"The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children"

“The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children” is the newest North American version of “The Hundred Languages of Children” exhibit that has been touring the United States, Canada and Mexico since 1987. The Municipality of Reggio Emilia has entrusted the management of this exhibit to Reggio Children. NAREA has agreed to manage the organization and coordination of the exhibit in collaboration with Reggio Children and representatives of hosting communities throughout North America.

For more information, log onto "The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children" website.
 

June 15-November 30, 2010: Chicago, Illinois

"The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children" exhibit will be in Chicago, Illinois from June 15-November 30, 2010. The exhibit will be hosted by Crossroads in Chicago (City of Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, Chicago Children’s Museum, Chicago Commons and Columbia College Chicago). The exhibit will be located at Columbia College Chicago, 33 E. Congress Parkway, Chicago IL 60605. Exhibit hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 12-5 pm, Thursday from 12-7 pm and Saturday from 10 am-5 pm. For more information, contact .

A series of professional development initiatives will be organized in connection with the presence of "The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children" exhibit in Chicago, including:

• June 23-25, 2010: The Sixth NAREA Summer Conference, "Our Image of Children, Our Image of Teachers, Our Image of Children, Our Responsibility"
  Keynote speakers: Carlina Rinaldi, Pedagogista, President of Reggio Children; Graziano Delrio, Mayor of Reggio Emilia Italy; and Amelia Gambetti, Reggio Children/International Centre Loris Malaguzzi, Responsible for Project Promotion and Development, International Network Coordinator, International Liaison and Consultancy to Schools
  For more information, log onto the Summer Conference - Current page of the NAREA website.

• August 13-14, 2010: Connecting Theory and Practice Related to Young Children's Learning

• September 24-25, 2010: What Does It Mean to Advocate for Children and Teachers While Supporting Authentic, Contextual Learning?

• October 21-22, 2010: Meaningful and Dynamic Professional Development That Impacts Children, Educators and Parents - Networking with Educators Who Work with Teachers

• November 18-19, 2010: The Role of Culture in Learning

Download Chicago professional development series flyer.

Exhibit Schedule for January 2011-December 2014

The exhibit will be present through the following rotation of host communities, approximately six months at a time:

2011: Newark, Ohio

2011: Monterey County, California

2012: Portland, Oregon

2012: Vancouver, British Columbia

2013: Owensboro, Kentucky

2013: Honolulu, Hawaii

2014: Greenville, South Carolina

2014: Albuquerque, New Mexico

"The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children"
by Reggio Children

The Hundred Languages of Children is a continuously updated travelling exhibition that, translated into various languages, has been telling the story of the Reggio educational experience worldwide to thousands of visitors for over twenty-five years (Autumn 1981-Spring 2008). During this time, Reggio infant-toddler centers and preschools, together with elementary schools, have continued to enrich themselves through their ongoing journey of deep exploration and further research. This has created a desire for a new exhibition that can continue the story of today's children and teachers and today's education and accompany the original The Hundred Languages of Children.

An exhibition can be a democratic piazza calling international attention to the importance of education and schools as places for discussion and mutual exchange: a piazza for dialogue about our qualities and our limits, about what we are now and what we could become. The Wonder of Learning: The Hundred Languages of Children continues the idea of a travelling exhibit. It can be seen as an activator for strategies and areas of cultural activities going beyond the world of childhood, an enabler and promoter of evolutionary professional development processes for educators in schools and society at large. The exhibition speaks to all those involved in schooling – educators, psychologists, politicians, families – and to all members of the general public who believe that safeguarding educational processes and their evolution is of fundamental importance for society.

At the roots of this exhibition, lies a strong interdisciplinary and intercultural concept of knowledge and learning that guarantees equal rights of expression and listening to head and hands, and to emotion and rationality. In this knowledge, aesthetic is no longer confined to artistic and poetic forms of expression, but defines knowledge itself and traverses all the different languages. The exhibition aims to reconfirm certain values at the heart of the Reggio educational philosophy and recount the changes, developments and innovations these have undergone, all sparked off by experiences at different levels and in situations going beyond Reggio Emilia and its infant-toddler centers, preschools and elementary schools, to involve other cities, other areas in Italy and other countries around the world.

Concepts and values in the exhibition

The exhibition is divided into different sections with certain ideas running through each of these and picking up threads from the previous Hundred Languages exhibition to examine some aspects more deeply. These are:

• celebrating intelligence in children and in adults
• celebrating the Hundred Languages with which each child (each human being) is gifted
• identifying contexts that can activate relationships with things featuring intense solidarity and participation. Contexts also capable of providing connections between cognition, logic, imagination and emotion
• seeing the importance played by poetic languages in safeguarding a more complete approach to knowing
• encountering processes of observation and documentation as a base for interpreting that is vital for designing educational work (progettazione)
• considering learning as both a subjective process within a group and as group learning
• studying how cultural and expressive tension and participation produce and hold together effort, joy and pleasure in learning

The new exhibition seeks to give more space and visibility to certain areas because of their relation to and conversation with contemporary life. These areas include the role of adults, continuity in projects from infant-toddler through primary education, the language of dance, the language of sound, the language of science and, to conclude, narrative structure as a fertile vehicle for meanings. The exhibition will draw attention – using various tools and strategies – to just some of the projects carried out in the following areas:

• children with special rights
• family participation
• school relations with the city (local community)

Parts of the exhibition

There are six sections to the exhibition. A first section introduces the pedagogical thinking in the Reggio Approach referred to throughout the exhibition. A further five sections follow:

• Dialogues with places
• Dialogues with material
• The enchantment of writing
• Ray of light
• Browsing through ideas

Exhibition Layout

Initial ideas about exhibition layout include creating a sequence of interconnected micro-places that can be viewed separately. Each of these places will have a strong character linked to subject matter. The sections do not follow any particular order and can be approached according to visitors' personal interests. The micro-places include seating areas, tables, reference areas, sofas and film areas. Other facilities can be used to complement the layout such as an exhibition shop and coffee shop.

The various projects can be viewed on different parallel levels of communication. The aim is to offer visitors not only a sequential viewing (like reading a book), but a road-map guiding reading of each section and leading into the deeper focuses and close-ups. Objects, video film, access to initial sources of documentation, transcripts and audio material can all be considered as "attachments" allowing personalised use of the exhibition depending on each person’s level of interest and competency. Different media will allow in-depth views of children's and teachers' processes, the adult's role, working tools etc.

Website

The exhibition will be supported by an Italian/English website that aims to complement ideas and suggestions visitors might experience during their actual visit. The site will be a tool for closer study of contents in certain sections. Visitors will be able to download a selection of images, videos and texts etc. describing and accompanying the educational projects and single situations recounted in the exhibition. This will allow constant updating of the contents depending on where and when the exhibition is shown.