Building A Foundation

For almost a year now I've been working my way through the various steps involved in forming a non-profit corporation. For someone like me who's not familiar with the bureaucratic and legal issues involved the process has been complicated, at times tedious and extremely enlightening throughout. From the beginning I've been forced to think carefully about just what it is I want to do and just how I want to go about doing it, starting with the most basic question of all. Why form a non-profit? Why not simply pursue work as an independent consultant without the trappings of an incorporated organization that involves bylaws, a Board of Directors, etc.? The answer has three parts:

(1) I want to be able to support schools and educational institutions that need help by accepting tax-deductible contributions from interested donors here in the U.S.;

(2) I want to be able to fund projects through grants available to non-profit corporations;

(3) I want to be part of an organization, even if in its beginning stages (i.e. now) that organization is very small. I want to collaborate with my professional peers and I want to have access to the opinions and feedback of a community of like-minded educators. Creating a formal organization is one way of beginning to create such a community.

Like this blog, the non-profit is called Educational Alternatives Worldwide. Our mission is to provide support for schools that want to offer something other than test-driven curriculum based on memorization and competition. We believe in child-centered classrooms that encourage students to question, to think critically, to work together at solving problems and to use the tools they gain in school to make meaning from the world around them. We believe it is critical not simply that children learn but how they learn and that this is of the utmost importance to the future.

If these ideas make sense to you, please do be in touch. Let's build a community to make schools better for all children.

Reggio Emilia and The Child's Right to Beauty

Loris Malaguzzi, mentioned in my previous blog post as the guiding force of the Reggio movement, is famous for articulating the idea that learning is nurtured through multiple channels, using many materials and techniques. As he stated in his poem, The Hundred Languages of Childhood:

… The child has
A hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
But they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
Separate the head from the body …

(see http://www.reggiokids.com/about/hundred_languages.php)

Development of the “hundred languages” is the guiding pedagogical principle in the infant/toddler and pre-primary centers of Reggio Emilia, which serve children from infancy through age five and their families.

To a first-time visitor, perhaps the most striking feature of these schools is their visual impact. The classrooms are lovely and engaging and teachers clearly put much energy into the use of color, shape and design to create inspiring environments for children. (Rights to images of the Reggio classrooms are copyrighted. For pictures, visit the Reggio Children website at http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/nidiescuole.htm). There’s much emphasis on work with light and almost every room features an overhead projector equipped with a sampling of shapes and colors for children to manipulate. Each center features an “atelier”: a space devoted to art and staffed by an “atelierista”. There is space and openness and an inviting sense of creative possibility. A broad variety of materials are used: paint, cloth, wire, paper, plastic, wood, feathers, leaves … almost anything from the surrounding environment can (and frequently is) incorporated into the experience of Reggio learners. (The municipality has established the most incredible center for collection/distribution of recyclable materials I have ever seen: (http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/remida.htm). Reggio planners have long understood the importance of careful architectural thinking in school design and the buildings they have created (or adapted) over the years are a sophisticated mix of large and small group spaces flooded with natural light and furnished with materials and structures that are playful, beautiful and functional.

There is much more to the Reggio philosophy and I encourage you to explore their practice more completely through via the internet, the many print publications available or even by visiting. In the meantime, I’d like to acknowledge once more the really inspiring example of this movement in underscoring the child’s “right to beauty” (and so much more). I may decide to write again about Reggio in future, but for my next few posts I plan to introduce Educational Alternatives Worldwide, the non-profit foundation I have created to promote teacher training and progressive curriculum development in South Asia (and hopefully beyond).