feeling what it is like to understand some things better (or more deeply)

respected

at the end of which out come identical shoes or cups or pencils or whatever else is being manufactured

The same Hundred Languages catalogue contained an extraordinary compression of so much of Malaguzzi's thought into the following seven essential points:

They produce solidarity, communication with oneself, with things and with others. They offer interpretations and intelligence about the events that take place around us. (See Figure 2.3.

The one stable element was an equal respectfor the plurality and the connections within children's expressive languages.

Our intent was to drive the school in richer, more complex, and rigorous directions, and toward new anthropological and cultural paths.

or us the atelier had to become part of a complex design and at the same time an added space for searching, or better, for diggingwith one's own hands and one's own mind, and for refining one's own eyes,

In addition to offering support and mediation to the children, the teacher who knows how to observe, document and interpret these processes will realize his or her own full potential as a learner -in this case, learning how to teach.

This 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.

Listening is the basis for any learning relation-ship. Through action and reflection, learning takes shape in the mind of the subject and, through representation and exchange, becomes knowledge and skill.

Listening is not easy. It requires a deep awareness and a suspension of our judgementsand prejudices. It requires openness to change. It demands that we value the unknown, and overcome the feelings of emptiness and precariousness that we experience when ourcertainties are questioned.

Listening should be open and sensitive to theneed to listen and be listened to, and the need to listen with oil our senses, not just with our ears

Listening produces questions, not answer .

For both adults and children, understanding means being able to develop an interpretive theory, a narra-tive that gives meaning to the world around them. For us, in Reggio, these theories are extremely important in revealing how children think, question and interpret reality, and their own relationships with reality and with us.

We und r-stand the school (which, for us, is the early child-hood center) a a place that plays an active role in the search for meaning -the meaning of the children and adults as well as their shared meanings.

eshouldlistentothechildrensothat their wordsgiveusthecouragefor the futureandhelpustofinda newwayto dialoguewiththe childrenandwith ourselves.

From their own point of view, the teachers’ classroom work centers on “provoking occasions” of genuine intellectual growth by one or more children—in particular, listening to the words and communications of children and then offering them back to the group to restimulate and extend their discussion and joint activity. Such a method of teaching they consider important, complex, and delicate, constantly evolving and changing, and a matter of collective effort and concern. Their tendency to engage with colleagues in extended mutual criticism and self-examination of their teaching behavior seems to distinguish the educators of Reggio Emilia. Just as they see children as learning best through communication, conflict, and co-action, so do they see themselves as learning in this way.

They also interact and have a continuous dialogue with parents who support them and participate in the life of the school.

They reread the notes and hypothesize that the adults need to “push the children further into the disorder that they have created” as a way to accentuate the contradictions of their thinking. Perhaps this will help the children progress in their understanding.

When asked about this, she says she tries to provide the help and advice that is needed for children to accomplish their own artistic and representational goals and not be defeated by the materials. For example, she knows that if children roll out the clay too thin, then it breaks during firing and children are upset.

What they are describing here is a genuine commitment to emergent curricu-lum, not a subtle manipulation of the project theme so that it will end up in a certain place. The teachers honestly do not know where the group will end up. Although this openness adds a dimension of difficulty to their work, it also makes it more exciting:I work in a state of uncertainty because I do not know where the children will arrive to, but it is a fabulous experience!

is the way they should be working. As teacher Laura Rubizzi put it, “It is a way of working not only valid but also right” (Interview, November 11, 1989). Her colleague at the Diana Preschool, Paola Strozzi, said: “We are part of a project that is based on the co-action of children, and on the sureness that this is a good way of learning”

At that point, moreover, they will not offer ready solutions but instead help children to focus on a problem or difficulty and formulate hypotheses. Their goal is not so much to “facilitate” learning in the sense of “making smooth or easy” but rather to “stimulate” it by making problems more complex, involving, and arous-ing. They ask the children what they need to conduct experiments—even when they realize that a particular approach or hypothesis is not “correct.” They serve as the children’s partners, sustaining the children and offering assistance, resources, and strategies to get “relaunched” when they are stuck. Often teachers encourage children to continue with something or ask them to complete or add to something that they are doing. They prefer not to leave children to always work on their own but try instead to cooperate with the children’s goals

The co-teaching organization is considered difficult, because the two adults must co-adapt and accommodate constantly, but nevertheless, it is powerful because it requires each adult to become used to peer collaboration, acquire a value for the social nature of intellectual growth, and become more able to help children (and parents) as they undertake joint learning and decision making

Rinaldi is proud of the ancient heritage of her region—rooted in an agrarian culture and tradition of large cooperating farm households—of relying on communal rather than individualistic enterprise (e.g., see Hellman, 1987; Putnam, 1993). She believes that citizens have a moral obligation to invest public resources in children’s welfare and to enter into continuous and permanent knowledge cre-ation with children for her city, and society in general, to progress and improve human well-being.

From day to day, the teachers raised new questions for the children to won-der about, and these questions seemed to respond to the anthropomorphic thinking of very young age, and also to their interests about other beings.

