The 2 day primary refresher course at RTI Mumbai was a super success. Most of the participants were ex students of Ms Zarin Malva and they were delighted to be back in their classroom and catch up with old friends and relive their student days.
The course was conducted by Ms Zarin Malva, directress of training at RTI, Ms Neelima Mhaskar primary trainer, Ms Pavitra Rajagopalan, auxiliary trainer and Ms Geeta Savala, trainer in training.
The topics discussed were observation and sensorial. The session on observation was very informative and interesting. It was a subject that everyone wanted to know more about. The trainers addressed a lot of queries and laid to rest many doubts during the Q and A session.
The sensorial topic was presented in a fresh manner. Among other things, the trainers explained that we have to always keep the aims of the materials in mind. Ms Malva gave the participants a lot of food for thought with insightful suggestions and anecdotes.
All the teachers said they were looking forward to using the ‘keys’ they received during the refresher in their school environments.
Ashani Hirway, founder of the Davinci Montessori school who attended the course with 6 of her teachers confirmed that the course helped the participants understand the process of observing children in the class, plotting the results on a graph and then deducing from those. We also discussed the importance of observation and how it can help us.
“ The biggest takeaways were the many inspiring conversations that the trainers had with us. Having faith in a child, keeping our biases away, not swooping in too early to help the child, using the observations to evaluate not just the child’s work but also the material, the environment and the obstacles we create that come in the way of the child’s work.
Our team of 6 teachers who attended the workshop came back inspired and re-energized. We have already started implementing the observation in class and will have a conversation to share our learning with the rest of the team very soon.” ..Ashani Hirway
The course was indeed inspiring and as the name suggests a refresher for all that they already knew. They all left with new ideas and plans for continuing to guide their children with love, faith and enthusiasm.
