In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia

Listening, Researching and Learning

Carlina Rinaldi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000368420
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Reggio Emilia's educational services for 0-6 year olds are widely acclaimed as one of the best systems in the world.

Now in an updated second edition, In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia offers a collection of the most important articles, lectures and interviews given by Carlina Rinaldi, who was President of Reggio Children for a decade, and pedagogical director of the Reggio Emilia Infant-toddler Centres and Preschools after working closely with Loris Malaguzzi, Reggio Children founder and inspirer of the Reggio Emilia Approach. She is currently President of Fondazione Reggio Children – Centro Loris Malaguzzi.

With a full introduction contextualising each piece of work, it offers a unique insight into many of the themes that characterise the early childhood curriculum of Reggio Emilia: participation, documentation and assessment; professional development; organisation; research; creativity; spaces and environments in education, and more. This second edition includes brand new chapters exploring the role of the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre; the natural complexity of becoming children; Rinaldi's speech on receiving the LEGO prize; and Jerome Bruner's friendship with the schools of Reggio Emilia and the author.

A deeply personal book, this is an invaluable resource for practising teachers, students and researchers. It is essential reading for anybody looking to further their understanding of the Reggio Emilia philosophy and pedagogical practice.

PART I

Carlina Rinaldi:
Writings, speeches and interviews, 1984–2004

DOI: 10.4324/9780367854539-1

1

Staying by the children’s side

The knowledge of educators (1984)

DOI: 10.4324/9780367854539-2

This piece was written for the national conference of the Gruppo Nazionale Nidi which was held in Venice in 1984. For a better understanding of the reasons for this talk and the one that follows, but especially the themes they deal with such as relationships, communication and participation, it is necessary to take into consideration some contextual elements.

That year, 12 years had passed since approval of the national law 1044 promoting the funding and construction of nidi throughout Italy for children aged three months to three years. According to this law 2,500 nidi were to be built around the country within the first five years. Yet by 1984 only a few hundred centres had been built and nearly all of these were in central and northern parts of Italy.

So the law had not been applied and more and more obstacles were created by national governments, especially economic. Only some municipalities continued investing money from their own resources to make up for the State’s lack of investment, and these municipalities were particularly aware of the importance of nidi because of their political orientation; most were in the regions of Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Lombardy, Lazio and Veneto, and most were governed by the left at that time. The task they faced was both to extend the network of nidi in particular and services in general (developing the welfare state) and at the same time to guarantee quality for the children, families and teachers. In order to support this search for quality and also to co-ordinate the political struggles which were emerging more and more among teachers working in nidi, the Gruppo Nazionale Nidi (now known as Gruppo Nazionale Nidi Infanzia) was started up in Reggio Emilia.

Among the aims then of the Gruppo Nazionale Nidi were the expansion of nidi and the consolidation of a concept which at that time was culturally innovative: the young child’s right to quality schools. From a proposal by Loris Malaguzzi (pedagogista and fundamental inspirer of the pedagogy and experience of the municipal schools of Reggio Emilia), the Gruppo Nazionale Nidi promoted (and continues to promote) national conferences and local seminars for the professional development of teachers. These are times for exchange about experiences, sharing reflections and constructing awareness of cultural and political commitment by those working in early childhood services.

This was the background to the 1984 Conference, organised in collaboration with the Commune of Venice. The topic I chose was actually agreed on by Loris Malaguzzi and the organisers. The theme of participation and organisation in the nidi was particularly urgent and of interest at the time because it was extremely difficult in many places (and still is) to understand that family participation was not a choice but part of the identity of the nido, the children’s right besides being the parents’ right.

Defence of and expansion of services could only come about with family understanding, solidarity and support, achieved by parents coming to the nido not to be instructed and educated on parenthood but to bring their parental knowledge. They would then see the nido as a place where value could be attributed to them and they could attribute value to childhood as a social and cultural heritage.

Forging the educational project in the community

Twelve years after law 1044 was passed and having got as far as the 5th Conference of the Gruppo Nazionale Nidi, in which we have often discussed (as we have in other venues and on other occasions) the significance and the role of parents within the nido experience, I will start by recalling all the things we have accomplished, at least at the theoretical level, and consolidated together. In the second part, I will look beyond the consolidation of what we have already accomplished and try to understand more fully and define more accurately our thoughts and actions, so that we can identify and pursue the areas for future advance, thereby gaining collective impetus and achieving new targets, though being aware of the fact that new ideas (and the participation of families in the management of education institutions is something new) always require substantial amounts of time to become established in our country, particularly when they introduce new cultural and political processes.

