Pedagogical Narrations

History and Context of Pedagogical Narrations

The practice of pedagogical narrations has its roots in the pedagogical documentation practices of the pre-primary schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy (Dahlberg et al., 2007; Hodgins, 2012; Kocher, 2017). To understand the advent of pedagogical narrations, it is important to consider the historical context that
provoked the impetus to create an educational setting where pedagogy, psychology, and culture (Rinaldi, 2006) triangulated to serve the social and educational values needed to support this pedagogical practice. This next section will serve the function of providing that historical context.

The Second World War had just ended in Europe, and Northern Italy, where the city of Reggio Emilia is situated, was in the process of being liberated (Moss, 2016). The values of “solidarity, social justice, peace, [and] democracy” (Moss, 2016, p. 3) spearheaded social and political movements as a
response to a society that had been suppressed for years by the fascist government of the dictator Benito Mussolini (Neville, 2014); a government that had also enlisted the country in World War Two, as a member of the Rome-Berlin Axis powers which included Germany, Italy, and later, Japan (Neville, 2014). With the defeat of the Axis and the fall of the Mussolini government, however, there grew a hope for social renewal in Italy (Moss, 2016). As noted by Renzo Bonazzi, the mayor of Reggio Emilia from 1962 to 1976,

With this sentiment in mind, and in the spirit of cooperation, active participation, and a hope for the future (Moss, 2016), the local community of Reggio Emilia “assum[ed] responsibility for the education of its young children” (Moss, 2016, p. 7) and started its first school. The school was open, not only to children and their families, but also to the “local communities and all citizens” (Moss, 2016, p.xiv). Further, it was recognized that schooling “is a system of relations and communications embedded in the wider social system” (Rinaldi, 1998, p. 114) and this recognition allowed the education to be relevant and “intensely local” (Moss, 2016, p. xxvi). Based on the vision of “democracy and equality” (Dahlberg, 2016, p. viii), characterised by “connections and relations” (Dahlberg, 2016, p. xi) with a belief in the values of “cooperation and solidarity” (Moss, 2016, p. xvii), the schools of Reggio Emilia offered an approach to education

based on adults listening rather than speaking, where doubt and amazement are welcome factors along with scientific inquiry and the deductive method of the detective. It is an approach in which the importance of the unexpected and the possible are recognized (Rinaldi, 1998, p. 115).

Loris Malaguzzi was “the guiding genius” (Gardner, 1998, p. xv) and inspired the pedagogy of the new public schools of Reggio Emilia (Rinaldi, 2006). These schools offered an educational experience that aimed to engage children, families, and the local community (Moss, 2016), and, as Malaguzzi, himself, stated, to “get out from under this big blanket of conformism and passivity, and re-discover the desire to think and plan and work together” (Rinaldi, 2006, p. 42). With these values and a desire for action, Loris Malaguzzi guided the pedagogical experience of the schools in Reggio Emilia for the next three decades (Rinaldi, 2006), reminding many that “another world is possible” (Moss, 2016, p. xxvi).

Loris Malaguzzi, who worked closely with the professional educators (Moss, 2016), believed that education played an important role in creating a better world to live in (Moss, 2016) and followed a vision of building schools that were “value-based and relevant” (Dahlberg, 2016, p. viii). With an affinity for delving into new disciplines and models (Moss, 2016) coupled with a deep appreciation for uncertainty, wonder, and amazement of the unexpected (Moss, 2016), Loris Malaguzzi was able to “[see] the connectedness of everything” (Moss, 2016, p. xvi). This perspective and skillset combined to help Malaguzzi create a school designed to capitalize on children’s natural tendency to explore and question (Dahlberg, 2016), and to develop a practice of pedagogy that would come to be known around the world (Gardner, 1998). Malaguzzi ingrained two important habits in the pedagogical culture of the schools. The first was, “to document so as to be able to reflect, dialogue and make meaning; [the second], to conserve, so as to be able to go back and to re-cognise” (Moss, 2016, p. xx); that is, to have an aspect, or a moment, of the daily happenings/curriculum preserved through documentation for the learner and/or documenter to revisit that which was documented to be able to think about it, become aware of it, or know it again from a different perspective. These habits served to promote and strengthen the skills of observation, dialogue, communication, and joint problem-solving, which, in turn, formed the foundation for the pedagogical practice of documentation (Edwards et al., 1998).