Endnotes
1 Ann L. Brown, Doris Ash, Martha Rutherford, Kathryn Nakagawa, Ann Gordon, and Joseph C. Campione (1993). “Distributed Expertise in the Classroom”. In Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations, ed. Gavriel Salomon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 7, pp. 188–228 (quote from p. 217).
In this chapter, Ann Brown and colleagues write about classrooms as being communities of learners. This research is in a school context, but early childhood centres can be usefully viewed as communities of learners as well. The notion of learning being distributed across people and artefacts is assessed in the analysis of the exemplar “The three friends” and is very relevant to this strand of Te Whāriki.
2 Early Childhood Learning and Assessment Exemplar Project Advisory Committee and Co-ordinators, 2002.
3 See Norma González, Luis Moll, and Cathy Amanti (2005). Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. In this work, Luis Moll says that “we found that once the relationship level of the communication between parents and teachers becomes more reciprocal, where the teachers start forming part, even if peripherally, of the household’s social network, it creates new possibilities for teachers to engage households and for parents to engage the school in fundamentally new ways … [and it] can alter … the parents’ positioning with the school as a social system” (p. 280). See also endnote 1 above.
4 Ministry of Education (1996). Te Whāriki: He Whāriki Mātauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa/Early Childhood Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media, p. 35.
5 ibid., p. 64
6 Alexandra C. Gunn (2003). “A Philosophical Anchor for Creating Inclusive Communities in Early Childhood Education: Anti-bias Philosophy and Te Whāriki: Early Childhood Curriculum”. Waikato Journal of Education, no. 9, p. 130. Writing about Te Whāriki, she also comments that “Turning equitable and inclusive aspirations of the curriculum into practice remains, in my experience, a challenge.”
7 Gaile S. Cannella (1997). Deconstructing Early Childhood Education: Social Justice and Revolution. New York: Peter Lang, p. 169. Cannella also writes: “As a final challenge, I would propose that professionalism in the field of early childhood education become the development of critical dispositions in the struggle for social justice and care” (p. 167).
8 Vivian Gussin Paley (1992). You Can’t Say You Can’t Play. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, p. 3. Many of Vivian Gussin Paley’s books are about teachers and children reflecting on the topics of relationships, fairness, and friendships. Here is an excerpt from the children’s discussions in You Can’t Say You Can’t Play:
Teacher: Should one child be allowed to keep another child from joining the group? A good rule might be: “You can’t say you can’t play.” …
Angelo: Let anyone play if someone asks.
Lisa: But then what’s the whole point of playing?
Nelson: You just want Cynthia.
Lisa: I could play alone. Why can’t Clara play alone?
Angelo: I think that’s pretty sad. People that is alone they has water in their eyes.
Lisa: I’m more sad if someone comes that I don’t want to play with.
Teacher: Who is sadder, the one who isn’t allowed to play or the one who has to play with someone he or she doesn’t want to play with?
Clara: It’s more sadder if you can’t play.
Lisa: The other one is the same sadder …