Reggio Emilia

Hi everyone

I thought I would share a few highlights from my professional development trip to Reggio Emilia and the Loris Malaguzzi center.

Over four hundred people from twenty seven countries were attending for the first time since Covid. Nine of us from the Blake school. The Reggio Emilia schools and municipality was very happy to see us. They took a group photo which was posted in the local paper. Can you spot me? I have to be honest it took me a long time to find where I was, but I am there!

Last week I listened to some inspiring pedagogistas(teacher or educator) and Ateleristas (Teachers with an arts background). We connected with other teachers all over the world . It will take a few months to process everything we have learned. I would have loved to have shared pictures of the schools we visited but unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos.

This is a photo I took at the Remida center which shows materials projected onto a wall. All of the classrooms in Reggio had materials displayed in this way. An open invitation for students to place materials in front of the source and explore the possibilities.

Closely linked with the Reggio Emilia schools is the Remida center. The Remida center re-purposes materials from over 200 industries. They carefully clean and organize them. Then they display the items like a shop. Members pay a small yearly amount to utilize the center. Many of the loose parts or small manipulatives used in the schools are from the center.

REMIDA, established in 1996 in Reggio Emilia, is a cultural project focused on sustainability, creativity, and research on waste materials. It fosters the idea that waste materials, the imperfect, are holders of an ethical message, able to stir reflections, which aim to be an educational resource, thus avoiding the definition of “useless” and “waste”.

Taken from the Reggio Emilia Remida website.