The accomplishments which I think it is important to recall (for a ‘historical’ – group – memory that allows us to advance our level of reflection) are as follows:

1. This is the century in which the quality of the parent–children relationship has emerged for the first time as a theoretical proposition (though tampered with, in practice), and as a public topic and issue, i.e. of a social and cultural nature. More particularly, it is the first time that a public education institution (i.e. the nido) has sought the active, direct and explicit participation of parents in the formulation of the educational project. [Added by CR when editing the 1st edition of the book: usually parents are expected to delegate responsibility to the teachers and rarely discuss choices which have been made for fear their children may be made to pay for questioning teachers’ decisions. For us, this was to be avoided at all costs.]
2. Therefore, over and above the frequent accusations of its limitations and ambiguities which do require urgent change, law 1044 represents a very advanced step even today, at least as far as participation and social management are concerned. It is advanced because it sanctions a public institution for the healthy child (not only the handicapped [Editors’ Note: the piece was written in 1984 and this was the usual term in those years for disabled] or sick child), and because of the definition and recognition it gives to the municipality as the managing body of socio-educational institutions. But most of all, it is advanced because it underlines the centrality of the nido not only in the relationship between educator and child but also in the interaction between family environment and nido environment. It does so not through illusory simplifications of theories of educational continuity, but by highlighting instead the dialogic nature and permanent dialectic quality of the relationship. [Added by CR when editing the 1st edition of the book: here I am underlining, for the nido, the centrality placed not only on the relationship between child and teacher but on the relationship between the child, teachers and parents. The meaning of the nido lies in the interaction between these subjects, in encouraging these relationships. The nido is a place of relationships and communication, a place where a way or culture of teaching is constructed.]
3. The nido is therefore a communication system that is integrated in the wider social system: a system of communication, of socialisation, of personalisation [Added by CR when editing the 1st edition of the book: I mean valuing the subjectivity of each person, child and adult], of interactions in which there are three main interested subjects affected by the educational project, i.e. the child, the educator and the family. These three subjects are inseparable and integrated; in order to fulfil its main task, the nido needs to be concerned and deal with the well-being of staff and of parents as well as with that of the children. The system of relations is so integrated that the well-being or malaise of one of the three protagonists is not only correlated but interdependent with that of the other two.
4. This well-being is closely associated with the quantity and quality of: (a) the communication that takes place between the parties, (b) the knowledge and awareness which the parties have of their mutual needs and satisfaction, and (c) the opportunities for meeting and getting together which arise in a system of permanent relations.
5. The identity of the nido therefore hinges on this system of relations-communications in which the active participation of the parents (both social participation and management) is considered an integral part of the educational experience.

   

   Figure 1.1 Arcobaleno municipal Infant-toddler Centre (Nido), Reggio Emilia, 1979

6. As we have often stated, if all this is to go beyond the purely conceptual and abstract, there needs to be a strong commitment at the organisational level – which is itself subject to constant appraisal and adjustment – and at the functional, methodological and political level. Everything else develops automatically from this, e.g. the architecture of the nido (the spaces and furniture), the methods and timeframes of communication, the working hours of the staff, the concept of collegiality and educational freedom, and the meaning and contents of professional development. From exchange and dialogue with families, new concepts emerge which define the very idea of participation and of the nido. [Added by CR when editing the 1st edition of book: a participatory nido is a school where one learns to listen, where the competencies of each person (child and adult) can be expressed and find appreciation, where progettazione is preferred to programmazione [see discussion of these terms on page xii], where the concept of democracy is not based on who has the majority but on the construction of consent, of agreed meaning, of mutual consent.]

   

   Figure 1.2

7. Finally, it seems to have been accepted that these processes of relations-communication, particularly between staffs–parents–local community, need organisation, conceived and implemented with the same flexibility as well as with the same skill and commitment required by the kinds of relations-communications and interactions we have with the children.

These theoretical assumptions, which have been developed, discussed, compared and enriched over the years, have become the convictions of many, but the customary practice and action of few. The reason is both because of the conceptual and cultural complexity of these propositions (since they break down and overturn beliefs and attitudes that are quite widespread and widely shared); but also because of a series of events and phenomena of a political, economic, cultural and social nature which have hindered their practicability to the point of raising doubts on their validity.

