Keynote speakers

Marikaisa Laiti has graduated in educational sciences with Ph.D on Implementation of Sami early education in Finland (University of Lapland 2018). She had her bachelor’s in early education sciences, also qualified as an early education teacher (University of Oulu 2009). Master’s degree (1996) she had at University of Oulu in theoretical pedagogy. During 1993-1996 she assisted in the cross-cultural study “Cultural ecology of young children”.

Recently she has worked as head of an early childhood center with Sami language group in Inari. Earlier Laiti used to work as an early education teacher for 12 years. Years 1996-2000 and 2006-2007 she was employed at University of Oulu, working as doctoral student and well as an assistant in the projects “Places” and “Life in places”. Since 2018 she has been working at Sami university of applied sciences, first as visiting lecturer. Now she works project leader in the research project “Sami early education pedagogics in the new era”. Her expertise is in Sami pedagogy and everyday life implementation. The meaning of everyday life and culture in child’s learning and development have always been in the center of her interest.

Her keynote: Sami early education in the new era 

Sámi early education is a rather new institution in Sámi society. The goal of the presentation is to make visible the present situation and many sides of the everyday implementation of Sámi early education. Sámi early education is in the new era where children’s everyday life is mostly far away from the Sámi environment. In this kind of situation institutions play an important role in child’s enculturation process. Yet Sámi early education institution is based on the values, ideas and structures of majority society. There is an urgent need to build connection with and to strengthen Sámi peoples own cultural roots. Decolonizing is needed as well on social, cognitive as on material level.  

Photo taken by: Stine Marje Vars/Árvu

Tim Ingold is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He has carried out fieldwork among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology and social organisation in the circumpolar North, on animals in human society, and on human ecology and evolutionary theory. His more recent work explores environmental perception and skilled practice. Ingold’s current interests lie on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. His recent books include The Perception of the Environment (2000), Lines (2007), Being Alive (2011), Making (2013), The Life of Lines (2015), Anthropology and/as Education (2018) and Anthropology: Why it Matters (2018).Tim 

Keynote: The work of generations in educating for the future

Education is the means by which a society ensures its own future. But what kind of future do we want? Is it one in which every new generation is destined to supersede the last, or in which generations run alongside one another, allowing young people and their elders to work together in the ongoing task of fashioning a future for all? The tragedy of modern education has been to drive a wedge between the curiosity of the young and the wisdom of the old. For there to be a future worth living at all, it is not just prudent but necessary to bring them back together again. 

Dr. Lesley Rameka is a Senior Research Fellow at the Wilf Malcom Institute of Educational Research, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato. Lesley has worked in early childhood education for over 30 years, beginning her journey in te kohanga reo (Māori language nest), and working in a number of professional development and tertiary education providers over the years. Lesley’s research interests include; Māori early childhood education (ECE), Kaupapa (philosophy) Māori Assessment in ECE, Curriculum development in Māori ECE and Māori pedagogies. 

Ko Tararua te maunga - Tararua is my mountain         

Ko Ohau te awa – Ohau is my river                                                   

Ko Tainui te waka- Tainui is my ancestral canoe                                                    

Ko Ngāti Tukorehe te hapu - Ngāti Tukorere is my sub tribe

Ko Ngāti Raukawa te iwi - Ngāti Raukawa is my tribe

Keynote: Reclaiming, Reframing and Realizing Māori Ways of Knowing, Being and Doing in NZ Early Childhood Education

The keynote will firstly provide an overview of early childhood and Maori education in NZ then will discuss ways that traditional Māori knowledge, values, practices and narratives have been utilized to support culturally located early childhood provision including teaching, learning and assessment. It will provide examples of early childhood practices that are based on Māori values and beliefs and discuss how early childhood can support Māori children to succeed as Māori.

Dr. Jan Hare is an Anishinaabe-kwe scholar and educator from the M’Chigeeng First Nation, located in northern Ontario, Canada. She is the Associate Dean for Indigenous Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education. She is also the Director of the Faculty’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program – NITEP. Her research is concerned with improving educational outcomes for Indigenous learners and centering Indigenous knowledge systems within educational reform from early childhood education, K to 12 schooling, through to post-secondary settings, recognizing the holistic and multidisciplinary nature of Indigenous education.

Keynote: Trickster Comes to Teacher Education: 

The trickster or shape shifter is an important cultural being within Indigenous learning traditions in Canada and figures prominently in First Nations storytelling. This significant cultural figure uses strategies of creation, humour, dialogic pedagogy, and experience to upset dominant paradigms of our world, including education. Through the metaphor of the trickster, who acts with critical purpose, this presentation (re)imagines the much needed transformation of teacher education to empower Indigenous students in advancing their own journeys of decolonization and reclamation and consider learning opportunities for all students that can be enriched by Indigenous education.