As a father or a 4 year old, I’m knocked out every day by the force of his imagination, passion, love, and drive to take control of his world (though I wish he had more compassion for insects)…He reminds me of the many important things I’ve almost forgotten about. Professor Rinaldi said this so eloquently:
“So far there are many images of the child…but many of them tend to underline the needs of the child, what the child does not have, what the child is not.
Instead we should see the child as “protagonist and constructor of his own life and of the sense of life, in relationship with the others and with the world, a child is strong and rich, the strength and richness of curiosity, the strength and richness of the wise, the strength of those who want to have the tools for living, the strength and the richness of this wonder and astonishment, the strength and richness of curiosity, the wonderful curiosity of our children. Competent, I said, competent to learning, to loving and to be loved since the moment of birth; competent in the relationship and interaction with a great enthusiasm and curiosity for the otherness from him and her; competent in constructing himself while he and she constructs the world; competent in constructing explanation, theories, about the world; competent in reflecting; competent in thinking; bearer of values and rights; constructor of values and rights.”
Our children are the bearers of “values such as solidarity, optimism, availability, courage, playfulness, joy..”
She calls on us to “to change our point of view; to change our organisation of time and space; to change the way in which our schools, our houses, sometimes our cities are designed; to change our time with the time that the children offer us; maybe to change a part of our economy, to welcome the rights of children.”
From the Carla Rinaldi Inaugural Lecture,
Adelaide Entertainment Centre, 27 March
2012 http://www.thinkers.sa.gov.au/Thinkers/CarlaRinaldi/p510.aspx
