Reggio Emilia approach to learning grows: Schools teach creativity, collaboration and critical thinking

Posted in school
by Lorain County Moms

By Stacy Downs, McClatchy Newspapers

Five-year-old Kate Lucas stood among a circle of her classmates, holding a picture she had drawn. Black Sharpie lines formed the outline of a modern building. Sections were filled in with purple, yellow and red colored pencils.

“This is Berkley,” the blond girl said, smiling as she talked about the exterior of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Education’s Edgar L. and Rheta A. Berkley Child and Family Development Center. The preschool is one of a handful in the Kansas City, Mo., area inspired by Reggio Emilia, an Italian city that Newsweek heralded in 1991 as creating one of the best school systems in the world.

The philosophy is that a classroom’s play inspires a project, promoting creative and critical thinking and better group collaboration. Kate’s class showed an interest in architecture. So architects have visited, and classmates are exploring structures through drawing and sculpture. The theory is that through these projects, fundamentals such as math, science and reading come through, too.

“What are architects’ drawings called?” teacher Kendra Waddill asked.

“Blueprints!” her pre-kindergartners called out.

The Reggio Emilia approach is gaining popularity in early childhood centers, usually set up for infants to kindergartners. A new school, Bambini Creativi, has recently opened in Kansas City, Mo. Webster University in St. Louis, Mo., offers a graduate program that teaches using the Reggio Emilia approach.

Loris Malaguzzi, credited as a Reggio Emilia pioneer, came up with the constructivist educational approach in response to the fascism of World War II.

However, the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero has used the Reggio Emilia system in numerous grade levels at Boston-area public schools. Individual achievement is often emphasized at traditional schools, but at work and home, we collaborate in groups. Reggio attempts to mirror that collaboration.

“I think a lot of teachers had a profound experience,” said Steven Seidel, senior research assistant for Project Zero. “We found that not only can learning groups be highly productive, they take individuals to places they couldn’t get to on their own.”

But there were some painful moments, especially at the high school level. Getting students to share and appreciate one another’s ideas could be challenging.

“I remember one of the teachers starting to cry, and we all asked why,” Seidel said. “She said, ‘I don’t think my students think they’re capable of having ideas.’?”

No individual gets left out, administrators say. Early-childhood teachers act more as researchers, documenting what children say about projects. Those words, photos and video show up in daily class meetings, student portfolios and framed work.

That documentation is critical, because it shows how much learning is going on, Berkley director Polly Prendergast said. “And it communicates the thoughts of the students, teachers and family. And then that communication becomes community.”

Reggio classrooms forgo traditional rows of desks and overhead fluorescent lighting. Instead you might find homey floor and table lamps and the frame of a small wooden house. Clear jars are organized by color and material: pink markers, green glass tiles, yellow yarn. Children use the materials in art and other studies, but they also represent “100 languages.”

Malaguzzi hatched the metaphor for expanding learning beyond just a few core-subject methods.

Brianne Teevan-Bongiovanni has taken “100 languages” to the nth degree at the school she founded, Bambini Creativi.

The dramatic 20-foot-tall entryway displays shelves of 100 glass jars filled with materials, including reddish-brown brick from her grandmother’s house. Malaguzzi wrote a poem that is displayed next to the jars, and in Italian on the reverse side. An excerpt:

The child has

A hundred languages

(and a hundred hundred hundred more)

But they steal ninety-nine.

The school and the culture

Separate the head from the body.

They tell the child;

To think without hands

To do without head

To listen and not to speak

To understand without joy.

“Isn’t that powerful?” asked Teevan-Bongiovanni, who is 32.

She grew up in Kansas City, attended the Kansas City Art Institute and moved to Chicago to become part of the Second City improvisational comedy troupe. While working at the Chicago Children’s Museum, she learned about Reggio Emilia. To create exhibits, employees interviewed children about what they’d like to see and adults about their favorite childhood memories.

Teevan-Bongiovanni created an exhibit called “Winter.” White and silver fabric streamers dipped in eucalyptus and peppermint oils hung from the ceiling. Ventilation fans and pans of blue ice cubes teamed up to create a chilling experience.

“It was winter but in a way that people would like it,” Teevan-Bongiovanni said. “Not the season’s hassles. Just the good stuff.”

She was so enchanted by the learning process, she decided to open a school. But a loan officer told her she should first study in the actual Italian city. So for two years, she lived there, observing and helping in schools.

She also met her husband, Enrico Bongiovanni, who is a chef at Whole Foods in Overland Park, Kan. He’ll be teaching cooking classes to Bambini students.

“But he didn’t go to one of the amazing preschools,” she said. “I just thought he was cute.”

Case studies have shown that those who were educated in a Reggio-inspired environment grow up to be problem-solvers and collaborate in groups more successfully.

