Heads up: This post is 14 years old. My thinking may have evolved since then — read it with that in mind.
Another interesting (and powerful) excerpt from The Diary of Laura, reflections from an American educator.
An American visitor used the terms caregiver and provider in asking question about infant care practice. The pedagogista at Reggio Emilia asked why she used those terms and said:
Here we don’t want somebody just taking care of people or providing a service – somebody following a manual. We want creative thinkers to be with our children, not technicians, people who will form hypothesis about the effect of their actions and entertain the hypothesis of the children.
With our children, we want adults who can think on their feet.