Early Childhood Models
Lynette89
ThemoveReggioEmilia-inspiredteaching.pdf
Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education
Volume 12 (2015), Number 1 • pp. 98‐108
98
VIGNETTE
The move: Reggio Emilia‐inspired teaching
JEFFREY WOOD,
Laurentian University (Canada)
TARA THALL, AND EMILY CARUSO PARNELL
Rainbow District School Board (Canada)
In the Rainbow District School Board, we have been refining our approach to Early
Learning and inquiry learning in the primary grades for the past five years. Our work in
Early Learning is primarily inspired by the preschools of Reggio Emilia, a city in
Northern Italy about the same size as the city we live in. The preschools in Reggio Emilia
gained international recognition for being the best in the world, beginning in 1991 when
they were cited in Newsweek magazine as one of the ʺbest top ten schools in the world.”
They have consistently won awards and recognition since. For 70 years the Reggio
educators have studied how young children learn, refining their theory of learning and
teaching.
The Reggio Emilia perspective shifts the focus of the classroom away from the
teacher and onto the students, viewing children as capable, self‐reliant, intelligent,
curious, and creative. This approach also treats the classroom as the ‘third teacher’,
encouraging teachers to take a great deal of care in the creation and setup of the
environment of the classroom and the materials that are introduced. Finally, this
approach positions the teacher as a researcher, documenting the children’s relationships
and interactions with people, ideas and materials in the classroom.
In the Rainbow District School Board, our understanding of the Reggio Emilia
approach is ever evolving. Each year we have decided on a new focus to help grow our
understanding of the elements involved in this type of approach. Some things we have
focused on in the past are: treating the outdoors as an extension of the classroom, using
the arts as a vehicle for learning and teaching, documentation as assessment, the
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building of community and exploring the concept of inquiry. What we discuss in this
vignette is the experience of one of these inquiries in an Early Learning – Kindergarten
classroom. Working on this inquiry were: Tara Thall, the classroom teacher, Emily
Caruso Parnell, providing arts support, and Jeffrey Wood, researcher from Laurentian
University. The students in Tara’s class were fascinated by movement, and specifically
dance. As a result of the children’s interests and the researchers’ observations, dance
became a focus of our work with the children in this inquiry.
A number of students in Tara’s class had a fascination with music so, very early in
the year, to capitalize on this interest and the students’ desire for performance, Tara
helped the students build a stage and gathered donated instruments. The children
would sing, play the various instruments and move on stage. Within weeks these
movements began to leave the stage area to the carpeted area used for whole class
gatherings. The students started to create what they called “moves.” As the children
worked on developing these ‘moves’ they began to share them at community time in the
same way that other children were sharing art, writing, or structures they had built. The
‘moves’ of the children in Tara’s class became a language that they understood and
readily used to communicate.
Figure 1 – “The move”
As researchers we recognized that the arts, as multimodal literate acts, are consistent
with children’s somatic learning nature (dramatists, painters, performers, dancers,
singers, percussionists and natural story tellers); as well, the arts tap the interconnected
ways young children explore and understand the world. The arts enable children to
express deep thinking and high‐level meanings without words or print. While children
in grades one and two are learning the to use the codes of reading, writing and
numeracy, the arts provide other means of expressing their thinking, connections and
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understandings, which may be more representative of what they know and can do than
traditional literacies. Through the arts we were able to see the child as a competent
learner and to better understand a literacy learning that is informal and visceral.
In the year this vignette took place Tara decided not to choose her own inquiry
question in advance of the school year but instead to watch and listen to the children in
her class and see what their interests were. She quickly noticed the children’s interest in
movement and musical performance. She became interested in the idea of movement
and wondered about the children’s attraction to this way of learning and expressing
themselves. This interest was brought into laser focus when a grade one boy, who was
visiting the class because he was not adjusting well to grade one, offhandedly remarked,
“I love to move, I love to draw, I love to build.” Tara immediately realized that his
preferred ways of making meaning in the world were not being recognized in grade one
and that was his point of struggle; it made her wonder about the rest of the class and the
children’s desire to move.
