Reimagining teacher subjectivity in Pacific early childhood education in New Zealand

Introduction

Before we start this introduction, we acknowledge you, the reader, in your capacities of being, knowing and becoming, which is at the heart of the concepts we engage. Thus, our talanoa is one that we hope will include you in thinking-intersubjectivity with us. We acknowledge this talanoa has been an ongoing process for us, as we are Pacific parents raising young Pacific children in New Zealand. We are both professionally involved in early childhood education (ECE), Jacoba Matapo as an initial teacher ECE academic and Jeanne Teisina as a Tongan full immersion ECE centre manager. The politics and discourse surrounding Pacific ECE have permeated many of our meetings as we talk about our children and our childhood experiences. What arises through talanoa in our academic journey are tensions of teacher identity shaped by standardised ethical codes and the professional discourses of ECE. As we journey through Pacific indigenous philosophy, many of our questions have surfaced through extensive engagement with the growing body of Pacific education research and scholarship. Pacific decolonising research targets emancipatory paradigms arguing for a decolonising of Pacific indigenous knowledge (Vaai and Nabobo-Baba, 2017). What we propose in this article is an alternative for theorising agency, subjectivity and Pacific teacher identity. In our thinking-becoming-expression, we summon the capacities of tangata kakato, olaga and forces of Moana to critique discourses of ECE from a Pacific indigenous paradigm (Matapo and Baice, 2020). As Pacific scholars, our positionality of critique is not separate from olaga and tangata kakato (Teisina, 2011), thus through talanoa storytelling and poetry, we open a space of alterity for reconceptualising.

Talanoa

In the Tongan language, tala refers to talk, to tell or conversation. Noa denotes nothing, zero, unlimited, endless and is an open space for potentiality within the Tongan and Samoan language. Talanoa is a dialogic form of communication immersed in expression, that of talking, telling stories and metaphors between Pacific peoples. Talanoa is a koloa (treasure) within our Pacific languages and cultures and is intergenerational, passed down from ancestors (Lātū, 2009; Otsuka, 2005; Vaioleti, 2006). In academic research, Vaioleti (2006) has explored this methodological approach of talanoa as a concept that is relevant for various Pacific island nations. Halapua (2007) asserts that there are commonalities of talanoa that are open to freedom to change directions. Our use of talanoa will ground this article in challenging universal notions of subjectivity. This talanoa is a critical and generative process that offers insights into Pacific indigenous concepts to reconceptualise teacher identity, agency and subjectivity. The idea of relational-self is embedded in our understanding as Pacific peoples where ‘I’ is replaced by ‘we’. So, it is in this connection that we, as Pacific scholars, engage in the shared cultural practice of talanoa. Vaioleti (2006) says that it is vital that Pacific peoples understand the spiritual aspects of talanoa through the ‘laumālie (essence, spirit, wairua) of concepts, notions, emotions or expressions in the talanoa encounter’ (p. 32). We hope to capture the ontological importance of talanoa through our cultural and contextual stories.

Jacoba Matapo talanoa

Pacific migration to New Zealand from the 1950s onwards has personal relevance for my aiga ⁵ and it is these stories of migration that have shaped my childhood. My mother, from Siumu village in Upolu, was the first in her aiga to migrate to New Zealand in the early 1970s. As a collective decision within the aiga, her journey to New Zealand would allow her to earn more income to sustain the aiga in Samoa. Like many new Pacific migrants, my mother aspired to ensure a good education for her children in New Zealand as well as the continued support of her aiga in Samoa. My mother remained wary of the differences in lifestyle and ideologies. Still, she remained determined to make New Zealand home for my brother and I. Often my mother reminded me of the importance of cultural knowledge, practices, values and beliefs, including collective responsibility such as fa’alavelave. ⁶ As I continue to traverse education in my role as a Pacific academic, I am aware that my narrative resonates with many other Pacific peoples living in New Zealand.

