In his 1925 book Sisyphus or the limits of education Austrian psychoanalyst Siegfried Bernfeld defined education as the ‘sum total of societal reaction to the fact of ontogenetic development’. This suggests education begins at birth, education is more than schooling, and education is political. One century on, as we approach the second quarter of the 21^st century, those propositions still hold. However, the world has changed profoundly with young children being most affected by a perfect storm of mutually reinforcing, self-inflicted, existential crises: Climate catastrophe, loss of biodiversity, pandemics, displacement and forced migration, war and violence, poverty, erosion of democracy, and the general disastrous consequences of global capitalism and neoliberalism.

The world we live in today is characterised by complexities, contradictions, and uncertainties of unprecedented scale. Yet, the very foundations of our professional educational engagement with the youngest children, their families and communities appear stuck in a time-loop of 20^th century certainties–about ‘best’ practices, ‘effective’ policies and predeterminable, ‘measurable’ outcomes.

In my presentation I suggest we, early childhood educators–must urgently interrogate what we hold for true in our educational work with young children, in practice, policy, and research. What does ‘society’ and ‘community’ mean in our world, ‘development’, or ‘learning’? How can we, collectively, and in solidarity, work to not just react to a dramatically changing world, but to proactively bring about change for the better, for justice, equity, and sustainability? I explore these questions drawing on recent and ongoing research. Together we must–and can–, I argue, fundamentally re-think, and re-claim the purpose of early childhood education for our times from a radical position of concrete hope and capability.