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

connecting with indigenous people and their communities to receive guidance
about curriculum development. The second universal strategy urged teachers to
take account of indigenous perspectives of the environment, language, traditions,
and customs and to build this into their teaching. Incorporating indigenous
resources and crafts was another noteworthy dimension for achieving appreciation
of the indigenous culture although this was not endorsed by all authors. Only in
Aotearoa New Zealand was the welcoming process deemed essential because this
engenders a sense of belonging for whānau Māori. Indeed this facilitates one of the
most effective ways of implementing Tiriti-based curriculum:
whakawhanaungatanga (Ritchie & Rau, 2006b, 2008). With this approach teachers
build genuine reciprocal relationships with whānau Māori.
Although, as noted above, the most effective way to have unique, Tiriti-
based curriculum is through whakawhanaungatanga 2 or partnership with whānau
Māori, this becomes difficult when there are few or no Māori children in the centre.
Extant literature presents the assumption that there are Māori children in each
centre but the reality is that they are not present in all centres. Their presence is
not, therefore, a panacea to success as Ritchie and Rau (2006b) often seem to
suggest. Furthermore, Heta-Lensen (2005) was aware of the difficulties that arose
when there were no or few Māori children in early childhood education settings.
She noted that without a critical mass of Māori children, Tiriti-based curriculum is
missing. This was the situation for the teachers in Case Study Three, who were
unable to connect with whānau Māori because at the time of the research there
were no Māori children attending their centre.
Te Whāriki and other Ministry of Education documents such as Quality in
Action (Ministry of Education, 1998) are intended to guide teachers. However, as
was shown in chapter 2, information on the practical application of Tiriti-based
curriculum is not strongly evident in Te Whāriki (Broström, 2003) or indeed in any
of the Ministry documents. Despite the shortcomings of content discussed already,
aspects of Te Whāriki provide some guidance, especially in Mana Reo where
2 It is important to note that there is another aspect to whakawhanaungatanga in that all early childhood
education teachers should be building relationships with all whānau regardless of children‟s ethnicity, and
this is usually integral to most early childhood centre philosophy and practices.
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