Where to start? Looking to the Reggio-Emilia approach to meet the needs of toddlers
Neighborhood Villages, in partnership with the Lego Foundation and the Boston Public Schools, has created an innovative, first-of-its-kind curriculum resource explicitly designed for the developmental needs of toddlers. This creative, collaborative project is unique in many ways. Being Reggio-inspired, it is driven by documentation and children’s interests, centering play in every interaction and learning experience in which toddlers engage. Can these ideas drive a written curriculum resource? That puzzle lies at the heart of how the work began!
So, what is the Reggio-Emilia approach to early childhood education?
The approach originated in the city of Reggio-Emilia in Italy, and is deeply rooted in the history of that region and the context of the town. Its foundational ideas about early childhood and the way we learn have inspired programs around the world. The Reggio-Emilia approach encompasses key characteristics: it places children at the center of the learning process, recognizes them as capable learners, and emphasizes a curriculum that emerges based on their interests and questions. In theory, this requires educators who are deeply empowered to observe and document children, well-resourced in terms of time, and confident that they know what is best for the children in their care. The United States’ context, however, is one in which educators are often systematically disempowered, reporting a lack of respect and agency, especially around how and what children learn. Knowing this context, Neighborhood Villages began the work by assembling a group of experienced, majority BIPOC educators, and started with a central question: what does playful, child-led learning look like and feel like in your unique context?
The weeks-long process of answering this question, guided by the work conducted by Project Zero at Harvard University, eventually developed what became known as the Neighborhood Villages Playful Learning Indicators. This stage of curriculum development included a literature review of how toddlers develop, learn and play; multiple observations at 13 early childhood centers in Boston, and several meetings as a group. During these meetings, we watched footage, studied photographs and engaged in lively, robust discussions. Together, we defined our values both broadly for early childhood education as well as specifically for a toddler curriculum. The work began to move forward from the identified core values of curiosity, joy, autonomy, and community.
“Reggio-inspired” can look different in varying cultural and social contexts, and it can be tempting to write off attempts to create a child-centered curriculum when the resources available to affluent child care centers are unavailable. Neighborhood Villages chose to center equity in its effort to create a resource for toddler care and education. By articulating values rooted in the communities it serves, we were able to stay true to the core ideas of the Reggio Emilia approach, while serving these communities with the high-quality learning experiences that all children deserve.
Stay tuned for our next blog outlining more of our process in co-creating a child-centered curriculum while offering maximum support to educators!
