Is there anybody sane left in education? I just received an email from an Alexandria, Virginia resident about a Methodist Church preschool that will be teaching preschoolers using the “Reggio Emilia” method. What is the “Reggio Emilia” method, you might ask? Behold, (with the appropriate grain of Wiki salt):
Children must have some control over the direction of their learning . . .
Reggio Emilia’s tradition of community support for families with young children expands on a view, more strongly held in Emilia Romagna and Tuscany, of children as the collective responsibility of the local community. . .
In the Reggio approach, the teacher is considered a co-learner and collaborator with the child and not just an instructor. Teachers are encouraged to facilitate the child’s learning by planning activities and lessons based on the child’s interests, asking questions to further understanding, and actively engaging in the activities alongside the child, instead of sitting back and observing the child learning.
Because after all, 3 year olds should be deciding what they are interested in learning. Imagine a nation where children believe they are the center of the universe, that they get to decide everything, imagine a nation where an entitlement philosophy dominates. . . oh, wait, I don’t have to imagine.
And if the child centric universe wasn’t bad enough, get a load of the physical plant:
The organization of the physical environment is crucial to Reggio Emilia’s early childhood program, and is often referred to as the child’s “third teacher”. . . .Major aims in the planning of new spaces and the remodeling of old ones include the integration of each classroom with the rest of the school, and the school with the surrounding community. The importance of the environment lies in the belief that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments which support “complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing ideas. The preschools are generally filled with indoor plants and vines, and awash with natural light. Classrooms open to a center piazza, kitchens are open to view, and access to the surrounding community is assured through wall-size windows, courtyards, and doors to the outside in each classroom. Entries capture the attention of both children and adults through the use of mirrors (on the walls, floors, and ceilings), photographs, and children’s work accompanied by transcriptions of their discussions. These same features characterize classroom interiors, where displays of project work are interspersed with arrays of found objects and classroom materials. In each case, the environment informs and engages the viewer.
Now turn the gobeldeegook dial up to 11:
As children proceed in an investigation, generating and testing their hypotheses, they are encouraged to depict their understanding through one of many symbolic languages, including drawing, sculpture, dramatic play, and writing. They work together toward the resolution of problems that arise. Teachers facilitate and then observe debates regarding the extent to which a child’s drawing or other form of representation lives up to the expressed intent. Revision of drawings (and ideas) is encouraged, and teachers allow children to repeat activities and modify each other’s work in the collective aim of better understanding the topic. Teachers foster children’s involvement in the processes of exploration and evaluation, acknowledging the importance of their evolving products as vehicles for exchange.
It comes as no surprise that John Dewey is behind much of this movement. Dewey was one of the famous defenders of Stalin’s Soviet Union. He contributed to the New Republic in the 1920′s articles praising Soviet Russia while at the same time millions were being murdered in the Gulags. Dewey even travelled to the Motherland in 1928 along with other revolutionary educators to examine the Soviet methods of education. The only surprising thing is that this self professed “progressive” education method has taken hold inside a small Methodist Church school inside the Beltway.
You can read more about the Reggio Emilia program over at the Center for EcoLiteracy, and ponder the question “What initial connections are you making between the way of learning at Reggio and the themes of this institute—sustainability, science, art, and design?”
Thank you. I needed a good laugh to lighten my day. But once I finshed laughing I was sad, realizing that some people think this is a good idea.
Children are endemic liars, grifters and fantasists: this is because their grip on reality is not strong and they have had few morals instilled in them.
Let them instill us instead and J.K. Rowling will be President and half the world will be in jail for child molestation.
The subversives have discovered that you can save a lot of money on the gulag and KGB side when you have brainwashed the whole population.
They are creating generations of retards (no offense meant to challenged persons).
In the end, the People will “freely” elect a subversive as CiC….
Oh, wait…
Resistance is futile.
Why are you laughing? it’s maria montesorri’s method. It’s been used for decades. John Dewey simply borrowed it.
My friend from high school is trained in this method. She works at a private preschool. It’s a high-wire act that works very well facilitating very creative children.
If you think about it, it’s professionalizing a family home- creative, interactive, filled with plants…adults responsive to children’s interests. It’s allowing for a flexible curriculum. Most kids don’t attend specialized preschool that focus on their interests- dinosaurs, and so on. This is a way to that, with explanations.
Reputable preschools and childcare centers already build their physical plant like this- windows on the doors, windows on the offices, so people walking by can see what the kids are up to, and the kids can see each other.
“windows on the doors, windows on the offices, so people walking by can see what the kids are up to, and the kids can see each other.”
1. Kids don’t need to see each other. People “walking by” don’t need to see the kids, period.
2. The worst thing you can do to a classroom is add big windows. Windows = daydreaming outside and other distractions. Anything that institutionalizes big classroom windows to the outdoors to become part of the external “community” is a non-starter. Sure, add natural light galore, but don’t bring the distractions of the outside in.
nu…the big windows are around the central courtyard, usually. They are pre-schoolers. they need sunshine.
Purely as a matter of security I only enrolled my children in schools with windows on the doors, so that walk-by observers could monitor the classroom as the day went on. Preschool can be a high-stress activity. It’s usually poorly paid. Some teachers are not up on good pedagogy, and resort to inflicting pain on children, or even corrupting them. I want to be able to see what’s going on.
It’s for small children. They’ll be absorbed in good lessons. They’ll tune out teachers who ought not be in that classroom. Same as any other pedagogy. They don’t have long attention spans. They like seeing other children play.
My children were enrolled in two separate preschools. One was a Methodist church one, built around a central courtyard. Two sides were small classrooms. Two sides were the church. One side had church offices- the pastor and the assistant pastor, one side had the church, and the small kitchen. The children were intimately woven into the rhythm of that faith community. They learned more than I expected. They had a schedule that was administered with great kindness and wisdom. They’d have naps and snacks, with the teacher guiding them. They did have lessons, both cooked up by the teacher, and cooked up by the director,some by parents, and some by their interests. It was a lovely, small, respectful community. It had a waiting list to even get in.
The second was administered by the city. It was a small cottage refurbished into a school. They spent half their time hiking around the park that is was in. The lessons were set up by the teacher, but they followed along with their interests, . These were mostly little boys, so their interests were the curriculum- animals, dinosaurs, machines, planets. There was a front gate, and a locked front door since a walkway to the park was right in front- but within the house, all the doors had windows.
Maria Montessori pioneered the Emilia Reggia method. It is a notably successful curriculum. Children are naturally curious. Respecting this helps them develop mastery at various levels. They learn that they can focus, and succeed. They aren’t directionless sorts that need a therapist to figure out what they want to do with their life. I know you think this means they’ll all join drum circles in a public park. The kids I know who’ve been through this are focussing on (1) engineering (2) banking and high finance (3) cardiology (4) physical therapist in a hospital setting (4) professional session guitarist and (5) math and physics research. That’s just the kids I can think of, off the top of my head.
ari:
You’re killing us. Where’s the punchline? The clue that you’re attempting satire? Even Swift dropped clues here and there in A Modest Proposal. Using Swift’s example, you could at least include a recipe for Roast Brat On A Skewer to let us know you’re kidding.
Do they have robots dressed as nurses with TV sets for heads?
Doesn’t sound so different from Montessori. Why all the negativity?
Montessori doesnt work for everyone. Didnt for my kids, even though my wife is a Montessori teacher we transferred them to traditional schools. It has worked for others though. The founders of Amazon and Google were Montessori graduates. So was Julia Child and, of course P. Diddy. All examples of self made individuals who used creativity and drive to create something that did not exist before.
Traditional school is no great shakes. We are turning out generations who cannot think with no interest in learning. The best are rote test takers who seek the emotional reward of grades without any ability to think for themselves. We are drugging them to their seats with adderall in epidemic numbers. There has to be something better.
Instead of dismissing something out of hand why not find out more and see if there is something to be learned from this? Oh right, it is not on the test so why bother.
Sorry Spindok – anything that puts the 3 year old child in charge of determining priorities just isn’t going to fly. Children are not in charge, and should not be.
Cant speak for Reggio Emilia having only read a google article. Not that it stopped you. It does sound a lot like Montessori.
If you have ever been inside a Montessori classroom and seen a room full of pre-schoolers busy working with astonishing calm and sense of purpose with only one adult in the room it would blow your mind.
If it is anything like that your lack of knowlege is leading you down the wrong path. You are letting a phrase from Wikipedia form your opinions on something very complex which you obviously do not understand and have no experience with.
If you think it can be explained away with one liners walk into a room of 20 preschoolers and try and teach them something. Not so easy. Small children are indeed very willful. Maybe the trick is turning that energy into learning.
In Montessori there are lessons and there is order. Children follow what interests them and the teacher serves as more of a guide. They are still expected to gain competency in all areas and it is up to the teacher to help guide them to areas where they need improvement.
In older grades kids have more structure but more freedom to pursue avenues of interest as well. The system is more complicated than I can explain but I have seen it first hand and it works for many kids.
Montessori doesn’t work for everyone but math does. ‘Nuff said. If it’s hit or miss it’s living on rep not results.
Math is emphasized almost to a fault in Montessori early education. There is an entire section devoted to geometric and arithmetic relationships specifically designed to appeal to young children and exercise the natural curiosity that happens at that age. The iconic Pink Tower is a case in point.
So what is the issue about p diddy? The guy is a marketing genius if you like that style or not. He came from nothing and has net worth of 500 mil. I should be so stupid. He took something in its infancy and presented a product which is popular around the world. I like music, play drums, and gotta admit there is good stuff going on there. Music is that way. Always something new.
If these alternative ideas do not work for every student that should not be taken as a fail or just a dumb idea. Maybe the idea that there is one method which will work for every child is wrong. We need new and competing ideas. Charter schools, affordable options for parents with a child who is not succeeding where they are.
We need competative edge to keep up. We are failing in some ways. Innovation will win but requires an open mind.
When I was in a Montessori school until age 4, I learned the multiplication tables up through 9×9. I don’t think grade school covered those until grade 3 or 4, certainly not the whole matrix sooner.
I think I might have gone farther and far more easily in STEM if I’d happened to have stayed longer in that school.
“Montessori doesn’t work for everyone but math does.”
Montessori works very well for some people, even for math.
that happened with my math kid. He learned the plus threes when he was three.There were other little boys in his class who liked the same thing- threes- and the teacher would go over plus threes while they were out hiking in the park, since that’s what they loved.
I had long walks along the river, full of swans, and other people, and balloons, with my little boy holding my hand, bursting with happiness, telling me all the ways three can be added to another number. He found these walks marvelous.
His regular school teachers had a more fixed curriculum, and he didn’t get to work on pluses and minuses and then multiplication for a few more years. Then, the walks of mathematical pleasure resumed. We’d eat ice cream, and look at the stars, and multiply everything times three.
Pee Piddly went to Montessori? Now THAT’s funny!
Yo “ari:” see what I mean? See how spindok showed us he was only kidding? He tossed in a mention of Poop Doodie and that gave his game away, but in an elegant way. Forget Swift, just follow spindok’s example.
and Master P got schooled in Catholic schools. Do you want to snark on those, too? And Beyonce was a singer at her parents church in Houston. And Lady Gaga is a graduate of a girls’ catholic school.
If you’re snarking on pop culture, why not get excited about the songs on video games. They’ve got Jay-Z, they’ve got the Rolling Stones. They’ve even got the cathedral choir at Gustavus Adolphus, a private, religious college.
notice it says “some” of the curriculum. These are toddlers. They are curious. They have the whole world ahead of them. They want to learn everything, in a sequence. Haven’t you ever spoken to a little boy, and learned every last single latin name of every dinosaur listed in their !Multiple! picture books? For toddlers, that would mean putting out stuffed dinosaurs to play with, or dinosaur puppets, for puppet shows. Or a play diorama in a child’s wading pool- with sand, and plants, and plastic animals, for hands on play.
For pirates- you’ve got maps, and map-reading, and dressup, and digging big holes and piling up mom’s costume jewelry, and reading pirate books, and singing ” yo, ho, ho” and watching “muppet treasure island” and map-making. Toddlers, folks, toddlers. not sixth- graders- toddlers!
For knights, again with the dressups, maps, making shields from posterboard, plastic action figures, telling king arthur stories,practicing courtly good manners, watching disney movies, singing knight songs, plastic sword-fights. How is this not a good childhood?
This crap came to a fine school in Rye several years ago … and it’s ruined the reputation of that school. It’s all part of that over loaded self-esteem, “the child knows best” garbage that’s infected our school culture … public and private. And it’s usually championed by clods who have fled the classroom for positions in administration where, with too much time on their idle hands, discover this rot in some nearly unread magazine somewhere … and then torture their faculty into buying into it. Lots of fine teachers simply took off … others saw it as the opening that tipped them into retirement. And those that have stayed on are weary and burnt and angry because they are the ones who are NEVER listened to at all.
So now we have a mediocre school with a burnt out faculty … but happy little snowflakes who can’t count or sing the alphabet or deal with an iota of frustration without rocking the building like all-American brats.
And the sickest/saddest thing is that parents buy into this rot … and pay a small fortune, too! … to have their children put on the ramp to academic and social dysfunction. Someday some simple genius will open a pre-school and promise that … come the close of the year … every child will be able to count and recognize all the numbers … and letters in the alphabet. And they’ll know about proper behavior with other kids and adults. And they’ll learn simple manners … and how to follow directions. And some will even learn the lessons of mild rebuke and taste some disappointment as well. And know what’ll happen to that school? They’ll have a waiting list as long as I-95.
Do you have any children….toddlers? Many toddlers act out all the time. They feel like they have gained a wealth of knowledge and are unable to do anything with it. If you empower a toddler they stop screaming. They communicate effectively and they hardly act out.
Having a toddler choose which form of play he wishes to engage in or express himself with is not telling him he has the power to make all decisions. Instead it gives the child the opportunity to reveal how he would problem solve on his own. It allows the child to express himself in a creative way.
If you were open minded and compassionate this would be easy to understand. I challenge you to think or write down how many demands you or someone you know puts on their child in one day. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to be told what to do every minute of everyday??? Of course we have to guide our children and tell them things they might not want to hear very often. But this should make a parent think, are their opportunities I could give my child to think on his own, problem solve on his own, feel like he is in control of his own body and mind, could I word something different so that the whole day is not a battle? Could I guide my child to become independent, confident, and creative individual. Or should I control, battle, and raise a robot that only finds enjoyment in life from laughing at what he does not understand and superficially making himself feel just a little bit better about himself….because he did not have mother to present opportunities in his life to build true self confidence?