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

Before considering the specifics of Tiriti-based curriculum as represented
by the Ministry of Education in Te Whāriki, it is important to understand the
concept of curriculum in more general terms, both as this relates to early childhood
education in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas. The definition of curriculum in
Te Whāriki is “describ[ing] the sum total of experiences, activities, and events,
whether direct or indirect, which occur within an environment designed to foster
children‟s learning” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 10). This definition,
according to Nuttall (2003a), “is extremely difficult to operationalise, since it
requires attention to every aspect of every child‟s experience within the early
childhood setting” (p. 162). By implication, Tiriti-based aspects of Te Whāriki will
also, therefore, be difficult to put into action.
Broström, in his critique of Te Whāriki, declared that as a curriculum it
“lacks reflection on what children should explore, communicate, think, and so on”
(Broström, 2003, p. 226 emphasis in the original). According to Broström the
purpose of a national early childhood document is a “tool for developing consistent
educational quality in early childhood centres around the country” (p. 236). To
illustrate his arguments Broström compared three other national early childhood
curriculum with Te Whāriki: Scotland, Sweden and Norway. He noted that in both
Te Whāriki and in the Swedish equivalent document, there was a lack of
educational content. Unlike Te Whāriki, however, curriculum for Scotland and
Norway were organised into subjects. Broström‟s concern was that Te Whāriki
lacked clear links between aims and content. Indeed he considered that there was a
shortage of content and that “teachers have to make their own choices about
content” (Broström, 2003, p. 236), thereby giving credence to the notion that Te
Whāriki does not represent a typical curriculum.
With regards to curriculum in England, Young-Ihm (2002) noted a
divergence “between the policy makers, who emphasize school effectiveness, and
the early childhood specialists, who focus on a developmentally appropriate
curriculum” (para 2). Similarly, Katz (1999) described this divergence as “part of a
traditional tendency at every level of education to push down curriculum
expectations from older to younger children” (para 4). The situation was quite
different in Aotearoa New Zealand, however. Here, when the Ministry of
Education mooted the idea of a national curriculum the early childhood profession
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