Leadership in ECE: A conversation with Professor Margaret Carr

Abstract

I have had the privilege of working with Margaret Carr in a variety of capacities over the past 15 years. I first encountered Margaret when I was a kindergarten teacher and studying for my Masters degree. Margaret was my lecturer for a paper entitled Early Years Curriculum and Assessment. Soon after completing this paper, I was employed at the Faculty of Education at the University of Waikato and was able to “learn the ropes” by joining Margaret in her Level 3 Developing Early Childhood Programmes paper. Subsequently Margaret has been the Chief Supervisor for both my Masters and PhD theses. I have also been fortunate enough to co-lead two TLRI projects with Margaret and been a researcher on a Marsden funded project led by Margaret. Margaret has always practised shared leadership in the context of building capacity and mentoring new and emerging researchers and academics. Margaret is most interested in researching with teachers, exploring ideas and practice alongside them. It is this commitment to empowering others that is a hallmark of her career as a teacher and academic. This was no more apparent than in her “thank you” speech at her recent Emeritus Professor award ceremony at the University of Waikato: Margaret spoke mostly about others who shared the journey with her. A number of recent events seem to indicate the timeliness of talking with Margaret about leadership: the 20th birthday of Te Whāriki, the revised 2017 version, and her receiving the award of Emeritus Professor. The following is a conversation between myself and Margaret about early childhood leadership.