The Image of the Child
Loris Malaguzzi has painted an awesome, multi-faceted image of the child that is open to a multitude of interpretations. Reading his article, one would be entranced by the literary power with which he speaks about the child and the quality of education she deserves. For one, Malaguzzi has enlivened the image of a child as a living, breathing, interactive and perennially searching creature whose mind and heart are sensitive to thoughts and feelings she sprouts as well as those she receives from others, deliberate or not.
She is not the dense, helpless, egoistic miniature adult people usually mistake her for, as she is an individual who is highly capable of becoming someone she chooses to be. As such, adults around her have the responsibility to cooperate with one another to provide her with a stimulating environment conducive to her learning so her talents, skills and knowledge are optimized to be the best person she can possibly be.
Each person comes with a “piece of his life” attached to him and he brings this wherever he goes (Malaguzzi, 1993). It is the same with the child. She brings with her the family and cultural background she was raised with -the values, expectations, philosophy and life views imparted to her from home. On top of this, she is still very much open to more learning, as she has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Being naturally curious, she is more at ease with the unknown and is willing to unfold its mysteries.
Schools should preserve that value of wonder in their students and keep an element of surprise to further whet children’s appetite for learning. If a school becomes complacent and predictable, it will go against the nature of the children to be excited about learning and may end up bored and become passive learners.
Children need to be surrounded with caring adults who let them be. Adults should be careful not to be too actively engaged in the child’s learning that they may not be aware that the child has already become passive in her own learning process. Instead, adults need to build environments where children can be autonomous and freely explore their learning capabilities and become authors of their own learning. They can do this with projects planned together with their teachers and peers.
Such projects may be carried out over a period of days, or weeks or even months. They take the reins of learning from their teachers and carve their own paths to discovery. However, in the process of learning, they still need to have their teachers available to them for consultation.
They want their teachers to observe them as they go through the learning process and not just see the end product of their hard work (Malaguzzi, 1993). For children’s learning, the process is more important than the product. Children do not want to be judged with their products. They want to be observed of their process in deriving the product.
Much learning ensues when children interact together with the least adult intervention. The adult must refrain from dominating children’s social interactions and just be in the background as she continually observes the children’s behaviors, actions and language while in the process of learning from one another.
When learning is not inhibited, children freely engage in it with the use of all their senses. They crave for sensorial stimulation and expression that is why the expressive arts are offered in early childhood programs. In actively engaging in the arts, children get to explore their world and express their ideas in a more concrete manner. They get to use as many “languages” as they please in doing so (Malaguzzi, 1993).
How the Image of the Child is Reflected in Early Childhood Education
Any educational program for children should be designed around the image of the child as envisioned by the program proponents. It is not the other way around wherein it is the child who needs to adjust to a prepared program. Early childhood educators should be aware of the nature of the child and know their developmental characteristics so they can design a curriculum that perfectly suits them.
Developmentally-appropriate early childhood education programs take into consideration that the preschool-aged child manifests rapid growth and development in all areas. The following table depicts some of these skills and characteristics:
Malaguzzi (1993) concludes that teachers should be researchers that think and produce a true curriculum centered on children’s needs. Teachers develop a curriculum from observing the children and noting down their developmental skills, interests and other possibilities they can discover on their own within the parameters of safety.
This curriculum envisions implementation in an environment organized by teachers to be rich in possibilities and provocations that challenge children to explore, problem-solve, usually in small groups while the teachers act as keen observers or recorders of the children’s learning.
Teachers get to balance their role by sometimes joining the circle of children and sometimes objectively remaining outside the loop (Pope Edwards, 2002). Teachers are on hand to provide assistance or further challenge children’s thinking to push them to optimize their potentials. They also observe children’s behaviors to see which of their needs need to be met (Lambert & Clyde, 2000) and design opportunities to address such needs either through the curriculum or through their social interactions.
Reggio Emilia schools provide an ideal learning environment for children. Since the approach was conceived in the context of shared learning with the families and other adults in the community contributing to the education of the young, it has the support it needs to implement a curriculum that best suits the needs of the growing child.
It is commendable that the families and community members value their children’s education seriously that they take time to collaborate with the teachers in projects children do (Early Education Support, 2006).
Knowing that children at the early childhood stage are concrete learners, much emphasis is given to the creative arts that the presence of an atelierista or Art consultant is vital in the program. Children are given several opportunities to explore their artistic side as they are provided with all the materials and conducive learning environment in the “atelier” or art studio within the school. Children’s 100 languages are given vent in various forms of art and other developmentally-appropriate activities.
Not to be forgotten are learnings in literacy and numeracy which are likewise essential to children’s development. However, since it is the process which is given priority over the product, academics are learned in less structured ways. Learning is evidenced in highly documented portfolios which contain actual works of children, photographs of their projects and even transcripts of their language while working on some activities. Teachers’ observations are important since they need to document each child’s episode of learning.
Each portfolio is vastly different. Teachers and parents discuss children’s portfolios at parent teacher conferences to see evidences of progress. Teachers are also using digital portfolios. They may use these to complement the original portfolio of the child or alone. The portfolio assessment gives a clearer and more accurate picture of what children learn in school rather than a report card that serves to summarize learning in a particular period of time.
In general, an ideal early childhood education program like those that follow the Reggio Emilia approach adheres to the constructivist philosophy founded by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Chaille (2008) argues that constructivism believes that children are constructing knowledge on their own and the learning environment considers and respects that.
“In a constructivist classroom, children understand that they are building their own theories and constructing their own knowledge through interaction with knowledgeable adults and other children” (Chaille, 2008, p. 5). This has much value in helping children use their minds well. Constructivist curriculum helps promote thinking, problem-solving and decision-making in children making them flexible and creative thinkers (Cromwell, 2000).
It can be concluded that Malaguzzi’s image of the child may be representative of how a child should be viewed by everyone. Malaguzzi was known to be ahead of his time. His vision has now been realized in a number of Reggio Emilia all over the world as well as other progressive schools who uphold developmentally-appropriate practices, to the great advantage of its beneficiaries – the young children who are destined to be the future leaders of this world. As such they do deserve the highest quality of education that high flying learning pilots (Malaguzzi’s metaphor of great teachers!) can offer.
References
Chaille C. 2008, ‘Big Ideas: A Framework for constructivist Curriculum’, in Constructivism across the Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms, Pearson Education, Sydney.
Cromwell, E. S. 2000, Nurturing Readiness in Early Childhood Education: A Whole-Child Curriculum for Ages 2-5, 2nd edn, Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, MA
Early Education Support (2006) The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Years Education. Learning and Teaching Scotland
Malaguzzi, L. (1993) Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins., Child Care Information Exchange 3: 94
Morrison, G. S. (2009). Early childhood today (11th ed.) Upper Saddle River : Pearson.