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

One of the few critics of Te Whāriki was Cullen (1996). She was
concerned that “Te Whāriki contains high ideals but there is currently an enormous
gap between practice and the achievement of those ideals. In turn, bridging this
gap poses considerable challenges to policy makers and early childhood educators
alike” (p. 123). One of the areas of unease for Cullen (1996) was about the lack of
understanding of early childhood teachers had of the two paradigms that
underpinned Te Whāriki: developmental and socio-cultural. She felt educators and
professional developers were not conversant with the theoretical basis of Te
Whāriki, which was set out in the draft, but dropped, in the final version.
I agree with the thrust of Cullen‟s comments. If teachers do not
understand the theoretical background they are likely to experience difficulties in
constructing programmes of learning, and the absence of specific prescription
along with the absence of a theoretical practice made this even more problematic.
Seven years later, Cullen believed there was “under-interpretation of Te Whāriki‟s
principles” (2003, p. 279) in relation to diversity, as teachers are still seeing culture
“in terms of visible artefacts and rituals” (Cullen, 2003, p. 277).
Nevertheless, these are tangible aspects of curriculum that early childhood
educators can currently grasp and implement in their desire to attempt Tiriti-based
pedagogy of practice. As I listen to early childhood teachers and students, visit
centres and attend sector meetings I would argue that Tiriti-based aspects of Te
Whāriki are beyond the reach of implementation unless teachers have a reasonable
level of fluency in te reo Māori together with an understanding of tikanga sufficient
to enable a connection to whānau and iwi, and this is one of the problems with
respect to Tiriti-based curriculum. The few critics (Broström, 2003; Clark, 2005;
Cullen, 1996; Nuttall, 2003a) of Te Whāriki were concerned with its theoretical
understandings, cultural aspects, and the gap between the document and guidelines
for practice.
Theories-of-practice, or theories-in-use, are a set of beliefs about what
constitutes effective action in a particular situation, and dilemmas arise when there
is an inconsistency between espoused theory (what people say they will do or are
doing) and theory-in-action (what people are actually doing – or not) (Argyris &
Schön, 1974). The critical point to make here is that if teachers do not have a
theoretical platform from which to operate, they will be less likely to construct
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