Abstract
Early childhood care and education services in Aotearoa New Zealand drew initially on the Fröbelian model of the kindergarten or ‘children’s garden’. Later models such as the Kōhanga Reo movement, the highly respected curriculum Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa, and the Enviroschools programme are grounded in te ao Māori, Māori worldviews, that feature a strong connectedness to place, and a deep sense of a spiritual inter-relationship with the land, mountains, rivers, and oceans. This article considers how the imported Scandinavian/European/UK models of ‘forest schools’ might fit within this context. To illustrate early childhood education in the outdoors in Aotearoa (New Zealand) we draw upon research conducted in early childhood settings in this country that illuminates children’s experience in the outdoors. We draw upon critical early childhood scholarship to theorise this situation of forest schools emerging in Aotearoa, along with influences from the forest school movement evident in existing New Zealand early childhood services. The article suggests that traditional Indigenous Māori worldviews and knowledges give meaning and contextualised authenticity to ‘forest schools’ approaches in early childhood education in Aotearoa (New Zealand).
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Notes
We use speech marks to indicate that we are using the term ‘forest schools’ in a generic sense, and are not referring to any specific model, such as that of the UK Forest Schools – which we address using capital letters.
Prior to this article being published, a new version of the curriculum was released by the New Zealand Ministry of Education, which is known as Te Whāriki 2017. The Māori section has been shifted to be separated from the rest of the document and is now known as ‘Te Whāriki a te Kōhanga Reo’ (The Whāriki for the Kōhanga Reo).
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Alcock, S., Ritchie, J. Early childhood education in the outdoors in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education 21, 77–88 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-017-0009-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-017-0009-y