TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- It's a little after 9 a.m. - time for morning snack in Paula McPheeters' preschool classroom at Ochoa Elementary School.

But first, a short breathing exercise.

"With every breath, we breathe in everything good," McPheeters tells her pupils. "Now let's breathe out everything bad."

Here in one of Tucson's poorest neighborhoods, McPheeters and her colleagues have developed a preschool classroom so special it was one of eight recently visited by more than 200 educators meeting in Tucson.

They were here to learn about Reggio Emilia - an educational method named after the city in northern Italy where it got its start after World War II. Parents and educators in the war torn city wanted to create a school program that would provide a beautiful, nurturing environment for children.

Environment is essential to Reggio Emilia, said Lella Gandini, an Italian educator now based at the University of Massachusetts. She is the Reggio Emilia liaison to schools in the United States.

"It's creating a beautiful, orderly environment that's not only beneficial for people who walk into the school, but also for the teachers and children who work here," Gandini said of the Ochoa program. "You feel good about being here."

McPheeters and classroom aide Nohemy Salmeron have created such an environment. The walls and many furnishings are a soft white. A comfy love seat and chair sit around a large braided rug in front of an artificial fireplace. Large windows let in natural light, supplemented by table lamps instead of overhead fluorescent lights.

McPheeters and Salmeron call their classroom Salon de Esperanzas y Suenos - the Room of Hopes and Dreams. "Hopes and Dreams" also is the title of a video McPheeters made of parents talking about what they want for their children.

"My role as teacher is complex," McPheeters said. "I'm a researcher, guide, nurturer and data gatherer. I want to learn about each child and learn alongside each child. I am listening, observing, interacting and documenting ... I want to listen to the children and their parents. I want their voices to be heard."

The two women who are credited with bringing Reggio Emilia to Tucson are Pauline Baker, an artist and teacher at Ochoa and other schools in Tucson Unified School District, and Mimi Gray, director of Amphitheater Public Schools Community Extension Programs.

They learned about Reggio Emilia at a conference in Portland, Ore., in 1993. The presentation "was breathtaking," Gray recalled.

"What Reggio Emilia teaches us is that children are co-constructors of their own knowledge," Gray said. "They're not empty vessels that we pour information into."

Two mornings a week, the children from McPheeters' classroom go to the studio Baker created out of an old "modular" building at Ochoa. Outside it is plain; inside creamy white walls and work tables create the same easygoing atmosphere of the Hopes and Dreams room.

Papers, paints and other materials are grouped by color and stored on open shelves that beckon little hands. Collections of corks, shells, stones and other items are displayed throughout the room.

The children can work at tables or stand in front of easels to paint. A centerpiece of the room is a wooden loom on which children, their parents and grandparents are working together on a Hopes and Dreams weaving made of ribbons and other fibers.

Baker never starts her sessions by telling the children, "This is what we're going to do today," she said.

"I never have lessons planned. Instead, I plan for possibilities."

Baker sees herself less as a teacher than as someone whose job is to help children feel loved, appreciated and respected.

Teaching the Reggio Emilia way does not cost extra money. But it does require a great deal of work and study on the part of teachers, not all of whom embrace the method, said Eleanor Droegemeier, the school district's early childhood education coordinator. She welcomes the approach but does not require it of teachers, she said.

"Critics say, 'Oh, Reggio - that's where you do all the walls white.' But it's so much more than that," Droegemeier said. "It's the sense of community, the family involvement. It's really about the relationships."

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Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.azstarnet.com

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