Carlina Rinaldi: Making Learning Visible

By Rinna Sanchez-Baluyut, Teacher

In October 2005, a group of Bing teachers ventured to the beautiful city of San Francisco to attend a daylong seminar with Carlina Rinaldi, a leader of the renowned early childhood education program run by the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy. Rinaldi, former director of the city’s early childhood centers, is a professor at Modena-Reggio University, a Reggio Emilia city council member and executive consultant to Reggio Children, the company that manages the city’s pedagogical and cultural exchange initiatives. Rinaldi is also a contributor to the book Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners (Reggio Children, 2001).

According to Rinaldi, teachers teach better if they observe children’s learning processes. Yet, “the most opaque zone of teaching is learning,” she said. So, how can teachers best comprehend the learning processes of their students? By documenting children’s work and making visible their experiences, said Rinaldi.

Rinaldi asserted that by making children’s learning visible, you are actually making an experience visible, which opens the door to dialogues about the experience among children and adults. According to Rinaldi, school is a place of education where all participants are involved (e.g, teachers, parents, children and community). School is a place where we can learn something new and where everyone can bring something and take something away. It also provides an avenue for teachers to become learners together with the children by understanding the learning processes that the children go through. “Children are rich and powerful citizens” who have “great resources and potential,” said Rinaldi. One can appreciate their knowledge, skills and understanding of life only through documenting their work. Once children’s work is carefully exhibited, it involves the parents and community, enabling everyone to learn together, she added.

Rinaldi emphasized that children are the quintessential researchers. They are trying to search for the meaning of life as they marvel, explore, question and discover the world around them. As researchers, children generate a new perspective about life and can give back to us the pleasure and the amazement of what life is. As teachers document their experiences and as children continue to explore, collaboration and dialogue occur. However, to document and to make children’s learning visible, one must truly listen.

According to Rinaldi, to listen is a suspension of judgment; it is an active verb, a moment of reciprocity. It is to welcome, to give value and honor. To listen to children is to let children know that they are valued and respected, that we do treasure them. Each documentation expresses what the teacher values; through documentation children understand that they are valued. The pedagogy of listening is an on-going process of observation, interpretation and documentation, added Rinaldi. Without listening, making learning visible is impossible.