HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
Looking historically over the past 50 years, how has the socio-cultural milieu played a part in the development of the Reggio Emilia Schools in Italy and schools in the U.S.? Explain in your own words with references to the assigned readings & class discussion.
Over the past 50 years the socio-cultural environment has served a very important role in the development of the Reggio Emilia Schools in Italy and schools in the U.S.. These relationships seem to closely follow the philosophies and teachings of Dewey, Piaget and Vygotsky that are summarized in our Rankin reading.
ReplyDeleteLike Piaget’s philosophies, the socio-cultural environment in the U.S. over the past 50 years has really been focused on the individual and what he or she needs to do to better him or herself and move ahead. We are very focused on knowledge alone and the fact that whoever has more of it will become more successful. This has been carried into our education system by developing a very planned out and specific curriculum that follows internal, invariant, sequential, and hierarchical stages of intellectual development that we believe all children go through. We also recognize that there are only two players in the education game the teacher and the student and that these two are quite separate. The teacher is the boss and controls the learning while the student follows the direction and guidance without question.
The Reggio Emilia Schools, as well as the Italian culture itself, is quite different. They seem to more closely resemble the philosophies of Dewey and Vygotsky. After the end of World War II the Italian culture was filled with liberation. The community was focused on rebuilding their culture and society and developed a philosophy that focused on the collaboration of everyone in society. Everyone worked together to rebuild their society and were very open to any and all opinions. This was all carried into the Reggio Schools by Malaguzzi’s thought that “it's not so much that we need to think of a child as one who develops himself by himself but rather of a child who develops himself interacting and developing with others”. In comparison with the U.S. education environment the Reggio Schools consist of three players which are the teacher, student and environment. Here, each player shares an equal part in the education process and are all learning collaboratively.
The school systems in both Italy and the United States have changed dramatically over the past 50 years and will continue to do so over the 50 years. The main reasons for these dramatic changes are because of the continually changing views we have towards children, and some very influential people surrounding these ideas.
ReplyDeleteJohn Dewey was very instrumental in these changes. He viewed education differently than the traditional methods. To him, education was “active and constructive”. You can see a lot of his theories in the schools of Reggio Emilia. Here, the children are not taught through lesson planning, but rather a series of projects in which teachers are constantly changing what they will be learning on a day to day basis to accommodate the needs of the children.
One of the very instrumental changes in the education system brought about by Jean Piaget was the concept of internal conflict in social situations. Letting children make mistakes and fix them by themselves expedites the learning process. This theory is very apparent in Reggio schools where they take a hands off approach to mistakes made by children. They let them figure things out for themselves. You can see this somewhat in American schools, but it is much more profound in Reggio shools.
Lev Vygotsky’s claim to the reformation of the school system is the popular “Zone of Proximal Distance” (ZPD) theory. The ZPD emphasizes that the child is at one level of knowledge, but has the ability to move up to a higher level. The higher level of knowledge can be reached through attentive and forward thinking teachers who use their previous knowledge, as well as the student’s abilities to teach them.
In the United States, a lot of the changes were brought about through new state standards and regulations. Children were required to have a certain knowledge base that was set forth by the government. As a result, school days were lengthened for kindergartners in order to fulfill these requirements.
The most interesting thing to me about the socio-cultural aspect that affected the educational landscape in Reggio Emilia was the fight for secularized education. This grew out of the fact that the Catholic Church had a virtual monopoly on education up until the first municipal schools of Reggio Emilia i.e. Robinson. This break, or separation of Church from State, was fundamental in establishing the cultural and educational perspective of the school’s philosophy; crucial in establishing the image of the child. The schools started out from a grassroots organization of parents, teachers, and pedagogical theorists, so it was natural that the municipal Reggio Emilia schools would need a strong cultural, diverse, and unhindered view of what it mean to teach and BE a child.
ReplyDeleteIn the U.S.’s mentality during this period was that the child was considered a pre-adult, and thus unworthy of the full potential of human respect. Children were merely “blank slates” awaiting to be molded into model adults that would facilitate the industry and economy of the age. We in the U.S. had a very narrow focus of education in during these Cold War years. We focused much educational resources to producing “Industrially competitive” members of society, concentrating particularly on the math and sciences.
In the Reggio Emilia philosophy however, something drastically different was emerging. “Things about children and for children are only learned from children.” In other words, the ADULTS were the ones learning from the children; the role reversal or the reciprocity of Student and Teacher that seems to run through the core of the Reggio Emilia philosophy. The idea of the children as teachers and adults as students is one that was at all odds to the philosophy of U.S. schools at the time and unfortunately throughout most of today’s, although one can now see the changes that the Reggio Emilia schools have caused by the emergence of an educational movement away from “Banking” and “Skill and Drill” methods, and towards studying and researching various pedagogical theories.
As simply put in the reading, you can't “do” Reggio, because it's not just a school. The Socio-cultural development of this region played an exponentially large roll in the development of Reggio Emilio schools. After World War II, the Italian nation was undergoing a culture shift from the reign of Mussolini into a liberation of freedom and development. The catholic church had control over the Italian schools, so the Reggio mothers wanted a secular school that they could be involved in to play an active role in their child's education. After the sale of a tank to start, the parents and Loris Malaguzzi volunteered time and labor to lift the schools into the high standards they are now – the best in the world.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the movie in class, I could not help but be fascinated with the fact that the educational system in the U.S. changed in different ways than the Reggio schools in Italy. Over the last fifty years, the development of the schools were greatly affected by the socio-culture of the given area. The Reggio Emilia schools follow the basic ideals of Dewey and Vygotsky. According to the article by Baji Rankin, "Malaguzzi's emphasis was on how theory and new ideas could be generative and useful in the teachers' work with children, as well as how their work with children could influence and shape theory and develop more new ideas. This dynamic, interactive view of theory and practice is similar to Vygotsky's dynamic thinking" (p. 32). The Reggio Emilia schools focused on the environment and creates a place for children to critically think and explore together. On the opposite spectrum, the schools of the U.S. began teaching the importance of thinking for oneself and the intake of knowledge through the subjects.
