"Authentic Childhood: Experiencing Reggio Emilia in the Classroom," by Sue Fraser.
Citations
170 citations
Cites background from ""Authentic Childhood: Experiencing ..."
...The filtered greenish light also reminded her of her “deep down” image of the child (Fraser, 2006, p. 20) and those “secret spaces of childhood” (Goodenough, 2004, p. 1) where she used to play hide-and-seek with other children in the neighborhood. Fraser (2006), in her work with preservice teachers, has identified eight Reggio principles as key to the environment as third teacher: aesthetics, transparency, active learning, flexibility, collaboration, reciprocity, bringing the outdoors in, and relationships....
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...Her use of the marketplace was first inspired by Fraser (2000, 2006), who described an assignment in which student teachers bring in objects to elucidate principles central to a Reggio Emilia educational philosophy: aesthetics, transparency, collaboration, relationships, bringing the outdoors in, reciprocity, flexibility, and active learning. Fraser’s idea originated with Malaguzzi (1998), who has provided intellectual direction for Reggio Emilia, and first used the marketplace as a metaphor to describe the kind of stimulating learning environments that teachers can create in classrooms: “Customers look for the wares that interest them, make selections, and engage in lively interactions” (Malaguzzi, cited in Gandini, 1998, p....
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...Her use of the marketplace was first inspired by Fraser (2000, 2006), who described an assignment in which student teachers bring in objects to elucidate principles central to a Reggio Emilia educational philosophy: aesthetics, transparency, collaboration, relationships, bringing the outdoors in, reciprocity, flexibility, and active learning. Fraser’s idea originated with Malaguzzi (1998), who has provided intellectual direction for Reggio Emilia, and first used the marketplace as a metaphor to describe the kind of stimulating learning environments that teachers can create in classrooms: “Customers look for the wares that interest them, make selections, and engage in lively interactions” (Malaguzzi, cited in Gandini, 1998, p. 173). The author combines Reggio Emilia’s notion of “environment as third teacher” with her own interest in touchstones, that is, memories of places (real or imagined) to which adults continually circle back and that are often formed in childhood through play and stories (Strong-Wilson, 2006). Her purpose is twofold: (a) to encourage preservice teachers to see the world as if from a child’s perspective, and (b) to perceive classroom surroundings in a new way, as a “third teacher.” The course is divided into four themes: image of the child, teacher role, environment as third teacher, and curriculum. Linking across the four themes is a teacher portfolio. The format of the portfolio invites student teachers to draw connections among themes. The process begins with the image of the child theme, in which they compose two autobiographies about their childhood; one on stories, the other on toys and games. In small groups, they share and discuss their autobiographies. Outside of class, they also complete one of the following: a short narrative or sketch of a secret childhood place (Goodenough, 2004), a neighborhood map showing their favorite haunts from childhood, or an interview with a relative about stories or games that they remember from childhood. The author has found that through this initial writing and sharing about their early experiences, student teachers recall with often uncanny precision the spaces that they inhabited as well as the details of the interactions that they experienced there. Student teachers often comment that through the remembering, they relive the childhood experience. The author has also conducted this activity with inservice teachers, with the same results. The most poignantly remembered experiences are often those in which teachers, as children, had used their imagination to transform their environment in ways that the adults around them had not planned for or did not anticipate, thus creating “children’s spaces.” Tree branches became houses; cramped spaces became secret hide-outs; discarded building materials (wire, netting, pieces of wood) imaginative fodder for art, drama, and science; and a hammer transformed into a doll. If we look closely at the eight Reggio principles in light of research on children and place, we find that they also coincide with how young children use and perceive space in unplanned ways, that is, with Rasmussen’s (2004) notion of “children’s places....
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...Her use of the marketplace was first inspired by Fraser (2000, 2006), who described an assignment in which student teachers bring in objects to elucidate principles central to a Reggio Emilia educational philosophy: aesthetics, transparency, collaboration, relationships, bringing the outdoors in,…...
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46 citations
Cites background from ""Authentic Childhood: Experiencing ..."
...This negotiation between adults and children (Fraser, 2006) contributed to the overall analysis of how knowledge was constructed and the visual narratives created....
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...…sector), there are those, such as Wien (2008), who are doing significant work with primary educators in public schools, demonstrating adaptations of the Reggio philosophy, and using the visual arts as a component of the one hundred languages of children (Edwards et al., 1998; Fraser, 2006)....
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31 citations
Cites background from ""Authentic Childhood: Experiencing ..."
...The image of the child as rich and competent is a fundamental value of Reggio Emilia and is having a positive implication for practice in preschools (for example, Fraser 2000) and in primary schools (for example, Wien 2008)....
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25 citations
23 citations
Cites background from ""Authentic Childhood: Experiencing ..."
...Rooted in philosophies of theorists such as Dewey, Erikson, Piaget, Vygotsky, Montessori, and Biber, the Reggio vision has evolved into considering the child as strong, rich, and capable (Fraser, 2006)....
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