Theoretical Foundation
[ reggio emilia ]
[ reggio emilia ]
Embedded Files
We are going to discuss Visible Learning by visiting a classroom in Early Childhood Education inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach. In the book "Visible learners: promoting Reggio-inspired approaches in all schools6", we can read about a class where the children LOVE using the materials available to build wooden houses for animals. There was only one little problem: everyone wanted to use the only yellow door available among the blocks to build these houses. That was the only door tall enough for the dearest horse to go through.
So, what next? Everyone started fighting!
Tired of this chaos, Nicole, the teacher, decided to put an end to that mess. But it was an ending seasoned with a pinch of Reggio Emilia. Nicole had no doubt about what to do: she sat on the floor with the children and asked: “Class, what do you think we can do to end this row about the yellow door?”
[6] KRECHEVSKY, Mara [et.al.]. Visible learners: promoting Reggio-inspired approaches in all schools. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2013. 185 p. il.
Once again, a QUESTION.
Or better yet, a Thinking Routine.
How ingenious! The children in EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION themselves came to the conclusion that they should make more doors like the yellow one.
Therefore, they engaged in observation, participated in the creation process, and played with various mathematical concepts, materials and tools. There is a task to be performed - making an artifact (a door) - but the focus is on the process and its documentation, done by means of practical protocols that drive a powerful, continuous process of teaching and learning.
Established almost at the same time as PZ, Reggio Emilia Visible Learning for Early Childhood Education holds, in the center of its research, a philosophical belief: the child must be seen as a researcher of the world, while the adult must observe and document everything carefully with a solemn purpose: to listen to the multiple capacities and languages of childhood and make them visible.
Image: Istock - Credit: AsiaVision
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