Concurrent Session Options

This presentation is targeted at middle primary school teachers or early year’s teachers wanting to see a trajectory of learning. The session will highlight a significant project undertaken by Year 3 and 4 students at Bold Park Community School in 2018.

The students were taken on a journey of reconciliation and sense of place when they were invited by Nyoongar Elder, Neville Collard, to explore the history of the ‘Wildspace’ they play in and have custodianship of at the school. The children were immersed in Dreaming stories about the spiritual, cultural and historical footprint left on the sand, mud, and trees they play with, and on, each day. It illuminated to them a strong ‘Sense of Place’ and the responsibility they have on the earth as Sustainability Warriors.

The group researched the 40,000-year connection the Nyoongar People have to the land, and how compelled they now feel to honour this connection through art murals to keep the stories of the past alive. Most importantly, they recognised the future of their Wildspace, the special place it has and its need to be protected. This session will also feature an interactive workshop allowing participants to experience and build their own timeline through natural materials and the Arts, as the speakers take them on a journey through history.

An educator’s image of the child is derived from family values and beliefs, culture, the media, and personal educational experiences. These images of the child (and there are hundreds of them) orientate the relationships and progettazione that are designed with, and for, children in early childhood settings. A public declaration of an image of the child is an ethical principle, necessary for debate, exchange, and transformation of practice with families and colleagues.

The history of childhood exposes a culture of silence for children. Historically, children were not considered to have rights, and learning and development theories evolved from the pedagogy of care rather than a pedagogy of education. Sadly, the children who have been silenced the most throughout history are those children who do not verbally communicate. This culture of silence, or as Freire suggests, the pedagogy of the oppressed, includes the youngest of children: babies.

This presentation addresses the difference between a ‘curriculum’ for babies and ‘progettazione’ for babies. It will challenge participants to reflect on the potential of babies, their attitude towards babies and to consider a process of learning that is dynamic, sensitive to communicative rhythms and which honours and values the establishment of authentic, trusting and respectful relationships. This presentation will appeal to anyone interested in social justice, equity and who recognise children as citizens with rights from birth.

Commencing in 2017, a project driven by a desire to foster hope, dialogue and a collaborative culture was established by members of the Tasmanian Reggio Emilia Network. Deciding the word ‘together’ embodied these ideas it was offered as a provocation for educators and children to research in their various contexts.

After several months, three giant billboards celebrating the journey were installed in the city of Hobart. Wishing to further explore the concept of ‘together’, the network wanted to grow the idea – to connect Tasmania and seek perspectives from across the state. What opportunities were there for the network to continue to transform this project and unite as a community of researchers?

In 2018 ‘The Together Project’ morphed into a ‘Journey of Transformation’ – a project which continues to grow and now connects educators in the south, north, and north-west of Tasmania. A project which bravely asks us to see ourselves, the children and families we work alongside, and the processes of learning differently.

This presentation, relevant for anybody interested in collaboration and the idea of ‘teacher as researcher’, will share the project’s growth and stories and perspectives from various contexts highlighting the importance of intersubjectivity, vulnerability and challenging our ways of knowing and being.

Over the past seven years, Blue Gum Community School – Preschool (Canberra) has been developing relationships with different spaces and people within the greater Canberra community as a part of their Community Classroom program. A Blue Gum venture,  that supports exploration of their vision of connecting their community with the wider Canberra community, the community that our students and educators are active citizens in, Community Classrooms, looks at the broader community through a new lens – a lens enabling a view of a variety of settings as ‘classrooms’.

Blue Gum’s Community Classroom ventures have seen them explore man-made environments as well as natural environments and the spaces in between. Spaces they have been in research with include the City, The National Arboretum, and local shops, Dickson Wetlands, the National Botanic Gardens, and Mt Majura. This presentation will explore the connection between our relationships with place and the preschool students own identity as citizens.

