Teach

The Third Teacher

The programs in Reggio Emily, Italy are known for both their philosophical approach to education and the aesthetic appeal and power of the environments in which children learn. The Reggio Emilia approach is based on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community. These principles are developed through exploration and discovery in a supportive and enriching environment created based on the interests of the children. In Reggio Emilia programs, the environment is known as the third teacher because of its importance to development and learning. The environment communicates messages about who is valued in a space, how to interact with materials, and how to engage with others in a collaborative way. The environment should be responsive to the need for adults and children to construct knowledge together. According to the philosophy, the child’s first teacher is a parent taking on the role of active participant in guiding the education of the child. The second teacher is the staff who serve the children each day, and the third teacher is the environment. It is the combination of a child’s relationship with parent, teacher, and environment that best promotes learning.

Just like adults, children and youth are affected by their environments. It is our job to ensure classrooms and other learning spaces for children make them feel welcome, secure, supported, and ready to learn. Your program environment should be organized yet flexible to support growing children’s changing needs. This will help maximize children’s engagement and learning.

As you learned in Lesson One, cognitive development is all about learning. When children discover something new, they usually look for an explanation to make sense of the new idea. Your job is to make sure all staff members are ready to design meaningful learning environments and to guide children to develop their own ideas and opinions about the world around them (Satterlee et al. 2013). In their own courses, staff members have learned the importance of meaningfully planning environments as well as strategies for meeting the needs of individual learners. As you work with staff members, you should reinforce their learning. Staff members will need your support to know how and when to use the strategies they have learned. Teach staff members to design effective environments and to adjust those environments to better serve the children in their care. Part of this is helping staff recognize the range of skills, abilities, and interests in their classrooms or programs. It is critical to understand the needs of children with IEPs, but it is equally important to understand that all children and youth need individualization. Help staff consider and plan for the preschooler who needs an extra challenge, the toddler who is learning more than one language, or the pre-teen who sits quietly by herself.

Environments and Materials That Promote Cognitive Development

As highlighted in Lesson One, learning is both individual and social and it takes place within social and cultural contexts. Therefore, you need to make sure learning environments provide opportunities for children to engage in individual work, as well as meaningful interactions with peers and adults throughout the day. Encourage staff to consider the layout of their classrooms or program spaces. How are interest areas or centers set up? Are there interesting and developmentally appropriate materials for children to manipulate, explore, and learn from? When thinking about interactions with peers, how is the environment set up for these interactions to take place? For example, do staff provide fewer items (e.g., blocks, play dough, letter cutouts, age-appropriate scissors) to encourage children to work with their peers, share and learn from each other? When disagreements arise among children, do staff encourage them to use their words and try to solve a situation on their own while remaining available in case they cannot figure it out? Challenging behaviors can often be prevented by looking at the arrangement of the environment and asking these questions. The materials and arrangement of a classroom can play a major role in the relationships and interactions that happen between children.

From infant classrooms through school-age programs, work with staff to keep these key principles in mind:

• Well-designed spaces. Make sure spaces and materials are safe for the age and development of the learners. Consider how the space is used: are quiet areas (cribs, reading areas) separate from noisier, active areas? Are boundaries between areas clear?
• Relevant spaces and materials. Talk with staff about their choices. How do these spaces and materials promote children’s learning goals? Are materials interesting and fun for the age of the children using them? Are they arranged in ways that are appealing, so children want to use them and get interesting ideas? Do materials spark interactions and creativity?
• Accessible spaces and materials. Work with staff to make sure that learning environments promote independence. Can infants or toddlers access safe materials themselves? Can each and every child in the space reach materials?

Promoting Exploration and Discovery With Staff

Early childhood through the school-age years are a time of immense discovery, exploration, and joy. Your program can be a place for joyful learning. Work with staff to ensure that they embrace a playful and curious approach to their environments and materials. Help them think through the content they learned in their own courses:

• Interest or Discovery Areas: are preschool through school-age spaces designed in a way that helps children and youth find the materials they need for experimentation? Are there natural materials, writing utensils, and tools of scientists like rulers, magnifying glasses, scales, etc.? Do infants and toddlers have access to materials that will help them explore cause and effect?
• Investigations: Are there multi-day opportunities for children to follow their interests and curiosities? These kinds of experiences will keep school-age children excited about coming back day after day. For example, are students exploring the physics and beauty of dance with a local artist? In preschool, do children have opportunities to study the changes in their environments, construction near the center, or other ideas they notice? Do infants and toddlers have opportunities to investigate movement and sound with their bodies?
• Experimentation: Can children and youth use the scientific method to identify a problem, make a hypothesis, test their ideas, and analyze their results?

