Europeanpedagogies

European Pedagogies
Influencing Global
Educational Reform
Within Early Years Education

©Alan Evans 2012

www.montessoricentrewales.com
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Classical Theories of Play
Surplus Energy Theory

Children have too much energy and play rids them of
excess energy.
(Von Schiller, 1954)

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Relaxation and Recreation Theory of Play

Play is necessary to regenerate energy used at work.
G. Patrick (1916)

School is structured so that periods of mental work
alternate with periods of active play.

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Practice or Pre-Exercise Theory of Play

Playing Mummy or Daddy practicing skills
required for adult life. Play develops skills
necessary for functioning as an adult.
(Groos, 1901)

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Recapitulation Theory of Play

Eliminate ancient instincts by reliving evolutionary history of
the human species. Children reenact the developmental stages of
the human race in their play. Animal, savage, tribal member,
etc.
(G. Stanley Hall, 1916)

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Modern Scholars On Play
#1 - Freud
• The child’s motivation is
to seek pleasure and
avoid pain.
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• The pleasure principle
is the primary motivation
to play.

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Purpose of Play

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• Play as ego mastery for
emotional development
• Play as social
• Play as a lifelong
phenomenon

#2 - Erikson
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#3 - Piaget

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#4 - Vygotsky
• Purpose of play
– Ego mastery
– Rule bound
• Play allows child to engage in wish fulfillment.
• Play creates the zone of proximal development.
Play leads to development and is the highest
level of intellectual development prior to formal
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are needed to see this picture. • “The child always behaves beyond his average
age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as
though he were a head taller than himself”
(Vygotsky, 1978, p. 102).
• Play leads to development.

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Zone of Proximal Development

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#5 - Brofenbrenner

Macrosystem
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Exosystem
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Microsytem

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Waldorf, Montessori & Reggio are the three progressive
approaches to early childhood education, which appear to be
growing in influence around the world, Edwards (2002).
All three approaches represent an explicit idealism and turn
away from war and violence towards peace and reconstruction.
They are built on coherent visions of how to improve human
society by helping children realise their full potential as
intelligent, creative whole persons.

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In each approach children are viewed as active authors of their own development, strongly
influenced by natural, dynamic, self righting forces within themselves, opening the way towards
growth and learning. Teachers depend on carefully prepared aesthetically pleasing environments
that serve as a pedagogical tool and provide strong messages about the curriculum and respect for
children.
Teaching Styles
•Steiner - Performance role leads, models whole group activities involving integration of
academic, artistic with an explicit spirituality.
•Montessori - Unobtrusive director observing children in self directed activity. Providing an
atmosphere of productive calm for children to concentrate, recover allowing them to develop
confidence and inner discipline to the point of non intervention
Integration of body and mind, emotions and spirit that is the basis of holistic peace education
(accepting and relating harmoniously with all human beings and the natural environment
Malaguzzi - Artful balancing between engagement and attention. Resources and guides to the
children. Careful listening, observation, documentation and reflection with other adults Working
in pairs and collaborating with other personnel.

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#6 Waldorf - Steiner
Post World War 1 Attacked by right wing Nazis and

training centre burnt down
PHILOSOPHY

SEVEN MOODS

TWELVE OUTLOOKS
Idealism - Aries Rationalism - Taurus
Mathematism - Gemini Materialism - Cancer
Sensationalism - Leo Phenomenalism - Virgo
Realism - Libra Dynamism - Scorpio
Monadism - Sagittarius Spiritism - Capricorn
Pneumatism - Aquarius Psychism - Pisces

THREE TONES
THEISM - INTUITIONISM - NATURALISM

THEORY AND CURRICULUM
Three cycles of seven year stages and spiral of knowledge.
Imaginary play most important. Bodily exploration,
Themes include: constructive and creative play and oral, never written
language, story and song.
•the human being as body soul and spirit
Structure and sequence but no textbooks. Integrated,
•the path of spiritual development multisensorial approach to learning and expression with
emphasis on listening and memory.

•spiritual influences on world-evolution
and history
•reincarnation and karma www.montessoricentrewales.com
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#7 Loris Malaguzzi
Reggio Emilia
Post War 1945 Liberation of Italy QuickTime™ and a
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PHILOSOPHY THEORY AND CURRICULUM

•Powerful view of the child, full of intelligence, curiosity and wonder.
•Education based on human and environmental relationships
•Teachers follow the children’s interests
•Teaching and learning are negotiated
•Multi year child and adult relationships fostered
•Environment offers complexity, beauty, well being and ease
•Long terrn open ended projects
•Documenting, tracing and revisiting children’s work
•Active involvement from parents in the development and management of early childhood services
•Contributions from parents towards the cost of their child’s education depending on their income level.
•All children are catered for. Those with disabilities are considered to have special rights rather than special needs.
•Teachers are viewed as enthusiastic learners and researchers and not as imparters of knowledge.
•Each group of children has two teachers who remain with them throughout their time at school.
•The role of the aterlierista - a practicing artist who supports the development of children’s learning, creativity and
imagination is central to the Reggio approach.

