BEPS Reggio Emilia Study Tour 2012

Friday 27 April 2012

Friday April 20th - Discussions with Teachers, Pedagogists and atelieristas

Francesca, Myself, Nerida and Maddalena

Shelves full of various documentation in the Centre for Documentation and Educational Research

produced by the 64 schools of Reggio Emilia, Infant Toddler Centers and Preschool (and now State School)

Centre for Documentation and Educational Research adjacent to the exhibition center of Reggio Children, Marca Gerra

Friday the 20^th of APRIL

Discussions with teachers, pedagogists and atelieristas

Maddalena Talking about the International Primary State school

She is the pedagogist for the 3-6 yr

We have two years of time determine literacy and numeracy

Unfortunately teachers are using a textbook and these text books are then the deciders of how the teacher is going to teach that topic.

So it is publishing houses that are determining the curriculum in this case. The teacher supplies a simplified version of this textbook. We have abolished this textbook, we are building this educational approach it is it the most interesting and important job the teacher has.

What we are doing at the center is putting the teacher in the frame.

The approach is not yet based on research that is testing.

In the future, the school is still based on a discussion on reasoning, on assessment what we are trying to achieve, Our challenge is to construct a way of working where we see children as people, we will have a interdisciplinary approach where we have time to carry out investigations, as well as small and large groups, where we take the opportunity to work with many expressive language and the technological languages that children are aware of, a great variety of experiences and languages, learning experiences where we are not trying to pass down knowledge from high down, in January we are going to have an in depth look at our Primary school. February we look at the continuality of Primary, February 17^th-23^th, 2013, this is an important week as it is Loris Malaguzzi’s birthday in depth look and a publication will be produced looking at this review?? Not sure I heard correctly.

What do we mean the graphic language does not involve a unilateral interpretation? It is language closely connected to many other languages, it is a languages that learns about itself, a person can learn as they are learning about the subject they are drawing, light and form depth about the immaterial nature of things, and they can also just learn how drawing can make our learning visual. Drawing can also be theory it can be very close and exist along side other expressions such as writing. Just think about a music score how it is written and it’s played.

The graphic is constantly interacting with other languages. It is also has to do with representing movement how a body moves in space. Other materials also resemble drawing such has wire and the body as well. These materials kind of draw in space, like lines in a way.

How do we support children to see themselves as inquirers? I think that having curious adults that are capable of amazement it creates that invisible energy of learning. For children to be able to see that an adult is getting amazed and learning along with them is a strong impulse for their learning. There are two sides to that tho, it is important not to be too naive, not just ohh how amazing, not being superficial – don’t consider them cute or nice it is so superficial for an adult.

We should not accept that a child just makes a comment about a research or topic, lets say a group of children are discussing, don't list there series of opinions or ideas, there must interact have a dialogue. Our thoughts and ideas need to mix, if the teacher has this approach, they are trull listening. Are you sure? What I think of that is the teacher supports critical thinking, not just supporting political correct ideas.

These were the last words I heard from the Conference that really has left quite a deep impact on my teaching and learning. Our team, Amy, Amelia, Nerida and I, are still yet to dissect the the importance of this conference to our teaching at BEPS, but we are keen to impart our knowledge with our colleagues, and are preparing for a presentation to share our thoughts and learning next week. At which time we will be able to collectively update this blog and I hope share what changes this experience has brought to our students' teaching and learning.

Marca Gerra Exhibition Hall

document of the theatrical curtain in the Loris Malaguzzi Centre

Thursday 19th of April - Traces of Children's Graphics in Town

Thursday 19^th of APRIL

International Centre Loris Malaguzzi –Auditorium

“Traces of Children's Graphics in Town”

Maddalena Tedeschi

Video Hall in the Marco Gerra Exhibition Hall.

It's important crucial, vital that children have these connections with their community.

When given the opportunity, these connections take the form primarily of graphics. They go beyond the obsticals of what is perceived struggles with presentations or relationships with members of the community to create a new culture, new cultural work. These are evident in the exhibit Traces of Children’s Graphics in Town, where we wanted to make an event a very public event, drawing attention to ourselves and what we do in the community. Schools were asked to chose one shop or place in town and make graphics of it for display for the community, in children’s language of graphics/signs/messages/drawings. Using this Italian language:

Graphic – using a tool

Senyo – making a line

De Senyo – receiving a line

We set up a date present throughout the town on the 12^th of November for the town to come alive with children’s work. Each school chose a place in the old town, places chosen were, restaurants, food markets, bookstores, libraries, bottle shops. The schools were to work under the conditions – SHORT TIME TO WORK – GRAPHICS WITH NO COLOUR

This was to offer people opportunities to see the work we do in our approach.

We wanted images to be poor simple graphics – we wanted to build a relationship with the work we do everyday in the community. It was not to display the work we do in the centres but pieces of everyday work. The language of signs and drawing language we all posses.

