Regio Centurion Private School

Regio Centurion Private School is an Afrikaans Primary School in Clubview, Centurion, South Africa. The school opened in 2006 with the purpose of offering education aimed at the future in this community. The school also has a nursery school where the same teaching philosophy is used to prepare the children for primary school.

Philosophy

The Regio Centurion Schools were started in 2006 and the teaching approach is based on the philosophy of the Reggio Emilia schools in the north of Italy. Dr Elsie Calitz's personal child- and world-view developed over many years and so closely resembles Loris Malaguzzi's philosophy that it was possible to adapt this philosophy to South African circumstances.

Background

Dr Elsie Calitz's initial profession was Social Work. The training she had undergone in the sixties was a strong academic but also developed reflective skills and placed much emphasis on a view that aid should focus on developing the indigent's own strengths. At this stage Elsie already had a strong interest in child development and child psychology. In the early seventies Elsie Calitz started studying pre-school education. This move brought the realization that involvement in young children's development creates the opportunity for long-term influence on children's lives. After a number of years as head of a nursery school she moved on to Unisa's Faculty of Education as a lecturer in Movement Science and Environmental Education in the Nursery.

Dr. Calitz's studies in the work of Dr. Montessori, Piaget, Vygotsky, Gardner and Erikson strengthened her view that young children have incredible potential and the will and motivation to find answers for themselves and take control over the exploration of the world they live in. She also realized that she has an outstanding talent to be not only a teacher of children, but also to inspire adults with the same passion for education that she has.

In February 1997, one of the first articles appeared in the popular press about brain development research. "Fertile minds" in Time^[1] created in her a lifelong interest in and commitment to the growing research industry in the development of infants and young children's brains in particular. It became her life's work to inform teachers and parents about the unique, incredible potential locked up in every child.

More or less the same time she started reading about Loris Malaguzzi's work at the Reggio Emilia schools in the north of Italy. There were so many similarities between the Reggio Emilia philosophy and Elsie Calitz's own child image and teaching philosophy it would almost be an inevitable closer acquaintance.

When parents approached Elsie Calitz in 2004 to help them start a primary school she agreed on the terms that it would be part of a nursery school.

Curriculum

The curriculum followed is the official curriculum of the Department of National Education, though the teaching method, based on the teaching philosophy of Loris Malaguzzi and Elsie Calitz differs radically from conventional teaching methods. One of the research areas that Elsie Calitz is interested in is future studies. There are many studies done on changes that will be taking place in the community over the next five to ten years (Cathy Davidson,^[2] Thomas & Brown, Ken Robinson^[3]). Change occurs exponentially faster and more radical. For the teacher who is serious about preparing students for the future, there are many aspects of conventional education that is considered as counter productive to this goal. All of the said researchers identify the following skills that learners should be developing:

• Good communication skills, not only spoken communication, but particularly communication that will take place digitally.
• Communication skills and knowledge stretching across cultural boundaries. If we think that China and India are currently growing as a dominant financial power in the world, it makes sense to let learners do research projects on these countries.
• Creative thinking and problem solving skills have been identified as important skills for future employees by European managers of businesses.

Loris Malaguzzi said: “Creativity becomes more visible when adults try to be more attentive to the cognitive processes of children than to the results they achieve in various fields of doing and understanding.“

The objective of the development of creative thinking thus influences the essence of the education.

• Adaptability is singled out by Ken Robinson as an important future skill. He makes the claim that 50 years ago someone could start at a workplace, receive a home loan and pension and after 50 years, retire. Robinson boldly claims that there are not many firms in the world today able to exist that long without change.
• The implication of these trends is that every learner currently at school is probably going to be retrained more than once. This retraining will probably not be initiated by the employer, but will mean an important skill would be to be a lifelong learner.

These aspects mean that the education at Regio Schools are constantly under the microscope, adjusted and used to prepare learners for a future that is different from the one in which today's adults were learners.

References