"The destiny of our children, is linked to our own...." - Lorus Malaguzzi, 1970

As we learned at the NAREA conference earlier this month, the intention behind establishing the Reggio-Emilia Foundation was to insure the destiny of our children, beginning with education. The concept of the school as a "learning community", in which all members participate in work, play and co-construction of learning was something very innovative at the time the Approach was being developed and remains something rare in traditional education. Some of the other new ideas generated by Reggio-Emilia include: environment as teacher, or the notion that there must exist a dialogue between pedagogy and architecture of the learning spaces. Urban Ecosystem, that not only our rural areas need protection, but our cities in which we spend so much of our lives need to be healthy and sustainable as well.

This led to the establishment of the Remida, the community recycling center, in which all manner of cast-off, remnant, and used materials are deposited, gathered, sorted and displayed for use later in project work and play at the schools of Reggio-Emilia. The most amazing thing one learns about the schools in Reggio is that they are not just for the students and their parents, but truly for the whole city.

This town of around 180,000 has an annual Remida Day in which all residents of the city participate in the center of the town.