Heartwork: doing early childhood initial teacher education otherwise, disrupted with heart

Purpose At the heart of this article is the intention to do initial teacher education (ITE) with relationships and ethics-based decision-making placed first, so all involved can feel sustained by study, work and learning. This article pays close attention to a course that foregrounds Indigenous worldviews and sustainability to resist and disrupt neoliberal discourses. Design/methodology/approach Karen Martin's concept of coming alongside and Elizabeth Grosz's becoming otherwise are central tenets for this article which entangles stories in an experimental way, with art as muse and attention to place, in a correspondent back and forth between those involved in the course for one iteration in 2022. The intention of this article is to define a series of heartbeats through correspon-dance in a post-qualitative inquiry event between the authors, who were co-collaborators in the Graduate Diploma of Early Childhood Teaching. Findings The intention of this article is to define a series of heartbeats that emerge as “heartwork”, which brings context to what created the conditions for putting relationships first and encouraging ethics-based decision-making in their experience of an ITE program in early childhood education. Research limitations/implications This is a conceptual paper with inconclusions enabled by the post-qualitative turn. At a time of increasing numbers, shorter courses and reductions in university funding, this article nevertheless offers, not answers, but these heartful entangled stories (and a series of heartbeats) to oxygenate others' ideas for reconceptualising ways of working together in high-pressure early childhood education programs across student, teacher and/or coordinator bounds. Practical implications The authors hope that these stories and ideas might energise others in pre-service early childhood education programs when engaged. Social implications The authors hope that these stories and ideas might energise others in pre-service early childhood education programs to participate in heartful and healthy interactions – the likes of which a lively, loving peoples and planet need. Originality/value We demonstrate some ways at a time when pre-service teacher education is under pressure through numbers and university funding to offer quality programs that respond to students' and societies' needs for sustainable and care-based structures in place.