Loris Malaguzzi, “(Graphics is) a neutral language which belongs to all children” It is important to be extremely cautious in all the interpretations we do here, interpretations can not be unilateral”

MATTERS THAT LEAVE TRACES

Documents of learning, Matters that Leave Traces types of marks - teachers exploration

Gulliver school

Isabella Meninno

Children draw with pleasure we need to provide environments and spaces for children to do this everyday!!

Sometimes children specialise and build up models, concepts or ideas – these draw form over time.

We are interested in the context we offer children. We wan to be able to better analysis our adult work in the contexts we offer the children. If we offer different materials what might happen, we ask ourselves, this was the driving force of our project, in display in Reggio Children.

What happens on plastic, felt, corregated board, cardboard, tin. What might happen in the image of the work and when children are doing it. A kind of magic.

Do adults know the materials they offer do they explore them, themselves first, a kind of deconstructing their thinking. HOW TO PROPOSE THESE IDEAS WITH CHILDREN!

UNCOMPOSED CHAIRS

Robinson school

Atelierista Loretta Bertani

Our objective was to decompose the chair – a great provocation

We looked at the language of mark making. We looked at children feeling well, staying well, our first project was the table. I nthe beginning we used special magnifying lens looking at food. At the mathematics of setting the table, looking at settings in many different ways.

When asked to chose a place in the town we looked at a restaurant, we were very concernened with the well being of the table , taking acare at the table in context of where we were ‘in a resturant’ and at the context of taking care in general. The children visited the restaurant and considered this and with permission took a chair from the restaurant to work with in the classroom.

They asked themselves what is it that makes you feel ‘ well being’ at home at the table one child said ‘ I feel well at the table’.

They looked through the conversations had wit hthe children and considered the ‘boredom of waiting’ and how children deal with this in a restaurant nad at home.

Children experiemented with the many different tools used at the table and focused on the material napkin and looked at the the many formations they could make with napkins.

They used the language olding, smoothing, opening, tearing rolling into a ball, opening with oyur hand.

There was an empathy between the material and the children and the material.

The children used a cut out of the chair photographed to re-draw it as an animal and crocodile as a graphic to assist their imagination. A relationship between a chair and a body is researching they learnt.

They look to destabilise the child body to become transformed. 4 different perspectives from children were shown, their quotes were shown also.

The teachers choices are of great importance in the way the project unfolds, they came to decisions based on students work in 2-3, small groups and medium sized groups of 8-10. The children worked out, being watched by others was very important this helped them focus their ideas. They asked themselves what is the adults’ role of intervention.

Kids lend and loan ideas from each other giving advise. These expressions exchanges are legitemized by the adults’ work and observations. Students work journeys are individualised by the 27^th of Oct ready for presentation Nov 21^st, all changes are annotated. It is really important for students to look at their drawings, their work over time. Giving the children that time to look over their work this happens a couple of days a week, this is very very important.

To Recognise and Reknow

They asked the children in relation to the project ‘Is it easier to draw a child in a composed or uncomposed way on a chair”. New journeys will they be porportions or disporportions.

Points of View

International Centre State School

Francesca Manfredi

Documentation is shared by people over competencies, experiences and points of view.

It attributes to experiences that have been lived it is not a narrative – it is a point of view.

REALITY IS A DIMENTIONAL SUBJECTIVITY

Subjective nature of seeing it over time.

Drawing is not only a gesture but a thought. Drawing activates listening to ourselves in a more active way. The drawing traces, the idea and emotions which the reality has generated within us. Not drawing which is illustrative but drawing that describes the idea of things. “How we represent the dialogue of things”. The world is made up of many things material if we as a team create a dialogue with things (ie: trees in the woods) we create a greater capacity to see them – to look with concentration > this is the stopping slowing down of time.

Drawing is provisional. We must keep Alive this sense of complexity that is part of reality. Do not flatten or break down this complexity.

This may be reflected in

TRANSPARENCY IN ROOMS

DIFFERING LEVELS

EXPLROING TRANSFORMATION THROUGH MATERIALS

STUDENTS HAVING OPPORTUNITIES

EXPERIEMENT WITH CONCEPTS AND TIME

Caring and observing gardens also represent this, this is very important.

TIME WITH MATERIALS IS A VERY LONG TIME.

Transformation is intr\egral to our ways of seeing and looking it is represented through materials to explore materials.

WE MUST GIVE OURSELVES TIMES AND PSACES TO WORK DIRECTLY WITH THE CHILDREN AND MATERIALS. WE AS ADULTS EXPLORE PLACES FIRST TO CREATE MAPS AND POINTS OF VIEW TO HELP US ORIENTATE THE WAYS THE STUDENTMIGHT EXPLORE THE SAME AREA. Kids look at multiple geographies of the same world.

Schools’ whole RE community Project – old city

Super marcato Xian Hua

Kids chose materials from the supermarket and bought them back to school. They made compositions with these objects. They noted different variable in light, composition, creating order and relationshios between things. There are rhythms and justapositions, linear and non-linear.

KIDS MAKING DECISIONS

Their representations appear mathematical.

