
amongst postgraduate students who steered clear of research with Māori because
ethical approval was too daunting. One way of teachers deepening knowledge and
moving beyond initial steps was to gain confidence in what they were doing. That,
as this thesis has consistently argued means eschewing deficiencies and building
upon their strengths.
6.5.3 Lack of Confidence
Knowing the importance of Tiriti-based curriculum was insufficient to
make up for lack of confidence as the following two teacher excerpts demonstrate:
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