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#8 Dr. Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori was a brilliant figure who
was Italy's first woman physician.

Montessori reflected a late19th century vision
of mental development and theoretical kin-ship
with the great European progressive
educational philosophers, such as Rousseau,
Pestalozzi, Seguin and Itard.

She was convinced that children's natural
intelligence involved three aspects from the
very start:
• rational
• Empirical - observation
• spiritual

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Sensorial Education - Multi Sensory Materials

Montessori’s approach was far in
advance of the general
psychological understanding of her
time. Montessori developed
materials and a prepared
environment for the intellectual
training through sensory motor
modalities for children aged three
to six years of age.

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Look At The Child
Dr. Montessori discovered the child’s
true nature by accident while observing
young children in their free, self
directed activity. Building on Seguin’s
work and materials, Dr. Montessori
found that young children came to
acquire surprising new outward
qualities of spontaneous self-discipline,
love of order, and a perfect harmony
with others.

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I Do And I Understand
According to Montessori the
understanding of the sensory
motor nature of the young
child’s intelligence stemmed
from acute observations of
children. Up until then the
idea of intelligence was
based on verbal development
and the manipulation of
visual images and ideas.

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LOOK AT THE CHILD
Both Montessori and
Piaget’s discoveries and
insights into the mind of the
child were achieved, not by
what Piaget described as
‘adultmorphic’ thinking
(seeing the child as a
miniature adult), but by
unbiased, astute, direct
observations of the child.

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Piaget and Montessori
emphasized the necessity of
active interaction between
learner and the environment.
Piaget and Montessori also
emphasised the child’s
relationship with peers as the
principal means to overcoming
egocentrism in learning.

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The Montessori method encourages
accommodation to external reality rather
than assimilation to the personalized
motives and fantasies of the child
(spontaneous play).

Montessori and Piaget observed that
certain conditions were necessary for
optimal cognitive growth. Among these
conditions is the creation of learning
situations that involve particular kinds
and qualities of autonomy.

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The child in the Montessori
classroom is allowed to learn
autonomously, which they receive
from the teacher. It is a very
special relationship based on the
teacher’s trust in the child to
reveal their true nature.

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Reggio Emilia Both Montessori education and the Reggio Emilia
approach provide strong alternatives to traditional
education and inspiration for progressive educational
reform in the United States and around the world.
Because they seem to share many common elements
of philosophy and practice, people wonder, "But how
are these approaches different, exactly?

Reggio recognises children as social beings from
birth, full of curiosity and imagination, and having
the potential and desire to find connections and
meaning in all they experience. It acknowledges their
ability to reflect upon and contribute to their own
learning through their many languages of expression
and communication.

Reggio recognises that all children have a right to be
heard, to be respected, and to feel a sense of
belonging to their family, school and community.
This is seen as the foundation for becoming
responsible citizens of the world.

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Through their experience in the Reggio Emilia preschools, children learn to engage in
dialogues and debates with others in a nonviolent and constructive manner and develop
problem-solving skills.

Reggio practitioners see the child as being equipped with enormous potential who is
the subject of rights. For this reason privileged attention is given to the children,
observation and documentation of learning processes, and exchanging ideas and
discussion.

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Children (and families) are also
encouraged to express and discuss
ideas in open democratic meetings
and to form close, long- term
relationships with others in the
school.

Since October 2003 early childhood services in the Municipality of Reggio Emilia have been
run through a specific body called the Istituzione. This body has autonomy on educational,
pedagogical and administrative issues, its own budget and its own Mayor-nominated staff.

Objectives of the Istituzione include organising, managing and increasing activities necessary for
the functioning and qualification of infant-toddler centres and preschools in the municipality
of Reggio Emilia. The Instituzione is intended not simply as an organ of effective
management but exists to safeguard and renew qualities and values in Reggio Emilia
educational services.

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Reggio Emilia is not a formal
model like Montessori education,
with defined methods, teacher
certification standards, and
accreditation processes.

Instead, educators in Reggio
Emilia speak of their evolving
"experience" and see themselves as
a provocation and reference point,
a way of engaging in dialogue
starting from a strong and rich
vision of the child

Child using light box Katz & Cesarone, (1994) New (2000).

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Jean Piaget is considered to have
been one of the worlds leading
child psychologists. Piaget also
spoke of sensory motor
intelligence as the first period of
intellectual development from age
two to six years.

