“The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children”

“The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children” is the newest North American version of “The Hundred Languages of Children” exhibit that has been touring the United States, Canada and Mexico since 1987. The Municipality of Reggio Emilia has entrusted the management of this exhibit to ReggioChildren. NAREA has agreed to manage the organization and coordination of the exhibit in collaboration withReggio Children and representatives of hosting communities throughout North America.

For more information, log onto “The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children” website or contact Judith Allen Kaminsky, NAREA Exhibit Project Coordinator.

January 24 – May 14, 2014: Greenville, South Carolina

Hosted by First Baptist Church Kindergarten and Infant-Toddler Program, the exhibit will be located atMcAlister Square Mall, where hours will be 9 am-7 pm. For more information, contact Kristy Way or visitgreenville.wonderoflearning.org

A series of professional development initiatives have been organized in connection with the presence of “The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children” exhibit in Greenville, including:

• February 27-March 1, 2014: The Fifth NAREA Winter Conference, “Dialogues for Quality in Education – The Pleasure of Learning: Reimagining School as a Place of Inspiration, Innovation, and Collaboration”
  Speakers: Paola Cagliari, Pedagogista and Director, and Angela Barozzi, Pedagogista, Preschools and Infant-Toddler Centers, Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia
• May 1-2, 2014: “Encounters with Literacy: Stories from the Daily Lives of Young Children”
  Speakers: Amelia Gambetti, Reggio Children/International Center Loris Malaguzzi, Responsible for Project Promotion and Development; Co-Chair, International Network Coordination; International Liaison and Consultant to Schools, and Lella Gandini, Reggio Children Liaison in the U.S. for Dissemination of theReggio Emilia Approach

June 14 – December 7, 2014: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Hosted by New Mexico Wonder of Learning Collaborative, the exhibit will be located at New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science. For more information, contact Gigi Schroeder Yu or visitnewmexicowol.squarespace.com.

A series of professional development initiatives have been organized in connection with the presence of “The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children” exhibit in Albuquerque, including:

June 19-21, 2014: The Tenth NAREA Summer Conference, “Dialogues for Quality in Education – Promoting the Rights of Children: Community Participation and Dialogue”
Speakers: Carla Rinaldi, Pedagogista, President/Reggio Children, Director/Loris Malaguzzi International Center; Amelia Gambetti, Reggio Children-Loris Malaguzzi International Center, Responsible for Project Promotion and Development, Co-Chair/International Network Coordination; Lella Gandini, Reggio Children Liaison in the U.S. for Dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach; Carolyn Edwards, Willa CatherProfessor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and George Forman, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

September 12-13, 2014: “Children as Citizens: Early Learning Environments in Nature, Culture, and Community”

October 24-25, 2014: “Reflective Practice: Creating Professional Development Practices That Support the Teacher as Researcher”

 

“The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children”
by Reggio Children

The Hundred Languages of Children is a continuously updated travelling exhibition that, translated into various languages, has been telling the story of the Reggio educational experience worldwide to thousands of visitors for over twenty-five years (Autumn 1981-Spring 2008). During this time, Reggio infant-toddler centers and preschools, together with elementary schools, have continued to enrich themselves through their ongoing journey of deep exploration and further research. This has created a desire for a new exhibition that can continue the story of today’s children and teachers and today’s education and accompany the original The Hundred Languages of Children.

An exhibition can be a democratic piazza calling international attention to the importance of education and schools as places for discussion and mutual exchange: a piazza for dialogue about our qualities and our limits, about what we are now and what we could become. The Wonder of Learning: The Hundred Languages of Children continues the idea of a travelling exhibit. It can be seen as an activator for strategies and areas of cultural activities going beyond the world of childhood, an enabler and promoter of evolutionary professional development processes for educators in schools and society at large. The exhibition speaks to all those involved in schooling – educators, psychologists, politicians, families – and to all members of the general public who believe that safeguarding educational processes and their evolution is of fundamental importance for society.

At the roots of this exhibition, lies a strong interdisciplinary and intercultural concept of knowledge and learning that guarantees equal rights of expression and listening to head and hands, and to emotion and rationality. In this knowledge, aesthetic is no longer confined to artistic and poetic forms of expression, but defines knowledge itself and traverses all the different languages. The exhibition aims to reconfirm certain values at the heart of the Reggio educational philosophy and recount the changes, developments and innovations these have undergone, all sparked off by experiences at different levels and in situations going beyond Reggio Emilia and its infant-toddler centers, preschools and elementary schools, to involve other cities, other areas in Italy and other countries around the world.

Concepts and values in the exhibition

The exhibition is divided into different sections with certain ideas running through each of these and picking up threads from the previous Hundred Languages exhibition to examine some aspects more deeply. These are:

• celebrating intelligence in children and in adults
• celebrating the Hundred Languages with which each child (each human being) is gifted
• identifying contexts that can activate relationships with things featuring intense solidarity and participation. Contexts also capable of providing connections between cognition, logic, imagination and emotion
• seeing the importance played by poetic languages in safeguarding a more complete approach to knowing
• encountering processes of observation and documentation as a base for interpreting that is vital for designing educational work (progettazione)
• considering learning as both a subjective process within a group and as group learning
• studying how cultural and expressive tension and participation produce and hold together effort, joy and pleasure in learning

The new exhibition seeks to give more space and visibility to certain areas because of their relation to and conversation with contemporary life. These areas include the role of adults, continuity in projects from infant-toddler through primary education, the language of dance, the language of sound, the language of science and, to conclude, narrative structure as a fertile vehicle for meanings. The exhibition will draw attention – using various tools and strategies – to just some of the projects carried out in the following areas:

• children with special rights
• family participation
• school relations with the city (local community)

Parts of the exhibition

There are six sections to the exhibition. A first section introduces the pedagogical thinking in the ReggioApproach referred to throughout the exhibition. A further five sections follow:

• Dialogues with places
• Dialogues with material
• The enchantment of writing
• Ray of light
• Browsing through ideas

Exhibition Layout

Initial ideas about exhibition layout include creating a sequence of interconnected micro-places that can be viewed separately. Each of these places will have a strong character linked to subject matter. The sections do not follow any particular order and can be approached according to visitors’ personal interests. The micro-places include seating areas, tables, reference areas, sofas and film areas. Other facilities can be used to complement the layout such as an exhibition shop and coffee shop.

The various projects can be viewed on different parallel levels of communication. The aim is to offer visitors not only a sequential viewing (like reading a book), but a road-map guiding reading of each section and leading into the deeper focuses and close-ups. Objects, video film, access to initial sources of documentation, transcripts and audio material can all be considered as “attachments” allowing personalised use of the exhibition depending on each person’s level of interest and competency. Different media will allow in-depth views of children’s and teachers’ processes, the adult’s role, working tools etc.

Website

The exhibition will be supported by an Italian/English website that aims to complement ideas and suggestions visitors might experience during their actual visit. The site will be a tool for closer study of contents in certain sections. Visitors will be able to download a selection of images, videos and texts etc. describing and accompanying the educational projects and single situations recounted in the exhibition. This will allow constant updating of the contents depending on where and when the exhibition is shown.