By: Lisa Wooten-

BushPhyllis Baker

Dolores Phillips

Born in Correggio, in the province of Reggio Emilia, on February 23, 1920, Malaguzzi died unexpectedly of a heart attack in his home in Reggio Emilia on January 30, 1994

http://www.aboutenglish.it/comeniusasilo2/malaguzzi.htm

As a young elementary school teacher, he began an intensive parallel educational activity in 1946, working with eight "people's nursery schools"; in 1950 he founded the Municipal Psycho-Pedagogical Medical center, where he worked as a psychologist for over twenty years.During the same period he continued to dedicate himself to pedagogical activities within the municipal early childhood education system.As consultant for the Italian Ministry of Education, director of the early childhood magazines Zerosei and Bambini, Malaguzzi founded the Gruppo Nazionale Nidi-Infanzia in Reggio Emilia in 1980.Conferences, seminars, joint research projects with universities and foundations, and the itinerant exhibit "The Hundred Languages of Children" conceived by Malaguzzi, would take him throughout Europe and to the United States as the untiring promoter of an innovative and creative philosophy of education

http://www.aboutenglish.it/comeniusasilo2/malaguzzi.htm

The Reggio Emilia approach to education is committed to the creation of a learning environment that will enhance and facilitate children's construction of his or her own powers of thinking through the combination of all the expressive, communicative and cognitive languages.

http://www.reggioemiliaapproach.net/

The child as protagonist. Children are strong, rich and capable. All children have preparedness, potential, curiosity, and interest in constructing their learning, negotiating with everything their environment brings to them. Children, teachers, and parents are considered the three central protagonists in the education process. The child as collaborator. Education has to focus on each child in relation to other children, the family, the teachers, and the community rather than on each child in isolation. There is an emphasis on work in small groups. This practice is based on the social constructivist model that supports the idea that we form ourselves through our interaction with peers, adults, things in the world, and symbols.

The child as communicator. This approach fosters children’s intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation, including words, movement, drawing, painting, building, sculpture, shadow play, collage, dramatic play, and music, which leads children to surprising levels of communication, symbolic skills, and creativity. In this way, they make their thinking visible through their many natural “languages”.

http://www.aboutenglish.it/comeniusasilo2/reggioconcepts.htm

In contrast, the educators in the preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia are very concerned about what their school environments teach children

They believe that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through living in complex, rich environments which support "complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing ideas" (Cadwell, p. 93) rather than from simplified lessons or learning environments.

.design share.

Discussions are based on development and sociocultural concerns , small groups of children of varying abilities and interests , including those with special needs , work together on projects .

Wikipedia

The art the children produce with guidance of their teachers is stunning. In fact, exhibit of the children’s work ,”The Hundred Languages of Children” has traveled the world for twenty years.

parents league

to co-explore the learning experience with the children to provoke ideas, problem solving, and conflict to take ideas from the children and return them for further exploration to organize the classroom and materials to be aesthetically pleasing to organize materials to help children make thoughtful decisions about

the media to document children's progress: visual, videotape, tape recording,

portfolios to help children see the connections in learning and experiences to help children express their knowledge through representational work to form a "collective" among other teachers and parents to have a dialogue about the projects with parents and other teachers to foster the connection between home, school and community

Young children's learning

The teacher's role within the Reggio Emilia approach is complex. Working as co-teachers, the role of the teacher is first and foremost to be that of a learner alongside the children. The teacher is a teacher-researcher, a resource and guide as she/he lends expertise to children.

Within such a teacher-researcher role, educators carefully listen, observe, and document children's work and the growth of community in their classroom and are to provoke and stimulate thinking

Teachers are committed to reflection about their own teaching and learning.

Classroom teachers working in pairs and collaboration, sharing information and mentoring between personnel.

Reggio Emilia part2.mht

Professional development programs for early childhood educators who are interested in exploring how the principles of Reggio Emilia can enrich their classrooms. Since 1993, the Merrill-Palmer Institute has introduced the Reggio approach to children, teachers and administrators in public school systems, Head Start programs, private centers and corporate child care centers. The early childhood program of Reggio Emilia, Italy, is world-renowned for its innovative approach to education.

http://www.mpi.wayne.edu/earlychildhood.htm

Learn about Reggio principles and how educators in the country have made changes in their classrooms;• Collaborate with their colleagues through interactive small focus-group sessions;• Create changes in their own classrooms based on professional observation and feedback sessions;• Develop exciting, on-going project ideas through collaboration with colleagues, children and parents;• Enhance their skills in observing and documenting children's processes of learning.

http://www.mpi.wayne.edu/earlychildhood.htm

An emergent curriculum is one that builds upon the interests of children. Topics for study are captured from the talk of children, through community or family events, as well as the known interests of children (puddles, shadow, dinosaurs, etc.). Team planning is an essential component of the emergent curriculum. Teachers work together to formulate hypotheses about the possible directions of a project, the materials needed, and possible parent and/or community support and involvement.

Reggio Emilia Philosophy.mht

The Compass School - Cincinnati OH  http://thecompassschool.com Overfield Early Childhood ProgramTroy OH 937-339-5111 Academy for Kids ELC. Inc , Chillicothe, OH http://www.academyforkids.com

Newstart Early Learning Center Powell, OH   http://www.newstart4u.org

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