Back in November of last year, I traveled to the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy to take part in a study group for North American educators. The event was sponsored by Reggio Children, an organization responsible for one of the most successful experiments in early childhood education ever undertaken.
The story of this city's commitment to its children begins in 1945, just after the end of World War II. Faced with inconceivable devastation, with nothing but the shells amid rubble of bombed-out buildings, the townspeople decided to make schools the focus of their first rebuilding efforts - a very concrete investment in the future of a place whose past had been so deeply impacted. In the book Brick by Brick, by Renzo Barazzoni (published by Reggio Children, 2005), educator Loris Malaguzzi (who would become the guiding force behind the movement) described his first encounter with a remarkably visionary group of citizens:Word had it that at Villa Cella the people had gotten together to put up a school for the young children; they had pulled out the bricks from the bombed-out houses and had used them to build the walls of the school. Only a few days had passed since the Liberation and everything was still violently topsy-turvy ... Behind a curtain made of rags to shield them from the sun two women were hammering the old mortar off the bricks. ..The news was true, and the truth was there, for all to see ... in the uneven but stubborn hammering of these two women. One of them looked up at me ... We're not crazy! If you really want to see, come on Saturday or Sunday, when we're all here. 'Al forn da boun l'asilo' ('We're really going to make this school!')
What makes the schools of Reggio Emilio so fascinating? Stay tuned for future posts...
-Beth
