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).