Children spend in kindergardens most of the day, even up to 9 hours, so we need to ask ourselves whether is kindergarden really the place, which allows the introduction od children's desires, needs, opinions, projections, expectations and enabling children's participation in the planning and organization of life and work in this educational institution. Participation by the Dictionary of Slovenian Literary Language (SSKJ, 2000) equated with the participation and collaboration of individuals, must be child-friendly, safe, non-discriminatory and ethical (Save the Children, 2003, in Rutar, 2013). A significant shift towards a different conception of childhood and children's participation represents Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted in 1989, as it clearly reflects the participation of children and do not mention only the duties which they have grown to the latter (Hart, 1990, Batistič Zorec, 2009). The concept of participation is very developed and occupies a central place in the field of educational work in preschool institutions, which operate under the auspices of the pedagogical concept of Reggio Emilia, the founder of the Loris Malaguzzi. In this pedagogical concept participation is realized with the pedagogy of listening and expression and with the projected approach.
In the first part of the diploma I will write about theoretical platform of the participation and how the latter is defined in the relevant documents such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Curriculum for kindergarten (1999). I will also touch two studies, which discussed participation in the specific cases in kindergartens. In the following I will pay special attention to the concept of Reggio Emilia, since participation in it is presented as one of the basic principles; I will speak in detail about the characteristics of said teaching concept, with attention to the importance of pedagogy of listening and expression, and project-based approach (describing process of researching the problem of closed type, which I used in the implementation of the project and the process of solving the problem of open type), which promote the participation of children in kindergartens Reggio Emilia.
In the empirical part is presented the implementation of a project Researching and creating the book, in which, with the help of research problems, closed-type children had the possibility of active learning - express their ideas, concepts, assumptions, and thus take on greater responsibility for their own learning.
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