Swings + Roundabouts Summer 2020

A news article in The Guardian, Humanity must take this chance to find a new ‘normal’ – and safeguard our planet (Mrema, Thiaw, Cantellano, 2020) argues that going back to normal after the Covid-19 crisis is untenable and that a new normal is required one “that puts us in harmony with the environment”. The publication of the Brundtland Report (1987, cited in Weldemariam, 2017) highlighted future unsustainable intergenerational issues and emphasised the need for long term commitment and engagement with sustainability and dispositions such as care, empathy and ethical responsibility. Since the Brundtland Report, there have been other international reports advocating education for sustainability, including the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UNESCO, 2017), which includes Goal 4.7, a variety of learning objectives supporting education for sustainable development (ESD) to equip learners to create a more sustainable, equitable and peaceful world. This article advocates for early childhood educators within Aotearoa New Zealand to look beyond their current sustainability practices by embracing a te ao Māori/ Māori world-view and face climate change through viewing the environment not as a subject to study but instead through transforming and reframing education that encapsulates the Indigenous sense of place (Thornton, Graham & Burgh, 2019), a focus on Indigenous ways of knowing and being, interconnectedness through co-habitation (Penetito, 2009), and the ethic of care (Ritchie, 2012). THE ROLE OF THE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR Currently early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) often involves what is considered traditional nature-based activities in and about the environment including outdoor play, gardening, recycling, composting, excursions in nature, and learning from fact sheets and books about resource conservation (Engdahal, 2015; Inoue, O’Gorman and Davis, 2016). There is merit in the above experiences through connecting children to the natural environment and encouraging sustainable practices, but Orr (1994, 2003, cited in Wals, 2017) argues that these types of ‘green’ activities, such as recycling, are not addressing sustainability, if one doesn’t recognise and challenge the assumptions and values that current systems currently perpetrate. ECEfS can prepare learners to meet the challenges “that arise from the interconnectedness of environment, culture, society, and economy” (Nolet, 2016, p. 7) with learning that is child-centred, action orientated and transformative to empower learners to transform themselves and the communities they live in toward a more inclusive and sustainable existence (UNESCO, 2017). The Common Worlds Research Collective (2020) argue that education has a role in our future survival by refocusing our learning about the environment, which entails changing from learning how to manage, control or see the world as an object to learn to how to “become with the world around us” (p. 2). Worldwide, many who care for the environment and the sustainability of natural resources are starting to understand and value the knowledge of local Indigenous communities within a particular place due to the intimate time Indigenous peoples have spent co-habiting with their local environments (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005, cited in McRae, 2018). ECEfS argues Davis (2014) should encourage transformation and change and be “focused on rethinking and remaking educational programmes and pedagogies to support sustainable societies” (p.23) and that the time to start addressing equity and intergenerational rights begins in early childhood education. Rose (2002, cited in Ritchie, 2014) argues that this transformative shift should start from a restorative and decolonising practice that is interconnected with our ecological systems, as practiced by Indigenous peoples, with a more physical, emotive, spiritual and intimate relationship with our environment (Ritchie, 2014). THE INDIGENOUS SENSE OF PLACE Penetito (2009) explains that a basic understanding of place-based education are the notions, who am I (identity) and where am I (location) and within these questions are the notions on the relationship of place, “how we fit in, what the place means to us, and what we mean to the place” (p. 24). Penetito (2009) argues that a pedagogy for place-based education within Aotearoa New Zealand needs to be consistent with Indigenous traditions and based on three key propositions: “a sense of place is a fundamental human need; Indigenous peoples see the relationship between themselves and their environments as co-habitors; and a pedagogy capable of embodying ways of knowing and being cannot be sustained without some sense of consciousness that encompasses, in Māori terms, wānanga which is a conscious union of mind and spirit" (p.20). The Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN A TE AO MĀORI LENS BY TRUDI SUTCLIFFE December 2020 { 26 }