'Early Childhood Education Essay\r'

'He taonga te reo: Honouring te reo me ona tikanga1, the Maori run-in and culture, at bottom premature minorishness commandmental activity in Aotearoa2. Dr Jenny Ritchie, Associate Professor, primordial puerility Teacher account, Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zea drop off countermand This paper considers info from recent inquiry which illustrates the ways in which tamariki (children), whanau (families) and educators ar combine the intake of the Maori talking to inside their universal preceptal interactions, as mandated by the bilingual New Zealand archaeanish puerility curriculum, Te Whariki (Ministry of upbringing, 1996).\r\nLanguages rebound cultures, expressing our deeper meanings and representations. Inscribed at bottom oral and non-verbal quarrels ar our ways of be, receiveing and doing (Martin, 2008). Jeanette Rhedding-J wholenesss has inquired in her Norwegian multi hea beca mappingish context as to â€Å"What kinds of constructions atom ic number 18 the monocultural professionals creating for cross-cultural meetings and mergings? ” (2001, p. 5).\r\nWhat follows is an exploration of strategies by which Maori ways of population, knowing and doing argon existence enacted done the fair of te reo in archaean childishness subject matters. Introduction Te Whariki (Ministry of information, 1996), the first bicultural education curriculum in Aotearoa, reaffirmed a commitment already astray ac noesisd across the too soon childishness education sector in this countrified, to Te Tiriti o Waitangi3, and the validation and inclusion of te reo me ona tikanga4 as an integrated component of premature puerility education political programs.\r\nTe Whariki contains unattackable clear statements of expectations for educators in terms of enacting te reo Maori in spite of appearance their command: New Zealand is the understructure of Maori language and culture: curriculum in early childhood pictures should pr omote te reo and nga tikanga Maori, making them visible and affirming their honour for children from e rattling last(predicate) cultural backgrounds. Adults working with children should demonstrate an intellect of the different iwi and the meaning of whanau and whanaungatanga5 (Ministry of reading, 1996, p.\r\n42) The juxtapo tantalizeion of the procession of te reo and tikanga alongside whanau and whanaungatanga is insightful. preceding(prenominal) enquiry had set that as early childhood 1 2 Te reo is the Maori language, tikanga atomic number 18 Maori beliefs, value and cultural designs. Aotearoa is a Maori arouse for New Zealand. 3 Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840 in the midst of Maori chiefs and the British Cr feature, promised protections to Maori of their lands and taonga †everything of value to Maori , which includes their languages, beliefs, value and traditions.\r\n4 Te reo is the Maori language and tikanga ar Maori cultural pra ctices. This phrase, liter anyy, â€Å"the language and its cultural practices” demonstrates how intrinsically the language and culture are linked. 5 Iwi are tribes, whanau are families, and whanaungatanga is the building of relationships. 2 educators pay off an environment reflective and inclusive of Maori values much(prenominal)(prenominal) as whanaungatanga, Maori families are much comfortable and be come cut out to a greater extent voluminous at bottom that early childhood setting (Ritchie, 2002). Te reo Maori has been severely jeopardised by the processes of colonisation.\r\nAs Mere Skerrett has written: Maori ways of address were besides colonised through the conquering of te reo Maori, to be replaced by English. This, at times violent, process of colonisation caused a disruption in the intergenerational transmission of Maori language, Maori knowledge and, as a consequence, disrupted Maori lives and Maori socie imbibes. (2007, p. 7) Whanau Maori feed consist ently stated their preference that their children ascertain their language and culture within education contexts (AGB/McNair, 1992; M.Durie, 2001; Else, 1997;\r\nTe Puni Kokiri/Ministry of Maori Development, 1998) in affirmation of their individualism as Maori, since â€Å"Te reo Maori serves as the medium through which symbolic and cultural components are properly united and Maoriness most suitably expressed” (A. Durie, 1997, p. 152).\r\nYoung children learn languages comparatively easily. archaean childhood centres are a logical site for young children to suck opportunities to learn te reo Maori, in instinctiveistic experiential ways, consistent with both early childhood and second language accomplishment pedagogies (Cummins, 2001; Ritchie, 1994).\r\nThis result only occur if we are able to allow them with a linguistically rich environment and real language models. It is reasonable that Maori parents might expect that their children will not acquire poor orthoep y of their own language from their educational experiences. Previous question In 1999 as grammatical constituent of my doctoral research (Ritchie, 2002), I observed 13 different early childhood settings in the Waikato area (Ritchie, 1999). I noted that in most of the settings there was at least one mental faculty penis who attempted to use around Maori language.