Message from Tamara: Reggio Inspired

PIC staff at In-service August 2016

written byTamara Clark, Preschool Program Coordinator

Delving Deeper into Reggio Inspirations

Each year, PIC teachers gather for two sweet days of community, collaboration, and professional development. With such a large staff (nearly 90), we like to begin our days together with team-building and get-to-know you excercises. 

We also take a moment to celebrate our staff for their years of service. This year, Caterpillars teacher Jameelah Jones and Starfish teacher Meghan Fraatz were honored for 5 years. Doodlebugs teacher Marcella Handy was honored for 15 years and Fireflies teacher Joann Schock was honored for 20 years. We are grateful to have teachers that are dedicated to children and families every day and who are dedicated to our profession. Congratulations to you all!

This year, our workshops had a special focus on inspirations from Reggio Emilia, a philosophy of learning for young children. Teachers explored ideas of deepening child-centered curriculum and new ways to introduce concepts to children, including light play with projectors.

The poem, The Hundred Languages of Childrenwritten by the founder of the Reggio Emilia approach offers us much inspiration. It helps us understand that children express their thoughts and learnings in a multitude of ways.

The Hundred Languages

No way.
The hundred is there.
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
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
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
 
Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)
Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach