Moreover, this arrangement eliminates the isolation of the teacher in the classroom and fosters a first nucleus of socialization that, when multiplied by the number of classes and the number of staff, forms a team, or what we might call a breeding ground for human relationships.
I've experienced this as a director who hired co-teachers for classrooms after my own experience co-teaching. But I was never able to articulate why so clearly.
It is our actions that make the difference, and this implies our responsibility to be not so much the interpreters as the builders of the experience.
builders of the experience. ???
Another major choice was to create a dialogue of the political, administrative, and pedagogical domains, with the view that this reciprocity would provide the necessary consistency for realizing such a complex undertaking. As it happened, this choice turned out to be crucial at the cultural level, as school personnel developed a broader view that encompassed not only the children but also world events in general. It generated an awareness that the issues of children and childhood cannot be treated separately from the issues of women, men, families, and society.
YES!!!
We are convinced that the close alliance between the theoretical system and the practical-organizational system does not consist simply of implementing the theory correctly. Rather, it lies in the capacity to experience this alliance as a dynamic relationship in which theory and practice are reciprocally influenced, giving priority not to an "executive" intelligence but to a creative intelligence that attempts to construct, maintain, and renew this relationship of circularity and reciprocity.
Here is a statement I want to unpack. What are they saying here? What does an executive intelligence and creative intelligence mean in this context? What is a relationship of circularity and reciprocity? Ugh, such a different world view that doesn't seem to be as linear sequential.
Schools, on the other hand, too often dedicate their energies primarily to curriculum and didactics, neglecting the broad network of relationships and communication that are an integral part of the educational process, and consequently placing little emphasis on the organization of these relationships
So true, especially in this era of standards and "quality" initiatives.
alues and choices
So important to see organizational choices as a conscious decision/reflection of values.
his research reflected the presence of Loris Malaguzzi and his pedagogy. I don’tbelieve that educators can know each day where theyare going and where they would like to go. It is a routethat you discover as you travel. We have the obligationto think about the future because of the type of workwe do. We have to be open to moving and changingbecause young children are always growing. The futureis a necessity of the evolution of humankind.
Part of this quote is so similar to Paulo Freire and Miles Horton.We make the road by walking.
They have to be optimistic interpretations,which credit the child with ability. These interpretationswith very young children . . . how we create frames ofreference and how we translate these tiny gestures . . .gives us a way of sharing with parents and othercolleagues a vision of children
Yes!!! brave, courageous, optimistic interpretations.
The languages of small children are so subtleand so interwoven that sometimes it can be a tiny gesture that gives us a vision of whole ideas.
I've never thought of this or heard young children's languages describe this way.
How can we, asteachers, paint a portrait of our life with children?
I love this question. And it frustrates me. The folks at Reggio are so skills at dropping these huge questions into an article. Yes they describe the process, but I want more. Why aren't these the kind of questions we are taught to ask? How can we change that?
This is another strategy that we often use . . . trying tofind out questions before having answers.
This is something I do. I try to think about how the children will approach it. I have a classroom of children in my head and I imagine myself talking with them. It helps me think of possibilities.
Young children have a natural impulse to share whatthey know with someone else.
That is so true. I don't think we take advantage of that.
We did not ask questions onlyto discover what the children know and don’t know.Weasked open questions in order to create a groupcontext in which we could share our opinions and ourpoints of view, a context in which we could constructnew knowledge. In order to build a learning communi-ty, we must have a strong idea of the individuals whoare working together. We must understand their differ-ences and be able to relate those differences. Theexpression of each child must find a place.
I'm really interested in the role or development of context. American early childhood curriculum and learning seems so decontectualized. How do they relate creating a context to creating a sense of community and a sense of belonging?
Documentation hasrefined our styles of observation so that the processes of children’s learning becomethe basis of our dialogue with families.
Another loaded sentence. It seems so meaningful, deep, profound. No easy task. Not something that happens over night but a total shift in the way that we view observation and assessment.
The atelier is not the only space where the languages of expression areintroduced.
This sentence caught my attention and makes me wonder, how do they introduce the different languages?
Documentation can be seen as visible listening: it ensures listening and being listened to by others. This means producing traces -such as notes, slides and videos -to make visible the ways the individuals and the group are learning.
Both the concrete concept of listening and listening as metaphor speak to me. Trace it's such a great word. Young children's learning is often invisible. There is no trace of what happened during play. I think of the comet neowise. I haven't gone out to see it. But I really appreciate the photos people are posting from northern Minnesota that capture it in all it's beauty.
Children know this; they have the desire and the ability to search for the meaning of life and their own sense of self as soon as they are born. This is why we, in Reggio, view children as active, compe-tent and strong, exploring and finding meaning -not as predetermined, fragile, needy and incapable
Just as we search for meaning as we listen to and observe children, children are searching for meaning as competent, capable beings.