Wehave come to value the role of collaboration andreflection within our learning community. Throughoutthe process of a study, the coordinators help theteachers consider alternatives for the next steps theytake with the children. The coordinators often rely oneach other and on our director to help reflect on howa study may proceed. The coordinators are then betterable to help the teachers anticipate the possibilities forlearning in their classrooms.

heir responses contribute to our approach for supporting the children and their learning. We havealso asked ourselves, as teachers, about our goals forthe children and we have asked the children abouttheir goals for themselves. The responses to thesequestions are then a part of the documentation that isvisible in our school. These respectful and reciprocalrelationships resultin a richer andmore dynamicexperience for allthe members ofour community at ChicagoCommo

Thus, the teacher needs to enter into a kind of intellectual dialogue with the group of children and join in their excitement and curiosity.

North Americans, with a list of dimensions. Instead, they begin holistically and often speak of an idealized image—or rather, an idealized pair of images: teacher and child.

TeacheR andleaRneR, paRTneR andgUide 2157enough to engage their best energies and thinking over time. Many things happen every day; only some can be seized on. The teachers seek to discover what may be important and expected in the moments streaming by and then help the children breathe further life into them. Identifying “Knots” Not only must the larger project contain meaty problems, but even a daily work session should ideally contain sticking points, or “knots.” Just as a knot (whorl) in wood grain impedes a saw cutting through it, and just as a knot (tangle) in thread stops the action of a sewing needle, any problem that stops the children and blocks their action is a kind of cognitive knot. It might be caused by a conflict of wills or lack of information or skills to proceed. Such knots should be thought of as more than negative moments of confusion and frustration, however. Rather, they are moments of cognitive disequilibrium, containing positive possibilities for regrouping, hypothesis testing, and intellectual comparison of ideas. They can produce interactions that are constructive not only for socializing but also for constructing new knowledge. The teachers’ task is to notice those knots and help bring them to center stage for further attention—launching points for next activities. Deciding When to InterveneTeachers in Reggio have difficulty in knowing how and when to intervene because this depends on a moment-by-moment analysis of the children’s thinking. As teachers Magda Bondavalli and Marina Mori stated:With regard to difficulties [in teaching], we see them continuously. The way we sug-gest to children things that they might do leaves things always open. This is a way to be with them through readjusting continuously. There is nothing that is definite or absolute. We try all the time to interpret, through their gestures, words, and actions, how they are living through an experience; and then we go on from there. It’s really difficult! (Interview, June 14, 19

Discussions takes place at different lev-els involving groups of different sizes, ranging from discussions with a few oth-ers (co-teacher, atelierista, pedigogista), to meetings of the entire school staff, to workshops designated for particular types of teachers, to large assemblies of educators from the whole municipality.

The teachers constantly pay close attention to the children’s activity. They believe that when children work on a problem of interest to them, they will natu-rally encounter questions they will want to investigate. The teachers’ role is to help children discover their own problems and questions.

ut nevertheless, it is powerful because it requires each adult to become used to peer collaboration,

and it is very important for us that the child should feel the teacher to be, not a judge, but a resource to whom he can go when he needs to borrow a gesture, a word.

his is a difficult path that requires energy, hard work and, sometimes, suffering. But it also offers wonder, joy, enthusiasm and passion. It is a path that takes time -time that children have and adults often do not, or do not wanl to have. This is where the school comes in; it should first and foremost be a "context of multiple listening," involving the teachers and children, individually and as a group, who should listen to each other and themselves. This concept of a context of multiple listening overturns the traditional teaching-learning relationship. The focus shifts to learning -children's self-learning, and the learning achieved by the group of children and adults together.

It legitimizes us and gives us visibility.

Listening produces questions, not answer .

Herein lies the basis for the "pedagogy of relationships and listening," which distinguishes the work in Reggio Emilia.

But we cannot live without meaning; it would preclude any sense of identity, any hope or any future

ehaveto listento chil-drennot onlybecausewecanhelpthembut alsobecausetheycanhelpus.

he environment you construct around you and thechildren also reflects this image you have about thechild.