Below is a preliminary list of possible experiences that I suggest all children should have much of the time; the matter of exactly how much time is needed depends on many factors worthy of further discus-sion. Let's start with the following list: ■ Feelings of belonging and feeling welcomed■ Feelings of being taken seriously and respected■ Feeling what it is like to understand some thingsbetter (or more deeply)■ Experience of applying their developing skills inpurposeful and meaningful ways■ Being intellectually engaged and challenged■ Experience of overcoming setbacks and obstacles■ Experience of offering suggestions to peers andhelping them understand something better■ Experience of taking initiative, appropriate respon-sibilities, making some choices, and so fort

Malaguzzi's thought into the following seven

have to convince ourselves that it is essential to preserve in children (and in ourselves) the feeling of wonder and surprise, because creativity, like knowledge, is a daughter of surprise. We have to convince ourselves that expressivity is an art, a combi

For 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, through the practice of th

mong 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.T

Malaguzzi 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 teache

Malaguzzi had the idea toemploy teachers with an education inthe visual arts in the role ofassistants, because the funding available forschools was too low to hire themas teachers. This was the way he hound to havethe first atelieristi,

method of extended mutual criticism and self-examination is very much accepted and an important part of teacher professional development in Reggio Emilia, where a small work group—composed perhaps of teacher(s), mentor teacher, pedagogista, and atelierista—observe and document a group of children together, then meet for lengthy discussion, analysis, and comparison of perspec-tives on what they were seeing (Rubizzi, 2001). This work illustrates a fourth important aspect of the teacher’s role, posing themselves important questio

In this way, parents are provoked to revise their image of their child and understand childhood in a richer and more complex wa

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

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 meanin

fact, the role of the teacher in Reggio Emilia is com-plex, multifaceted, and necessarily fluid, responsive to the changing times and needs of children, families, and society.

Children thought it more important to share mealtime with friends than to eat when they were hungry. As one boy responded, "I love Nicholas and Natalie. It is important to eat with friends and it's sad without."

play theorist Brian Sutton-Smith wrote that because "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" (quoted in Nabhan & Trimble, 1994, p. 9)

A children's rights movement must be as much about "adult ears" as it is about "children's voices" (R. Hart, 1998, cited in Miljeteig, 2000, p. 171). At Boulder Jour-ney School, our research on children's rights has led us to specify four suggestions for tuning adult ears to the voices of young chil

Children have a right to chew soft gum, especially if it's the kind that cleans your teeth, but not a right to hard gum, like one might find at Copper Mountain's gumball machine