Why pedagogical documentation?

Inspired by work in a small town in northern Italy, the concept of pedagogical documentation has captured the imagination of the educational world since the end of the Second World War. In an area ravaged by that war, a small number of women and Loris Malaguzzi, a primary school teacher and an inspired philosophical leader, began a conversation that is influencing educators internationally. Centred in Reggio Emilia, this movement emerged as a response to the carnage of war. Farmers' wives and grandmothers banded together to look after children affected by the death and destruction around them. There was concern that not only did the children need care, they needed to be listened to. Many felt that the war was direct evidence of failures in the education system, a focus on people doing what they were told without thought, without consideration of the dangers in blind obedience to fascism.