early childhood education

Excerpted from conference website: 

AECEA's Leadership Conference 2022

Leading Through Change: Rethinking Early Learning and Child Care 

AECEA is hosting an online leadership conference on Friday, April 29, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. - 3:15 p.m. (MDT).

The conference will begin on Friday evening with keynote speaker, Jane Beach. As lead researcher for the Roadmap to a Quality Early Learning and Child Care System in Alberta, Ms. Beach will be discussing the vision and principles that should guide early learning and child care policy development and provision.

Saturday will consist of sessions on pedagogical leadership, pedagogical documentation, administrative leadership, and team building strategies. Saturday will wrap up with a session called "Rising Strong After Set Backs". And, of course, there will be an online exhibition hour and 'door prizes' at the end of the day!

Cost: $75 for AECEA members, $100 for non-members

Please note that registrations will be closed April 28.

Excerpted from event description

In this follow-up conversation, Natalie Royer, Belonging Specialist at Saroy Group, will discuss love and compassion and how it acts as an entryway to belonging. Natalie will highlight key ideas for educators and leaders in the field on how we can communicate with compassion and how we can create a sense of belonging within ourselves by leading with love to both ourselves and others.

This session is a dialogical space for critical thinkers to explore ways to address anti-black racism in early childhood education. The session will consist of facilitated small group discussions offering various opportunities for participants to recognize and respond to the work that needs to happen. Our goal is to create a respectful learning space with zero tolerance for unkindness. Your group discussion could be a space where you see tensions. Please review this guide to understand the discussion rules. 

To prepare for this conversation, you are invited to watch Belonging Through Connection with bell hooks and john a. powell. In the video, the late bell hooks states two statements that we will explore with colleagues and peers, she paraphrases Henri Nouwen and states, "The challenge of love is extending belonging to someone that we might not even know, someone that might have even hurt us." Also, she states "True belonging is the belonging that is inclusive and does not make me choose people that look like me to care about."
We encourage you to reflect on these statements through thinking with the following questions:

How can we extend belonging to those that may have hurt us at work and in our lives?

How can we show compassion and love to ensure there is a sense of belonging where everyone can thrive in our practice and in our lives?

You can share your ideas, questions and/or possibilities about how we can address anti-black racism in early childhood education in this Padlet.

We highly encourage you to attend this follow-up conversation. This is an extraordinary opportunity to generate ideas, questions and possibilities together about how we can address anti-black racism in early childhood education. We're sure that your ideas will make the facilitated small group conversations, a rich and meaningful experience.

Natalie Royer is a belonging consultant, strategist and coach at Saroy Group Inc. She provides training sessions primarily in the education sector and consults with companies and organizations on how to promote a space of belonging using an equity, diversity and inclusion lens. She has worked in the healthcare sector (i.e. Hospital For Sick Children) and she has taught at colleges and universities for over 10 years. With a background in early childhood education, she advocates for the next generations and hopes as leaders we can create an inclusive space where everyone can thrive.

This conversation will not be recorded to ensure a safe/brave space for all participants.

Access Information: The AECEO is committed to ensuring that our learning experiences are accessible to all educators; including educators with disabilities, whether visible or invisible. We believe that taking care to create a learning experience where no person's voice, spirit, or knowledges are lost because they are unable to attend, benefits everyone. ASL-English Interpretation and live captioning will be available at this session. Please contact info@aeceo.ca for access inquiries.