Figure 2 – “Flip” [name of the move]
JEFFREY WOOD, TARA THALL & EMILY CARUSO PARNELL
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Figure 3 – “Flip” [as drawing and as wire art]
Children are fascinated with the way their bodies move; they make connections with
themselves and the world around them through movement. Movement is a language
children can use to express themselves without using words. The children in Tara’s class
exuded confidence when they demonstrated how they moved.
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Figure 4 – “This [the name of the move] is a flower
JEFFREY WOOD, TARA THALL & EMILY CARUSO PARNELL
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As Tara focused her attention on the students’ ‘moves’ and wondered about what the
children were learning and expressing, the children also became more interested in this
activity. It seems that when we open up a point of inquiry or wonder around the things
that we do in the classroom the children themselves seem to pick this up as a point of
entry into their own inquiries and a place of wonder. It is our playfulness as we wonder
and question that invites the children to wonder themselves. But childrenʹs questions are
always so much deeper and richer and so much more than we, with our limited linear
ways of thinking, could possibly imagine.
Tara worked on ways to extend the children’s interest in dance and introduced new
materials into the classroom for the children to explore. She encouraged the children to
draw and re‐represent their ‘moves’ in different media. The children gained a better
understanding of their bodies by representing their ‘move’ on paper. Further
understanding of their body movement became evident when they were presented with
wire as a material to explore with. The wire became a means in which to tell the story of
movement. For some students, this study led to further exploration of movement and
encouraged them to collaborate in creating multiple person ‘moves’.
Figure 5 – Drawing of the move “Flower”
I like the wire. I was doing cartwheels and I was spinning. This is the cartwheels and I
made curling, it’s there [pointing at the page and the wire]; I was spinning. ‐ Hope1
1 Please note that the names of any children used in this paper are pseudonyms
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The music the children were singing, listening to and dancing to was mostly pop and
children’s music (Sharon, Lois & Bram, Raffi, etc.). This music interested many of the
students, but not all. Trevor was one boy who seemed not to respond to this music. We
assumed he was just not interested in doing ‘moves.’ While Jeffrey was documenting the
children’s ‘moves’, using his iPhone, Trevor asked if he had “Start Me Up [by the Rolling
Stones]” on his playlist. He did not, but the next time he was in the classroom he
brought the song with him. Trevor asked again and they played the music. Trevor and a
group of other boys who had not been as interested in the ‘move’ inquiry project started
to dance. The boys shared their ‘moves’ that day and engaged in the project as full
participants.
Figure 6 – “Start me up”
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Figure 7 – “The Tongue” [move to go with “Start me up”]
The children started to explore movement beyond the classroom and introduced it in
places such as the gym and outdoors. They started to create obstacle courses with mats,
chairs, and tables in the gym and classroom. The ‘move project’ then provoked a
curiosity in the children about the human body. They wanted to know what made their
bodies, how they moved and what gave them strength, and they did all sorts of
interesting scientific investigations. As they created these obstacle courses the children
started to explore concepts of pattern through movement and through the structures
that they created for themselves. And so, to accomplish what was required of the
obstacle courses, not only would the children have to move over and under and around
various objects they would also have to do specific ‘moves’ as well. Other children
explored patterns through movement and through music. They became curious and
asked questions about bones, the brain, the heart and how the blood flows. The children
excelled at showing us what they could do and what they knew; they were able to
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quickly take the tools we were offering them for the arts and apply them to subjects such
as mathematics, engineering, science, technology, and language.
When we use the arts in our classrooms as a vehicle for learning and teaching,
students who are otherwise quiet and shy often come to life and become leaders in the
classroom. In Tara’s class we observed that students would defer to these students as
experts of movement. The introduction of movement allowed otherwise silenced
children, like Trevor, to find a voice. The arts also allowed the children access to other
literacies such as math and writing, allowing them to scaffold their own learning across
literacies and giving them a vehicle to express and share what they knew.
For Tara, as well as the other educators we worked with, this inquiry developed a
deeper understanding of their own teaching practice, a deeper knowledge of the
students in their classrooms, and a greater appreciation of the power of inquiry,
pedagogical documentation, and the Reggio Emilia approach. Tara started to see
pedagogical documentation as a form of advocacy for her students in schools where the
children were only being seen through the narrow lens of curriculum expectations.
