Design/Progettazione in infant-toddler centres and preschools

This is the third in Reggio Children's "Fragments" series dedicated to making Loris Malaguzzi's writing, and his talks at conferences and professional learning meetings, available to a wider public. In this volume we can read the transcript of a talk he gave in Reggio Emilia in 1988 as part of a calendar of meetings for educators in municipal infant-toddler centres and preschools, on the theme of 'designing' or 'progettazione' in their work. On this occasion Malaguzzi's reflections "take to the open sea" and touch on several themes: human beings and their place in nature; learning between biological constraint and spaces of design thinking; connections between disciplines and knowledge; the value of subjective differences; the idea that development is not stage-based; uncertainty as a space of freedom and research with strategy and abduction as operational and conceptual tools; the times and quality of possibilities offered and of relations with adults and other children as important factors for constructing meaningful learning.