GREDC

The Reggio Emilia Approach

Reggio Emilia: Education based on relationships

Children learn as they experience and interact with the world around them. They interact with their parents, their teachers, their peers, and their environment. By carefully and intentionally designing those relationships, parents and teachers can inspire and motivate children, instilling a passion for learning that extends well beyond early education.

Origins

The Reggio Emilia Approach was developed during the 1960-1980s in Reggio Emilia, Italy. After the fall of Fascism, Italy was home to a wave of educational research and reform. The leading educators in Reggio Emilia, including Loris Malaguzzi, studied the way children learn and grow. They created an education system designed to support and encourage children’s natural curiosity.

The image of the child

Central to the Reggio Emilia Approach is the way children are seen and treated. Children are viewed as competent, curious, full of knowledge, potential, and interested in connecting to the world around them.

Many languages

Children communicate in many different ways. They use words, actions, and art using variety of materials: clay, wire, drawing media, paper, and so on. They learn the ABC’s of each of these “languages,” which they use to express their ideas, theories, and feelings about the world in which they live.

Emergent curriculum

Project-based learning focuses on topics of interest to the children. Crafts, conversations, books, schedules, even the classroom layout are adapted to fit the project. Projects may occur over days or months, creating a passion for research and exploration.

Relationship based education

In a classroom, children learn through three relationships: adults, other children, and their physical environment.

Teachers are viewed as facilitators of children’s learning experiences. As partners, they listen, document, challenge, and organize children’s learning in a collaborative relationship with other colleagues.

Children are inherently social and crave collaboration. Children are encouraged to work together, teach each other, and help one another.

Through the conscious use of space, color, light, displays of children’s work, and attention to nature, the physical environment serves as another teacher.

Documentation

The learning process between children and teachers is captured, made visible and then shared in order to support wondering, researching and learning among teachers and children. Documentation provides communication between children, parents, and teachers. It also supports long-term research and development of teachers and pedagogy.

An international movement

The Reggio Emilia Approach is part of an international movement to continuously improve early education. You can learn more at some of the following institutions:

Reggio Children

North American Reggio Emilia Alliance

U.S. Dept. of Ed., Education Resource Information Center

The New York Times

More about us...

Our Story

Learn about our history, from the early days in the 1980's at Aquinas College to our current campus on Jefferson Ave, right in the heart of Grand Rapids.

Curriculum

Emergent curriculum develops from exploring ideas that are socially relevant, intellectually engaging and personally meaningful to children.

Our Classrooms

Each classroom at the GREDC is thoughtfully structured to foster the development, thought and creativity of each child.