Reggio Emilia: An Essential Tool to Develop Critical Thinking in Early Childhood

Abstract

We seem to have a problem in arts education at pre-school level: the lack of specific training for teachers teaching this subject to very young children. The future preschool teachers' training seems to be focused on the teaching and learning aspects of artistic education however they receive little training on methodologies and philosophies. Therefore, when teachers have to face the classroom, the methodologies they use are usually quite traditional and do not favour the development of critical thinking skills in the students. There are different philosophies of arts education that might embed opportunities for reflection, art interpretation, experimentation, expression of emotions and feelings that if, in the case these philosophies, reach the classroom, may doubtlessly enrich the student's artistic training. Thus a conceptual framework based on one of these philosophies, named Reggio Emilia, arises. A systematic review of the literature which has been developed by categorising criteria from research papers and from examples of good practices. This categorisation might allow us to establish a framework that can be useful in the classrooms and can establish parameters of action that may have an impact on students, teachers and teachers' practice in general.

Building Relationships between Museums and Schools: Reggio Emilia as a Bridge to Educate Children about Heritage

“…Thus, their anonymity was guaranteed, following the European General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR). The semi-structured interviews were designed around the central axes of the RE model [73,74] to be able to portray the role of RE pedagogies from various dimensions and perspectives and identify recommendations, ideas and models for developing creative and critical skills through the collaboration between museums and schools. All the interviews were recorded using a voice notes application, obtaining 17 h of recordings and transcriptions from which the data analysis for this study was carried out.…”

“…In the RE model, we can observe a series of elements or foci of action that can facilitate the design of educational programmes and pedagogic activities, which we describe as the eight axes of RE [73,74], which allow us to outline guidelines for museums and schools to adopt the principles and methods of RE towards fostering the development of creative and critical skills through experimentation, exploration and dialogue from early childhood, creating bridges for collaboration between both museums and schools.…”

“…The first element to consider is the environment as a third teacher, as in the RE model, the spaces that invite one to explore, investigate and experiment are considered educational agents themselves, in particular the classroom atelier which, through its aesthetics and accessible components, invites the students to investigate and experiment, asking questions about the world around them. Therefore, a wide variety of materials should be provided to students to experiment, create, interact and express themselves [4,19,29,53,74,77,83], while the atelierist, the person in charge of the atelier who works with other teachers and students, accompanies the children in their discoveries, offering opportunities to experiment and innovate at a pedagogic level, bridging the curriculum and artistic creation to give students a voice [48,49,54,73,84,85].…”

“…One of the recommended strategies for the development of innovative pedagogies in museums and schools is to foster negotiated learning, which can facilitate the development of transversal skills such as critical thinking [73,74] by promoting dialogue between community members and fostering the co-creation of knowledge through collaboration in an activity [61,86,87,95,100]. In the RE approach, the arts and heritage are used as a channel for expression, since they favour the development of creativity.…”

Componentes y dimensiones que caracterizan una buena praxis en Educación Infantil (0-3 años)

“…Teniendo en cuenta que no existe un modelo de buena práctica transferible a cualquier situación y contexto, el equipo establece, no obstante, como criterios teóricos básicos necesarios para una buena práctica en Educación Infantil la teoría pedagógica de Loris Malaguzzi (Malaguzzi, 2014) y la experiencia de Reggio Emilia (Fernández Santín & Feliu Torruella, 2017;Lewin Benham, 2011), el aprendizaje significativo y su práxis (Ausubel, 2002), los paradigmas de calidad de la Educación Infantil (Azcona & Hoyuelos, 2011), así como el decálogo de buenas prácticas en Educación Infantil formulado por Hoyuelos (2013Hoyuelos ( , 2015, coordinador de las escuelas municipales de Pamplona, basado en que las propuestas de intervención en el aula tienen que estar en un marco teórico que ponga en valor el gran potencial de la infancia para construir su propio aprendizaje, en una escuela construida por toda la comunidad educativa; la práctica debe ir encaminada a educar, con docentes capacitados para ofertar propuestas interesantes y proyectos abiertos que faciliten un mayor conocimiento de la cultura de la infancia y proporcionen experiencias ricas, de interés para los niños y niñas. El papel del profesorado es el de observar, acompañar, aprender con la infancia y documentar los procesos de vida, respetando la cultura y los tiempos de los más pequeños.…”