more on the mysterious children of r

I've found some links to explanations of this educational approach that are actually quite readable. Anything translated from the Italian tends to look like the oracles have inhaled too much swamp gas. There's a one-page synopsis written by Carnegie Mellon University, though, which makes it pretty clear.

If you want some idea of the role of aesthetics, look at this article. It's particularly vindicating for anyone who remembers thinking they might gag if they saw one more cut-out of a cartoon bumble-bee sellotaped to their classroom window.

Lastly, here is an astonishing series of photographs--never mind the Italian text around them--showing a baby's mental process as she forms connections between pictures of an object and the object itself. My favourite is the last one, where she leans close to the pictures of watches to check if they are ticking too.