Course Summary

We have come to the end of this course, which, in so many ways, is a beginning. Whether you have been on a path of anti-colonialism and enacting social justice for a while, or whether this is new to you, we are all in a continual process of reflection, introspection, critical thinking, and recommitting to our values.

This course has offered knowledge to support participants in seeing structures of oppression entwined with the roots of colonialism and has exposed the ways that structures of power and governance are constructed to uphold that power. Colonial power structures encourage fear-based, compliant, citizenship, and condition people into doubting that another world is possible.

As a child care manager and leader committed to the profession of early childhood education, and ethical practices as outlined by your professional body, you have a role to play in seeking alternative systems for relating to ourselves and others in the name of more-just ways of being.

This course has equipped you with tools for critically analyzing your organization’s commitment to anti-bias and anti-racist practices and has offered you research and guidance to articulate how these practices stand to benefit all children. These practices are directly tied to your professional responsibilities, as articulated in the Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia’s Code of Ethics (2021).

This course has offered practices for grounding, and orienting ourselves in the present as we step toward the unknown. These practices focus on the body, the breath, and repatterning neural pathways that support dispositions of compassion, curiosity, and duality.

Embracing the words of the late-Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, “education has gotten us into this mess, and education will get us out of it” (National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, 2024), this course engages with multidisciplinary researchers, facilitators, and leaders to imagine education that deviates from its fraught foundations in colonialism, and situates itself as a place for citizens to practice democracy, and understanding ourselves in relation to others and the world.