No Need for a Curriculum: Listen and They Will Tell
Michelle Khouri
After 12 years of researching the Chicago Commons Project, Daniel and Sandra Scheinfeld provided their audience with background and case studies about the revolutionary Reggio Emilia approach. Their session, “Transforming Preschool for Inner City Children: Twelve Years of Exploring Reggio Emilia Principles in Chicago,” focused on the Chicago Commons Project, which eliminates the need for a set curriculum. Modeled after the approach that originated in Reggio Emilia, Italy, the project instead employs trained teachers who pose challenging questions to the children and inspire an understanding of the world around them.
The Reggio approach emphasizes the need to listen to preschoolers: their desires, their interests, and their curiosities, which are then translated into a naturally flowing curriculum. According to Scheinfeld and Scheinfeld, this process is the co-construction of ideas and understandings through dialogue, motivated by the learners’ shared interests and curiosities. This collaborative process of learning applies to all participants: children, teachers, other staff, and parents. In this approach, everyone is considered a learner and a researcher.
Because the project is based on communication and understanding, weekly meetings are a crucial part of the program’s success. The meetings usually include the site coordinator and the teachers, who bring documentation (student drawings, dictations, and transcripts of small or group meetings with the children) and discuss what they observed in class. With a series of challenging open-ended questions and an exchange of thoughts, opinions, and dialogue, the participants in the weekly meetings reach a collaborative conclusion about possible next steps to take with the children.
This approach proves the importance of listening to the children’s interests and curiosities in early childhood development. Considered by many to be the best childhood development program in the United States, the Chicago Commons Project allows preschoolers an opportunity to naturally mold their own curriculum.