Entry three

This morning I began mat time with the song "Its mat time kia ora, talofa......." and as I finished with "hello,good day, kei te pehia koe" one child continued with greetings in other languages such as Ni Hao and Bon jour.  This sparked the children's interest and we ended up discussing and identifying the different countries that each greeting was from. Our converstion then somehow turned towards which country each of us would prefer to visit if given a chance.  W shared that his parents were planning to go to Fiji during the holidays and that he knew the Fijian greeting, Bula.  As I am from Fiji, I saw this as an opportunity to share some information about Fiji with the children. We talked about how Fiji is a multicultural country (explained the meaning of multicultural) but there are two major cultures, Fijian and Indian.  I then shared the Indian way of greeting, ‘namaste’. From then on the children always greet me with ‘namaste’.  Mindes (2006) believes that including relevant holidays, special occasions and ethnic customs in curriculum promotes multicultural understanding in children.

During the afternoon mat time children again brought up this discussion so the next day I decided to extend on this.   I did a number song in English and then changed the numbers to Hindi, Fijian, Chinese (shared by another student teacher) and Maori. We sang:

Here is the bee hive                                            

Where are the bees?
Hiding underneath where no one sees

Out they come creeping, out of the hive’

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

and then replaced the numbers by

Hindi: Ek, Dor, Teen, Chār, Pānch;

Fijian: Dua, Rua, Tolu, Va, Lima;

Chinese: Yī, `er, sān, s`i, wǔ

Maori: Tahi, Rua, Toru, Wha, Rima

Here the children are hearing and learning different languages, about bi-culturism and being inclusive. Adult’s role modelling using other languages show the children that all the cultures are valued and accepted. They are also learning and making connections between people (languages) and places.  Te Whariki requires that "the environment should be rich in signs, symbols, words, numbers, song, dance, drama, and art that take account of and extend the children's different understandings and cultures" (Ministry of Education, 1996, p.73)