Off to see the...wizard??

Well yes, if by the Wizard you mean the experts at Reggio Emilia!

Today my first full day in Reggio Emilia! Last night I fell asleep at 9:30, and I woke up around 7:15 this morning.  It was a WONDERFUL night of sleep!  I got dressed, and went to the other building of the hotel for breakfast.  I should explain: I am staying in the “annex” of the hotel.  Hotel Posta, the main hotel, is the oldest hotel/one of the oldest buildings in Reggio Emilia.  So, I am just around the corner, but I must go there for breakfast and such!  Anyway, so breakfast was AH-MAZING!  They had a great bowl of mixed fruit, yogurt, some good bread, AND FINALLY I had some Parmigiano-Reggiano   cheese.  It was my first Parmesan cheese in this region! It was incredible; it just melted in my mouth!  

Once I finished eating, I went out for a walk.  I went into this museum thing that was free and had a piece of art on display that had been made by children in the Reggio schools. 

I went back to the hotel to drop some heavy things off, gathered my thoughts about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see, and then headed back out.  I used my map and started trying to see the things I had made notes about.  I saw a ton of churches, and of course they were all beautiful!  Italy is never lacking for gorgeous churches!

 

Then, I went into the theatre, which was the thing I was most excited to see!  I wandered in, and was so grateful that it was even open!  There were others going up some stairs, so I followed them.  I walked into this room and realized that it was some sort of press conference, so I immediately got out of there, but not before taking a picture of the beautiful room!  So then I went back down stairs, unable to find the entrance to the theatre itself.   So, I gathered all of my courage and asked the ladies at the coat check!  I had to do all of this in Italian, and while at first I was unsure that she understood me, I apologized for my Italian.  They then relaxed and so did I!  Then we started talking and she was complimentary of my Italian!  I was getting better with every second that we were talking; I was able to relax into the language.  Then, she called someone and they said I could come in and see the theatre.  She took me to one of the boxes and let me take some pictures!  

 

 

 It was beautiful!  They were setting up for something, but I was just soooo excited to see the inside of the theatre!   They were so kind, and I was a very happy girl at this point.  

 

 

 When I left the theatre, I walked through this park and saw a school that said, “Diana”.  I wondered if it was a Reggio school, but I would not find out for a day or so!  Then I went into this grocery store that I saw and bought some apples and some tea that was like half price compared to Cosenza.  In all of my walking, I had spotted this gelato shop that I thought looked yummy, and after walking around a bit more, I decided to go back and have this for lunch.  HOLY COW…the place was called, “Emilia” and they had a specialita’ called, well, “Emilia”.  This was the creamiest, yummiest, most amazing gelato that I have had in ALL of Italy!  It was INCREDIBLE!!

 

Not too long after this, I found a place to have my first erbazzone, which is like a small spinach pie.  It is like pastry puff with cooked spinach in the middle, but there is some Parmesan cheese mixed in! It Is simply incredible, and it is a specialty in Reggio Emilia!  It was my first of many, but it was DELICIOUS!!! 

So then I made my way back to the hotel to rest for just a bit before I had to walk to the International Center to start my week of The International Winter Institute.  I talked to Nick while I rested and then while I walked there.  

 As I got closer, I was wondering why I did not see others walking that way.  Then, these three ladies were in front of me, and I heard them speaking English.  I talked to Nick until I got to the doors of the Center, and then let him go so that I could go check in and meet new people.  I introduced myself to the ladies in front of me.  They were from D.C., and I was so excited to be meeting them. 

So then we all went to the registration desk.  The lady asked for my name, and then when she saw my name on the list, she looked up at me and said, “Italy???”  I explained that I am from the U.S., but I live in Italy at the moment!  Her reaction was funny though…I know that I do not look Italian!  The only reason it said Italy anyway was that they needed addresses for information (haha…good luck if they had sent me something) and cell #s, and so thus they had to know I lived in Italy!  As it turned out, there were A LOT of Americans there who worked in International schools around the world, so I was not unique in this, which was so incredible to experience.  So then I sat alone awkwardly for a little bit and talked to Nick for just a few more minutes while I looked through all of the information they had given us! 

Then I hung up with him and started going around socializing a bit and such!  Then I walked into the bookstore and was immediately overwhelmed with the books and dvds that I wanted.  They were all really expensive, but I wanted ALL of them!!!   I knew I had to practice self-control, and I also wanted to look up and see if any of these books could be bought in the U.S. or Amazon or something!! 

