One of the first meets of its kind, the Mumbai Montessori Meet took place on September 16, 2017 at the Ratan Tata Institute (RTI). The purpose of the meet was that each person talks about the school programs that they run, how many environments they have, the sessions they conduct and discuss the challenges faced.
Beena Parekh, who started Harmony Montessori 15 years ago, shared with us the struggles that she faced and how she overcame them, giving each of us the hope and courage to pursue our goals of running Montessori preschools successfully.
Pavithra Rajagoplan, Auxiliary Trainer (3-6 years) spoke about the importance of an undisturbed working cycle which allows the building of concentration and without breaking the flow in the work of the children. She also emphasized on having the longer 6 hours working cycle for the Casa child.
The meet helped to create a platform and to unite the heads of all Montessori schools in Mumbai, enabling cooperation and communication between them. The highlight of the meet were two esteemed charitable institutions that have adopted the Montessori method and have been successfully teaching underprivileged children.
The school of Aseema Charitable Trust, has been educating parents of children from the lower strata of the society to help them understand the importance of education. They have found unique ways of giving them Montessori material challenges such as the binomial/trinomial cube, allowing a bunch of parents to struggle to put it together and then explaining parents that their children can do it at the age for 4. Despite the adversities, they have strived to make sure that these children come to school and become true Montessori children who are no longer
misfits despite of the background or upbringing.
Anaxi Shah from Smile Montessori, has been running a charitable preschool for slum children for more than 2 decades. Her constant efforts towards the upliftment of these children is truly inspiring.
The driving force behind this meet was Zarin Malva, whose untiring efforts, made it possible for all Montessori schools to come together and create a network of people whose roots are entrenched in the teachings of Maria Montessori.
– Kruti Lakhani, Founder of Mindstein Montessori
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