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theory in practice take place for the field to increase to a higher level of
professionalization. The next step for the field of early childhood would be to firmly
accept theory into practice.
Early childhood educators need to go beyond loving and nurturing to embrace
theory in practice. Ayers (2001) suggests that for teachers “love for students just as they
are – without drive or advance toward a future – is false love, enervating and disabling”
(p. 138). Teaching and learning can be a transformative experience for the student and the
teacher. To become a transformative teacher, early childhood educators must see
themselves as students, seekers, and aspirants. As teachers “we must understand our lives
and our work as a journey or a quest” (Ayers, 2001, p. 138). While on the journey, early
childhood educators can become “students of our students, in part to understand them, in
part to know ourselves” (Ayers, 2001, p. 138). Paola Friere (1985) describes the
transactional process of teaching and learning:
Through dialogue the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the
teachers cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with
students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches,
but one who is himself taught in dialogue with students, who in turn while
being taught also teaches. They become jointly responsible for a process in
which all grow. (p. 67)
Guided by the visionary Loris Malaguzzi, the Italian educators of Reggio Emilia
have continuously revisited the works of leading theorists in conjunction with their own
experiences in order to reconstruct their practice to meet the changing needs of the
children they teach. The history and philosophy of Reggio Emilia can give North
American educators “the courage to reconstruct and reinvent the Reggio Emilia
approach – to make it our own” (Fu, 2002, p. 29). In Reggio Emilia, the child is often
referred to as the protagonist or the centre of the story. Teachers and parents, though, are