Sensory motor intelligence rests
mainly on actions (doing) on
movements and perceptions
without language but coordinated
in a relatively stable way.

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According to Penn (2005) Piaget
turned the tables on an approach to
early childhood, which aimed at
filling up the child’s head with
knowledge.

Piaget argued that children had to
find things out for themselves
through experimentation and their
own free thinking.

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#9 The Plowden Report
In 1967 the U.K. Government published
a major review of primary and nursery
education known as the Plowden Report.
Richards (1984) suggests that the
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were attacked by critics for being too
‘child centred’ and for neglecting the
importance of teaching as a way of
initiating the young into public forms of
knowledge.

Bridget Horatia Plowden www.montessoricentrewales.com
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The members of the review board for the Plowden report
were impressed with Piaget’s theories and suggested that
schooling should be radically changed from a teacher in
front of the class to many different areas from where a
child could draw on concrete experiences with play and
learning materials.
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‘Underlying all educational questions is the nature of the child himself
…’ (p.1) “At the heart of the educational process is the child. No
(educational) advances … have their desired effect unless they are in
harmony with the nature of the child, unless they are fundamentally
acceptable to him …’ (p7).

Plowden (1967)

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We may assert that all effective learning involves personal
change and the most effective kinds of learning seem to be those
in which the learner is the initiator of the change and involves
himself in active commerce with the learning materials e.g.
autonomous experiential learning through play.

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A requirement for cognitive growth is the
psychological climate in which the child is free to
spend at least some of his time exploring his
world with complete autonomy.

When we interfere with a child’s play, when we
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performing a service but we may be unaware of
the harm we are doing.

Children in school and at home are frequently
forced to assume a purely passive position in
which he is required to register and later
reproduce material that has been imposed upon
him.
Children fighting over swing

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We tend to treat children according to the group they are
placed in by age, ability, socio economic background and
many other factors.
‘It is as if the most important thing about them is their date
of manufacture’, Robinson, 2012

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#10 Richard Gerver
Leading academic thinkers Richard Gerver and Sir Ken Robinson
are calling for reform in the education system.

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Gerver (2012) believes that we are still basing our education
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are needed to see this picture. system on the old model of time and motion developed by Taylor
(1911). Robinson believes we should encourage creativity and
divergent thinking. Both are involved in reforming education
around the world through human potential and creativity but here
in the U.K. the call is for

‘a return to a simple academic model of basic subjects taught in disciplined
environments where children are regarded a vessels to be filled with knowledge,’
Gerver (2013).
According to an Adobe Creativity study (2012) Companies are looking for more than
graduates who can do specific tasks so they want employees who can also think
differently and innovate. To be successful, students need an education that
emphasizes creative thinking, communication, and teamwork.
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HOT MANAGEMENT IN EARLY YEARS AND SCHOOLS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck-KrObORfI

• Children making their
own radio show for the
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in via the Internet and

find out what is
happening in the school

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#11 Sir Ken Robinson

KEN ROBINSON, (2012)
What we have in schools today is

• DIVERSITY V UNIFORMITY
• CREATIVITY V COMPLIANCE
• LINEARITY V ORGANIC
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SOLUTIONS

• PERSONALISE EDUCATION
• OFFER A WIDE RANGING CURRICULUM
• TEACHING IS AN ART FORM NOT A DISCIPLINE
• ASSESSMENT BASED ON MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
• CULTURE ALLOWED TO FLOURISH

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Bart Conner
WALKING ON HANDS

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#12 Dr. Steven Hughes

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Dr. Maria Montessori and Dr.Steven Hughes - ‘The hands are the chief teacher of the child.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcNvTPX4Q08
HIGHLY RECOMMEND VIEWING
http://www.goodatdoingthings.com/GoodAtDoingThings/Selected_Screencasts.html
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Gardener’s (1966) research into
individual differences in memory reveal
that the individual differences in
children can be constrained according
to their early experiences especially in

relation to memory and cognitive skills.

• “It appeared that he might be receiving training in the kind of
veridical sequential perception we have called sharpening-that is, the
experiencing of new stimuli in their own right, independent of what has
happened before.” This research led Gardner to conclude, “The
evidence has been so impressive that we hesitate to accept, without
qualification, any view of child development that does not include
recognition of this degree of individuality.”
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#13 Howard Gardener

Multiple Intelligence Theory
Intrapersonal
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Interpersonal
Musical
Spatial
Kinesthetic
Verbal/Linguistic
Logical Mathematical

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#14 Bruce Campbell
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Bruce Campbell (1999) implemented Gardner’s theory in an educational setting by
organising his third grade classroom in Marysville, Washington, into seven learning
centres, each dedicated to one of the seven intelligences. The students spent
approximately two-thirds of each school day moving through the centres 15 to 20
minutes at each centre.
The curriculum was thematic, and the centres provided seven different ways for the
students to learn the subject matter. Each day began with a brief lecture and discussion
explaining one aspect of the current theme. For example, during a unit on outer space,
the morning’s lecture might focus on spiral galaxies.
After the morning lecture, a timer was set and students in groups of three or four
started work at their centres, eventually rotating through all seven.

