Learning Alongside the World: Our Teachers' Journey to Reggio Emilia

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This past April vacation week, something remarkable happened — every teacher at Fox Hill School boarded a plane together and flew to Reggio Emilia, Italy. Not for a getaway. Not for a conference in the traditional sense. But for something that is harder to describe and far more meaningful: a week of deep listening, honest questioning, and professional renewal at the heart of one of the world's most celebrated educational movements.

We participated in the Reggio Children International Study Tour, held at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre — a place built, as educator Carlina Rinaldi once described it, "to give greater value to the rights and requests of children, young people, families and teachers." Walking through its doors for the first time, that intention was palpable.

A World Gathering Around Children

We were not alone in making this journey. This year's study tour brought together approximately 400 educators from 43 countries — teachers, pedagogistas, atelieristas, researchers, and school leaders — all arriving with their own questions, their own contexts, and their own hopes for what education can be.

There is something quietly powerful about sitting in a room with people who have traveled from Kenya, from Japan, from Brazil, from Norway — all drawn to the same city, the same philosophy, the same belief that children deserve so much more than we often give them. It reminded us that the work we do at Fox Hill is part of something much larger than our classrooms. It is part of a global conversation about what it means to truly respect and honor childhood.

Children Are Not Empty Vessels — They Are Rights-Holders

Perhaps the most stirring thread woven through every presentation, every school visit, every small-group dialogue was this: children have rights. Not just the right to be safe or fed or sheltered — but the right to be heard, to be taken seriously, to be seen as capable and curious human beings from their very first days.

The Reggio Emilia Approach is built on the image of a child who is strong, not fragile. Competent, not dependent. Full of questions, not waiting to be filled with answers. This is not simply an educational philosophy — it is a moral and political stance. It says: this child, right now, in this moment, matters. Her thinking matters. His curiosity matters. Their hundred languages matter.

One of our workshops brought this into sharp focus in a way none of us expected. The presenters reminded us that even though it is in our nature as adults — as parents and teachers — to want to protect children from what is happening in the world, children are not shielded from it. They see. They hear. And they are actively processing that information in ways that can astonish us, if we are willing to listen.

As evidence, they shared words spoken by a five-year-old child named Lucrezia:

"It's not that other people have to think what we think in order to be free. We're free to think differently......" — Lucrezia, age 5

We sat with that for a long moment. A five-year-old, offering a vision of freedom and pluralism that many adults struggle to articulate. This is what the Reggio Emilia Approach trusts in — the profound capacity of children to grapple with the world as it actually is.

Coming home, we are asking ourselves: in every interaction, in every moment of our day, are we truly honoring that belief?

Teachers and Children Are Learning Together

One of the things that moved us most deeply during the week was the realization that in Reggio Emilia, teachers are not the experts delivering knowledge to children. They are co-learners. Co-researchers. People who show up every morning genuinely curious about what children will say and do and create — and who allow that curiosity to shape the direction of learning.

This is not a passive role. It requires close observation, careful listening, honest documentation, and a willingness to be surprised. It requires the humility to say, I don't know where this is going, and that is okay. It requires trust — in children, in colleagues, and in the process itself.

For us as a teaching team, being in Italy together — sitting side by side in presentations, exploring ateliers, processing what we heard over long dinners and morning coffees — was itself a model of this kind of shared learning. We weren't just studying a philosophy. We were living it.

The Importance of Listening — Especially Across Difference

One theme returned again and again throughout the week, in ways both gentle and urgent: listening matters. Real listening. Not waiting for your turn to speak. Not listening to confirm what you already believe. But listening with openness — especially to those who see things differently than you do.

In a room with 400 people from 43 countries, that is no small challenge. Every participant brought a different cultural lens, a different political reality, a different set of constraints and possibilities. And yet the invitation was clear: stay in the room. Stay curious. Cooperate even — especially — when it is uncomfortable.

This feels particularly important right now, in a world that often rewards certainty over curiosity and speaking over listening. We left Reggio Emilia recommitted to building a school community where disagreement is welcomed, where different perspectives are genuinely sought out, and where the act of truly hearing one another is valued as one of the most important things we can do — for ourselves, for each other, and for the children in our care.

What Comes Next

We came home changed. Not dramatically — not in ways that will transform Fox Hill overnight — but changed in the way that deep learning always changes you: quietly, fundamentally, and with a kind of responsibility attached.

In the weeks and months ahead, you will see us continuing to listen more carefully to your children. You will see us documenting their ideas with greater intention. You will see us designing spaces and experiences that invite their questions rather than answer them prematurely. You will see us working together as a team with renewed commitment, because we know now — more than ever — that what we build together is richer than anything we could build alone.

We are grateful. Grateful for Italy, for Reggio Emilia, for the educators around the world who share this work, and for you, our Fox Hill community, that makes it possible for us to grow.

Most of all, we are grateful for your children — who remind us every single day why this matters.