Thoughtful Thursday

This will be the last post for April. I will return after spring break.

Growing Teachers

Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio approach to curriculum, held more faith in in-service training than pre-service training.  Here are some of his views on training teachers on-the-job from The Hundred Languages of Children (Norwood, New Jersey, 1993):

"Teachers — like children and everyone else — feel the need to grow in their competence; they want to transform experiences into thoughts, thoughts into reflections, an d reflections into new thoughts and new actions.  They also feel a need to make predictions, to try things out, and then interpret them.  The act of interpretation is most important.  Teachers must learn to interpret ongoing processes rather than wait to evaluate results.  In the same way, their role as educators must include understanding children as producers, not consumers.  They must learn to teach nothing to children except what they can learn by themselves.  And furthermore, they must be aware of the perceptions the children form of the adults and their actions.  In order to enter into relationships with the children that are at the same time productive, amiable, and exciting, teachers must be aware of the risk in expressing judgments too quickly.  They must enter the time frame of the children, whose interests emerge only in the course of activity or negotiations arising from that activity.  They must realize how listening to children is both necessary and expedient.  They must know that activities should be as numerous as the keys of a piano, and that all call forth infinite acts of intelligence when the children are allowed a wide range of options to choose from.  Furthermore, teachers must be aware that practice cannot be separated from objectives or values and that professional growth comes partly through individual effort, but a much richer way through discussion with colleagues, parents, and experts.  Finally, they need to know that it is possible to engage in the challenge of longitudinal observations and small research projects concerning the development or experiences of children.  Indeed, education without research or innovation is education without interest."