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What kinds of learning activities take place at each centre?
All students learn each day’s lesson in seven ways. They build models, dance, make collaborative
decisions, create songs, solve deductive reasoning problems, read, write, and illustrate all in one school
day. Some more specific examples of activities at each centre follow:
In the Personal Work Centre (Intrapersonal Intelligence), students explore the present area of study
through research, reflection, or individual projects.
In the Working Together Centre (Interpersonal Intelligence), they develop cooperative learning skills
as they solve problems, answer questions, create learning games, brainstorm ideas and discuss that day’s
topic collaboratively.
In the Music Centre (Musical Intelligence), students compose and sing songs about the subject matter,
make their own instruments, and learn in rhythmical ways.
In the Art Centre (Spatial Intelligence), they explore a subject area using diverse art media,
manipulables, puzzles, charts, and pictures.
In the Building Centre (Kinesthetic Intelligence), they build models, dramatize events, and dance, all in
ways that relate to the content of that day’s subject matter.
In the Reading Centre (Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence), students read, write, and learn in many
traditional modes. They analyze and organize information in written form.
In the Math & Science Centre (Logical/ Mathematical Intelligence), they work with math games,
manipulatives, mathematical concepts, science experiments, deductive reasoning, and problem solving.
and reasoning.

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In conclusion, there are more similarities than differences between the Montessori and Reggio
approach. Both place the child firmly at the centre of the process and rely on observation of the
child to lead and inform the adult. The relationship between child and adult is the key to the
success or failure of both methods. There are undoubtedly practitioners following both methods
who may be paying lip service to the philosophy

The Plowden report was revolutionary and should have had a much stronger effect on nursery
and primary provision given that its statement of overall aims included what we now know as
the main premise of both Montessori and Reggio education, i.e.

“At the heart of the educational process is the child. No (educational) advances … have their
desired effect unless they are in harmony with the nature of the child, unless they are
fundamentally acceptable to him …’ .

Autonomy and individuality are also a key factors in the delivery of both educational methods.
How that autonomy and individuality transpires differs from place to place and again is
dependent on the adults within the environment. Gardner goes so far as to hesitate to accept any
view of child development that does not recognise the possibility of a high degree of
individuality brought about through the skills that every individual uses to process, categorize
and make sense out of what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. The Montessori and Reggio
provision is all about just that if delivered true to the original philosophy.

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A CHANGE IS GONNA COME

Cultural change is organic from the ground but people are desperately clinging on to the
old or suggesting we reinstate and update the old.

The future is with the alternative
Revolution does not require permission
It does not start from the top
It is not politicians leading the way

There is a global shift feeding off child and parental unrest.

The effort of constraining talent is greater than the effort in releasing it.

‘All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and
those that move.’
Benjamin Franklin

Don’t waste too much time, move around them.
Work with the movable and the movers
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References

Adobe, 2012. http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pdfs/Adobe_Creativity_and_Education_Why_It_Matters_study.pdf
Campbell, B. 1999. The Learning Revolution, Education innovations for global citizens
Edwards, C. Gandini, L. & Forman, G. (Eds.). 1998. The hundred languages of children:
Edwards, C. P. 2002, Katz & Cesarone, (1994) New (2000). Three Approaches from Europe: Waldorf, Montessori and Reggio Emilia.
The Reggio Emillia approach-Advanced reflections (2nd ed.).
Gardener, H. 1993. http://www.multipleintelligencetheory.co.uk
Gardner, W. R. 1966, The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 67, No. 2 pp. 72-83.
Gerver, R. 2013 http://www.richardgerver.com/blog/
Hughes, S. 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcNvTPX4Q08
Penn, H. 2005, Understanding Early Childhood, Issues and controversies, Open University Press.
Peters, R. S. (Ed.) 1969, A Critique of Plowden's ‘Recognisable Philosophy of Education.’
Richards, C. 1984, The Study Of Primary Education, The Falmer Press.
Robinson, K 2012. http://www.educationrevolution.org/blog/kenrobinson/
Taylor, F. W. 1911, The Principles of scientific management. http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/fwt/ti.html
Wilson, P. 1974, Plowden’s ‘Facts’ About Children: A Child Centred-Critique.
http://www.npgprints.com/image/70750/mayotte-magnus-bridget-horatia-nee-richmond-lady-plowden

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