Ready or not? Problematising the concept of graduate teacher readiness in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

This article interrogates the concept of teacher ‘readiness’ within Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Aotearoa New Zealand. It reviews the influences of this concept, and interrogates the definition of readiness as currently understood and enacted within education in Aotearoa New Zealand. It highlights the opportunity to invoke concepts of readiness drawn from Kaupapa Māori Theory to provide a coherent, local concept of readiness that may resist the legacy of Western ideological domination in ITE. This article emanated from my own disquiet working in ITE, and a reconsideration of my relationship to Te Tiriti o Waitangi both as an individual and as representative of my institution. As a tuhiwai (non-Māori), I recognise my privileged position to ask these questions, my responsibility as tangata tiriti and the potential risk of acting as Western translator to Māori concepts (Mika & Stewart, 2017).