The Wonder of Learning
The Hundred Languages of Children

 The Hundred Languages of Children is a continuously updated travelling exhibition that translated into various languages has been telling the story of the Reggio educational experience worldwide to thousands of visitors for over twenty-five years (Autumn 1981-Sping 2008).
During this time Reggio infant-toddler centres and preschools together with elementary schools have continued to enrich their journey and explore more deeply with further research. This has created a desire for a new exhibition that can continue the story of today’s children and teachers and today’s education and accompany the original The Hundred Languages of Children.

An exhibition can be a democratic piazza calling international attention to the importance of education and schools as places for discussion and mutual exchange: a piazza for dialogue about our qualities and our limits, about what we are now and what we could become.

The Wonder of Learning: the Hundred Languages of Children continues the idea of a travelling exhibit.
It can be seen as an activator for strategies and areas of cultural activities going beyond the world of childhood, an enabler and promotor of evolutionary professional development processes for educators in schools and society at large. The exhibition speaks to all those involved in schooling – teachers, pedagogues, psychologists, families etc. – and to all members of the general public who believe
that safeguarding educational processes and their evolution is of fundamental importance for society.

At the roots of this exhibition there lies a strongly interdisciplinary and intercultural concept of knowledge and learning that guarantees equal rights of expression and listening to head and hands, to emotion and rationality. In this knowledge aesthetic is no longer confined to artistic and poetic forms of expression but defines knowledge itself and traverses all the different languages.
The exhibition aims to re-confirm certain values at the heart of the Reggio educational philosophy and recount the changes, developments and innovation these have undergone. All sparked off by experiences at different levels and in situations going beyond Reggio Emilia and its infant-toddler centres, preschools and elementary schools, to involve other cities, other areas in Italy and other countries around the world.

Concepts and values in the exhibition

The exhibition is divided into different sections with certain ideas running through each of these and picking up threads in the previous Hundred Languages exhibition to examine some aspects more deeply. These are:

• celebrating intelligence in children and in adults
• celebrating the Hundred Languages each child (each human being) is gifted with
• identifying contexts that can activate relationships with things featuring intense solidarity and participation. Contexts also capable of providing connections between cognitivity, logic, imagination and emotion
• the importance played by poetic languages in safeguarding a more complete approach to knowing
• processes of observation and documentation as a base for interpreting that is vital for designing educational work (progettazione)
• learning considered both as a subjective process within a group and as group learning
• how cultural and expressive tension and participation produce and hold together effort, joy and pleasure in learning

The new exhibition seeks to give more space and visibility to certain areas because of their relation to and conversation with contemporary life. These areas include the role of adults, continuity in projects from infant-toddler through to primary education, the language of dance, the language of sound, the language of science and – to conclude – narrative structure as fertile vehicle for meanings.

The exhibition will draw attention – using various tools and strategies – to just some of the projects carried out in the following areas:

• children with special rights
• family participation
• school relations with the city (local community)

Parts of the exhibition

There are six sections to the exhibition.
A first section introduces the pedagogical thinking in the Reggio Approach referred to throughout the exhibition.
A further five sections follow:

• Dialogues with places
• Dialogues with material
• The enchantment of writing
• Ray of light
• Browsing through ideas

Exhibition Layout

Initial ideas about exhibition layout include creating a sequence of interconnected micro-places that can be viewed separately. Each of these places will have a strong character linked to subject matter.
The sections do not follow any particular order and can be approached according to visitors’ personal interests. The micro-places include seating areas, tables, reference areas, sofas and film areas. Other facilities could be used to complement the layout such as an exhibition shop and coffee shop.

The various projects can be viewed on different parallel levels of communication. The aim is to offer visitors not only a sequential viewing (like reading a book) but a road-map guiding reading of each section and leading into the deeper focuses and close-ups. Objects, video film, access to initial sources of documentation, tapescripts and audio material can all be considered as “attachments” allowing personalised use of the exhibition depending on each person’s level of interest and competency. Different media will allow in-depth views of children’s and teachers’ processes, the adult’s role, working tools etc.

Website

The exhibition will be supported by an Italian/English website that aims to complement ideas and suggestions visitors might experience during their actual visit. The site will be a tool for closer study of contents in certain sections.
Visitors will be able to download a selection of images, videos and texts etc. describing and accompanying the educational projects and single situations recounted in the exhibition. This will allow constant updating of the contents depending on where and when the exhibition is shown.