THEORY OF DEVELOPEMENT

Theory Of Developement



Abstract

Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio Emilia are three progressive models to early childhood education that appear to be growing in influence in North America and to have many points in common. This article provides a brief introduction and highlights several key areas of the Reggio Emilia model of early childhood education.All three approaches represent an explicit idealism and turn away from war and violence toward peace and reconstruction. It is built on coherent visions of how to improve human society by helping children realize their full potential as intelligent, creative, whole persons. The article ends with discussion of the methods that researchers apply to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

Theory Of Developement

Introduction

Europe has been a rich source of many influential educational ideas. In elementary and early childhood education, three of the best-known approaches with European origins are Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio Emilia. All three are seen as strong educational alternatives to traditional education and as sources of inspiration for progressive educational reform. Contemporary interest in these approaches leads the public and the professional community to ask many questions about their parallels and contrasts. What we have selected is the Reggio Emilia model which best describes the early childhood development in comparison to the other two models. We have discussed here about the physical development, social development, emotional development, intellectual development in childhood by the help of this model.(Goffin, 2000)

History of the model

Reggio Emilia is a city in northern Italy where educators, parents, and children began working together after World War II to reconstruct society and build an exemplary system of municipal preschools and infant-toddler centers (New, 1993). Under leadership of the visionary founding director, Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994), the system evolved from a parent cooperative movement into a city-run system that exercises a leadership role in Italy and throughout Europe, and now increasingly in Asia, Australia, North America, and other parts of the world (New, 2000). The Reggio Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, is known as a source of innovation and reflection (Dahlberg, Moss, & Pence, 1999). Programs in Reggio are family centered and serve children at infant-toddler and preschool levels (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998; Gandini & Edwards, 2001), with first priority given to children with disabilities or social service needs. Reggio Emilia is not a formal model like Waldorf and Montessori, with defined methods, teacher certification standards, and accreditation processes. Instead, educators in Reggio Emilia speak of their evolving "experience" and see themselves as a provocation and reference point, a way of engaging in dialogue starting from a strong and rich vision of the child (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998; Katz & Cesarone, 1994; New, 2000). Reggio Children/USA is the North American arm of Reggio Children S.r.l., the Italian organization set up in 1994 to protect and enrich the educational theory and practice accumulated in the Reggio Emilia municipal infant/toddler and preschool centers.

The Montessori teacher plays the role of unobtrusive director in the classroom as children individually or in small groups engage in self-directed ...