Reggio Emilia

Last updated Spring 2018.

The preschools of the Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy inspire us with their pedagogy and practice in giving children rich encounters with culture and creativity. This page provides a selection of links for you to find out more.  

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The one hundred languages of children

The child is made of one hundred.
The child has a hundred languages a hundred hands a hundred thoughts a hundred ways of thinking of playing, of speaking.

A hundred always a hundred ways of listening of marvelling of loving a hundred joys for singing and understanding a hundred worlds to discover a hundred worlds to invent a hundred worlds to dream.
The child has a hundred languages (and a hundred hundred more) but they steal ninety-nine.

The schools and the culture separate the head from the body.
They tell the child: to think without hands to do without head to listen and not to speak to understand without joy to love and to marvel only at Easter and Christmas.

They tell the child: to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child: that work and play reality and fantasy science and imagination sky and earth reason and dream are things that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there.
The child says: No way. The hundred is there.

Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994)

Further information

Further reading

Friedrich Froebel

Who was Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) Born on 21 April 1782 Friedrich Froebel was a German educator who invented the kindergarten. He believed that “play is

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Cultural capital

This article by Early Education Associate Anni McTavish explores the term “cultural capital”, and what it might mean for early years practitioners and their settings.

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