An alumnus of the RTI Montessori Training Course, Anjani Shah, recounts her experience…
Montessori, The Method. It is not just a way to understand, teach or help a child. The course lets you understand yourself better, it helps you understand what made you into the person you are. When I took up the programme, two things that attracted me to it were the fact that I was migrating and it would give me an amazing option to work abroad, and secondly that I was a Montessori Child myself, so I felt really close to the Programme.
It is really important to understand that while doing the course, we need to be mature individuals, when I mean mature its not the age factor, but the want to understand the child. Like we were told in class each child is unique and each one has his / her own special capabilities, I felt so in touch when Zarin Aunty said this, because I was the same way as a child.
I was really different, not extraordinarily brilliant, but I was special and unique. Like my mother says, I loved going to Casa Montessori, I got ready and ran out of home to get myself to school. I loved being there, because I was left to be myself, I was allowed to make choices, I was left to create my identity. I was an extremely inquisitive child and had too many things to ask or talk about, and in the class I was always given to chance to speak and understand the world around me better. This is what I learnt through my time in the Montessori Programme, each child is different and unique, they cant be moulded into shapes of our choice, they must be left to become themselves. You can never compare them, you must never be partial to any one, they are all after all your children. They only need some help and guidance to follow on the right path to be the individuals they want to be.
The Montessori Programme, helps not just us adults to become teachers in a Montessori class, it helps us to be better parents to our own children or to children around us, good counsellors to other parents or adults to understand a / their child. It makes us a better individual towards the next generation of children in the world we live, because it is these children who will take our world forward.
Apart from understanding the child and helping to make a difference in our world, the Montessori Programme, opened up many International opportunities for me. When I was in Toronto, schools called me for interviews only on the basis of this one Programme. whether or not I want to work with them, they welcomed me to observe their method of heaching and the way the children worked in a Montessori class. They are overwhelmed to have us a part of their system. Yes, sometimes you may have to pursue another form of education pattern alongside your job depeding on the country or school you go to, but I understood that whichever part of the world I go, I will never regret this decision of mine as I will be employed, and I will get a chance to serve mankind. I feel proud to call myself a Montessorian.
