Pedagogy of Listening
At the ELC, our teacher collaborative groups have engaged in many conversations about the Pedagogy of Listening, and how it lies at the core of our dispositions and roles with children. There is no formula or prescription, but rather a mindset and way of viewing interactions with children that shape the way we come to understand their thinking, their learning, and the many languages they use to express and represent these to us. We know that the key to thoughtful, effective teaching rests in the practices of learning with and from the children first, then carefully considering how and when to facilitate new experiences and how to help children revisit prior experiences. Spending time clarifying the Reggio Approach to pedagogy of listening to children has deepened our practice and supported many new ways of documenting and planning.
Listening is a metaphor of encounter and dialogue. Because we believe in the pedagogy of listening, the experience in Reggio tries to honor the children by listening to that expression of the human being. Perhaps the pedagogy of listening may be a pedagogy for supporting a way of living with hope that it is possible to change.
Rinaldi (2004)
"We talk almost all the time. Sometimes we listen to our own words and to the words of others in order to understand deeply. It is this attitude toward talking, as an intelligent pattern worthy of study that defines the discourse of schooling. Treating talk as discourse causes teachers to look for theories, assumptions, false premises, misapplications, clever analogies, ambiguities and differences in communicative intent. All of which are pieces to be negotiated into shared meaning by the group." (Forman and Fyfe, 1998)
Recommended Readings
Rinaldi, C. (2012) The pedagogy of listening: The listening perspective from Reggio Emilia. In C. Edwards, L. Gandini, & G. Forman (Eds.), The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd edition). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Edwards, C. (2012). Teacher and learner, partner and guide: The role of the teacher. In C. Edwards, L. Gandini, & G. Forman (Eds.), The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd edition). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Forman, G. & Fyfe, B. (2012). Negotiated learning through design, documentation, and discourse. In C. Edwards, L. Gandini, & G. Forman (Eds.), The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd edition). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Curtis, D. (2017). Really Seeing Children. Lincoln, NE: Exchange Press.
Forman G., & Fyfe, B. (1998). Negotiated learning through documentation, discourse, and design. In C. Edwards, L. Gandini, & G. Forman (Eds.), The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education (2nd edition). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.