So then it was time to start the conference.  We went in and sat down.  The introduction talked about how many countries are involved in the International Network of Reggio Children (34), the number of countries represented at this conference (approximately 50), the fact that this is only the 3rd Winter Institute, this is the 50th year of Reggio schools, and then they talked a little bit about "research".  The idea of research was not like thesis research, dissertation research, etc. etc.  Carla Rinaldi talked about how the teacher is a researcher, the children are researchers, and together they search for and generate knowledge; as a team!  There is a lot more to say about this, but I will be writing something/making a powerpoint, so I can share it all with those who are interested at a later date!  Basically what was said today was that it is going to be an awesome week!   

Then we had a little tea time.  There were little breads and some tea, coffee, juice, etc.  This is when I met Kookai, who is from Taiwan.  She lives there now, but studied in England, so her English was wonderful!  She is currently working in her parent’s hotel in Taiwan, but she wants to go back to working with children!  We all snacked and such, and then we divided into “tour” groups to see a little bit of Reggio Emilia.  It was a bit of a weird tour because they girl did not seem to know too much about the city or anything.  However, I met some really nice people.  First I met Tarika from NYC.  She works in a private school teaching Kindergarten!  She looks like she is my age, but she has a 16 year old daughter who is actually traveling in Turkey right now on a school trip!  Then I met two ladies from London who work at The American school there; neither one of them is actually from London though.  One lady was from Chicago, and the other was from Australia.  I also meet Heejoon (sp??) on this walk.  She is from South Korea, and has lived and studied in Perugia.  She works with the top Reggio consultant in South Korea, so that was pretty cool!  She has been to the Cheri in Gubbio, which is the festival that we are all going to in May.  She speaks Italian really well, and she wants to study in Reggio Emilia to become a pedagogista.  She has a friend who has does something similar to this in Italy, and it made me want to do it.  I also met Sara, who is from Florida State University, but is living in Spain at the moment.  She is finishing her master’s degree and starting a PhD in the summer.  She has just applied to present at the NAEYC conference next year, and she wants to work doing pre-service training for teachers!  She and I are going to be talking a lot in the near future!  She is doing/wants to do some things that I am interested in doing.  I also met Emili, who is from Tokyo.  She went to boarding school in England for high school and then went to Boston University.  She has lived in Hong Kong, San Francisco, England, and now Tokyo again.  She previously worked as an investment banker, but decided that she wanted to do something different with her life; something where she was giving back to the world!  She and I have a similar travel bug- she doesn’t like to stay/live in one place too long!!!  I also met a nice lady from Chicago who is working with a group at home that is working on early childhood education advocacy from what I can tell.  She had a really bad sinus infection, and this led us to having an interesting experience in the Farmacia, which was my first experience in there.  Then we struggled to find something to eat, and it was left to mine and HeeJuyn’s Italian.  Things were not quite open yet, because it is Italy and things are not open until 8ish.  So, we found a trattoria, and decided to eat there. 

I ordered the cappalletti in brodo, which is like a tortellini with meat in it and mine was in a broth.  
Emili had the same thing but in a cream sauce.  It was amazing!  I was able to try someone’s tortelli di zucca, which is tortelli with pumpkin inside.  These are both local specialties, and so I was excited to try them!  While we were there, we met a lady who was eating alone.  She was with the Reggio Winter Institute as well.  She is from Poland and works in preschool there.  She told us a really interesting story about how the word for preschool teacher in Polish was a very “gendered” word in the past.  It was always associated with the female, but now it is changing.  Now this old word is rather offensive to most preschool teachers.  It was so much fun to sit at dinner and talk to all of these women, from around the world, and talk about preschool/child development/parenting/anything related to children.  It was INCREDIBLE!!  We talked about parents and how teachers relate to them; we talked about the gender of teachers in preschools and the value of male teachers; Developmentally Appropriate Practices; we talked about issues with children needing help/assessment and how to talk to parents about it/teachers and parents not wanting to say anything or have any sort of assessment done; we talked about the issue of children having too many choices sometimes (a debate about whether this is true or not); we talked about what brought us all to Reggio (general agreement that it is famous/wonderful/something to draw inspiration from); we talked about private schools in NYC; cultural things in our countries, etc.  It was incredible to sit there and talk about how we all deal with similar issues in the field, but we live worlds apart.  It was incredible that we could sit there and talk about how early childhood education/preschool is under appreciated in our countries, but we all had different reasons why this is; different cultural things that are working against the appreciation of preschool education.  There are people at this conference that live in war-torn countries and therefore the government and the people are not concerned about their children’s early education, and it is because they are fighting for survival.  What a foreign concept to us in the U.S..  In my mind, this gives us no reason to not value and fight for what it is we love to do.  We have no such excuse, and therefore we should be fighting, just as the educators in Reggio Emilia are, to have children valued and educated, starting at a young age.