Jeanne Teisina talanoa

Education has been the driving priority for many of the Pacific people’s migration to New Zealand (Manu’atu, 2000; Taufe’ ulungaki, 2004; Vaioleti, 2011), which mirrored how our family migrated to New Zealand. After 30 years of teaching and realising the need to further educational opportunities, my parents decided to migrate to New Zealand when the eldest sibling reached the end of high school. Moving to New Zealand to pursue further education was the ideal solution because the perception is that to be successful one must be able to speak English. Many Tongan parents travelled to New Zealand to search for a better life not only for themselves but for their children. Growing up in a village meant our social upbringing was highly influenced by our cultural values, beliefs and worldviews. In the Islands, my childhood was always filled with fananga or stories read to me by my grandparents, aunts and uncles within the nofo ‘a kāinga, or kin group. Being a mother of three Tongan New Zealand-born daughters meant our talanoa, stories of the past, were crucial for the nurturance of the present into the future. The village life immersed in the hierarchical nature of nofo ‘a kāinga as commoners, governed by a chiefly system of chiefs/nobles with the ruler as the King of Tonga, echo the complexities of vā ⁷ that is involved in maintaining harmonious relationships within Tongan society. Working within the context of Tongan ECE has permeated my thoughts to the ongoing struggles as Tongan/Pacific teachers grapple with the issues of building Tongan epistemology against the European background of theory and practice.

We think we are!

Jeanne Teisina

Tonga our way of being

Our island worldview

Mate Ma’a Tonga

Yet a small dot

Mapped on the globe

But the heart amplifies the dot

Thinking aloud

We are not small!

Historical context of ECE in New Zealand

The history of ECE in the context of New Zealand started in 1889 in Dunedin, aiming to cater for children of working parents from poor backgrounds (Hughes, 1989). Christian impetuses drove this idea and underpinned the first childcare centre established by the Catholic Church in Wellington, in 1908 (McLachlan, 2011). The Ministry of Education (MoE) (1996) says the first ECE services in New Zealand had the primary goal of catering for disadvantaged children.

The establishment of Kōhanga Reo ECE in the 1980s created a political space for Pacific peoples to initiate their own ECE initiatives in New Zealand to maintain their language and culture (Teisina, 2011). The landscape of ECE had changed since the 1990s to cater for children of different cultural and social backgrounds (McLachlan, 2011) and in response to the perception that children are disadvantaged if not attending ECE services. Loveridge and McLachlan (2009) contend that the ECE field has become more complex in response to the cultural, political and historical factors that have generated dominant theories of practice in ECE. Implicit in the discourse, a theme that underlies the genealogy of New Zealand ECE is to more or less compensate for the disadvantaged. Through education policy, the significance of ECE for all children is to enable later success in formal education (MoE, 2013). To perceive the purpose of ECE as a precursor to formal education holds political implications, particularly for Pacific children and families, which leads us to the broader landscape of Pasifika education.

The landscape of Pasifika ⁸ education and transnational considerations

Education for Pasifika (Pacific peoples living in New Zealand) is problematic as the rhetoric of underachievement and deficit theorising is present in much of the Pacific education research, which drives education strategy (Matapo and Baice, 2020; Pau'uvale, 2011). This deficit theorising of Pasifika outcomes in education depicts a particular image of the Pacific learner within the education context: that Pacific learners are the problem. The rationale of official Pacific education strategic documents is to fix the problem. There is an absence of Pacific philosophy regarding subjectivity within official documentation in the New Zealand education system whereas European subjectivity thrives in theory and practice. Our New Zealand education system is failing Pacific peoples because of inadequate capabilities to fully understand the values and cultures of Pacific groups (Alefaio, 2008; MacIntosh, 2011; Manu’atu, 2000; Taufe’ulungaki, 2004; Tu’itahi, 2010). The successive Pasifika Education Plans designed by the MoE (MoE, 2013) through a deficit lens remains highly focused on the ‘failures’ of Pacific peoples (Penetito and Sanga, 2003, p. 23) and is overrepresented within the New Zealand statistics (Elias and Merriam, 1980; Sherrard, 1994, p. 9).

