Topic: Elements of Elementary – Democratic Principles and Montessori Pedagogy
Date: Wednesday, 23rd October 2019
Time: 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Anchor: Niveditha Ram
Resource Person: Amukta Mahapatra
India is a democratic country, as laid out in its Constitution and thereby all elements that are a part of this nation, be it an institution or a programme or an individual need to abide by one of the fundamental premises of being democratic.
The people of India intrinsically accept diversity in its many forms, be it in language, food, arts, traditions… Even weather and geography create a climate from cold & hot deserts to tropical forests, all in the same region, which enables people to accept diversity in all its aspects.
Decision-making for the community, in ancient and pre-British India was based on the panchayat system where the voices of five different kinds of people had to be heard.
Over the past many years, rigid hierarchies, authoritarian practices have come in the way at times, to prevent us from being spontaneously who we are as compassionate persons.
Being in the field of education, how can we contribute to making India live by its principles, ancient and contemporary?
How can we make our classrooms and schools be aligned to the Constitution, to the notion that each of us aspires for ourselves and for the generation walking into the future?
Can we be responsible educators to think and reflect on these lines?
We are, after all, builders of the nation.
The Montessori pedagogy in its spirit and practice is democratic. It is for the human being to live in peace with oneself and the larger universe. It shows a possible path to enable us to create the right environment for children to experience democracy on a daily basis.
We all know Amukta Mahapatra as our mentor who brings warmth and wisdom to the Montessori world and the training programmes conducted by IMTC -Central.
She is also the Director of SchoolScape, centre for educators and is the moving force of the Indian as well as the international democratic education movements.
She has worked with small schools, NGO-led education programmes, large-scale government interventions in the domains of professional development of educators and administrators; baseline studies, assessment of children and evaluation, in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and across the country.
Trained under Mr A.M Joosten and Mr S.R Swamy, she was a volunteer in the school set up by C.N.Vaitheswaran in Anaimalai, TN.
As the first principal of Abacus School in Chennai, she enabled Montessori practices in India to be seen from a contemporary perspective.
She initiated and gave a template for IMC conferences when she organised 50 years of Montessori in India in 1989, the first gathering of Montessori adults from the sub-continent.
She presented in 2016, about ABL that she was instrumental in implementing in TN, India, with a focus on learning from it, for the Montessori international community; at Educators sans Frontiers, a reach-out branch of Association Montessori Internationale – AMI.
She was the keynote speaker at SAMA – S Africa Montessori Association – at their annual conference in 2018.
Besides this, she has varied interests and wide-ranging knowledge in the fields of craft, indigenous knowledge and wildlife.