More parents across the US increasingly send their tots to preschools that use the Reggio Emilia Approach. Ever since Newsweek dubbed it the world’s best in the 1990s, Reggio Emilia preschools have mushroomed across America, now numbering around 1,200.

Parents have been enamored with the Reggio Emilia approach for making them, their children, and teachers equal stakeholders in the learning process. It views learning as child-initiated, rather than an impetus created by teachers. Furthermore, it heavily emphasizes the arts, in sync with the great Italian tradition.

This approach began after the Second World War in its namesake Italian city, where the government reserves outstanding financial support for toddlers. In the original Reggio Emilia program as now, two curriculum teachers, or “pedagogistes,” are assigned to a class of 12-24 students. Additionally, students are assigned one teacher trained in the arts, an “atelierista,” plus some substitute educators. In any event, the teachers do not subscribe to any particular hierarchy.

Reggio Emilia teachers are not one’s usual cookie-cutter lecturers, who use manuals and achievement exams. They rather function as learners themselves, systematically observing the children’s behavior. In fact they go as far as using cameras, journals, and recorders to document it. This they do in order to plan and implement their curriculum well. They also tailor-make projects around their findings.

Parents, then, are the second teachers; the Reggio approach genuinely views the parent as an important aspect in the learning process. To exemplify this, Reggio preschools hold conferences, lectures, and many other events that involve parents all year long.

At the same time, the Reggio approach perceives the environment as the child’s “third educator.” Reggio Emilia preschools are almost always telltale with indoor plants and a light-filled center piazza. Classrooms typically open to the outdoors, whether via a door, courtyard, or glass wall. Almost all classrooms also set space apart for a studio, or “atelier,” where children can freely tinker with paint, clay, and other implements.