In contrast to the deficit-theorising research of Pacific achievement in education, there are many research studies (by Pasifika researchers) that have highlighted Pacific student success in New Zealand tertiary institutions. Unique to these studies is the framing of Pacific student academic success as a collective effort, rather than an individual endeavour (Anae, 2010; Kalavite, 2010; Matapo and Baice, 2020; Tagoilelagi-Leota, 2017). The success of Pacific students presented in the research elucidates the significance of being deeply connected to their sense of purpose and collective responsibility to kāinga ⁹ (Anae, 2010; Kalavite, 2010; Lātū, 2009; Leaupepe, 2011; MacIntyre, 2008; Sauni, 2011; Tagoilelagi-Leota, 2017; Tu’itahi, 2005). Education for Pacific peoples in New Zealand should be inclusive of their cultural practices of language, values and social systems that make up a particular ethnic group’s culture or society (Macpherson and Macpherson, 2000; Sauni, 2011). Currently, there are more Pacific children born in New Zealand than migrating from the Pacific Islands. In 2015 there were a recorded 7395 Pacific children enrolled in ECE with licensed Pacific ECE centres only making up 2.2% of the total number of licensed ECE centres. The lack of Pacific ECE provision means that many Pacific children are enrolled in mainstream ECE services (MoE, 2015).

The tensions we are highlighting have a long history in Pacific education, from early childhood to tertiary education, which are inherent in the politics of education, categorising Pacific children as priority learners as the impetus for governmental policies (Matapo and Leaupepe, 2016). Pacific learners have been labelled as a ‘priority’ by the government and the education sector as an attempt to improve educational outcomes, such as The Pasifika Education Plan (MoE, 2013). In August 2007, the Education Review Office (ERO) published a national report that highlighted wide disparities among Pacific ECE services when it came to the quality of education and care they provide (ERO, 2015). Many Pacific ECE services offered culturally enriching programmes and some were deemed by MoE as high quality (ERO, 2015). However, the MoE indicated their concerns regarding many of the Pacific services, where quality education and care for children were deemed as lacking.

The ERO’s concerns regarding quality contributed to a concentrated focus on Pacific ECE service provision of quality practices and prompted the development of a Pacific ECE leadership resource in 2015 (ERO, 2015). The Pacific ECE leadership resource showcases eight Pacific ECE services in their 2 year journey to improve quality teaching and leadership practice. Within the Pacific ECE leadership resource, there is no mention of the politics of education that impact Pacific ECE services, namely, the market model that generates broader issues for the management and financial sustainability of these services. Such a resource developed to improve the praxis of leadership of Pacific ECE requires a rethinking of the role of philosophy in education and the politics of policy documents (Snook, 2013). It is essential to know what they ‘mean’ in the semantic sense, but it is much more significant to find out what they ‘mean’ in the sense of how they will, if implemented, affect the reality of the learners and broader society (Snook, 2013). Decolonising knowledge systems and structures shaped by the dominant hegemonic view is critical for Pacific ECE teachers because much of the way Pacific histories are understood, presented, framed and constructed has been through the eyes of another worldview (Vaai and Casimira, 2017). In the ECE context, the disembodiment of practice from Pacific indigenous epistemology contributes to the tensions of Pacific teacher subjectivity.

Problematising subjectivity and education philosophy

From a Pacific perspective, our culture and our place are collective, not individualistic. Gilbert (2005, p. 17) says ‘the idea of people as self-contained, individual, thinking ‘subjects’ is giving way to a focus on relationships, synergies and connectedness’. The problematic conception of self is highlighted in a qualitative study carried out by Tamasese et al. (2005), concerning Samoan perspectives of culturally appropriate services in mental health. From a Samoan perspective, ‘self’ is identified as a ‘relational-self’. Participants felt the need to understand the concept of the Samoan self before they can understand Samoan concepts of mental health and ill health. Tamasese et al. (2005) described the Samoan concept of self as ‘having meaning only in relationship with other people, not as an individual’ (p. 303). There is ecological flexibility or fluidity in one’s ethnic identity and in the multi-ethnic community to which one belongs (Anae, 2010, p. 14).

