I met Lella Gandini in 1996 when my husband and I were visiting Rome and staying at the American Academy . At the time, her husband, Lester Little, was the director of the Academy. On the plane trip I was reading The Hundred Languages of Children and I was so surprised when we reached the main desk of the Academy to check in and I saw Lella’s photo on a bulletin board above the receptionist’s desk. We have remained correspondents since that visit.

Amazingly, I had a second surprise visit connected with Lella. This one included Cathy. When my daughter was having a concert in Worchester, Massachusetts, I was introduced to the publisher, Wyatt Wade. He invited me, along with my daughter and son-in-law, to visit his newly restored office. When we arrived, Lella and Cathy were there waiting for me! After a tour of the office, we all went to Wyatt’s home for dinner. It was a visit that I’ll always remember.

When I came up with the idea for this new series of conversations, I immediately thought of these two inspiring women. I crossed my fingers when I invited them to participate and to my utter delight, they immediately accepted the invitation.

Lella serves as Reggio Emilia Liason in the United States for Dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach. The Principles of the Reggio Emilia Approach include:

• a deep respect for the ideas of children and teachers.
• a belief that knowledge is constructed through social interchange.
• the value of using materials and media to express and communicate feelings, thoughts and understandings.
• the desire to document children’s and teacher’s processes to preserve memories and sustain in-depth work.
• the joy and growth that comes from collaborating with other teachers and with children in the search for knowledge and understanding of relationships.
  
  Cathy Topal and Lella Gandini took some time the morning of November 17, 2020  to talk about Beautiful Stuff and the Gift of Discovery.

To see a more in-depth demonstration of the work that Cathy and Lella have done together with Susan MacDonald, this is a must-see PowerPoint presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yd7y6MssD1_q7DoUcrB–xUQXONFBsXv/view

Here is a very apropros and  entertaining video of how the artist Hanoch Piven uses beautiful stuff in his art. You might want to share this with your children. They will love it! https://youtu.be/f7bZWbzuW_I