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

about Tiriti-based curriculum and the implementation of this. To this end the
Ministry of Education has produced several documents to assist teachers in
implementing Te Whāriki.
2.3 Critically Appraising Ministry Documents
Although Te Whāriki was the national curriculum document, the Ministry
of Education also produced a raft of supportive documents 2 . These were intended
to support early childhood teachers in implementing programmes which included a
Māori world view and were also designed to give “children an opportunity to
develop knowledge and understanding of the cultural heritages of both partners to
Te Tiriti o Waitangi” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 9). There was also,
importantly for mainstream services, an emphasis on building an early childhood
sector that was responsive to Māori.
In mainstream early childhood services there are both adults and children
of many ethnicities, each of whom have differing levels of knowledge and
appreciation of te reo Māori me ōna tikanga. Knowledge and appreciation varies
from those who have little or no understanding through to those for whom Māori
with language and culture are primary. Many of the ideas and suggestions in these
documents represent the western world view. Nevertheless, there are significant
amounts of material which promote Māori culture, and for this thesis, it is those
which are the focus.
Given that these publications were intended to assist teachers they could
be labelled as conforming to an appreciative inquiry model. However, as the
critical review of these documents shows, if these measures had been successful
researchers would no longer report that practitioners continue to struggle to
implement Te Whāriki (May, 2001; Nuttall, 2003a; Ritchie, 2003; Ritchie & Rau,
2006a, 2006b). The Ministry documents uniformly seem to accept and reflect the
non-prescriptive curriculum of Te Whāriki. Whilst this enables educators to
develop and “weave” their own approaches in partnership with whānau Māori, it
can also leave them floundering in their attempts to implement Tiriti-based
pedagogy until relationships are established. Conceivably, therefore, approaches
2 The Ministry of Education documents were Quality in Action: Te Mahi Whai Hua; The Quality
Journey: He Haerenga Whai Hua; and Bicultural Assessment: He Aromatawai Ahurea Rua (Ministry of
Education, 1998, 1999, 2004a)
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