Piazza ORA 2022: The role of the teacher

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022Leave a comment

The TBDSSAB pedagogical team will be participating in this year’s Piazza ORA (see information below). We encourage you to reach out to us if you are interested in this opportunity; a group of 5 or more from our community will allow everyone to receive a discounted rate. The focus this year is “Co-researcher, designer, provocateur: The role of the teacher”, more information about the content will be presented soon!

“In response to enthusiastic response from last year’s participants, ORA is providing another extraordinary opportunity to engage with Tiziana Filippini, pedagogista from Reggio Emilia, over the course of four encounters, in Piazza ORA 2022.

Embracing an image of the child that is central to the philosophy that is lived every day in the infant-toddler centres and preschools in Reggio Emilia (and that inspired our provincial pedagogy in Ontario) requires us to also embrace a corresponding image of the educator. This is a teacher who can enter into a kind of intellectual dialogue with a group of children, who will recognize their questions and theories and strategies. Tiziana Filippini wrote “We feel that the teacher must be involved within the child’s exploring procedure, if the teacher wants to understand how to be the organizer and provoker of occasions, on the one hand, and co-actor in discoveries, on the other”. In this, our third Piazza ORA series, we will explore with Tiziana what it means to meet the view of the child to which we aspire, to create contexts for learning that recognize each child’s uniqueness within relationships, keeping in mind what kind of human being and what kind of planet we want.

Active engagement with ideas and translation to practice is essential for deeper understanding, so the series includes interim gatherings with break-out sessions where participants can share how their changing views are affecting what they are noticing, what they are curious about, what they are trying and understanding differently. The practice may be with children or with adults who are working with children. Documentation-in-the-works will be shared among participants to invite other perspectives.

There will be four 2-hour ZOOM gatherings with Tiziana, one per month beginning in early March, a “pre-series gathering” of participants and pedagogical companions to set the stage, and four interim gatherings. We are grateful that again this year, Reggio Children will make a recording of the gatherings with Tiziana available to registrants online for a period of time following the live gathering in order to make it possible for everyone to participate, regardless of work schedule. This makes the series more accessible to everyone. The gatherings with Tiziana take place from 12:30 – 2:30 p.m. and interim gatherings will be scheduled in the evening.

ORA’s mission is to walk with courageous educators who inhabit a place of hope and optimism, who listen and act with intelligence and compassion, and always in relationship with…. We are in dialogue with the educators in Reggio Emilia, and exist to organize opportunities to come together to interrogate our assumptions about children, educators, families, communities, and the places we inhabit, and to recognize and challenge our discourses so we can incline toward the level of joy, creativity, relationship, complexity and engagement that is the “everyday utopia” of Reggio Emilia’s education and cultural project.”

Piazza ORA 2022 Dates

February 22 6:30-7:30 pm (introduction)
March 1 12:30-2:30 pm (gathering with Tiziana)
March 8 6:30-8:00 (interim session)
April 5 12:30-2:30 pm (gathering with Tiziana)
April 12 6:30-8:00 (interim session)
May 3 12:30-2:30 pm (gathering with Tiziana)
May 10 6:30-8:00 (interim session)
May 31 12:30-2:30 pm (gathering with Tiziana)
June 7 6:30-8:00 (interim session)

All participants who are interested in participating in these gatherings will have to be a member of the Ontario Reggio Association which comes at a minimum cost of $50 for the person or organization.

Please click HERE and complete the PD Registration form to express your interest in joining us. The deadline to join the TBDSSAB group is Tuesday, February 1st. If you have any questions, please contact us at early.years@tbdssab.ca.

Expression of Interest for Piazza ORA

January 25, 2022January 25, 2022Leave a comment

The TBDSSAB pedagogical team will be participating in this year’s Piazza ORA (see information below). We encourage you to reach out to us if you are interested in this opportunity; a group of 5 or more from our community will allow everyone to receive a discounted rate. The focus this year will be on the role of the educator, more information about the content will be presented soon!

The Ontario Reggio Association is providing an extraordinary opportunity to engage with Tiziana Filippini, pedagogista from Reggio Emilia, over the course of four encounters. Active engagement with ideas and translation to practice is essential for deeper understanding, so the series includes interim gatherings with break-out sessions where participants can share how their changing views are affecting what they are noticing, what they are curious about, what they are trying and understanding differently. The approach to education in Reggio Emilia was founded on principles of democracy, of acknowledging and strengthening each person’s right to participate as a citizen in relationship, and to build a vibrant, inclusive, creative, responsible culture. What do these values mean to us? We know from our conversations with educators across the province that there is a hunger for ongoing conversation about these issues. All participants who are interested in participating in these gatherings will have to be a member of the Ontario Reggio Association which comes at a minimum cost of $50 for the person or organization.

