The Role of the Pedagogista in Reggio Emilia : Voices and Ideas for a Dialectic Educational Experience

The Role of the Pedagogista in Reggio Emilia offers unparalleled insight into dialectic encounters between teachers, pedagogistas, and atelieristas in the world-renowned municipal early childhood services of the city of Reggio Emilia. It sheds light on the system and culture that cares for and sustains an enduring educational experience, for the common good. Emerging from a collaborative research project with Reggio Children and the Preschools and Infant-toddler Centres – Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, this book features in-depth observations of pedagogistas , teachers, and atelieristas, as well as interviews with key figures in Reggio Emilia. Children's learning is thoughtfully emphasised, as the authors render the inextricable connection between theory-practice-research , framing documentation and progettazione as artful collective experimentation. The authors illuminate how Reggio Emilia's system sustains reciprocal professional formation through progettazione, contesting dominant marketplace discourses of early childhood education as a commodity and re-imagining settings driven by values of reciprocity, artistry, culture, and the common good. By troubling conventional views on education and care, professionalism of teachers, and educational leadership, this book will appeal to all those who long for something different and hope to shift the field of possibility for early childhood education culturally, socially, pedagogically, and politically. It will be a key resource for teachers, leaders, policy makers, and scholars in the whole field of education. Cover Endorsements Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements About the authors Series editor foreword Glossary Preface A city that cares: lively ethographies for educational research Researching together: dialectics, reciprocity, participation 1. Reciprocal formazione and collective care Introduction International unease Reciprocal formazione and collective care Formazione: amateur scholarship and teachers as intellectuals Obligation to care: a collective response Conclusion: storying values and ethics 2. Reciprocal formazione in Reggio Emilia Introduction The Italian education and schooling system The Italian state and administrative decentralisation Compulsory schooling 0–3 educational services and 3–6 scuole dell’infanzia 0–3 educational services and 3–6 scuole dell’infanzia directly managed by municipalities: constraints on employment Clarifying the term pedagogy Pedagogista, équipe pedagogica, coordinators, and pedagogical coordination Brief historical notes on the profession of pedagogista Pedagogical coordinators of early childhood services: the genesis of a profession The role of coordinator and the birth of pedagogical coordinations The pedagogical coordinator and pedagogical coordinations: the case of Emilia Romagna The experience of 0–6 services in Reggio Emilia The équipe pedagogica and the pedagogistas: historical notes Choosing the Istituzione as a form of management for 0–6 educational services Organisms of participation and co-responsibility as outlined in Indications (the new Rulebook) A diffused pedagogical system Nido d’infanzia and scuola dell’infanzia City Childhood Councils and the City Intercouncil The équipe pedagogica System resources Administrative offices The Reggio Emilia Approach system and the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre The varied geographies and articulations of the formazione system Innovation and research Institutional identity: between local and global Conclusions 3. The value of relationality and an ethic of dialectics Introduction The value of relationality The value of relationality: affect and reciprocity The value of relationality: worlds seen through care The value of relationality: solidarity, freedom, and democracy An ethic of dialectics: confronto and participation Conclusion 4. Dialectical encounters in Reggio Emilia Introduction Dialectics in daily contexts in Reggio Emilia’s municipal nidi and scuole dell’infanzia Fragment 1: the classroom door of the new three-year-old children Fragment 2: a portrait of yellow daisies Concluding notes: dialectics and progettualità 5. The value of artfulness and an ethic of making Introduction Progettazione as an elusive concept Progettazione, pensiero progettuale and documentation From programmazione to progettazione: welcoming complexity and participation Progettazione and documentation: Theory-Practice-Research Pensiero progettuale in daily life The value of artfulness in Reggio Emilia Pedagogy, architecture, and the potential of constraints An ethic of making: craftsmanship and the real Conclusion 6. Pensiero progettuale and educational research in everyday contexts in the nidi and scuole dell’infanzia of Reggio Emilia Introduction Pensiero progettuale and research in everyday contexts Everyday contexts and routines The example of setting the table Collective aggiornamento (the whole school working group and the pedagogista): writing the school’s declaration of intents Class aggiornamento (class C teachers, auxiliary colleague, teacher educator, pedagogista): writing the class declaration of intents Collective aggiornamento: confronto with initial documentation Class aggiornamento: analysis of ongoing documentation Collective aggiornamento: from setting the table to representations of setting the table The group continues its work (Cristian, Francesco, and Lorenzo) The following day ... Class aggiornamento: evaluation of work in progress The next appointment with the children The following day ... An unexpected relaunch Conclusion 7. The value of culture and an ethic of research Premise: the words we choose Introduction Culture and the posthuman convergence Children as knowing subjects Thinking that takes place in the world Affirmative ethics and conceptual creativity Culture as correspondence An ethic of research: the creation of the new Research as movement Research as collective experimentation Research as thinking in the making Conclusion 8. Education Commons: History, choices, and tools for rendering a utopia concrete Introduction Nidi and scuole dell’infanzia: vital nucleus of a broader educational system The city of Reggio Emilia’s cultural “revolution” Education Commons: policies and actions for realising a utopia The 0–6 integrated public system The Consulta Territorial pedagogical coordination Reggio Children and The International Network; Fondazione Reggio Children; The Loris Malaguzzi International Centre Project Participation: an unrenounceable value and strategy of an Education Commons Conclusions 9. The value of the commons and an ethic of alliances Introduction Privileging immaterial goods in dangerous times The marketplace and early childhood education as a commodity A political stance: living an Education Commons The value of the commons: micropolitics and the unimaginable An ethic of alliances: “always more than one” Collective platforms for experimentation Expanding alliances and micropolitics Final musings: “the minor gesture” Epilogue Nidi and scuole dell’infanzia in Reggio Emilia, a commons The discourse on education, between pedagogy and politics Frequenting the future in a dimension of community and collegiality A different and possible way of doing school and education Index