Discussing a Fijian conception of self, Farrelly and Nabobo-Baba (2012) also emphasised the importance of relationship as ‘intersubjectively constituted by past experiences, imagination, the environment, emotions that occur through remembering, and each person’s bodily and verbal responses to one another’ (p. 9). In this regard, subjectivity takes into account the particular context, discourses and associated practices to which we are subject (Hodgson, 2010, p. 17). From a Pacific perspective, subjectivity is situated within a vā or space that is perhaps outside the ‘common’ conceptions of subjectivity. To maintain strong connections of the vā is to ensure that we tauhi (look after) the sacred relationships that are inherent in tangata kakato, olaga, agency and subjectivity. What we find consistent in these worldviews is that the vā binds the collective, bringing together tangata kakato, olaga, agency and intersubjectivity (Vaioleti, 2006; Teisina, 2011). Our worldviews may be different from the practices of other dominant mainstream cultures. So, we as Pacific peoples acknowledge our collective mission in academia to legitimise our own way of being and thinking to resist the dominant hegemonic groups.

The idea of the individualised ‘self’ is overly used within official documents and causes tensions, particularly for those who share a collective understanding of self, grounded on indigenous Pacific epistemology. Within the context of the education sector, ‘self’ can mean many things. Grey (2010) says there are confusions within the context of ECE of the meaning of terms used, particularly in her research on self-review. If teachers well versed in Western theoretical theory are finding this concept confusing, then it motions further implications for those who hold marginalised worldviews. With this understanding, we look further into what constitutes ‘self’ in the history of ECE in New Zealand.

Pacific indigenous knowledge and ways of being: Moana onto-epistemology

In our experiences of education, we have traversed both Western and Pacific Indigenous philosophy to interrogate the privileging of so-called powerful knowledge in education set upon universal ideals of being and reason. Like other Pacific scholars in education, we draw upon Pacific Indigenous Knowledge Systems (PIKS) to decolonise taken for granted constructs of ‘self’ and the ‘individual’ in education. The decolonising agenda has provoked an indigenous struggle to reclaim lands, language and knowledge (Smith, 2012). Dominant forms of Western philosophy produce certain conditions of the human subject. An example is the relationship of human to land as owner or renter, an idea foreign to Pacific indigenous concepts of self, namely, the individuality and lifeforce of the land itself.

There are complex tensions that underlie PIKS (Koya-Vaka’uta, 2017). In essence, it argues that the dominant hegemonic view is grounded in its discursive power, leaving PIKS to be challenged by the ‘one size fits all’ conventional approaches of education. PIKS is tied epistemologically to specific Pacific Island locations, to peoples, culture and language where standardised notions of subjectivity do not fit. Despite the differences between Pacific Island nations, PIKS has gained greater mobility globally, a transnational Pacific paradigm for Pacific researchers to decolonise and affirm Pacific ways of knowing and being, including spirituality. Spirituality in being is present in all things and is immanent in Pacific ways of knowing (Hau’ofa, 1994). Indigenous spirit, in personhood, has been proven, sung, written about, woven, carved and etched into ancestral understandings, that to be human is to know we are more than our physical bodies and minds (Meyer, 2014). Like the tangata kakato, olaga and vā assemblage we have spoken of, Pacific indigenous knowing is entrenched in Pacific ontology. One gives rise to the other, of which both are transposed, an onto-epistemology of relational-being-worlded-knowing.

Worlded-knowing in Pacific indigenous thinking decentres a humanist hierarchical position over all others. An example of this is the Pacific indigenous concept of Moana, or ‘Epeli’ as Hau’ofa (1994) conceptualises Oceania. Moana shares a sacred kinship with Pacific peoples, which has been storied from ancient times in Pacific cosmogonies. Pacific peoples share histories, genealogies, with Moana that unites Pacific people across the region. There is an embryonic connection to water, as water sustains life and humanity. The human body, as an entity, is mostly comprised of water; our sweat and tears are salty water (Teaiwa, 2017). The Pacific common phrase ‘tangata o le Moana’ peoples of Moana signals to the relational and ancestral ties to Moana. Moana as a body of water in the Pacific is indeed life-giving and has its own olaga as an agentic entity. In terms of reconceptualising Pacific teacher identity within ECE, we consider the Pacific personhood as a relational being, constituted in the collective, inclusive of human and non-human.

