The 1st NAREA Fall Conference

We are delighted to welcome you to the 1st NAREA Fall Conference: Listening as a Pedagogical Strategy: A way of thinking of and with others. Over the years, NAREA and Reggio Children have collaborated to offer various professional development opportunities to more than 200,000 educators, families, advocates, policymakers, and community members across North America. We cherish past collaborations and look forward to a bright horizon of new possibilities built together.

This year, as the centenary celebration of Loris Malaguzzi’s birth comes to a close, we honor his contributions to education, thinking, vision of education, dedication, positive view of children, families, and educators, and deep collaboration with others. Malaguzzi continues to provoke our thoughts about early childhood education and the systems needed to create and support a new image of children, education, and community. We join Reggio Emilia in the ever-evolving research and action for education.

It is with great pleasure and gratitude that we welcome our colleagues Tiziana Filippini and Mirella Ruozzi, as well as interpreter Jane McCall, from Reggio Emilia, Italy. It is through their sharing and exchange that we will continue to construct strong interpretations of the values, principles, and experiences of the municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools of Reggio Emilia. It is with deep appreciation that we recognize those in Reggio who worked to make this virtual event a reality. We know we speak for all us in thanking the community of Reggio Emilia, including Reggio Children and Istituzione, for all they are doing to carry on during this period of difficult local and global conditions.

To close, we thank you for your dedication to the study of the Reggio Approach, for joining with others in professional development, and for embracing a new way to be together during a distressing pandemic. We celebrate you as you continue to invest in an approach that values collaboration, research, permanent study, innovation, and exchange. By doing so, you are creating rich new contexts that shape the togetherness of living. Please enjoy this time of comparison of ideas, co-participation, and co-responsibility.