Healthy Identity Development and Cognitive Development

When children and youth build a positive sense of self, they are also developing cognitively. Staff members can support this by recognizing and reflecting on the backgrounds, traditions, and family experiences of the children in their care. First, staff should reflect on their own backgrounds and experiences. What assets do they bring to the program? What helps them connect with children and families? Then, work with staff to make sure the environment reflects the children and families in your program.

You can encourage staff to strengthen their environments in any of the following ways (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010):

• Classroom props or materials: Include a variety of props. In child-development centers, toy food, menus, books, dramatic play clothes, and furniture can all reflect experiences from around the world. Art materials should include a range of materials, fabrics of various patterns, books about art around the world, and media for creating a range of artistic materials. Musical instruments from around the world can be used to enrich programming.
• Bulletin boards and displays: This space can be used to reflect and respect family traditions. Families can be asked to contribute pictures or items for posting on the board. Children and youth can spend time researching their own or another culture and documenting what they have learned.
• Class books and biographies: Books about children in the class document the real experiences of children and families. Encourage children to contribute pictures, drawings, and text about their lives, ideas, and families.
• Family stories: Provide families with materials and instructions for creating a Family Book. Families and children can work together to talk about and record their family history and daily life. This can be a great way to introduce children and families to one another. It also provides an opportunity to present real-world family structures.
• Storytelling: Encourage grandparents or community elders to share stories of their childhood with the class or group. These can be audio-recorded or transcribed to create keepsake books for the class.
• Messages from home: Using a tape-recorder, encourage parents to record a brief message in their home language. This can be played for a child when they are upset or homesick.
• Field trips: Visit community landmarks. Go see a dance troupe, play, or musical performance that will broaden children's perspectives. Create a service-learning initiative to encourage children to be active in their own communities.
• Collaborative work: Encourage children to work together in collaborative peer groups. This may minimize the pressure on a child who is learning English. It also exposes children to a variety of ideas and encourages creativity.
• Snacks and meals: Invite parents to share a traditional meal or snack with the children.
• Responding to children's questions: Responding to children's questions: When children ask questions about differences, answer as honestly as you can. Avoid assumptions or judgment in your answers (e.g., avoid answers like "Willem uses a wheelchair because his legs are broken" or "Big boys don't cry like that"). Instead, present the facts, while respecting children’s privacy (“Willem’s chair helps him move around the room. He uses his hands to move the wheels.”)

It is important to avoid the “tourist” approach to teaching about culture, or over simplifying aspects of culture. It is most valuable to help children explore the backgrounds and traditions represented in their own families and communities. Focus on helping children respect and understand the backgrounds and traditions present in your own classroom, program, or community.

Helping Staff Meet the Needs of All Learners

There are many things you can do to support staff help all children meet important learning goals. The first and most important step is to encourage staff to gather information about each child. Your staff will need to know what each child is able to do well and what seems to be hard. Staff will also need to know what each child likes and what is motivating for them. Gathering information will help them know the skills and strategies that are likely to help a particular child in their care.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL; CAST, 2011) is one strategy you can share. UDL helps all people learn and be successful in their environments. There are examples of universal design all around us: audio books, curb cutouts for strollers and wheelchairs, keyless entry on cars, and electric can openers. Many of these tools were developed for people with disabilities, but they make life easier for all of us. Using the concept of UDL, some examples of what staff can do in their learning environments to support children with special learning needs are using adaptive toys and eating utensils, using picture schedules, adapting seating arrangements, providing agendas (with or without pictures) of the activities that children will participate in, providing multiple ways for children to learn information (e.g., reading a book, watching a video, using the internet to research a topic), using materials in a different language, or sharing vocabulary words with school-age children before reading them a story.

The Figure below shows three strategies for using UDL and offers examples of each.

Model

Observe

It is important to reflect on the level of support staff members provide for children who need it. Recognize each staff member's strengths and be prepared to support them with regard to their needs. You can help staff members by participating in planning and problem-solving, observing, and providing feedback.

Make a Plan: Making adjustments for children is not always easy. Staff members may need help planning and identifying ways to help children. They may struggle with whether certain modifications are "fair." You can work together to identify the struggles a child is having. Then you can brainstorm solutions. It can help to write the concerns and possible solutions down on a planning form or chart paper. A sample planning form is shown here, and a blank planning form is in the Apply section.

Sample Planning Form

Spend Time: Observe in classrooms or programs. Make special notes about children you see struggling. Also, be sure to note children who seem to need an additional challenge. Note the learning styles you see present in the room and ways staff members support those styles.

Provide Feedback: Talk to staff members about the ways they support children's learning. Recognize their accomplishments and encourage them when they are struggling. Be a resource for the staff members and help them find ways to reach each child.