Discover what the 100 languages of children means, where it came from and why it is an important element of any child-centered education program. In this blog post you’ll find how you can use the hundred languages of children in your classroom.
Are you interested in learning more about the 100 languages of children?
The Hundred Languages is a term used by the educators of Reggio Emilia, Italy. The children in their Reggio classrooms use one hundred languages (and more) to construct concepts and consolidate their understanding of the world around them.
In this blog post you will discover what the 100 languages of children means, where the idea started, why it is an important element of a child-centered education program and how you can use the 100 languages of children in your classroom.
For the educators and children of Reggio Emilia, the hundred languages become a way of structuring knowledge and organising learning. The Hundred Languages of children are described as being
-
Expressive
-
Communicative
-
Symbolic
-
Cognitive
-
Ethical
-
Metaphorical
-
Logical
-
Imaginative
-
Relational
The Reggio Emilia Approach
The Reggio Emilia Approach is a child-centered pedagogy which has been labelled by some as the best early childhood education model in the world. Loris Malaguzzi, an Italian researcher and educator, played a crucial role in the creation and development of the Reggio Emilia Approach.
The Reggio philosophy sees children as powerful and capable individuals. Malaguzzi’s insightful observations of children found they have the ability and desire to construct their own knowledge. He wrote:
To learn is a satisfying experience… Once children are helped to view themselves as authors or inventors, once they are helped to discover the pleasure of inquiry, their motivation and interest explodes. The age of childhood is more characteristic of this than the ages that follow.
The educators of Reggio Emilia base their philosophy on the understanding that children construct and co-construct knowledge. They observed their children constantly interacting with their physical and social environments, asking questions, and forming understandings of the world around them.
So, the Reggio educators provided their children with opportunities to share their experiences and understandings with others. They discovered that as the children shared their knowledge in both formal and informal ways, it turned into a very rich learning experience for everybody concerned.
Malaguzzi wrote a poem to reflect his thoughts and his image of the child as researcher.
The 100 Languages of Children Poem
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 marvelling 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 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)