I will mention only a few of these events/phenomena which have characterised this century:

• a distinguishing feature of the historical moment in which we are living is change, movement and becoming. In Italy this has given rise to a large-scale and profound transformation of an economic and technological–social–institutional–moral nature and with a political dimension. This, in turn, has produced numerous and sometimes dramatic problems, the management of which has turned the attention of political forces away from the problems of education in general and of school in particular (where reforms have never been completed). As a whole, schools in Italy are seriously behind in comparison to other countries in responding to changes and new requirements and are undergoing a painstaking process in their search for a new role and a new identity;
• the policy of the welfare state has been massively attacked on many occasions in words and deeds (economic), as has, on the whole, the policy of decentralisation and participation, with criticisms that are sometimes well founded but also with prejudiced criticisms. This has caused a reaffirmation of the centrality of power and a rejection of every form of decentralisation. In practice this has led to a serious weakening of services both at the economic level and at the cultural, social and political level;
• all those many organisations which talk of participation, but do not make it possible for the real actors to act and decide by taking on responsibility, are going through a period of crisis. At times, there has been too much emphasis on participation but without a sufficient focus on its contents and on the participation processes, whose key players have not been properly analysed and have often been sacrificed between the quest for consensus and centralising trends.

Nidi (and scuole dell’infanzia) – though not in all cases – may actually be one of the rare exceptions where an attempt has been made to apply concretely the concept of participation as a way of forging, promoting and organising the educational project.

It should not be forgotten, however, that participation (meant not only in terms of the staff–parent relationship but also in its more extended form that creates a real network of relations that includes staff–parents, parent–parent, staff–children and parent–children relationships as well as the children–staff–parents–local community organisation–local administration relationship, etc.) is not an independent variable or an optional choice which may or may not be adopted. As we stated at the beginning, it is an expression of important values, it belongs physiologically to the concept of the nido, it is biologically innate to the very age of these children and it is decisive for affirming the educational concept of the nido (and not only the nido). This is why the nido cannot merely complain about falling participation and it cannot afford to renounce participation, particularly the dialogue with families, with parents and with the community: its very existence and survival would be undermined.

It is, therefore, not just a question of reiterating forcefully the basic accomplishments we were referring to earlier, reaffirming their validity and effectiveness at the cultural and political level. We need to take them forward as we have perhaps never done before through an analysis of facts, methods and actions. While we are perfectly aware that today everything is more complex than it was in the past – or perhaps just different – and requires greater intelligence and new interpretative frameworks, safeguarding and practising participation (we will clarify this concept later) means safeguarding the survival of the nido itself. It means reappraising and re-establishing the role and meaning of the nido in a society which, at least on the surface, would appear to be no longer interested in the nido. It means bringing the nido to the attention of politicians, administrators, movements and associations, trade unions and citizens.

We need a better interpretation of the facts, events and context that surround us. We have to analyse and understand the new subjects of the nido (parents–staff–children), who are still the same but, in truth, are always so different, depending on each situation. We need to avoid generic statements, slogans, words which are too all-embracing (such as ‘family needs’, ‘fostering relationships’, ‘communicating’, and so on) and make an effort to conjugate them and grasp their many facets. It means understanding new (and old) needs in order to construct new answers, though fully aware that there is nothing final about them.

It takes a major effort to do all this, but it must be attempted. I will begin to do so by relying not only on my own reflections but also on those of my colleagues in Reggio Emilia who are engaged in this permanent search. This, together with your contributions, should help us to leave this meeting not only equipped with more knowledge, considerations and issues, but also with suggestions on strategies to think about and apply. It is important to understand not only the subjects but also their behaviour, the links that connect them, their ways of interacting, the fields in which they are situated and operate, the power which keeps them together and separates them, and their constant change and transformation.

The family and the social context

If we apply the type of thinking we should always adopt in order to gain a better understanding of the new phenomena which characterise modern families, we need to start out from a number of considerations regarding the context (the setting) in which this family lives and operates, i.e. society, and go on to examine some of the many aspects which appear to be interesting ‘indicators’ for our reflections.

Our society has often been defined as the ‘fragmented society’ because it has shifted toward situations and mechanisms which are so ...