Reggio Emilia philosophy is an approach to teaching through long term projects that connect core, academic areas in and out of the classroom, blending in well with our Creative Curriculum.
“No way. The Hundred is there. The child is made of one hundred. The child has a hundred languages a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking of playing, of speaking. A hundred always a hundred ways of listening of marveling of loving a hundred joys for singing and understanding a hundred worlds to discover a hundred worlds to invent a hundred worlds to dream. The child has a hundred languages (and a hundred, hundred more) but they steal ninety-nine. The school and the culture separate the head from the body. They tell the child: to think without hands, to do without head, to listen and not speak, to understand without joy, to love and to marvel only at Easter and at Christmas. They tell the child: to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety-nine . They tell the child: that work and play, reality and fantasy science and imagination, sky and earth, reasons and dream are things that do not belong together. And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there.
The child says: No way. The hundred is there …”
By Loris Malaguzzi, The Hundred Languages of Children Infant, Toddler Centers and Pre-schools-Instituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Italy. Published by Reggio Children, 1996 Translated by Lella Gandini.