The changes that have come with the Corona virus have disrupted everyone’s lives, relationships, routines and expectations. President of Reggio Children, Claudia Guidici said (regarding COVID), “This completely unknown and unforeseen situation obliges us to rethink our daily way of life, our work and our relations, our way of seeing others and everything that surrounds us.” Uneasiness increases when we add inequality and civic unrest.The structure of care and education for the coming year is uncertain, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.
While there is a plethora of sources for parents and teachers to access to support relationships and learning for both children and adults, we have been moved by the civic generosity of Reggio Children in making their current work freely available and translated into English. There are several kinds of offerings.
The first, via Reggio Children, offers a collection of small proposals “to develop ideas and initiatives, for us to stay together, play together, and make school together.” The accessible provocations are loosely organized: stories, sounds, drawing, number, digital, etc.
For many years we have wanted to better understand the work of the teachers in Reggio. While inspirations from Reggio Emilia are not intended to be copied, educators from Reggio Emilia are regularly making distance learning experiences visible, which serve as powerful examples. The Reggio Children – Loris Malaguzzi Centre Foundation (Fondazione Reggio Children Centro Loris Malaguzzi) promotes the Reggio Approach around the world.
"These are proposals that, despite the difficulty of not being able to attend school, going out, meeting friends or playing outdoors, allow children to investigate, think from different points of view, graphically represent, explore with the imagination to support their curiosity and desire to know."
These online documents give us a glimpse into teachers’ thinking and planning which deepen experience, not only in the context of the digital environment. They provide intriguing starting points for distance learning.
https://reggiochildrenfoundation.org/onlineactivities/?lang=en
Please regard these online provocations as a framework and consider how they might affect your planning. The breadth, depth and accessibility in the workshop design are remarkable.
Reggio Children is also offering, for the first time, live webinars at relatively modest tuition, presented by teachers, pedagogistas and atelieristas sharing narratives, images and videos of projects from their educational project. The webinars are structured very much as presentations during Study Tours. Webinars are in Italian with simultaneous translation voiceover in English. There will be a new schedule of events for the fall.
https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/e-learning/webinar/
We would like to encourage everyone to document and reflect on your experiences as we adapt to our current circumstances and would love to gather traces and reflections inspired by Reggio Emilia. We are interested in working via any of the distance platforms with you, at any step along the way. It’s a fresh opportunity for collaboration. Contact Lani Shapiro at lani.shapiro@gmail.com and/or send an email to reggioinspiredmn@gmail.com
-Lani Shapiro