"Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning how to learn"
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Malaguzzi refuses the tidy classroom myth where knowledge gets ferried one-way from expert to novice. His image of “opposite banks” skewers the passive arrangement: teacher and learner positioned as fixed identities, safely separated, watching “the river” of experience move on without them. The rebuke is gentle but firm. If education is life in motion, then standing still is already a kind of failure.
The river metaphor does heavier work than it first appears to. A river can’t be controlled; you navigate it. By insisting that teaching and learning “embark together,” Malaguzzi smuggles in a radical redistribution of authority: the adult is not a gatekeeper of facts but a co-traveler responsible for attention, questions, and conditions. It’s a challenge to schooling’s default economy of compliance, where students perform understanding and teachers perform certainty. His preferred currency is reciprocity.
The subtext is also tactical. “Active, reciprocal exchange” isn’t just a feel-good collaboration; it’s a method for producing better thinkers. When teaching “strengthen[s] learning how to learn,” the target shifts from content coverage to meta-learning: curiosity, iteration, reflection, the confidence to revise. That emphasis maps directly onto the Reggio Emilia tradition Malaguzzi helped shape in postwar Italy, where democratic culture and reconstruction demanded citizens who could interpret the world, not merely absorb it.
Underneath the pastoral river scene is a pointed cultural critique: education that treats children as containers trains adults to accept whatever current they’re given. Malaguzzi wants paddles in more hands.
The river metaphor does heavier work than it first appears to. A river can’t be controlled; you navigate it. By insisting that teaching and learning “embark together,” Malaguzzi smuggles in a radical redistribution of authority: the adult is not a gatekeeper of facts but a co-traveler responsible for attention, questions, and conditions. It’s a challenge to schooling’s default economy of compliance, where students perform understanding and teachers perform certainty. His preferred currency is reciprocity.
The subtext is also tactical. “Active, reciprocal exchange” isn’t just a feel-good collaboration; it’s a method for producing better thinkers. When teaching “strengthen[s] learning how to learn,” the target shifts from content coverage to meta-learning: curiosity, iteration, reflection, the confidence to revise. That emphasis maps directly onto the Reggio Emilia tradition Malaguzzi helped shape in postwar Italy, where democratic culture and reconstruction demanded citizens who could interpret the world, not merely absorb it.
Underneath the pastoral river scene is a pointed cultural critique: education that treats children as containers trains adults to accept whatever current they’re given. Malaguzzi wants paddles in more hands.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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