Environment Participation
Organization
Communication
Professional Development
Atelier Progittaizona
Organization: The central value of the structure of Reggio Schools
The organization is not a simple strategy of planning daily activities. The organization is a shared responsibility of all the activities done together. Every person working has the same value – complete collegiality. (This collegiality was so apparent – teachers, kitchen staff, cleaners, cook helpers, there was always at least one member from each area present at our meetings and observations, all dressed in relaxed clothing, all apart of the conversation or presentation they were giving us.)
Teachers and auxiliary staff work in small groups – two teachers per class of 20 children, one cook and usually two helpers for approx. 100 children, two cleaners for the inside and outside spaces, and two helpers who generally helped in the morning with early drop off, assisted teachers, helped keep the environment organized.
There is an ‘Atilerista’ that is involved with 3 or 4 schools – this person is often a trained artist who plays a key role in creating intentions and provocations for the children, supporting their learning with his/her artistic view and interpretation. (More about them later)
Pedagogistas are the last key members; they work with one infant/toddler school and one preschool each. (Ages 0-6) Pedagogistas are not administrators, admissions, HR, or dealing with any financial aspects. Their work is to co-ordinate the school, the ongoing PD project, interpret broad projects, continually nurture PD for everyone, cooks, auxiliary staff, etc. She helps with reflection, co-ordinates parent participation, has a relationship with the health-board and co-ordinates with the other pedagogistas in the city.
All schools have a weekly planning meeting and everyone is present. It is a horizontal structure with a shared responsibility to take care of the children. Everyone, auxiliary staff included, teaches.
Environment: The dialogue between the pedagogy and the architecture.
Every school has a piazza, or central meeting area, a common and collective space showing identity of the institution. The classrooms circle around the piazza and all doors are open, creating singularity. Every space is important, there is no hierarchy amongst spaces and rooms. The environment is considered to be the 3rd teacher. (Parents as the first teacher, school staff as the second) Parents built pieces of furniture for the classrooms, affordable and made with love and pride. There are branches and bark, shells and stones everywhere in the environment; material to play and build with, light projectors and video projectors set in a way to provoke manipulation of shadow and light. All the materials and furniture can be manipulated and moved, nothing is permanent in its structure. All the materials in the school (most, anyway) comes from Remida – the local recycling centre that gathers cast-off material from local factories and businesses, sorting and organizing the items to store them for teachers to come and gather for their classrooms. Every school has a kitchen and a separate and common eating area. The entire school community eats together in this space.
Professional Development: The process of Professional Development asks you to get involved as teachers and to learn together with the children and families.
Professional Development here means a shared vision. It takes place during working hours of teaching and it happens in everyday life of the school. They described their weekly meetings as Professional Development. Everyone learns from each other through dialogue and sharing ideas. The co-presence of teachers is valued and a big commitment – the teachers saw the collaboration of their team as a ‘right’. The Pedagogistas, and the Artileristas, are also responsible to the municipality to share their knowledge with other Reggio schools and are involved in projects connecting the community with Professional Development. The dialogues they have with the city and with the world are also seen as Professional Development – they must have synthesis in order to lead the Study Groups that come from all over the world!
Atelier: Multi-disciplinary, multi-sensory knowledge – 100 languages that children speak.
Reggio Emilia Approach acknowledges languages as the many different expressive forms and sources of knowledge human beings possess from birth. There is extreme amount of value in art and expression, understanding that knowledge is multi-disciplinary and that every child has within it 100 ways of expressing knowledge, our job as teachers is to listen to them. All languages have an expressive capacity and potential. Languages come in varying forms: play, dance, movement, drawing, writing, sculpture, singing, questioning, crying, stillness, silence. Epistemology and aesthetics are synonyms at in Reggio schools; aesthetics are a verb of learning. The atelierista is the key supporter and an interpreter of the 100 languages.
Progittazione: - from an architectural term for structure – no translation to English and Reggio insists on keeping the term. It refers to the negotiated curriculum.
Progittazione is a strategy to create relationships. It insists on listening as a possibility of giving value to others. It is a strategy or way of thinking that permeates a person in every way – completely holistic. It suggests to think about listening as a strategy of learning, adult to child and child to child. Educators develop hypotheses and previews of what they will learn with children. Morning meetings happen every day and there the teachers and students negotiate the day – there are some provocations or initial goals are already set, but then children also have a say in what they would like to question and discover that day; there are agreed elements, but there is a certain freedom the children have. In considering events that happen through the year, sometimes the initial goals change or diverge. They are negotiated. The Pedagogista, as I saw it, is a key supporter and interpreter of the bigger picture version of progittazione.
Communication: Observation, documentation, and interpretation.
Observation:
School is a context for listening. How can we improve this listening? How can we coax children to find meaning? How can we as teachers find meaning? Observation is listening.
Documentation:
Documentation is linked to scientific context – as soon as you apply a context, it becomes educational. (Scribing a child’s comments about their work gives a simple drawing complexity and context, for example.) It is extremely important and is a keystone to the teacher’s work, for the reason that is helps teachers, parents, and children a better understanding of the work done and the work that we need to do.
Interpretation:
The interpretation of documentation is reflection. (Entire reason why I am writing this!) Reflection is how children acquire knowledge, and how they process and organize knowledge. Documentation is how we show children carrying out research, how they answer their own questions or teacher provocations. Interpretation is how teachers increase their knowledge, together with the children.
Observation, documentation and interpretation are key parts of the Reggio Emilia Approach’s identity and the educators are always mindful of this process.
Participation: The shared educational project – to be a part of the whole.
Children, parents and teachers are all co-responsible; we give answers together, we share difficulties, we see our schooling as a shared educational project. Parents need to be aware that they are a valued part of the learning process. In a similar way, the community is co-responsible. The children are citizens and must be valued. The school cannot be based on a rigid and definitive model, but a school must always be re-proposed, shaped, re-planned, in search of temporary balances that require continuous adjustment. We are always changing and growing, shifting and adjusting in our school…and this is a good thing.