\r\nThis was a stronger use of te reo than Pam Cubey observed in eight hessian early childhood centres in 1992, when she report that virtually no Maori language was heard (Cubey, 1992). During my observations, the most prevalent usage of te reo Maori were ‘commands’, such as: â€Å"Haere mai ki te kai; E tu tamariki; E noho; Haere mai ki te whariki; Horoi o ringaringa”6. in that location were overly instances of tally and naming blazons in te reo Maori. Several staff repeatedly inserted single Maori nouns within some of their regular English sentences, for deterrent ex angstrom unitle, â€Å" Do you fate some fruit? Some panana 6.\r\nHaere mai ki te kai †come and eat E tu tamariki †stand up children E noho- sit down Haere mai ki te whariki †come to the mat Horoi o ringaringa †wash your men panana †banana aporo- apple taringa †ear(s) waha †mouth 3 or some aporo? Turn on your taringa, zip up your waha”. During my visits, eight of the 13 centres sang at least one song in te reo Maori, ordinarily at structured mat-times, which were compulsory for all children. These instructors identified confidence and competence as barriers, because, as one teacher explained, â€Å"you aroma like a real dress down when it comes out wrong”.\r\nI was implicated that the available te reo Maori resources appeared to be under-utilised and that the blow of language use was restricted to easy commands, the use of colour names and counting in Maori. This indicated reliance on a throttle start out of vocabulary, with infinitesimal knowledg e of Maori grammar. Teachers expressed their rent for clog up and cost sum up to broaden their ‘comfort zone’ beyond single words, to using complete and more complex phrases that represent linguistically original Maori structures.\r\nI suggested that teachers consider widening the rake of formats in which they used Maori phrases. Recent data Whilst 6. 58% of registered early childhood teachers are Maori (Ministry of pedagogics, 2007), only 1. 6% of New Zealanders of European ancestry speak Maori (Ministry of Social Development, 2007). beforehand(predicate) childhood teachers’ use of te reo whitethorn seem encouraging in that 75% of Pakeha early childhood teachers said that they use some Maori whilst tenet, yet 70% of these teachers reported themselves as speaking Maori â€Å"not very well” (Harkess, 2004, p. 12).\r\nIn 2006 we reported on a 2-year study7 with a range of participants, which included early childhood educators, an Iwi Education Init iative8, teacher educators, specialist educators and professional information erectrs, co-exploring strategies for musical accompanimenting the favorable function of whanau Maori within early childhood settings other than Kohanga Reo9 (Ritchie & Rau, 2006).\r\n employ narrative (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Schulz, Schroeder, & Brody, 1997) and Kaupapa Maori (Bishop, 2005; Smith, 1999, 2005) research methodologies, we explored early childhood educators’ strategies for encouraging the elaboration of whanau Maori within early childhood education settings, and ways for implementing apprehensions of commitments derived from Te Tiriti o Waitangi as expressed in the bicultural early childhood curriculum, Te Whariki, through the delivery of Tiriti-based programmes10.\r\nParticipants in this study were those who were strongly pull to implementing Tiriti-based practice. pedagogic enactment draw in this study was consistent with 7 This project was funded through th e Teaching Learning interrogation Initiative, a fund raised by the New Zealand Ministry of Education, and administered by NZCER. 8 We gratefully acknowledge the support and contri neverthelession of Kokiri Tuwaretoa Education Initiative to the Whakawhanaungatanga study.\r\n9 Kohanga Reo are Maori-medium educational settings where young children are immersed in the Maori language and culture in a whanau-based context. 10 The term Tiriti-based practice is derived from a commitment to Te Tiriti oWaitangi, the agreement signed in 1840 by Maori chiefs and the British Crown, that legitimated the presence of immigrants, initially from Britain, alongside the tangata whenua, Maori, the innate people of this land.\r\n4 a follow of Maori language and cultural practices as be holistically and simultaneously performed. This enactment includes daily take up and spiritual rituals in te reo, and is inclusive of waiata11. This climate generated a sense of accept and safety for Maori familie s, which resulted in their increasing involvement in centre reo and tikanga implementation. An educator demonstrate how this whanau battle was integral within their early childhood centre programming:\r\nâ€Å"In partnership with whanau we introduce new waiata each term, and tikanga experiences, such as, hangi, powhiri, harakeke, [and] legends of the whanau, hapu12, and iwi attending the service. ” Other Maori co-researchers within the Whakawhanaungatanga research project also identified aspects of Te Ao Maori13 that they would like to see reflected within early childhood education and business settings. They considered it important that Maori parents and whanau sense a yoke between their values and those of educational settings.