The Power of Why? ‘The great problem today is...how to move towards a form of renewal that attempts to interweave the single disciplines and make them interact in a way that has never been done before in learning. We are proposing something in very uncertain times, which does not envisage abandoning specific disciplines, but at the same time does not want to exalt them; something that would like to have the disciplines penetrating each other and reciprocally enriching each other’ (Loris Malaguzzi in Cagliari., et al, 2016, p 264). At St Michael's, in the Junior School, including Margaret Thomas House we are influenced by the tenets of the Reggio Emilia Educational Project, originating in Italy. The quote above is from the founder of the Reggio Emilia Project, Loris Malaguzzi. How fitting it is for today’s context, yet the quote is decades old. Malaguzzi’s aim was to challenge the status quo of the grammar of schooling when he first commenced his research and life’s work, spanning around 50 years. His research, philosophy and pedagogical approaches live more strongly today than ever before. Why? His work was evidence based and focused on growing an educational system based on the premise that children are citizens with rights, not from an industrial model.
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The Crest Issue 5 2021
At the start of this year, we were determined to commence school with a focus on ‘Our way of being’. We knew that the impact of 2020 would not end, just because the year did. We concentrated our efforts on ensuring that the children’s academic and emotional needs enriched each other. The children were actively engaged in establishing how we would work best, treat one another with our values of Dignity, Respect, Care and Compassion, and how our learning environments, both internally and externally, should feel to maximise our learning and our wellbeing. If you relate it to an adult’s working life, you could say it is like establishing norms that guide our behaviour and attitudes to ensure we operate optimally. We maintained our high standards in terms of our wellbeing program, and ensured our work in Health, Anam Cara and Positive Learning was uncompromised and prioritised. The teachers themselves, in the Kindergarten and in the Prep to Year 6 area, have all undertaken very targeted research in the core areas of learning. They are working in Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) dedicated to Literacy, Numeracy, Wellbeing, and the area of Transdisciplinary Inquiry. Malaguzzi speaks often about ‘interweaving disciplines.’ We see great value and importance in staff working in cross-disciplinary