Interestingly, the grade one and grade two teachers at the school started to see the
children as literate and numerate individuals capable of great potential, and they no
longer viewed the children from a deficit perspective [which was prevalent prior to the
conducting of this research].
Tara appreciated the value of documentation as evidence of learning. She
experimented with creating an audit trail to survey and track the larger themes being
explored by the children in the class and to help her plan next steps in her teaching. In
her documentation we saw the capable child reflected, along with a growing awareness
of the individual learning story as well as the group narrative. Pedagogical
documentation proved an effective form of assessment within the complexities of the
Early Learning ‐Kindergarten classroom.
One of our greatest successes throughout this inquiry was the children’s response to
it. It was clear that the children wanted to participate because we spent so much time
focusing on them as learners and thinking about them first. Throughout the inquiry
process there were many opportunities for children to explore their interests through
multiple entry points. Student engagement was never an issue.
The problem with this vignette is that it is so neat and simple, and it was anything
but. This is the problem with story; we often brush over the complexity. We ignore all
that went into this before and after. The year before this vignette took place Emily had
conducted workshops on dance and the arts. Emily transformed a number of the
classrooms in her school, as well as various other spaces, so that interested teachers
could explore movement, visual arts and different materials, and through them the
concept of creating meaning and understanding the world through the arts. It was Tara’s
exposure to these workshops that made it possible for her to see the ‘moves’ as valuable
and gave her the tools to extend the children’s learning. Tara had also done a number of
inquiry projects in the past and had taught using a Reggio Emilia approach for several
years prior to this project, giving her the confidence she needed to follow the interests of
the children in her classroom. Another thing that is lost in this vignette is the sense of
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time; it lasted nearly the whole school year, as children entered in and out of this inquiry
project. The children seem to pick up and put down the ideas in this project and move
on, only to revisit and extend their thinking a few weeks later. Also lost is the fact that
there were other inquiry projects going on at the same time in Tara’s class with children
who had different interests. And, finally, it doesn’t address the day‐to‐day complexities
found in every classroom such as the diverse needs and interests of young children and
school board expectations. But it is these complex interactions that make this type of
teaching so rewarding.
Each of the teachers involved in our inquiries has gained a deeper appreciation of
the ability, curiosity, intelligence and self‐reliance of children. They have learned to trust
the children and to trust the environments they have created to support the children in
their care. Each teacher/educator has delved more deeply into the Reggio Emilia
inspired approach, gaining deeper understanding and a greater ability to listen to their
students. The educators have constantly said that there is an ease about this type of
teaching practice; one that comes from teaching in a way that resonates with the
interests and desires of their students. The process of documenting children’s learning
led to a deeper understanding of that learning and to the practice of assessment for
learning. Such a deep understanding of their students, and their interests and desires,
has led to greater student achievement in each of these classrooms. Many students who
would not normally have been able to cope at school have been able to find success in
the classrooms of these teacher researchers. “I like where we are… a much deeper place
than where we started.”
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr. Sharon Speir for her inspiration and guidance as well as the children and
families in Tara’s class for participating in this research.
About the Authors
Jeffrey Wood is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Laurentian University. His
research interests include: new/multiple literacies, early childhood education, critical literacies and the
Reggio Emilia Approach. Jeffrey can be contacted at [email protected].
Emily Caruso Parnell is a French Immersion Early Learning Kindergarten teacher in the Rainbow
District School Board. She is active in the arts community and serves on the PHE Canada, Program
Advisory Committee for Dance Education and is the Midnorthern Representative, Council of Ontario
Drama and Dance Educators. Emily can be contacted at [email protected] or through her
blog: http://teachingontheverge.wordpress.com
Tara Thall is an Early Learning Kindergarten teacher in the Rainbow District School Board. Tara is
passionate about early learning, inquiry and the Reggio Emilia Approach and has been conducting
teacher research into her own classroom practice for the past five years. Tara can be contacted at
[email protected] or through her blog:
https://aclassroomfullofcuriosityandwonder.wordpress.com/
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© Copyright 2015. The authors, JEFFREY WOOD, TARA THALL, & EMILY CARUSO PARNELL, assign to the University of
Alberta and other educational and non‐profit institutions a non‐exclusive license to use this document for personal use and in courses
of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grant a non‐
exclusive license to the University of Alberta to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web, and for the document to be
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