ReplyDeleteWhen all is said and done, there is perhaps no right or wrong way. I truly believe that there are people that learn better under the U.S. system of education while others would thrive in a Reggio school. Perhaps the key for our society is to understand both as much as possible. After one starts to understand the basics of both sides, I feel that there is a hybrid that can be used in the U.S. The Italian culture and the U.S. culture are far different from each other. There will never be a true way to implement either into the other country, however one can use the knowledge to allow for children to thrive in their educational development.
Simply put the U.S. version of schools, lends itself to a more specific, planned, and somewhat "uniform education", whereas a Reggio school develops off of each students knowledge consumption.
ReplyDeleteWhen Reggio developed, it was so taboo to go against the will of the Italian Catholic Church but it still happened, with the help of many, especially Malaguzzi. The education system however i feel benefited from this downplay on tradition, most feeling as if something different automatically meant "better". After learning about the schools i feel the same way.
The Main issue i feel with our school systems is the drastic dependency on the affluence of the school district. Especially in Ohio, the schools only have as much as the taxes of the area can provide. With ZPD, (zone of proximal development), the child is growing constantly because of the continuous inquiry. Now if this was implemented in the U.S., i feel that the students we have now would just slack off, because that tends to be the nature of our Nation. I concur with Megan that a combination with high congruency would be the most successful education plan we could implement.
Throughout the past 50 years, education has drastically changed in Italy as well as in the US. At first, the Catholic Church had control over the schools in Italy, and then following WWII, a new educational approach was created during a time of liberation, the Reggio Emilia approach. The social environment plays an important part in the development & success of the Reggio Emilia schools. The Reggio Emilia approach is considered to be “active and constructive” & reflects the theories of John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Lee Vygotsky. Reggio Emilia teachers find it very important that kids are having cognitive conflict/confusion because it causes change & encourages learning development & they purposely allow mistakes to occur because of this reason. Each theorist believed that social interaction helps aid the learning process. Piaget seen peer interaction as being crucial because children can learn a lot from other children who are experiencing life at the same level. Vygotsky thought that social interaction with people of higher knowledge helped speed along the learning process, such as parents & teachers. In the Reggio Emilia schools, teachers and parents are involved in their learning. Teachers learn alongside their students. They feel that the environment acts as a third teacher & enhances and facilitates children's construction of his or her own powers of thinking. In Italy, they find it important to take the classroom to the city so that the children can openly interact with the children & what they are doing in school. They value this form of social interaction. In the US, you don’t see as much of this occurring however because of our different cultural views.
ReplyDeleteEach decade seems to have its own guidelines for child rearing. Each generations's style seems to be contadictory to the last. In the mid 40's for example, the children that were brought up up so strictly in the 20's with every move they made being scrutinized, turned around and took a leanient approach to parenting. Our ever-changing views of childhood and parenting are effected by a lot of different things like politics, money, or just our natural instinct to rebel against our parents.
ReplyDeleteBut the differences in the Regio kids and our kids are not subtle. The "Palce for Reggio Emelia in the US" article said that the children are not just "passive recievers of art, science, math, language, and culture." I am sure that the kids did not just become this way over night. the kids that were used to the old teaching style had an ajustment to make, no doubt. But the liberation that the women of reggio were so passionate about so many years ago has begun a movement and i hope to be able to take a piece of it into my classrooms with me as well as in my household with my two young sons
Patrice Davis
First of all, I'd like to say, when I read the article by Stremmel, I was almost in tears on page 44! I'm not sure if it's because I'm a parent or not, but it REALLY makes me think twice about what I say and how I say it to my child- even (what I consider to be) the littlest incident. The words of Stremmel's son after daddy yelled at him for spilling a milk: "How can someone who is so important to me hate me so much?" will probably stay with me forever! Even in 2000, Goodlad still believed that, "[childhood] has not been accorded to existential human value equal to that of adulthood" (Goodlad 87). But how could they NOT be viewed as equal? If we do not value children THROUGH childhood, how are they going to make it past that and be considered valueable members of society DURING adulthood??? That notion really floors me!
ReplyDeleteGambetti is right: By learning the basics of Reggio Emilia, what we (Non-Italian) citizens of this world are doing is looking at childhood in our OWN cultures and considering how WE value it and what we should change. Reggio Emilia is a great reflection point on what we have done and should do for OUR children.
Over the past fifty years schools in both Italy and the United States have undergone changes. socio-cultural milieu has played a roll in the development of schools in both countries. While the quality of public education in the United states seems to have declined, the opposite seems true in Italy. The development of school in these two countries reflects the socio-cutural milieu. American schools seem to have become more regimented, with the emphasis on testing and designing a curriculum with the primary goal of ensuring that students will pass a standardized test instead of focusing on educating the child. Reggio, on the other hand focuses on the child and creating a successful and highly motivated student. The two systems could not be further apart. Perhaps the devastion and destruction that Italy experienced during World War II prompted Italians to seek out new methods of education their children. Highly motivated parents were involved in this educational revolution of Reggio Emilia. It seems that Reggio has found the perfect mix of student, teacher, parent and community; focusing on the student. Often times in the United States there is little parent involvement and the focus is on tests scores at the expense of the student. It seems clear that the American system is not working, but there does not seem to be an intiative to make necessary change. WE just dig in our heels and apply more pressure.
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