The pleasure of learning of knowing and understanding is one of the most important and basic feelings that each child expects to receive from the experience he or she is living through: either alone, with other children or with adults. It is a constructive feeling that must be reinforced so that the connected pleasure lasts even when reality may prove that learning, knowing and understanding can be difficult and require effort. It is through this very capacity of overcoming the difficulty that pleasure transforms itself into joy.

The atelier had to be a place for researching motivations and th eories of children from scribbles on up, a place for exploring variations in tools, techniques, and materials with which to work. It had to be a place favoring children's logical and creative itineraries, a place for becoming fa miliar with similarities and differences of verbal and nonverbal languages.

In this way we also rescued our teachers, who had been humiliated by the narrowness of their preparatory schools, by working with them on their professional development.

It also was intended as a reaction against the concept of the education of young children based mainly on words and simpleminded rituals.

n the late 1960s and early 1970s women, working women especially, were very actively asking for more equitable social laws and for participation in decision making. There was also a great deal of street protest by workers and students. Among notable changes that followed these active interventions was a national law passed in 1968 that established free education for all children from 3 years to 6 years of age. This connected with the existing free public education for children from the age of 6 to 18. In 1971 a national law established infant/toddler centers for children from 3 months to 3 years of age. In 1972 another national law established participation by a council of elected parents and students in the running of public schools all over Italy.

alaguzzi chose the French term "atelier, " which evoked the idea of a laboratory for many types of transformations, constructions, and visual expressions. Therefore the teacher working with children on visual expression was named atelierista, rather than "art teacher."

Listening plays an important part in achieving an objective that has always characterized our experi-ence in Reggio: the search for meaning.

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.

The task of those who ducate is not only to allow the differen es to be expressed, but to make it possible for them to be negotiated and nurtured through exchanging and comparing ideas. In this way, not only does the indi-vidual child learn how to learn, but the group becomes conscious of itself as a •teaching place," where the languages are enriched, multiplied, refined and generated but al o where they collide and hybridize with each other, and are renewed.

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.

They listen to life in all its shapes and colors.

Listening takes place within a "listening context,•where one learns to listen and narrate, and each individual feels legitimized to represent and offerinterpretations of her or his theories throughaction, emotion, expression and representation, using symbols and images (the "hundredlanguages"). Understanding and awareness are generated through sharing and dialogue.

xpressing our theories to others trans-forms a world which is not intrinsically ours into something shared. Sharing theories is a response to uncertainty. This is the reason why any theory, in order to exist, needs to be expressed, communicat-ed and listened to by others. Herein lies the basis for the "pedagogy of relationships and listening,"

We should listen to the children so that their wordsgive us the courage for the future and help us to find a new way to dialogue with the children and with ourselves

The teacher has many different roles and she needs tobe in many places and do many different things anduse many languages.

An environment that grows out ofyour relationship with the child is unique and fluid.The quality and quantity of relationships among youas adults and educators also reflects your image ofthe child.

Each one of you has inside yourself an image of thechild that directs you as you begin to relate to a child.This theory within you pushes you to behave incertain ways; it orients you as you talk to the child,listen to the child, observe the child.

s of inviting and sustaining learning

Education has to focuson each child, not considered in isolation, but seen in relation with the family, withother children, with the teachers, with the environment of the school, with thecommunity, and with the wider society

The image of the child​.

Such participation by parents has all along remained an essentialpart of the way of working on education in that city

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.

n Reggio Emilia, however, the infant-toddler or preschool teacher always works with a co-teacher. As a pair, these two relate to the other teachers, auxiliary staff, and the atelierista in their school and, moreover, receive support from pedagogisti, mentor teachers, cul-tural mediators,

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.In a next meeting, Marina suggests that the children try making long jumps and then measuring them. She asks them, “How can you measure your jumps?” The children reply, “You need two marks, one for the start and one for the finish, and

Intellectual conflict is understood as the engine of all growth in Reggio. There-fore, teachers seek to bring out, rather than suppress, conflicts of viewpoints between children. Similarly, among themselves they readily accept disagreemen

In contrast to a system in which concern for hurt feelings or ownership of ideas prevents extended examination and argumentation, in Reggio Emilia intellectual conflict is considered pleasurable for both adults and children.

he 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. She also believes that the teacher’s role must be imagined in terms that are holistic and circular, not segmented and linear. Such a circularity—or better, spiraling—is seen in the revisiting that is a frequent component of the learning process. Teachers’ actions are not expected to take place in a set order, or one time only, but instead to repeat in cycles of revisiting and re-representation

Their work may have lost all momen-tum, or their interest to dissipate. The teacher can help the children uncover their own insights or questions, perhaps expressed by one child in a tentative or partial way—not fully clear to themselves or the group as a whole. The teacher, noticing and appreciating the idea’s potential to restimulate the whole group, steps in to restate the idea in clearer and more emphatic language, and thus makes the insight operative for the children, a kind of intellectual spark for further talk and action

a role as dispenser of occasions

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 definition of the teacher’s professional identity is thus not viewed in abstract terms, but in contexts, in relation to her colleagues, to the parents, and above all, to the children; but also in relation to her own identity and her personal and educational background and experience. (Rinaldi, 2006, p. 41)Thus, any definitions of the teacher’s role can never be accepted once and for all, but instead constantly undergoes revision—as circumstances, parents, and children change; the dynamics of their concerns and exchanges shift; and as more comes to be understood about the fundamental processes of teaching and learning. Questions about what teachers can and should do can never be finally answered but rather must keep returning to the starting problem: What kind of teachers are needed by our children—those real individuals in the classrooms of today?

Instead, they begin holistically and often speak of an idealized image—or rather, an idealized pair of images: teacher and child. The role of the adult as teacher complements the role of the child as learner; as Malaguzzi stated, “Your image of the child: Where teaching begins

One tension we explore throughout this book is the need to balance children's perspectives and adults' perspectives

Perhaps the core component of true listening is a willingness to learn from and be changed by what the other says.

They declared, "Children have a right to pretend every-thing,· and "Children have a right to play all day

o 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

The profound thoughts of this small group of children led Boulder Journey School faculty to wonder, "How can we give voice to all the children at the school, including chil-dren who are preverbal?"

•Children have a right to guess how things work

children compiled a list of their rights

The children discussed their ideas until they agreed on statements made by two children.

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"

Listening to and respecting the rights of children means providing time. It may take time for children to exercise autonomy

children up until about seven years of age communicate with each other more adequately by play than in speech, an argument can certainly be made that their childhood right to play is the same as our adult First Amendment right to free speech"

observing the nuances"

verbal language proves to be a source of misunderstanding, as well as understanding.

10 Seen and Heard 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. (reported in Alderson, 2000b, pp. 26-27)

How can we give voice to all the children at the school, including chil-dren who are preverbal?

The teachers began to wonder what children thought about rights. They arranged an initial meeting of a small group of 4-year-olds and asked, "What is a right?

We cannot separatethis child from a particular reality. She brings theseexperiences, feelings, and relationships into schoolwith he

They use their interpretations and discussions to make choices that they share withthe children

reciprocal