Creativity the Reggio Way

In her article, "Creativity Comes Dressed in Everyday Clothes," from the Exchange Essential, Promoting Creativity in Children, Lella Gandini shares ideas such as these on how creativity is part of the Reggio Emilia experience...

"Reggio educators believe children have preparedness, potential, curiosity, and interest in constructing their learning, in engaging in social interaction, and in negotiating with everything the environment brings to them. Creativity is seen not as an exceptional occurrence or a separate mental faculty, but as a characteristic way of thinking, knowing, and making choices. By observing what children do, we can find the seeds of creative exploration that need to be nurtured. And by listening to children talk to one another, we can detect in their words the beginning thoughts that can lead, with support, to novel constructions....

"Layout of the space in the schools in Reggio Emilia favors encounters, communication, and relationships. The setup of structures, objects, and activities favors choices and discoveries in the process of learning. Children in this process reinvent their own ideas, change their points of view, and seem to love forms and meanings that transform themselves. This is part of creativity."

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