One Hundred Languages

The Reggio Emilia Approach is inspiring me in my work today. It strengthens my belief that the arts is not a subject area, but a means by which children can create and communicate meaning across all learning areas. It also reminds me why we need to encourage all kinds of spiritual exploration with young people. The hundred languages poem says this much better than I could ever hope to:



The Hundred Languages

No way. The hundred is there.
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.

A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.

The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.

They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.


-Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)
Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach

time to celebrate

I felt really privileged recently to be invited to a school in Albury to speak at their student leadership day. I came away excited and invigorated by the energy and creativity of these year 11 students who created the space to discuss what leadership meant to them, their school and their community. I was struck by the wisdom and thoughtfulness present in all discussions. There were many occasions when I heard a desire to understand others in their community. At one point the group was asked how they would respond to a simple situation as a leader: what would they do if a student arrived at school and wasn’t wearing their uniform properly. The answers given were not reactive or interested in exerting power. One student said “I would ask how their morning was. There could be something really bad going on for them” These students constantly showed a deep understanding of the whole person. I look forward to spending more time with this group of young adults. I think they are going to teach me a lot about respect, creative thinking and wholeness.

These reflections of inspiring young adults are not the pictures we often see painted in our mainstream media. I always get upset at this time of year, as the media gets stuck in to school leavers, calling them everything from “unruly” to “unethical”. People everywhere seem to sigh “oh, the youth of today, they are so (insert derogatory adjective)…blah blah blah. ..” Little space is given to reflect or ask questions of the education system or the wider community. Every year, it seems, another fear campaign is launched against young people. This article in the Age tipped me over the edge and I had to respond:

I find it fascinating that the press continues to portray school leavers as one narcissistic, heaving mass. There are countless stories of young people from across the country planning creative and sustainable experiences to celebrate the end of their schooling. Last year a group of school leavers volunteered in East Timor during Schoolies and next year, in 2010, school leavers from across the state will participate in Schoolies With a Cause, an alternative schoolies program which will take young people on exposure trips to Indonesia, Cape York or Grampians National Park. Volunteers across the state also support school leavers in their local communities by driving shuttle buses, hosting free bbqs and making sure people get home safely.


Why this constant shallow reporting on end of year celebration stories? It is clear that this is an important time for young adults. We all need rituals and celebrations to mark out milestones in our lives, to grieve what has gone and welcome what is to come. Many year 12 students are celebrating this particular milestone in respectful and caring ways. And we can join them. What are we afraid of finding out if we were to get to know the school leavers in our community and ask some deeper questions? I am excited that our community has the opportunity to join with these young adults in celebrating their 13 years of schooling.

(This post is only partly to plug the Schoolies with a Cause program that we are working on for next year and mostly born out of a desire to celebrate stories of young people)

thankfulness

Jess and I visited a school in Launceston last week for work and met some Year 10 students who recently attended a Round Square Conference in India. One young woman wrote the prayer that the school contributed to the conference prayer book, made up of prayers from across the world. I was deeply moved by her evocative writing and wanted to share it here:

We give thanks…We give thanks for the dark, for the night time,
for standing in a room with the lights turned off,
for standing in a shadow of something beautiful,
for floating on our boards, watching ripples become waves;
and not surfing them,
for standing with our eyes closed.


We give thanks for the quiet and calm,
of sleeping and dreaming,
of the chance to feel other senses, to learn
Then, we give a hand, or take a hand
fasten a leggie, share some words, throw out a rope.


Be led or be a leader
to flick on the switch, in our minds, in the minds of others,
into the surf, to ride the waves,
from the shadow- to spy something beautiful,
to open our eyes in readiness for the day.


We give thanks.
Amen

By Aisling Hinchley