Karen Haigh
Since approximately 1993, I have had the wonderful, ongoing and evolving experience of working with various teachers, administrators, and programs exploring, adapting and reinventing the principles and practices of the Reggio Emilia Approach to early learning within some of Chicago’s Community-Based organizations and public schools.
I have heard others question the value of the Reggio Emilia Approach’s usefulness, practicality, and potential within the North American context. Furthermore some question its realistic use with children who are at risk or from low-income communities, as well as its practicality within large bureaucratic educational systems for young children such as Head Start, subsidized Child Care, or State Pre-kindergarten programs.
Experiences with principles and practices of the Reggio Emilia Approach within the Chicago area and its programs have been effective and beneficial for children, teachers, and parents as the learning process is embedded in, supported by, and promoted through experiences involving relationships, communication, creativity, and context. Each and all are essential to meaningful and complex learning.
Before sharing more about the Chicago experiences exploring and innovating the Reggio Emilia Approach, discussing and describing this particular approach is important. This approach uses social constructivism along with symbolic languages to support and sustain learning. It pays exceptional attention to the learning process. In Insights and Inspirations from Reggio Emilia: Stories of Teachers and Children from North America, (2008) Lella Gandini highlights the following key principles of the Reggio Emilia Approach:
- The image of the child: All children have preparedness, potential, curiosity
- Children’s relationships and interactions within a system
- The role of parents: Parents are an essential component of the program—a competent and active part of their children’s learning experience.
- The role of space: amiable schools
- Teachers and children as partners in learning
- Not a pre-set curriculum but a process of inviting and sustaining learning
- The power of documentation
- The many languages of children
- Projects: Projects provide narrative and structure to the children's and teacher's learning experiences (p.. 25-27)
Many educators from the USA, as well from countries all over the world, have visited the schools of Reggio Emilia or heard presentations by Reggio educators in order to further understand the learning process and its connections to experiences, communication, context, and creativity. Just last May, 50 Chicago area educators participated in a USA-Five State Study tour with approximately 200 educators from Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Missouri.
This type of learning expedition occurs often in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Additionally seminars related to Reggio Emilia often occur within the USA. One such example is an annual conference held by the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA). Often educators from the US (and at times from Reggio Emilia) engage in presentations and dialogue as ideas and strategies for learning are exchanged. Lastly, an exhibit, The Wonder of Learning: The Hundred Languages of Children, created by Reggio educators, travels throughout the United States in order to offer another type of learning opportunity as extraordinary documentation of children’s ideas, experiences, and learning processes are portrayed. This exhibit often is accompanied by a series of professional development opportunities for area educators. NAREA is, along with Reggio Children, the coordinator of the "Wonder of Learning Exhibit" which plans to be in Chicago from July through December of 2010.
Now I would like to return to the Chicago area experiences inspired by Reggio Emilia, in the past few years. There are various types of programs in the Chicago area exploring aspects of the Reggio Emilia Approach in harmony with their own interpretations and contexts. Some of those programs are from the suburbs, some from the city, some are from affluent communities and some from low-income communities. I would like to focus on experiences exploring Reggio elements within some of Chicago’s lower-income, inner-city communities. These include programs such as Early Head Start, Head Start, Subsidized Child Care, and State Pre-kindergarten. The age range is from infants through approximately 10 years. Many of these programs had contracts with and were monitored and accountable to various city, state, and/or federal departments.
About the Author:
Karen M. Haigh is currently assistant professor of early childhood education at Columbia College Chicago. She has been in early childhood education for over 30 years. She was the former Child Development Director for Chicago Commons. For 12 of her 15 years there, she organized, led, and inspired the Chicago Commons Reggio Exploration. In 2008 she collaborated on the book, "We Are All Explorers: Learning and Teaching with Reggio Principles in Urban Settings" with Daniel and Sandra Scheinfeld. Currently Karen also consults with the Chicago Public Schools and Head Start.
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