Topic: Elements of Elementary – Observation and Record Keeping
Date: Wednesday, 12th June 2019
Time: 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Anchor: Chetan Manikonda
Resource Person: Kavitha Gunasekharan
‘We must hold ourselves in humility and observe childhood, observe the individual child, with a view to discover if he himself can furnish us with a guide, or lead us to the solution of the problem.’
– Maria Montessori, Progress in Education
In Montessori’s view, observation is a tool that offers us the possibility of supporting the self-construction of children, and observation could also be utilised as a technique that could guide us to appropriate responses to the particular needs (or problems) of the children in our care.
In 2016, Chetan started looking for new education methodologies that implement personalised learning paths, that adopt peer-based, experiential and contextual learning methods, that integrate character/life skills development, that collaborate with the child’s primary teachers (the parents) and that revolve around having great educators to inspire our children and achieve higher educational outcomes. In that pursuit, he discovered and found the answers in the Montessori education and, as all of you, fell in love with it.
Chetan runs a Montessori preschool and school in HSR Layout, Bangalore, called PEP School v2.
He is a graduate of IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta, and worked for over ten years in business roles.
Ms.Kavitha G had heard from her friends about a school which was practical and where children did not have to carry books, back in 1998. She came across Abacus Montessori School in Chennai for her daughter when she was unaware of its methodology.
She made an effort to understand it by reading books on Montessori, which inspired her to change her course from a Marketing Coordinator in an MNC to learn Montessori from CMTChennai in 2004.
She worked in Abacus till 2007 and then completed the Montessori elementary training from AMI, Navadisha Montessori Institute in 2009.
Since then she worked with children from various backgrounds in schools, a home- schooling centre and her own Aakam Montessori learning centre. Aakam is a centre where children from various backgrounds from conventional schools learn a range of concepts in the Montessori way.
She is also an elementary trainer with IMTC since 2013, and an Associate Director for elementary courses at IMTC – Chennai.