I was a bit lazy and dashed off to view this exhibition at World Museum Liverpool (2nd floor) without reading up on what it was all about. But no worries there’s a nice A4 information pack to take as I enter.
“This exhibit opposes any prophetic pedagogy that knows everything before it happens…” Oh dear, several paragraphs full of more high-brow buzzwords later and I’m none the wiser. Lots of words, saying nothing, Ah! this must be a ‘teachers pack’, they’re used to dealing with this stuff.
Fortunately the NML press office are experienced interpreters too so I refer to their press release…
“A new exhibition at World Museum Liverpool demonstrates the ground-breaking techniques used in the pre-school educational centres of excellence in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia, Italy.
100 Languages of Children opens Monday 17 October to 13 November 2005 and features artwork produced by the Reggio children. World Museum Liverpool is the last place to house the exhibition in Britain.
The schools were established more than 40 years ago and central to their approach is the interests of the child, with teachers observing and supporting the 100 ways in which children communicate and express their ideas.
Young children are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through all of their natural languages, including words, movement, drawing, painting, building, sculpture, shadow play, collage, dramatic play and music. The exhibition contains examples of these forms of creativity and the unique methods used to inspire them.”
That’s more like it and, to be fair, most of the literature in the pack is good and interesting as is the exhibition. If you are at all interested in the education of young children you should go and see this before its tour of Britain ends here on November 13th.
Its a large room packed with examples of the output from the children’s projects. I just love the cute angels like this one and the mural is cool too.