Loris Malaguzzi was Born in Corregio, Italy in 1920. He lived in a city called Reggioi Emmilia in

On the opposite side of the continuum, the Reggio Emilia approach is a programme that is centred on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community. It is based on the interests of the children through a self-guided curriculum with no early learning goals or inspections.

An education provides people not only with the academic skills required, but also the social skills such as having the self confidence and belief in ones self to achieve a fulfilling and happy life. It is every child’s human right to receive such an education from early years to higher, and therefore several stages in which they must travel for this to happen.

While there is no fixed curriculum or one specific model to emulate, the Reggio Emilia approach does have some essential components, some fundamental ideas about how children learn most effectively. The utmost is the idea that the young child is inherently competent not only as a learner but as an initiator. The child has preferences and opinions that have value and should be listened to with respect and care, knowing that they have much to offer their classroom community and community at large. This pedagogy plays a large role in shaping the Reggio classroom. It allows the children to pursue projects which are interesting and meaningful and then allowing adequate time to follow those projects with passion.

Early years frameworks in the U.K emphasise the importance of a personal and individual approach to learning and development:

Although the framework is slightly different for every nation, the development of early years curricula has been significantly influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach, the Montessori

Maria Montessori and Jean Piaget are two educational philosophers whose theories are still being used and influence today’s educational system. Their theories and methods were revolutionary for their times, but they came to be greatly respected. Both of these theorist developed their own stages of child development and were able to base education on these stages. Although in many ways Piaget and Montessori were very similar in their thinking they were also very different in their teaching approaches. Piaget and Montessori are two main players in the early childhood education field and based most of their ideas on their observations of children.

Reggio Emilia is a child driven methodology where children are enriched within their environment as well as communication from their peers. Reggio Emilia schooling is an innovative approach for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Teachers are considered co learners with the children. The classroom environment is considered a “third teacher” while the children are seen as obtaining a “hundred languages”. Reggio Emilia schooling can be viewed as an out of the box and unorganized approach to learning due to excluding a written curriculum. Reggio Emilia has been viewed as highly unstructured with a high chance of bullying to develop. Reggio Emilia is an unconventional way of providing students with a manipulative environment including co-learners

The statement demonstrates children through the theories Piaget, Skinner and Vygotsky and how they are connected to the statement Malaguzzi (cited in Dahlberg, Moss and Pence), in images of children, being rich in potential, strong and powerful in children’s learning and

Maria Montessori founded an education system which is called Montessori and still bares her name, her system is based on belief in the child’s creative potential, (Douglas, n.d.). Her first Casa Dei Bambini (Children’s house), where Maria was using her approach of teaching was opened in 1907 in Rome. She was great educator who believed that children are learning through their personal experience at their right time and their own pace. (Ridgway, 2007). Children rather than learning largely from what the teachers and the textbooks say, learn from “doing”,(Douglas, n.d.). To provide for children an effective, independent learning process, and that they become a competent and confident learner, Teacher had to provide for children a healthy, clean, well-prepared and well organised environment in which children could develop. Maria Montessori came up with idea that if children have to work and play independently, they have to be comfortable and need appropriately sized tools and items that fit their small hands (Mooney, 2000). Montessori believed that children learn through sensory experiences. Teacher has a responsibility to provide wonderful sights, textures, sounds, and smells for children. Sensory

2012). The environment and classroom space are separated into ten center areas that help enhance hands on activities with learning materials and manipulatives. These centers include: blocks, dramatic play, toys and games, art, sand and water tables, library (reading center), discovery (science), music and movement, cooking, and outdoor activities. Activity areas are designed to support the specific learning objectives. Similar to Reggio Emilia’s approach teachers assess the students learning and base curriculum off their interests and pace. The creative curriculum approach measures incremental progress to communicate the child’s growth through benchmarks through the learning objectives.

Guido d’Arezzo is credited for inventing modern musical notation (Ure). Up until the 9th century, musical notes were represented by “neumes” and the version of the staff they had only provided an approximation of what pitch the musicians should play. It is thought that the reason why this is is because music was traditionally passed down orally, and so the written music was only needed as a reminder while the musicians learned by actually hearing the music using rote rehersal. After the 9th century, musicians started experimenting with different ways to write music down on a staff. In the 12th century, Guido d’Arezzo invented the Guidonian Hand. This was a way to notate musical notes on the human hand. This was used for learning, teaching,

DR Maria Montessori’s main discovery was the reality of a child’s true nature WHICH IS the NORMALIZED CHILD. She described the

Dr. Maria Montessori is the creator for the Montessori Education Method for a new world who devoted her life to improve children’s education excellence. Her educational method is widely used in schools or at home for children 3 t0 6 years old. Maria Montessori lived through one of the traumatic time eras of the world history, which changed everybody’s lives including children. It was the time of anxiety, cruelty, death, family separation and children facing starvation. Maria Montessori felt the best solution to overcome endless, war, violence and poverty is education. Therefore, Maria Montessori believed educating the next generation will improve children’s live and future of the

Montessori realized the connection between science, psychology, and the education world and began to speak out at conferences about the subject. She also studied the needs of special education children and began to establish strategies of teaching the so called ‘degenerate’ children in society (Povell, 2007). Furthermore, she was a major impact on the woman’s movement in Italy, and believed in the fact of the “new woman”, so she pushed women to take leading roles in instructional reform. In addition to being an example of the “new woman”, she used that distinction to encourage the woman to struggle for their rights and win the distinction as an equal gender. (Hainstock, 1997) Despite her success, Musilini banished her from Italy because she didn’t teach the traditional Italian way, so she went to Spain and then the Netherlands where she died in 1952, after she was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize. However, her name and philosophy are still alive in many schools around the world. (Povell, 2007) With respect to education, Maria Montessori was influenced by the works of the physicians

In 1907, she opened her first school Casa del Bambini in Rome- The first Montessori in Ireland was opened by Sr. Gertrude in 1920 (M. Beaver et al, 2001, p380). Montessori‘s curriculum consists of five areas