What is Reggio Emilia Approach? Building to Learn and Understand
Reggio Emilia is an educational approaches for early learning education for preschool kids, created in Reggio Emilia, a small city in Northern part of Italy. Could Indonesian kindergartens adapt that approach locally and ask parents’ cooperation in order to be more active and concern in their child’s development? Some Indonesian pre-K adapts some part of the approach, including erlass and adjusts it to the local needs and curriculum.
The Reggio Emilia approach on teaching is that parents, teachers and children are equal shareholders in the learning initiative. Usually, parents are a bit lazy to assess and follow up their child’s activities, giving all the responsibilities to the teachers.
Since its development in the 1940s, where many cities were destroyed after the result of WW II, the city of Reggio has tried to encourage the involvement of parents and local government to be more involved in the recovery of their youths’ minds, souls, and physics. Hitherto, the Reggio approach has spread into a worldwide network of preschools and kindergartens, with designs for elementary classes in the works.
Although the Reggio approach shares some of the values of the better-known Waldorf and Montessori schools, it's not a philosophy with a set system of beliefs. Rather, it's an approach based around certain fundamental values about how children learn. “These values are interpreted in different schools, different contexts and different ways,” says Susan Lyon, executive director of the Innovative Teacher Project, which aims to develop and promote Reggio-inspired education.
Just what are these core values? Here's an introduction:
- The child as an active participant in learning. The Reggio approach “sees a child as a very competent protagonist and initiator who interacts with their environment,” Lyon says. Andra Young, head teacher of a Reggio-inspired school in San Francisco, says that students are allowed to follow their own interests, but that “it's not willy-nilly.” For example, she says, students in her classroom were showing an interest in building, so she brought wood stumps and building materials into the classroom. While exploring how to hammer nails, the children were given the opportunity to reinforce math skills, problem solving and emerging literacy—all in relationship to their hands-on project.
- The significance of environment. “The environment of the school is seen as the third educator,” after the teacher and the parent, says Lyon. Most Reggio classrooms include a studio, or “atelier,” which is filled with materials such as clay, paint and writing implements. Children use these materials to represent concepts that they are learning in a hands-on way.
- The teacher, parent and child as collaborators in the process of learning. “Normally,” says Lyon, “parents are not seen as part of the educational process in an authentic way.” But the Reggio approach views the parent as an essential resource for the child's learning. To foster community, Reggio schools host a variety of events throughout each school year, including conferences and special lectures for parents. “For example, a teacher observed that a lot of parents were complaining that their children weren't sleeping well,” Lyon says. The school responded by bringing someone in to speak to parents about the issue.
- Making learning visible. “The teacher observes and documents the daily life of the school to make learning visible,” says Lyon. In Reggio-inspired classrooms, teachers use a variety of documentation methods, such as cameras, tape recorders and journals, to track children's thoughts and ideas as they play together or work with materials. For example, say Young, each child has a portfolio binder, including photographs of their projects, quotes from the child, artwork and writing samples. “It's kind of like a narrative of what the child learns at school,” say Young, noting that the children take great pride and satisfaction in their portfolios.
Although adapting the values of the Reggio Emilia approach can be challenging for teachers, Young says it's worth it. “Validating the children's work and supporting the child to go deeper into their perception of the world is the most important part of the process.” Parents and teachers will agree: It's never too soon to start giving your child a nose for knowledge and the tools to investigate the world.
So, if you were a headmaster or kindergarten teacher, what kind of Reggio Emilia’s values would you use in your classroom?