Walking on Silk Threads

The conference was opened by Dr. Veronica Manson, representing the Italian Cultural Institute, Singapore, who ably welcomed Italian colleagues to Singapore.

Our colleagues from Reggio Emilia then shared generously of their rich experience through many encounters across the three day conference. We saw some of the inspiring project work undertaken by the teaching teams in Reggio and listened to stories.

Tiziana helped us to dig deeper into the process of pedagogical documentation (observation, interpretation and documentation) and supported us to be more purposeful in both the selection of research questions and the languages offered to children to help them represent their thinking. She supported us t better understand the values that guide this way of working.

Loretta supported us to understand the Atelier not simply as a space, but as a way of working with children. She invited us to be more sensitive to ‘beauty’ – to have a heightened awareness of the aesthetic dimension within materials, environments and interactions…. Aesthetics are (said Loretta) fundamental to the education of human beings…

The conference title Walking on silk threads represented the delicate balance between fragility and tenacity, or the strength of our work; the balance between theory and practice and the balance between care and indifference. Our colleagues reminded us to be care-ful in our work with children and families and to ensure that visions of high quality gave meaning to all that we do in our classrooms.

We were incredibly fortunate to have speakers of such calibre who across the three days fed both our hearts and our minds sending us back to our own contexts with renewed energy and courage.

– Heather Conroy
Director of REACH