How does a strengths-based philosophy underpin pedagogical engagement with our greater community? How has the choice of spaces and places to research impacted on students’ relationships with Canberra? What are the connections between relationships with place and (students and educators) developing a sense of identity? How have relationships with place evidenced young students understanding of citizenship and responsibilities as citizens?

The Museum of Contemporary Art, in collaboration with Macquarie University, Mia Mia Child and Family Study Centre, has leveraged research to transform pedagogy in their artist-educator led programs.

With a focus on young children’s engagement, learning and responses to regular encounters with contemporary art in the museum, there is an emphasis on building connections and relationships with spaces, materials, artists, artworks and exhibitions.

The reflexive reshaping of pedagogy and work with infant toddler pedagogy has also transformed the ways in which other educational programs with older school groups and adults at the gallery are now designed and facilitated. In their workshop the team will engage in practical artist-educator led experiences, as well as consider the wide-reaching impact of very young children’s visibility in a public cultural institution and their participation rights as cultural citizens, notions of reciprocity, the connections between creativity and play and the ways physical and metaphorical open spaces can be created in the context of a large contemporary art museum.

Alberton Primary School is one of South Australia’s Collaborative Project’s ‘prototype’ services and was selected to be part of Project Quattro in 2018. They have explored and contextualised the principles of Reggio Emilia with their three to six year olds in ‘The Nest’ over the past ten years. Throughout their participation, the school focused their research on ways to provide continuity of learning for the children as they move through preschool and primary school.

Children and adults were researched together, co-constructing theories and understandings about identity and culture and expressing these through the Hundred Languages. By engaging in the process of pedagogical documentation, their own pedagogy and beliefs about learning were challenged and transformed. Educators emerged with a clearer understanding of the competent child, the necessity to listen deeply and trust the child’s ability to lead their own learning.

The teachers’ identities were transformed: from an educator whose role was the keeper and deliverer of knowledge, to the competent educator who is confident to follow the child’s lead and understands their role when engaging in co-research with children.

In this presentation the school will share their journey, highlighting learnings, struggles, and future direction. The session is aimed at those wanting to extend the principles of Reggio Emilia from preschool to school, focusing on researching with children and documentation.

Inspired by quotes from Bruner, Malaguzzi and local Elders, a group of early childhood educators, who grew up not knowing they were on Aboriginal land, embarked on a research project with young children, Elders, Country and others to explore the research question How do we come to know the place where we live, learn and play and how does that shape who we are becoming?

This presentation will share Shauna, Melinda and Mim’s intentions, process, documentation, critical reflections and learnings from the year-long dialogue between Reggio Emilia and Widjabul Wia-bal Country, Bundjalung Nation in Lismore, NSW.

The team highlights the possibilities and challenges of embarking on a place-based project involving educators with varying engagement with the ideas from Reggio Emilia, within the constraints of time, financial resources, experience and knowledge, balanced with the strong desire to explore what emerges out of our place, on Bundjalung Country, when children and educators encounter, and are coming to know ‘place’.

This presentation is for those interested in the process of transformation through progettazione, as interpreted through the eyes of Ruth, Marion, and Deb from Betty Spears Child Care Centre. If you love art, creativity and wonder, you will enjoy this session. The session follows the process of transformation over a two year period, as we encounter ‘dinosaurs turning the future around’, ‘children on a journey through time’, ‘What birds do when we can’t see them’ and much more.

The landscape for this transformation, a parent-run community-based day care centre, Betty Spears, is located in Tempe in Sydney’s inner west, on Gadigal Wangle land. The project goal is to transform the image of the child and teacher through progettazione. How might this happen? What changes will transpire? What impact will this have on their learning community?

Threaded throughout the presentation, the narratives focus on the voice of the provocateur, inspired by the roles of atelierista and pedagogista, the voice of the educator new to the learnings of Reggio Emilia and the voice of the external commentator, who has engaged with the Reggio project. Join the conversation and discover if the key to transformation might be found through the exchange of dialogues and sharing of identity.