Reggio Emilia in the 21st Century Enduring Commitments

Amid New Challenges

At the end of the lesson, student will be able to:
1. Discuss what is the content of Reggio Emilia in the 21st century enduring commitments
amid new challenges.
2. Explain the three principles that consistently described as foundational to Reggio
Emilia’s municipal services.
3. Describe how Reggio Emilia approach works.
4. Discuss the challenges of Reggio Emilia Approach and new responsibilities.
Content/Discussion:
Reggio Emilia in the 21st Century Enduring Commitments Amid New Challenges

Reggio Emilia is the capital city of the province by the same name, one of eight in the wealthy
italian of Emilia-Romagna.

Three principles are consistently described as foundational to Reggio Emilia's municipal

services:
• The critical importance of an “image of the child” that acknowledges children's creative,
intellectual, and communicative potentials .
• An interpretation of schools as systems of relations, such that the well-being of children is
interdependent with the well-being of teachers and families .
• The value of doubt and uncertainty as ethical premises as well as incentive for teachers to
dedicate themselves to learning about and with the children they hope to teach.

La Bella Figura: An Environment That Welcomes, Nurtures, Impresses, and Inspires

• In Italy, however, this term refers to what is surely the most visible feature of Reggio
Emilia's infant-toddler centers (asili nido) and preprimary schools (scuole dell'infanzia)–
the physical space dedicated to children's early care and learning.
• To ensure that the environment promotes social engagement and the development of new
relationships, classrooms may have Plexiglas windows to rooms below or next door.

ASILI NIDO SCUOLE DELL'INFANZIA

- Nursery School - Preschools
Curriculum Planning: Creating Conditions for Asking and Exploring Good Questions
• This esteem for children's intellectual and social competencies is inclusive of children
with special needs–who are regarded, in Reggio Emilia, as children with special rights”
(Smith, 1998).
• The projects and classroom routines that characterize life in a Reggio Emilia
classroom are consistent with and expand on contemporary interpretations of
inclusive early childhood education.
Curriculum Resources: The Hundred Languages of Children
• One of the pedagogical practices that helps teachers in understanding children's
understandings is the level of creative exploration and symbolic representation associated
with children's collaborative work
• A typical day's schedule suggests that children are engaged in activities similar to those
of high-quality early childhood centers elsewhere: morning meetings, small teacher-led
activities, free play in blocks, dress up, outdoor play, snack time, and naps.
Documentation as Tool for Collaborative Inquiry
• The practice of documentation originated in community and city centers established to
support elementary teachers to design and share materials to use in teaching young
children.
• Teachers take photographs, collect artifacts, and record conversations of children's
conversations with each other and with adults.
PARTECIPAZIONE: RAISING THE BAR ON FAMILY ENGAGEMENT
• The concept of parent engagement as interpreted in Reggio Emilia can be traced back to
Western European socialist labor movements (New, Mallory, & Mantovani, 2000) and
draws on half a century of activism in the name of partecipazione, a form of civic
engagement that has attracted scholars of history and political science to Italy (Putnam,
1993). In most Italian municipal early childhood programs, the concept of gestione
sociale (local social management) is interpreted in the form of parent–teacher–citizen
advisory councils. Reggio Emilia has elaborated on the advisory council concept to
include an array of practices that promote the collaborative engagement of families in the
early childhood services.
1. Child Centered Approach - encourages children to take learning into their own hands.
2. Project Based Learning - instructional approach designed to give students the opportunity to
develop knowledge and skills through engaging projects

• The process of involving parents and family members begins long before their children
enter the infant-toddler and early childhood centers. Teachers and parents meet in
individual and small groups, the cook gathers information about children’s eating
preferences, and elaborate arrangements are made to host alternating groups of parents in
their children's first days of schooling.
• Parents are informed about and contribute to curricular decisions, not only as a result of
the extensive documentation that teachers share with them about their children’s
emerging but also through individual and class meetings focused on ongoing events in
the classroom. Thus, parents participate in hiring staff, determining the menu in
consultation with the cook, and helping to plan culminating events for long-term projects.
THE REGGIO EMILIA APPROACH: AN ORIENTATION TO EARLY CHILDHOOD
EDUCATION AS A PRINCIPLED WAY OF LIVING
 Reggio Emilia's creation of a school environment that nurtures adults as well as
children, the interpretation of curriculum as a catalyst for children and teachers’
collaborative investigations, and a commitment to ensuring active participation by
families and community members in to represent much more than an approach to
early childhood education.
 This approach was developed after World War II
 Children must be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, listening,
and observing;
 was an early childhood educator who founded the educational
philosophy known as the Reggio Emilia Approach.

