4 febbraio 2012

letting children climb their own mountains

disegno di Caid


“Our task, regarding creativity, is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible. No one can do more.
Loris Malaguzzi 
Italian early education specialist (Reggio Emilia).  
Quoted in The Hundred Languages of Children, ch. 3, by Carolyn Edwards (1993).)


I love this quote.  Children *want* to climb theier own mountains.  Left in freedom,  they will choose the mountain to climb when and where they like, and they will climb it as high as they possibily can.  Sometimes they leave it for a while, it may seem that they have abandoned the task, but then, unexpectedly (for the observer), naturally (for the child) they return to the mountain and run up as fast as they can.
The hardest part is to avoid helping when help is not wanted.

Helping means often standing back, stepping aside.