A_Visit_to_Reggio_Emillio_Approach

In January, leaving the New England winter behind, Rena Osmer and I traveled to Los Angeles to pursue our interest in the work of Emmi Pikler. Each of us had discovered her ideas and writing though different avenues, and had become increasingly certain that this approach to understanding infants and very young children had a valuable contribution to make to Waldorf early childhood teachers. Emmi Pikler’s research on the early motor development of the child has inspired Helle Heckmann, founder of the Nøkken child care center in Copenhagen, among others. A practicing pediatrician in Budapest, Dr. Pikler made an early mark through her deep personal engagement with the families of her young patients and her advocacy for the child’s freedom to develop the early motor stages without intervention or unnatural encouragement from well-intentioned adults. It was said that if one visited a playground in Budapest that the “Pikler babies” could be easily identified because of their fluid, graceful, and confident physical movements. Out of the recognition of her experiences in her private practice, she was invited to create an institute that would serve as an orphanage for young children from birth to three years of age. This she did, and became an intimate observer of the babies and a thorough researcher. Her studies demonstrated clearly the value of attentive care giving, unrestricted motor movements, and respect for the child. A mother who sought out Dr. Pikler as a pediatrician for her own children, Magda Gerber was inspired by Dr. Pikler to take up child development studies.Magda came to work at the Loczy Institute with Dr. Pikler, and became a close colleague there. At the outbreak of the Hungarian revolution in the 1950’s, the Gerbers immigrated to the United States where Magda eventually found herself in southern California. Here she observed the deep need of parents for support in their parenting responsibilities and she endeavored to find a way to bring her experiences with Dr. Pikler into this new context. She eventually founded the RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) center in Los Angeles. Through Magda’s expertise and teaching, the RIE center began to offer parent-infant observation (sometimes called ‘guidance’) classes and a three-step training for such teachers as well as training for childcare providers. Other RIE training graduates have also taken up this work and offer parent-infant classes throughout the Los Angeles area. We arrived in southern California only to find that we had not exactly left winter behind, but had discovered another aspect of it, as we dressed in ever more layers to meet the challenges of no central heat. But our work thoroughly warmed us, as we joined seven other eager participants in the RIE I intensive course. Our training was given by Magda Gerber herself, who despite her age of 85 years joined us each day for conversation, questions, and sharing from her life’s experiences and the wisdom she has gathered through them. Carol Pinto, an original board member of RIE and the current president who also teaches a parentchild class at the center led our training.