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This whakataukī or 'proverb' speaks to Māori perspectives of time, where the past, the present and the future are viewed as intertwined, and life as a continuous cosmic process. Within this continuous cosmic movement, time has no restrictions -it is both past and present. The past is central to and shapes both present and future identity. From this perspective, the individual carries their past into the future. The strength of carrying one's past into the future is that ancestors are ever present, existing both within the spiritual realm and in the physical, alongside the living as well as within the living. This article explores Māori perspectives of the past and the models and inspiration they offer. In this way, it provides a critique of the practices in early childhood education, highlighting the importance of cultural concepts and practices, and discusses implications for both teaching and academic practice.

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The history of schooling for Māori has been one of cultural dislocation, deprivation and subjugation. Māori children were viewed as outside the norms of development suffering from “intellectual retardation” which was attributed to disabilities related to acculturation. Traditional western assessment served to further these Eurocentric power ideologies that marginalise non-European peoples and cultures, such as Māori, as backward, inferior and deviant. Kaupapa (philosophical) Māori assessment can be viewed as an assessment approach that is derived from the Māori world, from a Māori epistemological perspective that assumes the normalcy of Māori values, understandings and behaviours. The validity and legitimacy of Māori language, cultural capital, values and knowledge are a given. Kaupapa Māori assessment works to challenge, critique and transform dominant educational perceptions of the Māori child, the nature of learning, pedagogy, and culturally valued learning. This article explores ways that kaupapa Māori assessment builds upon Māori philosophical and epistemological understandings to express Māori understandings of knowledge, knowers and knowings, in order to reclaim, reframe and realise Māori ways of knowing and being within early childhood and assessment theory and practice.

Belonging and being are inextricably linked. From a Māori perspective, belonging and being can be viewed through a number of interconnected historical and contemporary frames. One frame is derived from Māori perceptions of the creation of the universe and genealogical relationships to the universe and everything in it. Another frame of belonging and being stresses increasingly diverse and complex positionings that require negotiation of radically different terrains of assumptions, behaviours, values and beliefs. This article explores two interrelated aspects of being and belonging from a Māori perspective: whakapapa (‘genealogical connections’) and whanaungatanga (‘family relationships’). It discusses how each aspect has changed over time as a result of colonisation, urbanisation and western education, and identifies how the reflection of each has been transformed.