Empowering Language: Lenses of Knowing, Being and Doing

Joanna Williamson,Helen Hedges

doi:10.20360/g2hm23

Abstract

Mana, a notion reflecting empowerment, is a central concept in te ao Māori, the world views of the indigenous culture in Aotearoa New Zealand. Mana forms a key component within Aotearoa New Zealand’s bicultural early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki and Māori early childhood assessment framework Te Whatu Pōkeka. Lenses of these culturally responsive frameworks are applied to verbal interactions amongst Indigenous Canadian children playing in school. Play was utilized to empower the children’s ideas and oral language towards richer storytelling. We argue that it is important for all teachers to consider and work with local and culturally responsive frameworks relevant to their context to empower children’s voices.

Highlights

Empowering children’s learning is vital across cultural contexts
We were invited to link our work on play and curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand to data from a project in Ontario, Canada, called Northern Oral Language and Writing through Play ( Play)
Like many non-Indigenous teachers working with Indigenous children, we too are grappling with what it means in practice to work with culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012)

Summary

Introduction

Empowering children’s learning is vital across cultural contexts. This article examines possibilities for empowering Indigenous Canadian children’s language through the use of play in primary/elementary school. Our intention is to provoke the repositioning of indigenous ways of knowing across contexts. We were invited to link our work on play and curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand to data from a project in Ontario, Canada, called Northern Oral Language and Writing through Play ( Play). The Play emphasis is on ways oral language might be empowered and strengthened through play-based learning. This project is working with a number of primary schools in remote and rural communities, some of which include Indigenous children. Our intention is to highlight some key concepts of our Language and Literacy

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion