Reggio Inspired...the short of it:
In the Reggio Approach there is what is termed the 100 languages of children. Each medium is a language used by children to communicate their ideas and self with the outside world. “In this view materials are vehicles for expressing and are part of the fabric of children’s experiences and learning processes rather than as separate products. [...] The ways in which children invent with materials are often unexpected and surprising; therefore, it is important for the adults who work with children to adopt an attitude of freedom and open-ended possibility toward the children’s work.” (In the Spirit of the Studio, p.17).
This approach to teaching has transformed my view not only on how children learn but how important the aspects of exploration and joy in creating are. I have gone ahead and taken out a few more excerpts below from “In the Spirit of the Studio” that really share what the concept is about.
“Loris Malaguzzi said that children are the best evaluators and most sensitive judges of the values and usefulness of creativity. He elaborated on this thought by explaining that children easily explore and change their points of view, and that their creative acts are born out of, and are part of everyday life. He also said that ‘our task is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible.’.” (p.31).
“Space is given over to creativity. In this conception of work, creativity is no longer something that belongs only to art; it begins to become a way of thinking that takes the process for building knowledge into consideration.” (p.37).
This is it...this is what teaching art is truly about! “In my opinion, the atelier, or studio, is not only about the arts. Neither is it about something in addition to the work we do in the classroom. Rather, it is about linking the experience of our lives as teachers with the children’s lives and waking up together in the world of a new geography. This is the geography of the imagination. The territory is defined by sensations felt within children and indelible impressions made by each encounter with materials. The landscape reflects lasting, essential memories the children will carry through life of color, of the way things feel, of how something appears; a place where memories are created deep within the child, shaped through everything made there. The studio is a place for learning all kinds of techniques, and a place for research. ‘The studio space is not an isolated place where artistic things happen. It is a laboratory for thinking’.”(p.49)