Across our border, Canadian educators provide a symbolic North Star for navigation and hope. Even before the arrival of a global pandemic, the Ministry of Education in British Columbia had acknowledged the arrival of a new era and the need to revise their 2008 Early Learning Framework. Most provinces across Canada have an early learning framework now, but BC’s was one of the first created. The 2019 revised framework attempts to acknowledge the times we are currently living in.

We have no parallel public policy document for early education in the United States, but can we begin to envision one? The BC framework is written and visually designed to inspire reflection and dialogue, and promote challenge and joy. It is not a set of prescriptive regulations, but an invitation to engage in “pedagogical approaches that are relevant and respectful of local communities and the people who live in those communities” (pg. 6).