Philosophy
"The curriculum is not child centered or teacher directed. The curriculum is child originated and teacher framed...We have given great care in selecting the term 'negotiated curriculum' instead of emergent or child centered curriculum. We propose that 'negotiated curriculum' better captures the constructive, continual and reciprocal relation among teachers, children and parents and better captures the negotiations among subject matter: representational media and the children's current knowledge."
Innovations in Early Education: The International Reggio Exchange,
vol. 3, no.
Children’s Garden of Farmington offers educators many opportunities for professional development based on our current work and our current understanding of the principles of the reggio approach and how they apply to our setting.
Features of The Reggio Emilia Approach
Teacher Role:
- to co-explore the learning experience with the children
- to provoke ideas, problem solving, and conflict
- to take ideas from the children and return them for further exploration
- to organize the classroom and materials to be aesthetically pleasing
- to organize materials to help children make thoughtful decisions about the media
- to document children's progress: visual, videotape, tape recording, portfolios
- to help children see the connections in learning and experiences
- to help children express their knowledge through representational work
- to form a "collective" among other teachers and parents
- to have a dialogue about the projects with parents and other teachers
- to foster the connection between home, school and community
Projects:
- can emerge from children's ideas and/or interests
- can be provoked by teachers
- can be introduced by teachers knowing what is of interest to children: shadows, puddles, tall buildings, construction sites, nature, etc.
- should be long enough to develop over time, to discuss new ideas, to negotiate over, to induce conflicts, to revisit, to see progress, to see movement of ideas
- should be concrete, personal from real experiences, important to children, should be "large" enough for diversity of ideas and rich in interpretive/representational expression
Media:
- explore first: what is this material, what does it do, before what can I do with the material
- should have variation in color, texture, pattern: help children "see" the colors, tones, hues; help children "feel" the texture, the similarities and differences
- should be presented in an artistic manner it too should be aesthetically pleasing to look at it should invite you to touch, admire, inspire
- should be revisited throughout many projects to help children see the possibilities
