Loris malaguzzi biography pedagogical meanings

Loris Malaguzzi was born in Correggio on 23 February 1920. He grew up in Reggio Emilia where he attended the Istituto Magistrale secondary school, and graduated from Urbino University with a degree in pedagogy in 1946

During the war he worked in elementary and middle schools in Reggio Emilia and some of the smaller outlying municipalities in the province of Reggio Emilia such as Reggiolo, Sologno, and Guastalla. This important human and educational experience  shaped many of his later choices.

Malaguzzi’s formation was eclectic. He began writing as a journalist in the late 1930s and after the war he collaborated with the newspapers Progresso d’Italia and l’Unita. He was interested in theatre, cinema, art, sport, politics and education, and actively participated in Reggio Emilia’s new cultural life. During these years he joined the Italian Communist Party.

At the end of 1946 Malaguzzi was first a teacher and then Director at the Convitto Scuola della Rinascita in Rivaltella, Reggio Emilia. The Convitti schools were created by the National Association of Italian Partisans, and the Ministry of Employment, to allow ex-freedom fighters and prisoners aged 16-24, the chance to learn a trade.

Through the Convitto school Malaguzzi began to weave relations with international pedagogy. He was interested in the ways education was debated elsewhere, and as a member of Federation Internationale Comunités d’Enfantes (FICE) he participated in the first meetings of European pedagogy held in the post-war years.

He personally witnessed the evolving of self-managed education in the Reggio Emilia countryside, run by the Italian Women’s Union (UDI), and starting with the Villa Cella school which opened 1947. The widespread participation and solidarity of people of all kinds, and the great attention given to childhood had profound effects on his future choices and thinking.

His reading was wide and varied, and not only in the field of pedagogy. Italy was finally openi

(1920–94)

An Italian educator whose work is closely associated with the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. As a middle school teacher in the Reggio Emilia district of Italy in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Malaguzzi was instrumental in founding an approach to young children's education which is based on mutual respect and reciprocity between teacher and child, and the philosophy that teaching and learning embodies a relationship of equality and democracy, rather than a power relationship in which the teacher dominates.

Born in Correggio in the province of Reggio Emilia, Malaguzzi was educated at the University of Urbino, where he gained a degree in pedagogy, and at the National Research Centre in Rome, where he was awarded a degree in psychology. Following the Allied liberation of Italy from fascist rule, in 1946 he became involved in the setting up of pre‐schools organized and run by parents in Reggio Emilia, and in 1950 he established the Municipal Psycho–Pedagogical Centre in which he practised as a psychologist until the 1970s. In 1980, working as a consultant for the Italian Ministry of Education, he founded the Gruppo Nazionale Nidi‐Infanzia (National Early Years Centre) in Reggio Emilia to promote child‐centred education, and went on to travel Europe and the United States promoting his approach to early years education. His travelling exhibition The Hundred Languages of Children (originally entitled If the Eye Jumps Over the Wall) was instrumental in bringing his educational philosophy to a wider audience of teachers and parents worldwide. Opening with the words ‘Il bambino e fatto di cento’ (literally, ‘The child is made of a hundred’), Malaguzzi's manifesto goes on to say:‘The child has a hundred languages (and then a hundred 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 their hands, to do and make w

You can watch the video version of this post on my Facebook group.

Today, we’re going to continue our LONG-paused series on early childhood theorists. We’ll be chatting about Loris Malaguzzi!

I personally think that Loris Malaguzzi is one of the least well-known theorists who has had the most impact on current early childhood practice beside Maria Montessori. Many of his ideas are being incorporated into our children’s early childhood settings: in their preschools, daycares, playgroups… and you don’t even know it. After this little crash course- you will! I originally started this series because I could see that one of the reasons so many parents were having a hard time with the recommendations I was giving them was because they had no grasp of early childhood theory. It made total sense to me because I have multiple post-secondary pieces of paper in early childhood education. So this series is intended to be like your mini early childhood degree.

Let’s get the dates out on the table and out of the way to start: he was born in Correggio, Italy in 1920. He was growing up right in the middle of the second World War. In 1939, he began to enter University at the University of Urbino in Pedagogy and Psychology. He later graduated from the National Research Centre in Rome. And he passed away in Reggio Emilia in 1994.

As you can see from those dates- he was aware of Vygotsky, Montessori, Dewey, Erikson, Piaget, and everyone else. So he, like the others, pulled ideas he agreed with and left the ones he didn’t. Like Vygotsky, he was a constructivist- he believed that children CONSTRUCT their knowledge, it’s not something that’s passively absorbed.

Something you may have noticed there was the mention of Reggio Emilia and, today, in North America- Reggio Emilia has become kind of a buzzword, kind of like Montessori. I remember back in October- when I did the episode

Educational philosophy and pedagogy

The Reggio Emilia approach is an educational philosophy and pedagogy focused on preschool and primary education. This approach is a student-centered and constructivist self-guided curriculum that uses self-directed, experiential learning in relationship-driven environments. The programme is based on the principles of respect, responsibility and community through exploration, discovery and play.

At the core of this philosophy is an assumption that children form their own personality during the early years of development and that they are endowed with "a hundred languages", through which they can express their ideas. The aim of the Reggio approach is to teach children how to use these symbolic languages (e.g. painting, sculpting, drama) in everyday life. This approach was developed after World War II by pedagogist Loris Malaguzzi and parents in the villages around Reggio Emilia, Italy; the approach derives its name from the city.

History

During the post-World War II era in Italy, the country was overcome with a “…desire to bring change and create anew", brought on by significant economic and social development, including in education. An account described how a 1976 opposition to the primary education policy of the municipality of Reggio Emilia opened up the preschools to public scrutiny. This resulted in the introduction of the Reggio approach to early education, which was supported by parents and the community.

The approach was based on Malaguzzi’s method, which became known to and appreciated by many educators thanks to a touring exhibition titled, "A Child has 100 Languages. On Creative Pedagogy at Public Kindergartens in Reggio Emilia, Italy", which opened in 1981 at the Modern Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. As a result, the National Group for Work and Study on Infant Toddler Centers was formed. By 19