3 Reinventing Laura A N E D U C AT I O N A L D I A RY IN A REGGIO EMILIA NIDO Carlina Rinaldi Reggio Children Reggio Emilia, Italy (Translated by Silvia Betta) I t is sweet as well as demanding to reinvent Laura and her diary more than twenty years after our first encounter, our “growing together.” Truly, Laura and we (the teachers and I) have in a sense existed and continue to exist partly because we “narrated ourselves,” because we entrusted the narrative with the meaning and value of our being together. Certainly, in the words and images captured by the teachers there is not only Laura with her discoveries and conquests, but also the teachers themselves, with their knowledge, their wonders, and their values. Laura’s diary is thus a biography, the biography of a relationship, or more precisely of more relationships. In the text transpires the pleasure of narrating to understand, narrating to give ex- istence and to exist. Through the organization of data and events, chosen for some relevance among all those that happened, the narrative becomes a form of thought and gives structure and meaning to a story, thus giving it existence, transforming it into a life story, recreating it and giving it new meaning. “There is no life if it is not told,” said [ 9 \ DOL-Int_2011-jh 2.indd 9 12/13/11 11:52 AM