Reggio Emilia approach (Innovative approach to Pre-school Education)

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
1

Hi
Anyone had tried their methods or had encounters with such contemporary approach?

There are a few books available but yet to be able to get hold of them :

The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach Advanced Reflections
[i]"The city-run early childhood program of Reggio Emilia, Italy, has become recognized and acclaimed as one of the best systems of education in the world.
Over the past forty years, educators there have evolved a distinctive innovative approach that supports children’s well-being and fosters their intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation.

Young children (from birth to age six) are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through many “languages,” or modes of expression, including words, movement, drawing, painting, sculpture, shadow play, collage, and music. Leading children to surprising levels of symbolic skill and creativity, the system is not private and elite but rather involves full-day child care open to all, including children with disabilities."[/i]

Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An Innovative Approach to Early Childhood Education
“This is the first book to integrate the experience of a year-long internship in the preschools of Reggio, Italy, with a four-year adaptation effort in one American school. It is the compelling story of an American intern living and working alongside Italian educators and her attempts to bring the practices and values she learned home to a school in St. Louis, Missouri Pub”

Many Thanks

2

Thanks for the post. Sounds interesting. I will definitely check it out. :smiley:

3

There is a Reggio-inspired preschool near us so I did a lot research on Reggio and on the Montessori method. There are quite a few Montessori schools to choose from around where I live. I visited the Reggio school as well as about a dozen Montessori schools. My impressions are probably not fair because I only saw the one Reggio school and many Montessori schools but I have decided that while there are things I like about the Reggio method I like the Montessori approach more. If you Google “Reggio Emilia vs. Montessori” you should get some good links for articles comparing the two. They have a lot in common but I feel that the Montessori approach will fit our son, and our goals for him, better (assuming we decide to send him to school rather than homeschool). Although they are both “child-led” philosophies, it seems to me that Montessori is more structured and more focused on academics, while still keeping a good balance with the “practical life” aspect. If you have resources for both in your area I would say check them all out because just the variation in the program leadership and teachers could make the difference for you.

4

I am going to play devil’s advocate, as I like to do. I’m not trying to be offensive, just provoke an interesting, deep discussion.

When your child is ready for preschool, shouldn’t the next step in educating your child, after you have used the Doman method for the first three years or so, mainly be to read a lot of books? Presumably, that’s what all the learning has prepared a child to do. Why would you go from one-on-one learning of the names of the states, the presidents, the elements, etc., to intensive play with manipulatives?

And I have a question. When I read a book to my boy who seems to enjoy it, are we being “child-centered” or “teacher-centered”? Aren’t these terms nonsense when applied to book-reading, which should increasingly be the main focus of education as one gets older.

Books, that’s where the knowledge is. You can learn a lot from experiments and manipulatives (we do), but in my opinion the focus has to be books first and foremost. You can’t learn vocabulary and concepts from cleverly-designed blocks. You can’t learn the stories and facts that have shaped civilization that way.

5

Re book-reading vs. “child-centered” education, see this: http://coreknowledge.org/CK/about/print/RavitchDefends.htm

6

Thanks all for sharing! There are so many theories and approaches…
It is really great to learn about the diversity, pros & cons of each towards such a big topic ‘education’!

While preparing my kid(s) for the society, i love to remind myself
“Knowledge is the daughter of Experience” (acc to Leonardo Da Vinci).

I am glad to learn so many things from all of you here!

7

Okay, DadDude, you have succeeded in provoking a discussion. I will take the bait.

Not to be rude or offensive, but since you started it, here we go. :rolleyes: For someone who espouses the benefits of reading and critical thinking, you do not seem to have done your research on this topic. If you had, you would know that Montessori (at its best) is highly focused on academic learning, it’s just that the methods differ from traditional schools. By Kindergarten, most Montessori children can read, write, know their numerals, and can do simple math. They have also been introduced to geography (learning about the continents, other countries, other cultures, etc), and science (how does a seed grow into a plant, what is the life cycle of a butterfly, what makes some things float and some things sink), and have been exposed to activities that stimulate and help develop their tactile, auditory, visual, olfactory, and gustatory senses. They have learned to respect their teachers, each other, themselves and the materials with which they work in the classroom. They have learned to dress themselves, prepare simple snacks for themselves, and clean up after themselves.

Now like all teaching methods, it is only as good as the people who implement it, so Montessori schools can vary a great deal. I visited one so-called Montessori school where I would never send my child in a million years. Montessori is not a licensed term; therefore, anyone who decides to use the term Montessori to describe their school can. There are associations that provide accreditations to Montessori schools, though, which provide some assurance that they adhere to the core principals of the philosophy.