Don’t forget to register!

October 28, 2021January 14, 2022Leave a comment

How does learning happen? An ongoing invitation for transformation

Visit the Calendar for more details!

Reggio Emilia’s Indications is Translated into French

October 11, 2021January 14, 2022Leave a comment

The Ministry of Education has worked in collaboration with Reggio Children to translate the booklet, Indications, into French. “The Indications aim to give substance and voice to the rights of children, parents, and teachers for a high quality, participatory education capable of promoting increasing awareness that the role of the infant-toddler centres and preschools is to produce a culture of education and not just to offer educational services”, and to ensure that these are “places where the rights to well-being and learning of both children and adults are put into practice”.

Click on the links below to view the letter from the Ontario Reggio Association to learn about how you can access this resource.

English

French

The Courage to Listen Differently

August 25, 2021January 14, 2022Leave a comment

“Listening is a complex state. It involves the abandoning of oneself as we come to know that we are only one being within this vast universe.”(CARLINA RINALDI, 2001)

The Reggio Emilia Aotearoa New Zealand (REANZ) has extended access to their free webinar about listening differently. This is part of a two-part series with the first webinar being available for three more months and the second webinar becoming available on August 30^th.

These webinars are “an opportunity for educators to reflect on the critical role of listening and how this permeates the everyday choices we make when we work with children. Kirsty Liljegren and Fiona Zinn will draw on the thinking of the Reggio Emilia Approach alongside their personal perspectives which hold listening at the heart of practice” (REANZ, 2021).

You can access the first webinar here: https://www.reanz.org/events

Quote: Listening

July 29, 2021January 14, 2022Leave a comment

“Listening is a complex state. It involves the abandoning of oneself as we come to know that we are only one being within this vast universe”

CARLINA RINALDI, 2001

View our Calendar for upcoming events!

Piazza ORA

February 1, 2021September 15, 2021Leave a comment

The TBDSSAB pedagogical team will be participating in this year’s Piazza ORA (see information below). We encourage you to reach out to us if you are interested in this opportunity; a group of 6 or more from our community will allow everyone to receive a discounted rate. Please contact us by Friday, February 5^th to express your interest in joining us for the group rate, early.years@tbdssab.ca.

The Ontario Reggio Association is providing an extraordinary opportunity to engage with Tiziana Filippini, pedagogista from Reggio Emilia, over the course of four encounters. This also includes four interim gatherings (a total of eight gatherings altogether).

Piazza ORA 2021 Dates
February 16 6:30-7:30 pm (introduction with participants only)
February 23 12:30-2:30 pm
March 9 6:30-8:00 (interim session with participants only)
March 30 12:30-2:30 pm
April 13 6:30-8:00 (interim session with participants only)
April 27 12:30-2:30 pm
May 11 6:30-8:00 (interim session with participants only)
May 25 12:30-2:30 pm

The focus this year will be on intentionality in the teacher’s role as co-protagonist of learning. Intentionality is key in shaping activities, knowing what to document and when and how to respond while allowing children to learn together in relationship. Understanding better the role of the adult in children’s learning can be the thread that is woven through our “across the province” action research projects.

Please clickHEREfor more information.

Piazza ORA – Re-cognizing the Morning Gathering

March 3, 2020August 31, 2021Leave a comment

The Ontario Reggio Association (ORA), in partnership with Reggio Children, has organized opportunities for a group of members to learn together in “ZOOM” gatherings with Tiziana Filippini. This opportunity begins next week, however there are still a few spaces available.

“Participants will research one aspect of theory-in-practice together, so conversation in our online gatherings can be focussed. Tiziana’s suggestion of the assembly – the time in the day when the whole group gathers to revisit what is “in play” as the metaphorical ball goes back and forth among and between children and educators, engage in conversation and plan the day – resonated with us. We recognize the potential for this focus to open consideration of how we support conversation with and among children, how we invite and provoke and sustain their engagement with ideas and materials, how we build a group every day, and how documentation reveals our thinking and being. Although infant-toddler centres and preschools here often include “circle time”, the idea of a morning assembly (perhaps we might call it a daily reunion – coming together again as one) is less common. We would like to invite educators to come together in a virtual piazza to interrogate the way we typically organize the day with and for children. We know that documentation is central to this research into our thinking and practice, and sharing it so we can think together is essential.”

Here is an outline of what the ORA is thinking:

4 Zoom Meetings with Tiziana Filippini – 12:30 – 2:30pm
4 Zoom Meetings with ORA only – 6:30 – 8:00pm
Must be a Member of ORA (a one-year membership is $25 and information can be found here: https://ontarioreggioassociation.ca/membership/)

For more information see the attached photo or visit the ORA website: https://ontarioreggioassociation.ca/product/piazza-ora-re-cognizing-the-morning-gathering/