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Titoki Guardians
Our Titoki classroom is a nurturing environment that provides infants and toddlers with a sense of emotional security. Teachers encourage cooperative play through meaningful experiences that require needing help, taking turns and investigating together which in turn is helping toddlers learn the importance of cooperation.
Our nearly two-year-olds have been stepping into the role of guardians in the Titoki room. Leading, interacting, guiding and helping their younger infant peers. Kaitiakitanga (guardianship) is an act even toddlers can hold and extend to their infant peers, by role modelling, protecting and ensuring the well-being and nurturing of others. Despite their young age, toddlers can exhibit remarkable empathy and a natural inclination to support their younger peers.
This early display of nurturing behaviour can foster important social and emotional skills. The rich cultural application of the Te Ao Māori concept of tuakana-teina plays a pivotal role in fostering these toddler-infant relationships and their cooperative learning. This principle refers to the relationship between an older child (tuakana) and a younger child (teina), and is deeply rooted in the values of whanaungatanga and manaakitanga.
As teachers underpin the interactions between toddlers and infants, with the tuakana-teina principle, it beautifully illustrates how young tamariki can support and nurture their younger peers.