This intrinsically social view of children—as protagonists with unique per-sonal, historical, and cultural identities—involves parallel expectations and possi-bilities for adults. Teachers are likewise protagonists—participants with children and parents in singular moments of time and history

The role of teacher as curriculum planner changes to the role of the teacher as a co-constructor of knowledge.• The role of the teacher as program planner emphasizes the role of creator of the environment as a third teacher.• The role of the teacher in facilitating play changes to the role of the teacher as an exchanger of understandings.• The role of providing guidance changes to the role of the teacher as a supporter of the competent child.• The role of the teacher as an observer is extended to documenter andresearcher.• The role of the teacher as parent educator changes to the role of the teacher as a partner with parents.• The role of communicator with outside audiences changes to the role of the teacher as listener, provocateur, and negotiator of meaning.It seems clear that professional early childhood teachers, no m

Perhaps the core component of true listening is a willingness to learn from and be changed by what the other says. When adults position ourselves far above the children in our lives, we risk creating chasms too wide for young children to breech.

The notion that children build ideas and gain insight through discussion with peers, although consistent with the social constructivist perspective of Boulder Journey School, runs counter to traditional views of children as antisocial or pre-social. It also runs counter to the preferred methodologies of traditional research: large-scale assessments of isolated individuals who either fill out a questionnaire alone at a desk or participate in a one-on-one interview with the researcher in a quiet and secluded room. Such methodologies remove children from relevant contexts and prevent them from exhibiting their collective competence. The pref-erence for such isolating assessment techniques may help explain why "tests of children show far fewer capabilities than children exhibit in the course of the day, in conversation" (Alderson, 2000b, p. 82).

exist in the moment and focus on what they find before them. Children encounter numerous marvels on the way to the car or to the store that merit ex-amination-the intriguing shapes and splashes of puddles, the intricate pathways of bugs and worms, the irresistible gleams of shining treasures lying on the street disguised as trash. Differing orientations to time can create challenges for adults and children alike. The adults' desire

the sense of smallness that children often experience in the world of adults.

Listening to young children means appreciating that they com-municate using a wide array of languages. If children do indeed speak using 100 languages, then in order to understand what children are saying, adults must lis-ten with all of their creativity. Rinaldi (2001) proposed "listening not just with our ears but with all our senses (sight, touch, smell, taste, orientation). Listening to the hundred, the thousand languages" (p. 80).

So it does not depend on the age of the teller, but on the sensitivity of the listener. A newborn baby is l oking in your eyes, making silent questions, asking for cooperation for building a common world. That is the beginning of stories.

Children have a right to pretend being dead and think about what it means to be dead

"But only if it's okay, like you won't hurt somebody and it's not safe . . . because the other person has a right to not be hurt too, right?·

Instead of always giving children protection, we needto give them the recognition of their rights and of theirstrengths

Children have a right to a good school — a goodbuilding, good teachers, right time, good activities.This is the right of ALL children.

Discovering a New Way of ObservingObserving in this way offers tremendous benefits. Itrequires a shift in the role of the teacher from anemphasis of teaching to an emphasis on learning,teachers learning about themselves as teachers aswell as teachers learning about children.

Clarifying the meaning of ourpresence and our being with children is somethingthat is vital for the child. When the child sees that theadult is there, totally involved with the child, thechild doesn’t forget. This is something that’s right forus and it’s right for the children

We’lldiscover that our presence, which has to be visibleand warm, makes it possible for us to try to get insidethe child and what that child is doing. And this mayseem to be passive, but it is really a very strongactivity on our part

We have to find each other in the forest and begin todiscuss what the education of the child actuallymeans. The important aspect is not just to promotethe education of the child but the health and happi-ness of the child as well

It’s very probable that once a day, maybe twice orthree times or many times a day, the children areasking themselves: “What is my mother doing?”“What is my father doing?” “What is my brother ormy sister doing?” “Are they having more fun than Iam?” “Are they bored?

. An environment that grows out ofyour relationship with the child is unique and fluid

We must forge strong alliances with the families ofour children. Imagine the school as an enormoushot air balloon. The hot air balloon is on the groundwhen the parents bring their children in themorning. Some parents think the balloon is going torise up and fly around during the day. Otherswould really prefer that the balloon remain on theground because that way they are sure their childrenare safe and protected. But the children want to goup and fly and travel everywhere in a hot airballoon, to see in this different way, to look at thingsfrom above. Our problem is that to make the hot airballoon fly we have to make sure that parentsunderstand the importance of what the teachers andchildren are doing in the hot air balloon. Flyingthrough the air, seeing the world in a different way,adds to the wealth of all of us, particularly thechildren

Projects may starteither from a chance event, an idea or a problem posed by one or more children, oran experience initiated directly by teachers. They can last from a few days toseveral months.

Themost important among them is to be tools for making hypotheses (to project) aboutthe direction in which the work and experiences with the children will go. Oncethese documents are organized and displayed they help to make parents aware oftheir children's experience and maintain their involvement.

Not a pre-set curriculum but a process of inviting and sustaining learning. Onceteachers have prepared an environment rich in materials and possibilities, theyobserve and listen to the children in order to know how to proceed with their work

Thelay-out of physical space fosters encounters, communication, and relationships.

Parents are an essential component of the program; acompetent and active part of their children's learning experience. They are notconsidered consumers but co-responsible partners.

In fact, Reggio Emilia educators have continued to keep abreastof the latest research in child development and education in other countries. At thesame time, though, they continue to formulate new interpretations and newhypotheses and ideas about learning and teaching through their daily observationsand practice of learning along with the children

In Italy now, preschools, whether municipal, national or private, serve about 95%of the children between 3 and 6.

it came from a great deal of effort and political involvement. Workers,educators, and especially women were active and effective advocates of thelegislation that established public preschools in 1968 and infant-toddler centers in1971.