Nationwide exhibition celebrating 100 years of pedagogist Loris Malaguzzi in Vietnam

[Ho Chi Minh City, August 31, 2020] Global Embassy and Reggio Children, in partnership with the Embassy of Italy in Vietnam and the Consulate General of Italy in Ho Chi Minh City hold a special international exhibition on “The centenary of the birth of Loris Malaguzzi” which opens a series of academic activities on the Reggio Emilia Approach® in early childhood education in Vietnam.

The exhibition takes place in 3 locations: Hanoi at “Casa Italia”; Da Nang; Ho Chi Minh City at Global Embassy, 21 Pham Ngoc Thach, Ward 6, District 3 and will be open to the public over the next 6 months until February 28, 2021.

“No Way. The Hundred is There”
The exhibition aims to celebrate the centenary of the birthday of Loris Malaguzzi who laid the foundation for the Reggio Emilia Approach® – an early childhood education philosophy that has inspired preschool teachers, managers and researchers in early childhood education worldwide. Not only honoring the career and ideology of an influential educator, the exhibition is also a place to share and discuss the current landscape and prospects of this approach for the future of early childhood education in Vietnam.

 

With a theme taken from the title of the Italian poem “No way. The hundred is here” – also the manifesto of the Reggio Emilia Approach®, the exhibition impressively demonstrates the right to learn and educate, as well as the extraordinary potential of children’s “hundred languages”. Through the open and interactive space, the exhibition narrates the experiences at Reggio Emilia’s municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools thereby developing and expanding innovative projects in pedagogy, architecture, environment, politics, society, organization, management from the point of view of Loris Malaguzzi et al.

At the press conference, Dr. Claudia Giudici, President of Reggio Children shared via video: “100 main languages are countlessly different ways to learn about a child’s world: children can learn through the language of speaking, writing, drawing, music, dance, painting, etc. which are intertwined with one another. The center of that world discovery is the aesthetic element”.

 

 

An authentic and official Reggio Emilia Approach®
The exhibition is part of the joint academic activities between Global Embassy and Reggio Children for Vietnamese and international educators and teachers. Global Embassy is the official partner of Reggio Children for the promotion, development and diffusion of Reggio Emilia Approach® in Vietnam, thereby building a community using this approach in an original and authentic way.

 

“At this moment, we cannot leave Italy, and cannot join you, but we would love to continue to develop new training opportunities to promote the most authentic and official Reggio Emilia Approach® in Vietnam. Global Embassy, as the official representative of Reggio Children in Vietnam, is the only official organization that promotes and conducts professional development on Reggio Emilia Approach®, with the participation of experts from Reggio Children”, Dr. Claudia Giudici said.

 

With the aim of developing and promoting the Reggio Emilia Approach® in early childhood education properly and sustainably, the VIRES community (Vietnam International Reggio Emilia Society®) was also launched.
VIRES is a community connecting individuals and educational institutions in supporting, sharing resources, exchanging experiences and spreading the values of the Reggio Emilia Approach® to many Vietnamese schools, teachers, families and children. With the spirit of the Reggio Emilia Approach ® and with the contribution from the community, this ecosystem will create an open academic and resources sharing environment.

 

Mr. Thanh Bui, Chairman of Embassy Education Group, said that the role of Global Embassy, as the official representative of Reggio Children, is to maintain the authenticity and official standards of the Reggio Emilia Approach®. In a market where many educational organizations use images and the term “Reggio Emilia Approach” as a method of building business in the Vietnamese market, misconception about the true Reggio Emilia Approach® often occurs. Global Embassy will be organizing offline and online workshops and webinars in conjunction with Reggio Children as part of the 2020 calendar.

In addition to the professional development, “we want to create a Vietnam International Reggio Emilia Society – VIRES – where all of us can share experiences and knowledge and integrate the values of the Reggio Emilia Approach® into the Vietnamese context”.

Strengthen international relations
Mr. Dante Brandi, Consul General of Italy in Ho Chi Minh City affirmed how Reggio Children became over the years and decades a pedagogic excellence, which Italy is proud to support all around the world. In this regard, he praised the role and mission of Global Embassy in promoting the Reggio Emilia Approach® in Vietnam.

“Loris Malaguzzi, with his vision and intuition, decided to focus from where it all started: education,” he said. After 46 years of diplomatic relations, Vietnam-Italy relations have become more and more extensive in many fields: from political and multilateral cooperation, to economic fields, from the humanities to education. I am even more proud when this cooperation is carried out between two prestigious and internationally recognized organizations, Reggio Children and Global Embassy – a member of Embassy Education Group”.

According to him, “Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, at a central level and through its network of Embassies, Consulates General and Italian Cultural Institutes always stands ready to support these activities. Reggio Children is an excellent ambassador for Italy and the Italian education system, and an effective mean to develop the fundamental values behind our foreign policy”.

Thanks to the efforts of Global Embassy, Reggio Children is building a long-lasting partnership in Vietnam a particularly important country, in a key region of the world, in the development of the preschool education system through academic activities.

INTRODUCTION OF LORIS MALAGUZZI
Loris Malaguzzi, educationalist and pedagogist, founded the Reggio Emilia Approach ® philosophy and together with local administrators, also founded Reggio Emilia’s municipal network of Infant-toddler Centers and Preschools.
Loris Malaguzzi graduated in Pedagogy and Psychology and began his teaching career as a primary school teacher in 1946. In 1950, he founded the municipally run psycho-Pedagogical Medical Centre in Reggio Emilia where he worked for the over twenty years.

In 1963, he worked with the city administration on opening the first municipally run preschools. In 1967, this system of schools also took in the self-managed schools of the People founded at the end of the Second World War. In 1971, centers for infant-toddler 0-3 years old were also added to the city’s educational services which were run by Malaguzzi and close colleagues for several years. Malaguzzi was an advisor to the Ministry of Education and director of the Zerosei and Bamini journals. In 1980, he founded the Nidi Infanzia (0-6) National Group in Reggio Emilia.
Loris Malaguzzi tirelessly promoted the idea of an innovative philosophy of education capable of honoring the legacy of potential with resources revealing what we now know as “the hundred languages of children”.

INTRODUCTION OF “THE HUNDRED LANGUAGES OF CHILDREN”
As human beings, children possess a hundred languages, a hundred ways of thinking, of expressing themselves, of understanding, and of encountering others, with a way of thinking that creates connections between the various dimensions of experience rather than separating them.

The hundred languages are a metaphor for the extraordinary potential of children, their knowledge-building and creative processes and the variety of forms with which life is revealed and knowledge is constructed.
The hundred languages are understood as having the potential to be transformed and multiplied in the cooperation and interaction between the languages, among the children, and between children and adults.

INTRODUCTION OF Vietnam International Reggio Emilia Society (VIRES)
VIRES is a community connecting individuals and educational institutions with the goals of supporting, sharing resources, exchanging experiences and spreading the values of the Reggio Emilia Approach® to many Vietnamese schools, teachers, families and children. With the spirit of Reggio Emilia Approach ® and with the contribution from community, this ecosystem will create an open academic and culture-sharing environment.