\r\nThey treasured a sense of whanaungatanga generated and enacted within the early childhood centre, whereby tamariki and whanau, kuia and kaumatua, and other whanau members such as â€Å"Aunties” (Martin, 2007) participated as a collecti ve, attainment and teaching alongside the teachers and children, educators sharing responsibility and demonstrating willingness to secern and support the needs of all members of that collective.\r\nIn this vision, te reo Maori is modelled and integrated throughout the programme, with support for adults to increase their own facility with the language alongside their children, and there is ongoing everyday enactment of tikanga such as: rituals of turn out and furtherewell; sharing of kai14; a value of inclusiveness; reference to Te Ao Wairua15 and nga Atua16, and annual celebrations such as Matariki.\r\n17 sisterren, in this expression are exposed to te reo as part of the daily enactment of Maori beliefs, values and practices. Co-researchers in this project demonstrated a commitment to incorporate te reo and tikanga within their centre practice, in ways that were important and contextual for children and families.\r\n engageing with natural materials, such as harakeke (flax) , provided a source of learnedness of traditional knowledge, involving the planting and care of the flax bushes, interweave of rourou18, children observing alongside adults, connected to the land and its spiritual significance, as Ana, a Playcentre kaiako, described: So even though we had those harakeke within our centre boundary, in our lawn, we knew that the pa harakeke19 of that harakeke that we had, came 11 12 Waiata are songs.\r\nHangi are feasts cooked in earth ovens, powhiri are greeting ceremonies, harakeke is flax, and hapu are sub-tribes 13 Te Ao Maori is the Maori world. 14 Kai is regimen 15 Te Ao Wairua is the spiritual dimension. 16 Nga Atua are supernatural beings, or gods. 17 Matariki is the constellation whose arrival announces the Maori New Year. 18 Rourou are flax food baskets. 19 Pa harakeke are flax bushes, often planted as a source of flax for weaving and rongoa (medicinal remedies), and also refers metaphorically to the nurturing by the wider family of the o ffspring, the younger shoots.\r\n5 from a larger picture. And all the natural resources on our little wagon inside, in the area of where they go and make pictures and gingiva things and make structures out of the driftwood and put their shells and tie their shells on and harakeke, they might go for been on the button in the rourou baskets, but we knew and the tamariki knew they come from this defectiveger picture out there in the whenua20, because they had gone to get them. So we brought our big world reality and our spiritual world reality into the bounds of that centre.\r\nPania, a Maori kindergarten teacher, rundle of her bilingual approach as being like a whariki,21 …where you get two strands and you build them together to make your little kete22 or your whariki of learning. And [implementing a bilingual approach] is a way that I can accelerate my programme that is non-threatening. It’s an option for the child †and the parent †whether they would lik e to do it, but it’s also another teaching technique and a resource and a learning strategy.\r\nDaisy, a Pakeha kindergarten teacher, actively researched aspects of tikanga that she was interested in integrating into her teaching: I wrote a story and what I treasured to do was encompass the tikanga aspects on appeal kai moana23. I wanted it to be something Pakeha could grasp, something simple, that was truly clear and conveying the tikanga aspects because it’s not just about going down to the beach and picking up a few pipis24, its deeper than that, there’s a lot of kaupapa25 behind it. How did I know about all the tikanga?\r\nâ€I’ve never gone out collecting kai moana in my life? Research, korero26 with others more knowledgeable. As far as getting it to children it needs to be simple and straight-forward. The pipi story is focused on Tangaroa,27 the protocols around that. The tamariki seem to enjoy it, but in order to deepen their understanding, an d address the story, I set up the pipi follow in the sandpit. So the story was a visual and a listening experience, whereas the pipi endure was a tactile experience, so that then I think I would have managed to tap into every child’s way of learning.\r\nDaisy also involved whanau Maori of her centre in her planning, although she took primary responsibility for researching the reo and tikanga that was to be incorporated. Incorporating te reo and tikanga was more effective when educators were committed both individually and collectively to proactively integrating this within planning, teaching 20 Whenua is land. Whariki are woven flax mats. 22 A kete is a woven flax basket. 23 Kai moana are seafoods. 24 Pipi are cockles. 25 Kaupapa is philosophy. 26 Korero is talking. 27 Tangaroa is the Atua, supernatural being, or God, of the sea.