Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Well, they are not words we find in many of our textbooks about
quite used to them. But perhaps they are just indirect translations of words
structure"?
Hardly. And that is just what makes us nervous. How is it that a word
enter into dialogue with the Italian preschools, it occurs to us that perhaps
definition of young children. Perhaps our basic beliefs about early childhood
contain less pure science and more opinion than we thought. Perhaps there
Dialoguing Childhood
exist without an adult construct of it. At the same time, childhood will
AFTER REGGIO EMILIA 2
technology reveals many cultures, many values, many practices, and many
expect that, as it leads us to revise our construct of the child, it will also lead
Reggio, or the singing, dancing kindergartner (who does not fight over toys)
1989), we have come into dialogue with other forms of childhood and of the
conversation with these forms of life and practice. Like all real dialogue, it is
something which has already been said; every response a new statement.
We will never be the same after discovering the Reggio Emilia preschools,
but we will not simply replicate or reproduce them. Rather, the ideas and
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which bears the marks of our own history, our own privileges and
predicaments. Nor will the dialogue end there: as long as there is culture
and history, the ongoing inquiry into childhood, and best practices in early
Dialoguing Practices
But how are the American and the Italian constructs of the child and of
theoretical tradition, and the results of our inquiries into childhood are, so
far, roughly equivalent. We, too, identify the child as a "little scientist,"
responsive to the interests and capacities of the young child. We too are
elegant a term. The difference in the Reggio preschools' image of the child
has, has in fact, as much to do with their construct of the teacher as of the
child. We are just coming to see the value of dialogue between traditions of
early childhood, but what sets the Reggio Emilia preschools apart is the
extraordinary value they put on dialogue within their tradition. The Reggio
construction the final word. Therefore, ongoing inquiry into childhood and
conclusion (Tarini, 1993, p. 4). Actually this word describes, not just a
conflict. The Italians evoke this optimal level of conflict with the word
discozzione, meaning much more than discussing, closer to arguing, but not
cultivate the disposition to give reasons for our ideas and practices, and
expect, even invite others to question our ideas and practices, we are in a
Impediments to Dialogue
form of it results from swallowing the ideas of one major theorist whole. In
our enthusiasm, we do not see the weak side of the theory, or we invest
more belief in some element of the theory than the theorist intended. Our
interpretations of them.
the knowledge base of our field has a foundation in "hard" science, in our
and even if it were, we live in an era when even the hardest of sciences are
also how the presence of the observer always changes what is being
When both the "great theorist" and the "hard science" paradigms are
they prevent people from talking, from learning to dialogue about their
practitioners. The first has to do with our cultural and professional attitudes
towards conflict. We tend to fear and avoid conflict, rather than embrace it
hold each other's ideas, claims and assumptions up to the scrictest scrutiny,
fellow practitioners, our motto should be the Biblical proverb, "As iron
sharpens iron, so one person sharpens the wits of another" (Prov. 27: 17).
thereby leaving the differences which give rise to conflict intact and
AFTER REGGIO EMILIA 6
unexamined.
tend to avoid puzzling things out. This might be because our educational
system does not encourage critical thinking, or because we live in a culture
increasingly fixed over the life cycle. Whatever the reason, when we ignore
going on both within each of us, and with each other, we inhibit the process
with children and with other practitioners. It is basic to the nature of this
than any of our individual perspectives. This broad view keeps us unified,
our communal inquiry, but neither are sacred. What is sacred is our
conversation, and not even the conversation itself so much as the fact that
there is a conversation, and that we protect and nourish it, and teach each
mediocre practice; to clarify how children and adults are the same and how
they are different, and the implications of those similarities and differences
our best and worst practices are grounded in beliefs or assumptions which
theories, such as the notion that being "pre-logical" in the Piagetian sense
means not being logical at all, when in fact for Piaget, action itself is a form
of logic.
ideas about early childhood. The process involves the kind of cognitive
knowledge about our field? In order to do so, we will have to overcome the
from beyond us, as well as our fear of conflict, and our tendency to seek
the joys and rigors of communal dialogue, we discover at least one secret of
strong, powerful, competent, and most of all, connected to adults and other
children" (Malaguzzi, 1993, p. 10), but of an adult practitioner who fits that
responsive to the gifts and potentialities of the young child. May the
conversation begin!
REFERENCES
Edwards, C. (1993). Partner, nurturer, and guide: The roles of the Reggio
AFTER REGGIO EMILIA 9
Kessel, F.S. & Siegel, A.W. (Eds.) (1983). The child and other cultural
Press.
Kuhn, T.S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Second Edition.
Sidel, R. (1972). Women and childcare in china. New York: Hill & Wang.