OBITUARIES - Aug. 13, 1988

Caleb Gattegno; Controversial Educator

Caleb Gattegno, 76, an educator whose controversial theories of learning centered on the use of instructional devices and games that encourage children to figure things out for themselves. Gattegno said children, even before they go to school, learn to walk, to speak and to feed themselves and he challenged the more formal methods of instruction. He boasted that his daughter could read at 20 months and his son at 3 years “because I let them learn.” Most recently Gattegno had been director of Schools for the Future, a nonprofit research group based in New York. In Paris on July 28 of cancer.