Spring 2020

of this can be called a city that develops, defends
and fights for the rights for children.
Q: How do children learn at L’Atelier?
Children are innate creative learners. They
are born with a myriad of capacities that
they discover in connection with life happenings.
At L’Atelier, the unique creative educational
proposal is offered as a system of a
school seen as an atelier. The environments
resemble the child’s thinking styles. They
are diverse, aesthetically pleasant, divergent,
provoking, curious, and empathetic.
School should be the mirror
of childhood, and as
such it must respect
the child’s identity
by offering,
especially
in the most
important
years of life,
the inherent
values of the culture of
childhood.
Children learn with friends and in dialogue
with adults, immersed in ateliers or studios
that bring the marvelous essence of human
kind, nature, the universe, and the world of
words and numbers to life through materials
of all kinds. They learn by discussing and
drawing, imagining and creating, using the
many languages of the body, the sound and
the light. Children compare and contrast,
raise points of view and learn to agree to disagree.
They make use of dialogue, documentation,
reflection, and revisiting. They are
experimenters, communicators and collaborators,
creators and problems solvers which
are all needed for 21st century learning.
Children work in large community projects
as well as with mixed age groups at times.
Children who travel the entire journey at
L’Atelier exit with “pebbles in their pockets”
as Professor Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the
Reggio Emilia Approach, used to say. When
asked what happens to these children as
they go on, he stated, these children “will
have an extra pocket” from which to cope,
thrive, learn, and
relate throughout
life. These pebbles
are in these
pockets and
they last an
entire lifetime.
Q: In this unprecedented time of
the COVID-19, how do you assess your
educational experience? How have children
reacted?
“ A school is meant to be a bridge
between the children, the community
and the city. This is the only way we can
all learn how to improve our society.”
With the threat of the COVID-19 we decided
to close overnight and transform
our school into
a virtual school. We
were faced with a
strange feeling.
How could an
Atelier School be
a virtual experience
if we base
Simonetta Cittadini
our daily experiences
in environments and
materials? But we knew
we counted on key factors: the collaboration
with parents, the creativity of children, the
relationships we have built throughout the
years, and the pedagogy of the faculty.
These essential factors have made our virtual
school an experience like no other that celebrates
in full force the 25th anniversary of
L’Atelier.
We find the pebbles. We see the children in
action. We notice their adaptability, capability
to change, their flexibility and their immense
creativity. With their parents they have
transformed their homes into Ateliers and
enjoy daily experiences away from the screen,
in nature, in bodyness, in discovery and in
design.
More than ever we are thankful to our community
for being the mirror of our own experience
and for making visible that the child is
capable. And so is the family and the school.
At L'Atelier School, we hope for a capable
world. Re-invented. Healthy. Connected.
L’Atelier has given birth to the CCC, Center for the Culture of Creativity. This center is
a big atelier for the entire community 0-99 years old and promotes creativity as an
intelligence. It is a place that offers an innovative and provocative environment that
inspires, mentors, and expands opportunities to discover and uncover the innate
creativity of every human being. L’Atelier School and the CCC work in collaboration
both for the school families and the community.
For more information visit www.LAtelier.org