Reggio Study Trip

[Jackie]

Hi All...

I'm learning a great deal from my study of the Reggio Inspired identity and have a question and provocation for you all!

What is the significance of the trip to Reggio?

Can't wait to hear what you think and feel!

Jackie

[Lauren Meyer]

I was at Reggio in April, and the experience of visiting is absolutely irreplaceable to someone using their approach. The best part was dialoguing with other educators on a philosophical level, and also getting to visit the schools and hearing the atelieristas talk. I am also going back in a month for the documentation study week. Is anyone else going to this seminar?
-Lauren
bigvoices.wordpress.com

[Marianne Cane]

HI Kenyon,
Take full advantage of the Sunday when you arrive, you won't have free time when shops are open after that. They close for lunch and supper, which are the only times you have free. Also, the markets in the piazzas are open on Sunday. I find it helps me to set a research focus for myself when I visit schools (documentation, classroom organization, projects, etc) so I don't get overwhelmed. You won't be able to take photos in the schools, so bring paper to sketch.

[kenyon]

I was first introduced to Reggio Emilia Approach in 2001 in Canada. I fell in love with the environment first and through my journey I have implemented many Reggio aspects to my classroom and planning. I now have the opportunity to visit Reggio Emilia Italy first hand in November, this year. I am extremely excited and looking for any suggestions from anyone out there that has visited Reggio Emilia.

[Jackie]

I don't know Marianne. Can we really call the unwillingness to compromise bravery, or the willingness to compromise cowardice? What is the distinction? Yes, organizing politically is a large piece of what they do in Reggio. It is also something that we are working on. The educators in my study are being socialized into that activist identity; it's part of the process of moving beyond the Reggio veil. Changing their identity through Reggio seems to be key in doing this.
You say that it is hard to persevere when things are tough. Maybe that's a significant point for us. We have not been socialized to persist in the face of difficulty. Reggio children are! Maybe this persistance is something we need to look at more closely. Persistance leads to change and if change is what we want we can not hide behind a wall of "it's hard", we must understand that the key to any problem is persistance. We must teach it to ourselves and to our children.

[Marianne Cane]

It is really challenging to do everything one believes it important. The Italians don't believe in compromising in the name of expediency or limited resources. They believe in organizing politically to get the resources to which young people have a right. That, along with looking for complexity and depth, is hard to do. Making a commitment to work that way requires a fearless kind of faith. That's what I meant by bravery. It is hard to persevere when one is aware of the distance from one's goal.

[Jackie]

Marianne, I think you are absolutely correct. Actually, committment was a recurring theme in my study as the teachers/administrators made sense of the Reggio-Inspired identity. The idea of committment seemed to be the dividing line between those who were seen as Reggio-Inspired and those who were not. You're reference to being "brave" here causes me to consider the idea further. Why, in your opinion, is making a committment to our beliefs about children courageous?

[Marianne Cane]

It is a brave thing to commit to making what we believe children deserve. I think it has to be renewed daily.

[Jackie]

I think you caught it but I don't think that everyone does; moving beyond the model view is difficult and something that seems to be built over time. I think there is a sense of developing "beyond Reggio" but that in the beginning the teachers tend to emulate Reggio, holding it up as a yard stick. However, this doesn't appear to be a negative thing, but a necessary step in the development of more innovative and political practice. Reggio serves as the catalyst for reflection, inspiration and projection. It seems to offer us both a reflection of who we are and a vision of who we can become. It makes the improbable possible.

[Marianne Cane]

The specificity of their experience was palpable. Lella and Amelia always say that Reggio schools can only be in Reggio Emilia, and that we, in other parts of the world, have to create school in our own contexts. I think that I wasn't really aware of my own context before visiting there. I know the teachers on this site from the MIddle East, from Portugal, from Indonesia, from Northern England, from Canada, from Colombia and elsewhere each have specific communities they serve, with specific images of childhood, of education, of culture, of care, of community. None of those images can be transplanted whole to anywhere else. Even specific schools have a culture and vision that lives in the people of that school. It has to be made new. The method of working is what travels, the inquiry, the shared exploration. Does that make sense?

When I was in Reggio Emilia, we attended a workshop at La Fonderia, a former foundry that is now home to the national dance troupe. That is a resource that is not available to the kindy teachers who travel around Australia. The projects that developed because both the schools and the dancers were part of the same community were specific to those people. Reggio Children shared the project, not because they wanted everyone to do it, but because of the vision of children, artists, community, humanity, etc, that it embodied.

[Jackie]

What a wonderhul posting Marianne! I have never been to Reggio and often wondered what it would be like. From all that I hear, I am sure it is dauntingly inspiring. Teachers that come back, come back changed forever. Teachers that have never been, talk about what they expect to see or what they have been told by others. Marianne, you made me think a lot when you write above about the value of time, of reading and writing about the children and about not wanting to "impose" on parents. It does indeed seem that parents are often-times very busy and that teachers will tend to give them pictures to appease their curiosity as you suggest. The civic initatives are another thing that not onlyu are parents unaware of, but often teachers as well. Hmmm...more to think about. Others???