Calling on Tongan and Samoan relational ontologies to decolonise subjectivity

The place where tangata is situated is sacredly collective, communal and relational, which is rooted in the Fonua/Fanua ¹⁰ (where land, relationships, peoples, seas, skies and the entire cosmos are connected) (Teisina, 2011). As far as Tongans are concerned, the value of community takes over the reality of an individual life history. This priority holds ontological importance, which is constructed on Tongan epistemic knowledge and culture. Within the collective, tangata come to identify the self as tied to fonua, land, seas and the entire cosmos. Life for the child is affirmed within tangata through ancestral and natural connections to the fonua, Moana, language and culture. The cultural collective and social upbringing contribute to identity formation as an intersubjective being within tangata. From a Pacific indigenous view, each person can only make sense of ‘self’ (genealogically and collectively constituted), if they are linked to the community or the collective. Pacific epistemology elevates the collective whereby Pacific personhood arises from the collective. We argue that the collective defines the individual and not the individual who defines the collective.

The holistic worldview embedded in Tongan ontological thinking of tangata is shown in how the word tangata kakato refers to ‘whole’ persons. Tangata kakato is not limited to the individual, but it is connected to the Tongan sense of identity. In Tongan language and culture, it reveals the thinking and being of a tangata Tonga. It is always the aspiration of a Tongan family for their child to grow up and become a tangata kakato (Koloto, 2000). This idea of tangata kakato (the dimensions that constitute personhood, inclusive of physical, mental as well as spiritual) is socially constructed and shaped by the totality of the subject’s life experiences and contexts of socialisation. Devine and Irwin (2005) discuss the whakatauki, (Māori proverb) ‘he tangata, he tangata, he tangata’, which translates to ‘a person, the individual, or self’. They claim ‘the culture in which the “tangata” has its place is a collective, not an individualistic one’ (pp. 317–318). Like the Tongan concept of tangata that is constituted in fonua, genealogy and sense of wholeness, tangata for Samoan people refers to both the collective and the individual within the collective, so the term is both singular and plural. Both Tongan and Samoan notions of self operate fluid and dynamic ways of being in and with tangata, which creates connections through relational ontology. Tangata as a concept for ‘peoples’ does not separate people from place; there are specific ties to fanua, where earth and human life share an enduring relationship in a corporeal and incorporeal existence (Matapo, 2018).

Olaga, as a Samoan ontological concept, brings together ‘life’ as a noun and to ‘live’ as a verb, thus to live is an expression of life, an actualisation of being. The incorporeal flows of life, the unseen forces that affect the essence of being is made up of a multifaceted network of relations, gafa (genealogy), spirituality and vā (time-space), which are personified through olaga. All things have olaga, human and non-human, the waters, earth and cosmos are evident in Samoan cosmogony (Matapo, 2017). The idea of ‘collective’ in this context is also open to human and non-human life.

How does an ontological position that privileges the spirit of the collective present alternative subjectivities for ECE teacher identity and personhood? The ontological is a relational and coexistent partnership with the world (including non-human others) that creates new subjectivity that is not grounded upon dualisms. This means subjectivity opens connections and relations to new understandings of self, which is rooted in cultural epistemology. For a Pacific teacher navigating the early childhood environment and professional teacher discourse, the notion of teacher identity is not so clear cut or restrained to prescribed ethical codes. At the heart of this question, we attempt to decolonise teacher philosophy and identity in ECE from a Tongan and Samoan position.

Philosophy of ‘my’

Jacoba Matapo

What is ‘my’ teaching philosophy?

A way of conceptualising ‘my’ ontology

My understanding of education

My place in education

Constituted by the striated conditions of ‘my’ profession

Professional discourse in ECE, for what purpose?