\r\n21 6 interactions, programme evaluation, and centre review. Many of the Pakeha coresearchers have worked hard over the years to increase their competence in te reo, and hold on to do so, by taking courses. At Ariel’s childcare centre, all the teachers had accompanied a reo course offered in their topical anaesthetic conjunction. Penny, a kindergarten head teacher who was also studying te reo, explained that as her own confidence grew, and support by her co-teacher, the feeling of te reo within the centre programme endured to strengthen, as â€Å"the reo is fed in gently and quietly”.\r\nRespondents from the Hei Ara Kokiri Tuwaretoa Education Initiative data articulated aspirations for early childhood education services that figure all children as being supported to become biculturally and bilingually competent. The following example recognises the important role of early childhood services in offering timbre models of te reo Maori: To be fully bicultural and because bilingual all children in Aotearoa/NZ should have the opportunity to learn to be still in Maori and English and develop understanding of both cultures’ world view.\r\nWe need ingenious Maori speaking teachers in all ECE learning environments. It is not enough to use Maori language in directives †information †acknowledgment contexts. We need to work towards providing environments where children can use the rank language, be completely immersed in te reo Maori. We need to promote environments where the conscientization of language is constructed as normal to prevent dialogue being used by teachers to act on children. Teachers and children need to be using dialogue to work with each other †co-constructing. In order to reflect this, we need to provide environments rich in Maori language.\r\nWe need right speaking Maori teachers! Regurgitating learnt phrases will not provide the opportunities for children to really conscientise their experiences, that is, thinking in Maori. besides a very high train of exposure in Maori will do that. Honouring the indigenous language and culture of this coun try remains an ongoing challenge for educators, oddly given the legacy of colonialistic arrogance that has limited access for legion(predicate) people, both Maori and non-Maori. Kaupapa Maori models are providing inspirational pedagogical models that honour te reo me ona tikanga (Skerrett, 2007).\r\nHowever, as the numbers of Maori children in education services other than kaupapa Maori remains high, the freight is on educators in these sectors to find strategies to provide Maori children and families with the language that is their birth-right and source of identity as affirmed by Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child (1989), which requires that:\r\nIn those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of native product line exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is Indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and p ractise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.\r\n7 Conclusion Maori continue to seek education provision that regard and honours their identity, including the linguistic affirmation of authentic models of te reo Maori (Robertson, Gunn, Lanumata, & Pryor, 2007). As early childhood educators seek to deliver on the expectations outlined in the early childhood curriculum, Te Whariki (Ministry of Education, 1996), there remain many challenges, not the least of which is the lack of linguistic competence in te reo Maori of the vast majority of teachers (Harkess, 2004).\r\nOur research indicates that educators who are consecrated to an ongoing journey of reflexive drill founded in a commitment to social justice and the promise of Tiriti-based partnership are generating early childhood programmes which respectfully reflect the Maori language and culture, and this in turn encourages the participation of whanau Maori in these services. References AGB/McNair. (1992). Survey of Demand for bilingualist and denseness Education in Maori. A describe to the Ministry of Education. Wellington: AGB/McNair. Bishop, R. (2005).\r\nFreeing Ourselves from Neocolonial subordination in Research: A Kaupapa Maori surface to Creating Knowledge. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds. ), The judicious handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed. , pp. 109-164). curtilage Oaks, calcium: Sage. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990).\r\nStories of Experience and tarradiddle Inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2-14. Cubey, P. (1992). Responses to the Treaty of Waitangi in archean puerility Care and Education. unpublished M. Ed. Thesis, capital of Seychelles University of Wellington, Wellington. Cummins, J. (Ed. ). (2001). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Durie, A. (1997). Te Aka Matua. Keeping a Maori Identity. In P. Te Whaiti, M. McCarthy & A. Durie (Eds. ), Mai i Rangiatea. Maor i Wellbeing and Development (pp. 142-162). Auckland: Auckland University Press with Bridget Williams Books. Durie, M. (2001).\r\nA Framework for Considering Maori Educational Advancement. Paper presented at the Hui Taumata Matauranga, Turangi/Taupo. Else, A. (1997). 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