Ena Shelley, Butler University Dean of the College of Education, shared the following remarks on the first morning of the conference. The Indianapolis Children's Choir also offered their contribution to this opening session.

Welcome! My name is Ena Shelley and I am the Dean of the College of Education at Butler University. On behalf of the Indianapolis Reggio Collaborative and the exhibit conference committee, we welcome you to this very special conference and welcome our special guests from Reggio Emilia, Italy. I would like to introduce the founding members of the Indianapolis Reggio Collaborative: Connie Sherman, Executive Director of St. Mary's Child Center; Ron Smith, principal of the Warren Early Childhood Center; and Dr. Denna Renbarger, principal of the Early Learning Centers in Lawrence Township. I would also like to welcome Paola Santini, Honorary Vice Consul for Italy in Indiana and Caterina Cregor-Blitzer, Director of International Education for the Indiana Department of Education.  We are also honored to have Margie Cooper, Co-Chair of the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance and Judith Kaminsky, Editor of Innovations in Early Education: The International Reggio Exchange and NAREA Exhibit Project Coordinator. 

Getting the exhibit to Indianapolis and offering conferences such as this one has taken the work of many, many people. Would the members of the exhibit conference committee and all of the educators who have helped please stand and accept our gratitude? A special thank you to Sharon Stuhldreher for all of her help with conference registration, arrangements, folders, and details.

We are privileged to have the Indianapolis Children's Choir, under the direction of Dr. Henry Leck, with us today. I would invite the audience to stand as the Choir sings our national anthem.

 
Carlina Rinalidi, Executive Consultant for Reggio Children and Professor at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy, has authored numerous texts and articles, and many of us have had the privilege of hearing her speak.  In her text, Dialogue with Reggio Emilia:  Listening, Researching and Learning, Carlina wrote:

"Reggio speaks to those of us who long for something else, another belonging. It gives comfort and hope by being different, by showing the possibility of different values, different relationships, and different ways of living. For example, visitors to Reggio Emilia are usually coming home with a strong feeling that children, parents, and politicians are really participators in the schools, that Reggio has managed to involve them and created an interest and participatory engagement. To create such an interest, pedagogical documentation has been a fantastic mediator and tool. In Reggio, they have managed to make children's schools important in a democratic context, something which counteracts apathy and disinterest, which often is the result of not being listened to and taken seriously.

Reggio offers a sense of belonging to people longing for other values, relationships and ways of living. At the same time, it erodes, even in a small way, the confidence of the dominant discourse, its critical thinking putting a stutter in that discourse's arrogant narrative of necessity and absolute truth. By doing so it offers something very precious and in short supply today---HOPE."

The exhibit and our Italian colleagues, Mirella Ruozzi and Deanna Margini, provide us with the opportunity to engage in dialogue about why high quality early childhood education is the right of all children. At this time, I would like for the children from St. Mary's Child Center, the Warren Early Childhood Center, and the Early Learning Centers of Lawrence Township to please proceed to the stage [and hold the Italian flag] as the audience stands for the Italian national anthem.
 
The Indianapolis Reggio Collaborative selected the theme of social justice for our six months of interaction with the exhibit. We are striving to increase the awareness of the importance of high quality education for Indiana's youngest children based upon the documented success of the programs in Reggio Emilia. I would like to read to you the well known and much loved poem by Loris Malaguzzi, entitled "The 100 Languages of Children." I am reading this to honor all of Indiana's children:

No way. The hundred is there.
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
 
To honor our state and the significance of hosting the exhibit, I would now ask Dr. Leck and the choir to sing a very special song, "Back Home Again in Indiana."


Robert Greenleaf wrote: "Not much happens without a dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams. Much more than a dream is needed to bring it to reality; but the dream must be there first."

Ron, Connie, Denna and all of our friends---we have dreamed about this moment for a very long time.  A very important colleague who has helped us realize our dream is with us today. Louise Cadwell, author of Bringing Reggio Home and Bringing Learning to Life, and a leader in creating the St. Louis Collaborative has been a guide and inspiration to the IRC. Louise, would you please stand and accept our gratitude?

During our time together, as we engage in sharing ideas and dialogue, as you interact with the exhibit---I invite you to dream of the life we want for our children and how we can bring it to reality.
 
Dr. Leck, will you and the children share one last, very special song with us:"I Dreamed a Dream."

 

to the keynote speakers--Mirella Ruozzi (C)

and Deanna Margini (R) 

 

 

 

 

A reception was held on Friday evening and included
community members as well as conference attendees.