The term ontology and its history are steeped in ancient Greek and western philosophy and permeate much of the professional teacher discourse, whereby teacher identity exists as universal for all within education. Standardised practice for early childhood teachers has become precedence for so-called quality pedagogy as promoted within the New Zealand teaching standards, Our Codes, Our Standards (Education Council, 2017). What was known as the Code of Ethics for Registered Teachers is now known as Our Code, Our Standards. The removal of the word ‘ethics’ may seem insignificant, yet when ethics are removed or become less visible in teaching, the relational and collective vā is compromised. Universally prescribed ways of being that are teleological and idealistic generate further implications for Pacific teacher subjectivity, whereby different ethics of being may be marginalised or subsumed.

Ethics and values framed as professional behaviour and competency indicators in professional teaching standards lack a critique of episteme that informs these standardised approaches in education. We call into question what it means to be tangata in this professional teacher context, where philosophy and pedagogy in education privilege the autonomous individual position. We would argue that Pacific personhood or relational-self (Vaai and Nabobo-Baba, 2017) never functions in the process of knowing as a fully autonomous individual being. The relationship between knowing and knowledge is entangled through a relational ontology of agency (Matapo, 2018). One example that expresses difference as an ethical practice is a ‘Pasifika culture of silence’ as theorised by Samoan scholar Tuafuti (2010). Her position on silence as an agentic and ethical practice on the Pasifika parents’ part delves into the disparate ontologies presented within a parent and teacher consultation. Tuafuti (2010) provides insights to the Pacific relational ontology that engenders the act of silence is a living component of Pasifika culture. This phenomenon of ‘silence’ of the Pacific individual is interpreted in many ways in the history of Pacific colonial texts. Historically, this act of silence had been observed and interpreted by early European missionaries as a sign of incompetence ( Keown, 2009)). What is not understood is the ontological position of agency, that ones’ actions are not in isolation to ones’ own individual actions; instead, agency as a collective expression in action is exercised.

Such collective practices in exercising agency in an educational context are still problematic for many young Pasifika children and families today (Leaupepe and Sauni, 2014). In 2018 the MoE launched the first Pacific cultural competency framework called Tapasā, ¹¹ which seeks to embed culturally responsive pedagogies in mainstream education. This follows several iterations of the Pacific Education plan spanning nearly two decades. ECE discourse, including regulations and policy, impose a particular ideal subjectivity upon all subjects, the ‘good’ teacher, the ‘good’ learner and ‘good’ family partnership. The moral and ethical conduct of Pacific pedagogies is reduced to the representation of a good teacher of Pacific students or learners through the Tapasā competency indicators. It seems Tapasā lacks epistemological grounding in Pacific indigenous knowledge to ground Pacific pedagogies. Returning to the Pasifika culture of silence, in conceptualising the moral reference for the notion of ‘good’, silence as an agentic expression could easily be deemed as ineffective. We ask pragmatic questions in reconceptualising ‘silence’ as a pedagogical position grounded in Pacific indigenous knowledge.

What arises when interactions of silence are given a space to be?

This alternative position in the reconceptualising of agency, subjectivity and inter-subjectivity may evoke all teachers of young Pasifika children to question how agency is lived, expressed, made and re-made from a tangata kakato/olaga perspective.

Conclusion

In the spirit of the collective, we have resisted universal modes of representation that foreground teacher identity, ethics and agency in ECE. We have reconceptualised tangata kakato, olaga and Moana as indigenous Pacific concepts to generate alternative intersubjectivities in the context of ECE and teacher professional practice and identity. The positionality of Pacific peoples living in New Zealand as transnational intersubjective beings with common and mutual histories in (and with) Moana conveys mobility in Pacific indigenous thinking. Within an ECE context, Pacific indigenous ontologies offer a reimagining of teacher identity, ethics and values-based practice regarding Pacific engagement. Collective agency, for example, challenges the individual being as autonomous; thus, pedagogical approaches must be conducive to a difference in being, as tangata kakato and olaga. The Pacific relational-self is continuously made and re-made through a continuum of relations and ties to ancestral knowledge (Matapo, 2017). Even though identity connects a person with tangata and fonua, ‘self’ as relational ontological reference allows for new and fluid identity formations, including emerging subjectivities in locations other than ancestral lands. The peoples of Moana share many values and beliefs that are brought together by the common sea that surrounds and shapes culture.