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A group of colleagues from SECE
had the opportunity to participate in a study tour to Reggio Emilia
in April 2000. The study tour 1asted for five days, with a full
programme running from morning till night each day. The programme
included talks and presentations by a range of personnel involved
in the 'Reggio Experience', discussion groups, and visits to infant-toddler
centers and preschools.
The 'Reggio Emilia Municipal Infant
-Toddler Centre and Preschool Experience' refers to a public system
of child care and education that has bean set up by educators
working together with parents and the community in Reggio Emilia,
a small city m Northern Italy, over the past 30-40 years. This
system has now attracted attention world-wide as a centre of innovative
practice in early childhood education, with its own distinctive
set of philosophical and pedagogical assumptions, methods of school
organisation and principles of environmental design. Its practice
is founded on a strong belief in the enormous potential of every
child - a child 'who is competent in building knowledge and a
constant seeker of meanings'. The focus is on encouraging children
to explore their environment to construct 'the meaning of what
they do, of what they say, of what they live', and hence promoting
the development of all their languages: expressive, communicative,
symbolic, cognitive, ethical, metaphorical, logical, imaginative,
and relational.
This public system consists of
a network of early childhood education services directly operated
by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. According to the information
provided by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, there are a total
of 54 preschools and 19 infant-toddler centres in the city of
Reggio Emilia in 1996 and this network includes 21 preschools
and 13 infant-toddler centres serving a total of 2246 children
of age between 3 months and 6 years. The other preschools and
infant-toddler centres are operated by Cooperatives, the State
government and various religious orders. In recent yeas, as interest
in the Reggio experience grows and requests for visits from oversees
increase, the Reggio city administration established a public
company REGGIO CHILDREN - International Canter for the Defence
and Development of the Rights and Potential of Children, in 1994
to promote and disseminate their work. Further, after the visit
by the Italian Minister of Education in 1995, the Italian Ministry
of Education officially recognised the value of the Reggio early
childhood system and made a proposal to begin building common
programs for the development of teacher training throughout the
national educational network.
Teachers in the Reggio infant-toddler
centres and preschools and supported by pedagogistas and atelieristas,
who assisted with the project work and art activities of various
kinds. The teachers themselves are not required to undergo formal
pre-service teacher training. After graduation from senior high
school during which they would take education, child study or
psychology courses, and a highly competitive selection process,
the Reggio teachers are provided with extensive on-going in-service
professional development through seminars, workshops and experience/project
sharing sessions.
As shown in die following visit
reports by SECE colleagues, the week in Reggio Emilia represents
an interesting and insightful experience. The key organiser of
the study tour; REGGIO CHILDREN, was very concerned about protecting
its 'intellectual property' and there were a lot of restrictions
on tour participants, such as not allowing the taking of photographs
or videos. Anyway, OMEP-Hong Kong has succeeded m getting a QEF
giant to bring "The Hundred Languages of Children: Exhibit
of the Municipal Infant-Toddler Centers and Preschools of Reggio
Emilia" to Hong Kong in 2001, so that anyone interested will
be able to see displays of the Reggio Experience.
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