I am five and I go to school: Early Years Schooling in New Zealand, 1900-2010 - Softcover

In New Zealand, the 20th century was a time of great change in early years education. As the century opened, the use of Friedrich Froebel's kindergarten methods infiltrated more infant classrooms. The emergence of psychology as a discipline - and especially its work on child development - was beginning to influence thinking about how infants learn through play. While many teachers maintained Victorian approaches in their classrooms, other educators experimented with new approaches and some even travelled to the US and Europe in order to bring new ideas home. As well, there was increasing political support for new approaches to the 'new education' ideas at the turn of the century. All was not plain sailing, however, and this book charts both the progress made and the obstacles that were overcome in the course of the century as New Zealand battled its way through world wars and depressions. The book discusses changes in school buildings, teaching practices, teacher education, the teaching of reading and other curriculum areas, Maori education, and the emergence of kohanga reo (the Maori language revival movement). It also presents a range of individuals, including C.E. Beeby, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Gwen Somerset, Don Holdaway, Elwyn Richardson, Marie Bell, Marie Clay, and other significant people who worked in or influenced early years education.

Helen May is the former Dean of the University of Otago College of Education. She began her career as a primary school teacher in the mid-1960s, worked in childcare in the 1970s, and began tertiary teaching in the 1980s. During the early 1990s she worked with Margaret Carr on the development of Te Whariki, New Zealand's first national curriculum for early childhood education. In 1995 she was appointed to the first New Zealand professorial chair in Early Childhood Education at Victoria University Wellington and in 2005 she was appointed Professor of Education at the University of Otago. She has published six books as sole author on the history and politics of early education.