2021-2022
Early Childhood Education Professional Development Series
Online speaker series
All sessions are free of charge and are delivered virtually, but registration for sessions is required. A certificate for professional development hours can be requested.
Register once and attend any or all of the sessions!
Click on each session title to learn more or to watch recordings of past sessions!
Building Connections to Land, Culture, and Community: Indigenous Perspectives
In this session, Charmayne Nikal will share her journey of building connections to the land, culture, and community with children and families in early childhood contexts, as it is based on her lived experience and practices.
About the Presenter
Charmayne Nikal is from Witset, British Columbia located on Wit’suwit’en territory. She belongs to the Gitimt’en clan. Charmayne started her career in 1999 when she became an early childhood educator. In the past 23 years, Charmayne has had the privilege of working with many amazing people and has been guided by elders who have shared their knowledge with her to be the person she is today. Charmayne is a manager at the Wit’suwit’en Child and Family Center and a Provincial Childcare Advisor with BC Aboriginal Childcare Society. Charmayne comes to the field of Early Childhood Education with a focus on Pedagogy and her people’s ways of being and language with the land. She strives to discover beyond best practice and she sees team work as one of the most imperative skills; team work brings a passion and quality, unique programming.
Engaging with Critical Reflection in Early Childhood
In this session, participants will collaboratively engage in dialogue to reflect on early childhood education practice and possibilities. Drawing on current scholarship and the British Columbia Early Learning Framework, pedagogical narration will be used as a provocation to critically reflect on concepts and assumptions about early years pedagogy, childhood, and quality. The objective of this session is to provide opportunities for participants to consider ways of knowing, learning, and living that are local, inclusive, ethical, and democratic.
About the Presenter
Kim Atkinson is an early childhood educator and writer who has worked in the early years field for over 40 years. She has travelled throughout BC facilitating dialogue and workshops for ECE’s, teachers, instructors, and administrators. In her role as a pedagogist, Kim supports educators to engage in dialogue on new ideas about quality care and education. Kim was the lead writer for the 2019 Early Learning Framework in British Columbia.
Disrupting Diversity & Inclusion: Reimagining Social Justice Projects in Early Childhood Education
In this session, educators and students are invited to reimagine social justice projects in the field of early childhood care and education with the purpose of moving towards dismantling mainstream notions of diversity and inclusion. The idea includes sharing experiences and engaging in difficult conversations to open the possibilities of reflection and dialogue about encounters with children, families, and peers through collaborative discussion to make meaning of racial, gender, and disability justice.
About the Presenters
Caroline Brendel Pacheco is an educator, musician, and PhD Candidate in the Arts Education Program at the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Paraiba (Brazil) and an Instructor at Capilano University. Her research interests are situated in the intersections of music, early childhood education and equity studies. Caroline is a Latina cis-queer settler currently living on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish People.
Recording is not available for this session.
