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

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1.1 Overview<br />

Chapter One: Background to this Thesis<br />

“Be ready to beg<strong>in</strong> an unknown journey” (Email: Alison, 24/2/09).<br />

“Be ready to beg<strong>in</strong> an unknown journey” said Alison <strong>in</strong> her email to me.<br />

Ironically, embark<strong>in</strong>g on a PhD about implement<strong>in</strong>g Tiriti-<strong>based</strong> aspects of Te<br />

Whāriki, the national <strong>early</strong> childhood <strong>curriculum</strong>, was just such a journey <strong>in</strong>to the<br />

unknown. But Alison was not referr<strong>in</strong>g to the creation of a doctoral thesis, rather,<br />

she was talk<strong>in</strong>g about the implementation of Te Whāriki and it could be said that<br />

Alison represents many <strong>early</strong> childhood teachers <strong>in</strong> Aotearoa New Zealand who are<br />

on a journey to implement Te Whāriki.<br />

Te Whāriki means “the woven mat”. The concept of the mat comes from<br />

the format of the <strong>curriculum</strong> which, rather than hav<strong>in</strong>g prescriptive content is<br />

composed of four pr<strong>in</strong>ciples and five strands, each of which is derived from the<br />

Māori world view. These are discussed later on <strong>in</strong> this chapter. Importantly, the<br />

approach of this thesis is that of recognis<strong>in</strong>g strengths. In other words although it<br />

addresses the issue of deficit models it is not written from the deficit perspective,<br />

but rather seeks to value those strides that are be<strong>in</strong>g made <strong>in</strong> implement<strong>in</strong>g Tiriti-<br />

<strong>based</strong> <strong>curriculum</strong>.<br />

Research by Smith (1998) <strong>in</strong>dicates that lay<strong>in</strong>g quality foundations <strong>in</strong> the<br />

<strong>early</strong> years will have positive outcomes <strong>in</strong> terms of cognitive, psychosocial and<br />

physical development, as children grow towards adulthood. By 2 and 3 years old,<br />

most children are able to notice ethnic differences and are either develop<strong>in</strong>g<br />

positive or negative feel<strong>in</strong>gs about what they observe (Glover, 1995). This is a<br />

manifestation of racism which is premised upon the idea that people can be racially<br />

“classified”. Races are then typically ranked by people <strong>in</strong> terms of perceived<br />

superiority and <strong>in</strong>feriority (Spoonley, 1995). One of the aims of this study was to<br />

explore Tiriti-<strong>based</strong> practices <strong>in</strong> ma<strong>in</strong>stream <strong>early</strong> childhood education and to<br />

discover ways for <strong>early</strong> childhood teachers (who are valuable role models to<br />

children and student teachers) to implement effective bicultural programmes <strong>in</strong><br />

<strong>early</strong> childhood sett<strong>in</strong>gs which are “anti-biased” (Derman-Sparks & A.B.C. Task<br />

Force, 1989).<br />

13

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