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Learn more about the Reggio Emilia approach.
R
eggio Emilia
is a prosperous town in the hills of northern Italy, rich in culture and famous for its vintage basil vinegars, Parmigiano cheese, and Lambrusco wine. But it is also home to a program of early childhood education that has gained international repute in the last quarter century. The first schools were started by parents in 1945 as an alternative to the strait-laced, church-monopolized institutions that dominated Italian early education at the time. The number of these parent-run centers rose steadily, and in 1967 the municipality took over their administration and financing. The Reggio preschools (and infant-toddler centers, publicly mandated since the 1970s) are available to children from birth to six regardless of economic circumstance or physical disability, and continue successfully to this day.
What were the goals of these parents of Reggio Emilia? Amidst the rubble of post-World War II Italy, they raised from almost nothing, preschools that would far exceed the mere custodial services such provision – appropriated for the past twenty-odd years by Mussolini’s government--normally offered at the time. In the words of Loris Malaguzzi of Reggio Emilia, ‘War, in its tragic absurdity, is the kind of experience that pushes a person toward the job of educating, as a way to start anew and live and work for the future. This desire strikes a person, as the war finally ends and the symbols of life reappear with a violence equal to that of the time of destruction.’ And so a couple of trucks and several horses--battered remains of the retreating German army – were sold for hard cash, and from this tiny capital the first school was begun. Women scraped and stacked bricks from bombed buildings. Men worked nights and weekends; children helped where they could.
If the Reggio environment
plays an important role as ‘third teacher’, the first teacher (the parent) and the second (the classroom teacher) are even more important. Parents are involved in school decision-making, kept thoroughly up-to-date on their child’s progress, and depended on for information about their child’s home experience. They also join in regularly with children’s activities and help on their projects. As for staff, from teacher to
atelierista
to cook, the task of each is considered of equal worth and there is no administrative hierarchy or payment scale. Teachers always teach in teams of two, collaboration being considered tantamount to strength. Six non-contact hours weekly support the teachers’ demanding tasks of documentation, project guidance, and liasing with other staff and parents. The credentials prerequisite to a pre-primary teaching post in Italy are comparatively few. Therefore, co-teaching is seen as a necessary part of every young Reggio teacher’s training.
Finally, one might surmise that children could be named the ‘fourth teacher’ –if not the first – in the Reggio program, for they are valued as ‘teachers’ in their own right, to be learned from, listened to, and respected. Children are seen as being born complete with the ability to discover the world they have entered. The teacher’s role is never one of superiority or dominance, but of listening and guidance. Strong bonds form between teachers and children, who stay together through a three-year span.
So how can acquaintance with
Reggio Emilia’s methods benefit those of us who work with children in other parts of the world? Foreigners who visit Reggio Emilia’s preschools are predictably wowed by what they see. The vibrancy of the settings and the advanced work produced by very young children is, at the least, impressive. Visitors often wonder how the principles used might be transferred to their own nurseries back home. This is how it should be, provided the difference in culture and history that every centre inherits is acknowledged and valued. The soundest educational practice, as Reggio’s most avid participants themselves tell admirers, is a continually evolving one where practitioners take the best of the many systems that have been developed to date and adapt it to their own situation. A love for children and openness to change are the starting points. With these, anything is possible.
Reggio Emilia: An innovative approach to education
Miriam LeBlanc
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