LORIS MALAGUZZI

TEACHER EDUCATION: CHANGING CONCEPTS OF COMPETENCE

• 1998 law required all early childhood and elementary teachers to enter the profession
through university teacher education. New teachers of infant-toddlers must now complete
a 3-year university program focused on the pedagogy for children from birth to 3 years.
The plan for teachers of children ages 3 to 6 as well as those in elementary schools
(children ages 6 to 11) has been more complicated.
• teachers were required to complete a 4-year university degree with course work in
pedagogy, psychology, science, math, literature, history, and art. The final 2 years
entailed separate strands with concentrations in preschool or primary education.
• 2010 requiring a 5-year university-based program leading to a common license (Maestro
Unico) for all teachers of 3- to 11-year- old children.
• In collaboration with the state ministry, Reggio Emilia has established new and reciprocal
relationships with other municipal programs in Italy, especially in the south; further, the
city now hosts an increasing number of Italian delegates who wish to visit municipal
infant-toddler centers and pre-primary schools.
 • In the classrooms for the preschool-age children, teachers and children were engaged in a
variety of small-group projects and activities that appeared to link to long-term project
work; documentation and examples of children's work were abundant, and the presence
of visitors was only cursorily acknowledged.
NO LONGER JUST FOR TOURISTS: ITALY AS A NEWLY PLURALISTIC SOCIETY
• Once a nation of emigrants, Italy is now host to a rapidly growing population of
immigrants from all over the world. At last count, almost 10% of residents in Italy were
from other nations.
• Once a deceptively sleepy little town that tourists passed by on their way to other Italian
destinations, Reggio Emilia is now host to thousands of visitors on study tours from all
over the world. The changes required to host delegates of educators are modest in
contrast to the challenges now facing Reggio Emilia because of its popularity among
immigrants.

REGGIO EMILIA AND THE UNITED STATES: NEW CHALLENGES AND NEW
POSSIBILITIES
• Reggio Emilia quickly became a new reference point for high quality early care and
education. Within a few years following the first publication, the particulars of
developmentally appropriate practice were being challenged by Reggio Emilia. Revised
guidelines (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997) made frequent reference to this Italian city and
placed greater emphasis on children’s cultural heritages, the social nature of
developmental processes, and the necessity of negotiating the means and aims of early
care and education with children’s families.
• NAEYC established a special track for conference presentations focused on Reggio
Emilia and the first book-length publication was printed, with chapters by American as
well as Italian educators (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1993).

The "piazza": common space in a preschool

kitchens are open to view, and access to the outside and surrounding community is
provided through courtyards, large windows, and exterior doors in each classroom.
 The 2001 act of Congress now known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

This development is encouraging in several ways:

• First, that a new field–science education–would see the value in an approach in which
teachers and students work together to understand complex scientific phenomena
• Second, that with inspiration from Reggio Emilia, U.S. educators are not only “holding
onto innovation” in the midst of the “accountability storm,” but breaking into new fields
(Van Driel & Wallace, 2011).
Early childhood the teacher educators have also embraced documentation, as a means of
helping preservice teachers learn how to observe child development in action (Gandini &
Goldhaber, 2001; Moran & Tegano, 2005) as well as a means to transform the nature of the
“laboratory” in university-based lab school. This work has led to more purposeful efforts to
determine–and then create–the conditions and contexts in which preservice students might
 more successfully embrace an inquiry orientation to their professional development (Tegano
& Moran, 2005).

Using Reggio Emilia Techniques in Your Own Classroom:

• Organize your classroom in a way that helps children make thoughtful decisions about
the materials they would like to use for different projects
• Document children’s progress using many different methods, such as: video,
photographs, tape recordings, work portfolios, and recorded dictations
• Form a group of other teachers and parents to help compare information and adjust to the
special needs and interests of children
Synthesis/Summary
 The Reggio Emilia in the 21st Century enduring Commitments Amid New Challenges is
based on Malaguzzi’s belief that children have the potential for self-development.
 The relationship of child, parent and teacher is integral to Malaguzzi approach.
 The Reggio Emilia is an approach to early childhood education which originated in Italy.