Science education in preschool: How to assimilate the Reggio Emilia pedagogy in a Turkish preschool

Prior research examined the appearance of natural sciences in preschools inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach and discussed how it can be adapted into an American context. For example, Savoye (2001) indicates that, “critics complain that Reggio is too complex to implement” (p. 2). There is a misconception about being inspired and implementing something. The Reggio Emilia approach is not a predetermined program to implement. Similar misconception appears in Desouza’s statement (1999) that, “adapting the Reggio approach in the school curriculum in the United States is not an easy task” but a challenge (p. 8). Maybe the problem is trying to adapt the Reggio Emilia approach. Kathy, the preschool teacher in the Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool, said, “We are Reggio inspired. What that means, the whole point of that is that, we reinvent ourselves. So whoever is inspired by this approach, it requires that you do not adapt them, but reinvent yourself.” She also stated, “There is not a pathway of being part of Reggio Emilia.” The Reggio Emilia approach proposes the most appropriate early childhood education approach for any classroom, because it is about assimilating the principles into your own, unique context. There is no right or wrong way to be Reggio Emilia-inspired, but assimilating the Reggio principles and living in your own world with your own realties. So it cannot be difficult.

Although the experiences would be different in each community, the pedagogical principles driven from the Reggio Emilia approach would be common, such as children’s interest as the driving force in natural sciences education. As evidence shows, it is possible to have the classroom practices in the Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool consistent with the Reggio Emilia principles (the image of the child, education based on relationships, the role of the teacher, progettazione, inquiry-based education, documentation, the role of the environment and materials and the hundred languages of children). The results of Inan (2007)’s research indicated that the teachers in the Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool created a science-rich context of social-constructivist and inquiry/interest-based education where children’s knowledge of natural sciences and skills could be nourished. The Reggio Emilia-inspired teachers provided the preschoolers a context where they pursued their inquiries and interests in the natural sciences, learned about the content, used science process skills and actively and cooperatively engaged in science processes. This was not a linear, simple, predetermined process, but very complex and happened in multiple ways like a spider web.

Being Reggio Emilia-inspired, the teachers in Inan’s (2007) study stated their interest in reflecting their own community's culture and expanding the worlds of their own children. They indicated that the Reggio Emilia approach provided them the freedom of innovation; in other words, the ability to create their own unique Reggio Emilia approach in their unique classroom, and thus the ability to reinvent themselves. Accordingly, this allowed them, in some ways, to be different from the Reggio Emilia schools in Italy. While they were inspired by the principles of the approach, they were also, for example, more individualist.