Reggio Children & the Reggio Emilia Approach Michelle Woo

About Reggio Emilia The Reggio Emilia school has an infant-toddler center for children 4-9 month-olds to 36 months. The preprimary school has classrooms for 3-5 year olds. Children & teachers remain together for 3 year cycles. Key players: teachers, staff, cook, families & community advisory board Michelle Woo

Goal of the Reggio Emilia program “ To promote children’s education through the development of all their languages: expressive, communicative, symbolic, cognitive, ethical, metaphorical, logical, imaginative, and relational” (Municipality of Reggio Emilia, 1996a, p. 19) Michelle Woo

100 Languages of Children Michelle Woo They tell the child: to think without hands to do without head to listen and not to speak to understand without joy to love and to marvel only at Easter and Christmas. They tell the child: to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety-nive. They tell the child: that work and play reality and fantasy science and imagination sky and earth reason and dream are things that do not belong together. And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there. The child says: No way. The hundred is there. Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini) The child is made of one hundred. The child has a hundred languages a hundred hands a hundred thoughts a hundred ways of thinking of playing, of speaking A hundred always a hundred ways of listening of marveling of loving a hundred joys for singing and understanding a hundred worlds to discover a hundred worlds to invent a hundred worlds to dream. The child has a hundred languages (and a hundred hundred hundred more) but they steal ninety-nine. The school and the culture separate the head from the body. Michelle Woo

“Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning how to learn.” ~ Loris Malaguzzi Michelle Woo

a teacher with special training in visual arts Teachers Atelierista a teacher with special training in visual arts Pedagogista Supervises 3-4 schools and follows the progression on student projects, supports the continuing professional development of teachers, and serves as a liaison among teachers, families, and the municipal system Michelle Woo

Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known. Michelle Woo

The city of Reggio Emilia believes that by recognizing the rights of children the conditions for citizenship and an atmosphere of civil cohabitation are established. In other words, by investing in the children and families during childhood, theses children will grow up to be the kinds of citizens that allow for a peaceful and productive society Michelle Woo

“They [children] are autonomously capable of making meaning from their daily life experiences through mental acts involving planning, coordination of ideas, and abstraction…The central acts of adults, therefore, is to activate, especially indirectly, the meaning-making competencies of children as a basis of all learning. They must try to capture the right moments, and then find the right approaches, for bringing together, into a fruitful dialogue, their meanings and interpretations with those children.” ~Loris Malaguzzi Michelle Woo

The wider range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults. ~Loris Malaguzzi Michelle Woo

Project Work - Projects come from the interests of students - Child-centered Together teachers and children construct these projects Michelle Woo

Importance of Documentation A way for teachers to understand children. Helps teachers evaluate their own teaching practice. Allows teachers to communicate to other adults the complexity and depth of projects. Allows children to see their ideas are valued. Michelle Woo

(from “Rechild” no. 2 April, 1998) No one in Reggio wants to teach others how to “do school.” What we want to do rather is to try and deepen our understanding, together with others, of why it was possible in Reggio Emilia for an (educational) experiences founded after the war, to grow and consolidate with time…What we want to do is look together for the values we might have in common, in order to build a better tomorrow. ~ Amelia Gambetti (from “Rechild” no. 2 April, 1998) Michelle Woo

Resources Hundred languages of Children Exhibit Rechild – Reggio Children Newsletter Innovations Newsletter Michelle Woo

Books Michelle Woo

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