name
Loris Malaguzzi b.1920
working life
1945 - 1994
essentials
Psychologist and pioneer of early childhood education in Italy. Reggio Emilia Atelier is a co-operative method of pre-school education founded in Italy by Malaguzzi in 1945 involving parents and the wider community emerging from the devastation of the 2nd world war. A highly creative early childhood educational method which developed gradually over a long period of time, finally being officially adopted in Italy for all pre-schools in 1963, and is now influencing pre-school education in many other countries. All the learning is centred around creative activities with an emphasis on exploration, discovery and expression.
info
His method put creative project work at its core, employing trained art teachers working in a dedicated art room - the atelier. All the learning is centred around creative activities with an emphasis on exploration, discovery and expression. He uses the term “100 languages” as an illustration of the many ways children communicate and interact and play as part of their growth and development.
In interviews he talks about creative learning in the atelier workshops:
“The atelier was built directly into every pre-school and later, beginning in the seventies, within every infant / toddler centre as well… The one essential element was an equal respect for the plurality and the connections within children’s expressive languages…
Expressivity finds sources from play, as well as from practice - from study and from visual learning, as well as from subjective interpretations that come from emotions, from intuition, from chance, and from rational imagination and transgressions…
In fact drawing, painting (and the use of all languages) are experiences and explorations of life, of the senses, and of meanings. They are an expression of urgency, desires, reassurance, research, hypotheses, readjustments, constructions, and inventions. They follow the logic of exchange, and of sharing. They produce solidarity, communication with oneself, with things, and with others. They offer interpretations and intelligence about the events that take place around us.”
books
• In the Spirit of the Studio - Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia by Lella Gandini
publ. 2005 - Teachers College Press - ISBN: 0-8077-4591-X
• The Hundred Languages of Children: Reggio Emilia Approach - Advanced Reflections
first publ. 1998 - Greenwood Press, new edition 2011 - ISBN-10: 0313359814
see more:
• Wikipedia entry for Loris Malaguzzi and Reggio Emilia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach
• The Reggio Emelia websites
http://www.reggiochildren.it/identita/loris-malaguzzi/?lang=en
http://reggiochildrenfoundation.org/?lang=en