“That’s important in the 21st century,” Teevan-Bongiovanni said. “Instead of being an expert in one thing, it’s more important to have flexible skills so that you can do more than one thing in the workplace.”

When she moved back to Kansas City, she organized playgroups at First Fridays in the Crossroads Arts District. The environments she created were art installations, made from salvaged window displays from Anthropologie, Armani and MAC. One, called “Vortex,” featured more than a dozen ventilation fans.

“The children and the adults loved it” she said.

Teevan-Bongiovanni invented similar concepts in the design of Bambini Creativi, a building that had been vacant for 12 years. She kept in mind the environment as a “third teacher,” a significant aspect of Reggio Emilia.

Walls and furnishings are painted in stimulating colors such as tangerine, lime green and bubble-gum pink. In the nature “atelier” or learning center, pea gravel and stepping stones cover the floor. “Crocodile” and “kangaroo” ferns flourish in a hanging wall garden of living plants. Colorful birds live in cages.

Kids can explore a “creek” in a water atelier. An inspiration kitchen is stocked with toy and real utensils, separated from the real kitchen only by a window and a glass wall. That way, students can observe food prepared by chefs.

On a recent weekday, children who will be attending Bambini got a sneak peek of the school with their parents. Caroline Miros of Overland Park, with 3-year-old daughter Emmy Grace and 2-year-old son John, crunched through the rocks. With a magnifying glass, they examined the texture of moss balls and a starfish; Bambini also has a microscope.

“This is so different and exciting,” said Miros, who was a preschool director in Iowa before moving to the Kansas City area. “It will give kids more open-ended experiences. … I can see the kids feel like it’s their space.”

The outdoors serves as a classroom, too. Based on interviews with children and adults about their memories of playtime, Teevan-Bongiovanni created a Dr. Seuss-style hilly playground in the back of the school that features tunnels, footbridges and playhouses — one designated for mud pies.

Other area schools inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy also incorporate the outdoors in learning. Pembroke Hill Early Childhood Center students frequent Loose Park, which is next door.

“The students talked to a man at the park the other day who was gathering chestnuts from a tree,” early childhood principal Mary Page said. “He talked about how they’re used for medicinal purposes and food. The interactions are great.”

Initially, some parents challenge the play-based approach. What about the fundamentals, such as reading, writing and math?

Those come along with the projects, administrators say. For example, in the architecture study, students will learn how to identify colors and shapes, how building begins with the letter “B,” the history of the structure and the science and engineering of building construction.

Many parents say children do best with structure and a daily routine. If children are leading the learning, how does a teacher control the classroom?

Page explains that although Reggio Emilia doesn’t have lesson plans per se, each day consists of a meeting to discuss what was learned that day and the day before. There are long periods of uninterrupted play time (90 minutes or so), and lunch is at the same time each day.

“It takes a lot of teacher planning and collaboration for projects and all the documentation,” Page said.

Another criticism can be the price tag. A lot of Reggio-inspired schools tend to be private and expensive, often more than $1,000 per student per month for an all-day, full-week program. But because Reggio Emilia schools were conceived for everyone, regardless of socio-economic status, schools give financial aid and provide other opportunities. Teevan-Bongiovanni offers Saturday workshops for children ages 1 to 12 that are $60 for a several-week study.

One of Prendergast’s favorite aspects of Reggio Emilio is how the classroom is democratic and collaborative. Students, parents and teachers come up with rules.

“Instead of thinking of children as the ambassadors of tomorrow, they’re the ambassadors of today,” Teevan-Bongiovanni says. “I like that.”

Characteristics of Reggio Emilia

• Teachers as facilitators. Teachers don’t show their expertise. They research subjects alongside students and guide them toward different avenues of learning opportunities.
• Parents as partners. Framed photographs of each student and his or her family are displayed in the classroom. Parents are invited anytime to learn with students and teachers.
• Project-based learning. No worksheets, rote memorizations or pre-cut crafts. Children, through play and discovery, are capable of learning and expressing themselves without them. The Montessori method, also based in Italy, is play-based education with lesson plans. Research shows that play encourages critical thinking, executive function and self-regulation.
• Classroom as wonderland. The environment is called the “third teacher.” Shadows, color refractions and reflections help spark imagination and curiosity. Mirrors, mobiles and light fixtures that create shadow play are common. At Bambini Creativi, wall sconces change color. Nooks, windowsills and countertops display natural treasures such as rocks and branches. Imaginative play spaces are tucked underneath stairwells.
• Documentation. Students’ words and actions are recorded through journals, blogs, photos and video. Their works are compiled in portfolios and are displayed in frames. Large projects are often published in a book or made into a movie to give to children and their parents.
• -Family-style dining. Kids learn to share dishes of food, use cloth napkins and eat with proper utensils.