This blog was authored by Simon Marmura Brown, Strategic Director of Research and Knowledge Mobilisation, Pond-Deshpande Centre

ECEs as Innovators

Reimagining how early childhood educators are driving innovation through creativity, collaboration, and care

In our last post, we wrote about professionalism— about how early childhood educators (ECEs) across Atlantic Canada are experts in child development, pedagogy, and relational care, and how their knowledge, skill, and judgment make them true professionals. But professionalism doesn’t only mean applying what you know. It also means learning, experimenting, and finding new ways to solve complex problems—it means innovation.

Across Atlantic Canada, ECEs innovate every single day. They create new strategies to support children, strengthen their centres, and adapt to the changing realities of their work. They do this not in research labs or offices, but in early learning centres, playgrounds, homes, and nature areas. They do so, too often, with limited time, resources, and recognition. One thing we learned from the Lab was that this everyday creativity is what keeps early learning vibrant, responsive, and human. It also deserves to be recognized and celebrated.

Innovation as Everyday Practice

During the Atlantic Canada Early Childhood Education Lab, we saw these innovations at work. If you’ve been following these blogs, you’ll know that the Lab invited educators, directors, governments, and training institutions in all four Atlantic provinces to co-design and develop small, practical solutions (called prototypes), aimed at improving working and learning conditions for ECEs. In doing so, it revealed something powerful: ECEs are natural innovators.

Innovation isn’t about technology or trends. It’s about reflection, adaptability, and the courage to try something new. As one educator from Moncton explained: “everything is a learning experience for yourself as an educator. So, if something isn’t working, reflect, adapt, switch it around, and take a different approach.”

ECEs innovate when they reimagine how to set up a room to support independence and curiosity.

They innovate when they design new ways to communicate with families or mentor colleagues.

They innovate when they turn a challenge—limited space, staff turnover, resource constraints—into an opportunity to do things differently.

Making Time and Space for Innovation

One theme that came through clearly in the Lab was that innovation takes time, and time is not something ECEs have in excess. Between caring for children, managing paperwork, and running programs, there is little room for reflection. Yet, when educators do get that time—to think, to collaborate, to test an idea—innovative practices emerge.

The Lab created that space. It gave educators the time to slow down, to share ideas within and across provinces, and to see themselves as part of a larger system of vital importance. Through discussion and the co-creation of prototypes, they identified ways in which the sector may give these ECEs more time for innovation. Prototypes are just the beginning, they aren’t silver bullets, but they do highlight means through which educators may be afforded more time for innovation. They also show that innovation doesn’t have to be large-scale to matter. It has to start somewhere, and it has to start with the people who know the work best.

For example:

• NB Anglophone Prototype: Providing paid training opportunities creates the conditions and the time for ECEs to reflect on their profession and their expertise.
• PEI Prototype: Creating mentorship opportunities creates space for the kinds of conversations that spark creativity and innovation.

See more detailed information on the prototypes developed here.

Innovation as a Collective Effort

If professionalism is about what ECEs know, and leadership is about how they guide and support others, then innovation is about how they learn together. It’s a collective practice. It happens in the conversations between colleagues, in shared reflections after a long day, and in experiments that don’t go as planned but teach something important anyways. Supporting ECE-led innovation means valuing that process and giving educators the time, trust, and flexibility to explore it.

Investing in the Innovators Among Us

What we learned through the Lab is that innovation in early childhood education doesn’t come from outside the sector; it grows from within it. The people driving it are the same people nurturing our youngest learners every day. They are the connectors, problem-solvers, and experimenters who keep the system moving forward, often without recognition.

Investing in innovation, then, means investing in ECEs themselves. It means investing in their professional learning, their collaborative networks, and their ability to design and test ideas that make their work, their world, aa the worlds of our children better.

When we support ECEs as innovators, we’re not only improving programs or policies; we’re strengthening the very foundation of how early learning evolves.