The “natural” method discussed in the book review to which you provided the link sounds a little like the Waldorf method. I will not choose to send my child to a Waldorf school, but I can imagine that it provides a learning environment helpful for certain children who are not succeeding in more academic settings. And by the time they get to high school, children in a good Waldorf school are tackling an impressive array of subject material and serious reading. Check out the high school curriculum “Main Lesson Subject Block” and reading list at the Washington Waldorf School. Not bad for a method that says it’s no big deal if a child is not reading until age 8 or 9. http://www.washingtonwaldorf.org/High_School_Curriculum.html

The “project” curriculum described in the book review sounds a little like Reggio Emilia. Again, implemented badly, it will have bad results. Implemented well, I believe it can probably result in a good education.

Here is a link to an excellent article comparing and contrasting Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and Waldorf. Please do some reading and then let’s continue this very interesting debate!!

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=famconfacpub

8

very interesting discussion! Sorry, have nothing to contribute as I know nothing much about the systems (except a little about Montessori), but I’d very interested in learning more about it, esp on Waldorf and Reggio Emilia.

9

I’m going to set aside all characterization of who knows what. If you must assume that I don’t know enough to engage in conversation with you, then ignore me. I actually learn a lot from conversation and do not require that people learn certain things or agree with me before I converse with them. Anyway, if you are game, then let’s look at arguments, which I find much more interesting.

Let me try to explain my point, which I explained very briefly. I agree that Montessori provides a much more solid and academically sound preparation than most preschool methods. But, to reiterate, I find it strange – not contradictory, not irrational, just a little odd – that parents would go from teaching their children by using flashcards and reading, in the first three years of life or so, to teaching their children by the heavy use of manipulatives. In other words, if you find Doman and the like to be compelling, you no doubt think that early reading, and the early learning of many facts by reading, is “where it’s at,” educationally speaking. I would think that the preschool approach to follow most naturally after Doman would be to read more and more books, videos, and similar educational media. I don’t know if it will mean anything to you for me to say so, but Doman is more in the “instructivist” vein than Montessori, which is more “constructivist.” They strike me as being at odds.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I don’t mean to criticize anyone. I mean, you might start with one method and switch to another kind of method. You might have all sorts of legitimate reasons to do so. What interests me is that the methods would both be recommended in the same forums and nobody seems to notice the tension between them that I do.

10

I apologize for how I came across in my previous post. Setting all that aside, I’d love to continue this interesting debate.

DadDude, you seem very organized in your approach to educating your kids, and have determined exactly what methods you want to use. I am not at that point yet, so I am still exploring various methods. I agree with you that Montessori is more constructivist and Doman is more instructivist. But from my admittedly limited knowledge of both (mostly from reading, not actual experience) it seems to me that both include some of the best elements of both approaches.

For example, it seems to me that some of the key aspects of Doman’s math and reading method reflect a key element of constructivism – “that all learning is seen through the conceptual framework of the learner and new learning must be fitted into this framework”. For example, Doman emphasizes over and over that if you can present abstract ideas (i.e. quantities) in a concrete way (dots), children will learn. Numerals are not presented until the child understands quantities. Mathematical operations are presented first with dots, which are concrete representations of quantities, and then once the child has this framework, numerals can be introduced. So, Doman seeks to “construct” knowledge rather than just teach by rote. As another example, for teaching Encyclopedic Knowledge, it seems like everyone says it works best to choose material that the child is already interested in. Wouldn’t that be considered “child led”? Maybe I’m getting confused…

Similarly, while Montesorri fits the definition of constructivism much more than instructivism, Montesorri emphasizes the “prepared environment” which is very much teacher-planned. Also, in a purely Montessori environment, the materials are meant to be used in very specific ways, and the teacher introduces new materials in a very specific manner, showing the child exactly how to work with them.

I’m probably overthinking this and interpretting the definitions of instructivism and constructivism improperly, but anyway…

It actually hadn’t occurred to me that there would be “tension” created by using both Doman-inspired and Montessori-inspired approaches, but they are very different approaches so I guess I can see there could be some conflicts. Like I said, I’m trying to develop materials and a system for use with my son, so I’m very interested in understanding better where you are coming from on that. The reality is that at some point we will be putting our son in preschool (I work part-time, right now we have a nanny), and we will likely choose a Montessori preschool. There are no preschools around us that use a Doman-type approach. If I want to continue using Doman-inspired techniques at home, he will be getting a mix but maybe that would not be a good idea. I’m already using a mix of things; maybe that is not a great approach.