Te Rārangi WāTheory Timeline
A proportionally-spaced timeline of the ideas, works, and events that shaped teaching in Aotearoa — positioned by when each idea emerged, not when its author was born. The distance between events is real: 60 years looks like 60 years.
Reading the Timeline
📏 How the proportional spacing works
Each event is positioned at a height proportional to its year — 14 px per year, anchored at 1835. Decade markers on the spine are placed at their exact proportional positions and never moved. Events that fall within 100 px of a prior same-side event are nudged down to avoid overlap, but the scale remains legible: the wide gap between Vygotsky (1934) and Kōhanga Reo (1982) looks like 48 years.
🌿 Why works, not births
Scholars care about when ideas emerged — when a book was published, a curriculum launched, or a movement founded — not when the person behind it was born. This timeline plots the event of thinking, not the biographical fact. John Dewey was born in 1859 but “Democracy and Education” appeared in 1916 — that’s the moment that changed teaching.
🧭 Classroom application
Use this timeline to locate your own pedagogical whakapapa. Which ideas arrived before you were born? Which emerged during your training? Identify two or three works that resonate with your practice, then follow the study guide links to go deeper. Share the exercise with your class: whose shoulders does good teaching stand on?