POINTS OF VIEW means realities that are multi-dimensional

TEMPO – Time

SOGGETTIVITTA – Subjective

What materials do we choose?

What types of things do we want to present?

What ideas do we want to explore?

What is the relationship between the contexts we have?

A HABITAT OF EXPERIENCES OF THINKING OF IDEAS

An ecosystem of the environment and context.

Children – How do they think, connect to adults thinking, connection to other children’s thinking???

Children need to reencounter the same contexts they need to find out if it is a stable realisation.

Teachers it is fundamental the point in which we create contexts.

We cannot consider an experience as a stable encounter if they have only experienced it once.

Reminded that each encounter changes as no two experiences are the same!

We are opening many different entries ways into learning> providing each child his or her own way of learning.

MULTIPLE ACCESS POINT TO LEARNING

We need to have joy, fun learning dialogue or the well planned thought out experience will die!!!

It is the process in which the adults assess themselves they have to through the children’s ideas see if they offer them the best possible conditions for learning to take place.

Wednesday 18th of April - Anna Frank Preschool visit

School Visit years 3-6 ANNA FRANK

Traditional playground

Looks like an average school from the outside

theres a play area underneath, many of these 70's playgrounds are
visible throughout the ground

2^nd School opened by the Municipality with Reggio Emilia Principals – It went against the local government practices in determining itself – this was a revolutionary act.

3-6year old school were only private owned by the catholic association. In 1968 the state and local government were capable of opening up their own schools.

The neighbouring area where the school is situated is significant as the local was designed for young couples, families and workers people came here from the country due to the 1960’s economic boom. There was a public library, high school and primary school built at the same time. The innovation of the area is also part of the innovation of the school. The space was designed with equal importance of the space. Obviously the school has done a lot to encourage participation across the community. The effort of participation was high at the school. The housing design in the area created spaces where people could met such as balconies and gardens. The school has interviewed many people from the community such as elderly and teachers to create a memory.

In 2004 it inaugurated 40’s with an exhibition they will have the next in 2 years their 50^th!

There are SO MANY PLANTS HERE.

IT is the story of Anna Frank who wanted and had the right to an education.

At the start their were 3 classes and 33 childrne per class now there are 104 children and 4 classes with an atelier in each room and cucina. Loris Malaguzzi asked ‘please follow the graphics of the children’, when they began they did not have an atelierista.

From the beginning the students stay with the same teacher for their 3 years of education, there are 26 children with 2 teachers (there was a student teacher in each room the day we visited). They have 1 cook and 3 people who are employed to help clean up the place each afternoon, OHSC is from 7:30 to 6:30.

In the mini atelier for our visit they children with be clay building – they must present themselves in this clay work in a group and present the understanding of the message of nature. In the other room students will experiment with colours on tissue paper – how the effects of colours present on different materials. In the other class they will tlk about landscapes. In a physical constructivity they will experiment with the wide, horizontal, flat, light of landscapes. In the mini atelier materials will be collected from the park, vegetables that are grown also. There will be a real survey of what is a vegetable. In the mixed classroom the house of hands made by clay and graphics drawn at the base. There will be an experiment and research of beautiful shapes on the light table and on the projector the house of hands.

5+ verticality in clay of trees. The colours and representations of flowers. There is also a nature project by a group of students about the city. Clay people with other clay people are being constructed creating an overall clay city of their community – this is for an exhibit in June at the International centre.

OBSERVATIONS IN THE CLASSROOMS< the CHILDREN ARE PRESENT

Kids construction area

In the atelier in the 4+ room a roll of paper on the floor teachers take notes of what students are doing and saying.

KIDs have boxes with their picture and names on the front of them, opening the draw their pictures are inside these are labels for students to put on their own work – good idea.

The roof has a paper sculpture, all around students are surrounded by graphic presentations of the past. Students are playing with natural materials on the paper, shelves are made out of bricks and Perspex.

Kids construction area

Lots of use of mirrors to deflect and distribute light

Plenty of space for construction

Shelves and all objects ordered – there seems to be a sense of order in the selection of objects – generally they are constructing on the ground on a light box and ground height or standing height, some have a light projector shining a light on their work, all have mobiles hanging down into these spaces with delicate mobiles presenting the possibility of materials – where connections can be made.

Observation in the atelier – Atelierista was working with 5 students only they were working on clay bodies for the group exhibition

Lots of use of mirrors to deflect and distribute light

Plenty of space for construction

Observation in the mixed room – Students were working in a multiple of ways throughout the room, most were constructing the first play house

This was probably the most fascinating 20 minutes spent in the centre there were a group of kids who were drawing on acetate on the light projector creating a backdrop for their animal tableaux. The room was darkened so the projector had an intensity and seem to master the room, behind them were a group of girls constructing crystal worlds on the light box. They way they worked together was interesting, the kids with the projector realised they could alter the head of it and played with these dimensions chasing the light, the teacher saw them do this and wrote about it.

These paper sculptures seem in each room, all different versions create such volume and what I feel is the beginning of a conversation about materials, purpose, care and meaning.