Loris Malaguzzi

The years of a good teacher standing behind a pulpit, and we could ask questions about what we're doing here today, but behind a lectern or a pulpit and talking away from hours, just kind of giving information, have passed or should pass, students, if this is your experience.

Loris Malaguzzi, a 20th century Italian educator and psychologist, if you're an educator, you know this name, and the founder of the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, captures this relationship between the teacher and the student beautifully.

He says, "...learning and teaching..." should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by.

Instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water through an active reciprocal exchange.

Like, all of those questions which I just find them so simplistic, and there are so many amazing other questions that we could be talking to children about.

So I think if I had one wish, it is that it's not something we're doing that is voodoo or magical or whatever, that this is based on theory, like Vygotsky, Piaget, Loris Malaguzzi, and all of his work that he's and Reggio children have done, and this is what it's based on, and this is what we should be doing in early childhood.

And for me, that is definitely a wish, is that early childhood would say, we should be doing something different.

It's taken a long time just to get here, so I'm not sure where we are on that.