History Of Namma Veedu Montessori School-1

DECEMBER 25- 2007- NAMMA VEEDU MONTESSORI HOUSE OF CHILDREN BLOSSOMED.
I boarded the Thenkasi superfast express train in Madras –Egmore railway station on December 24th to Dindukal town. By 4.20 A.M the train dropped me in Dindukal. The December mist was heavy and chill. I got into the auto and reached the bus stand. I waited for the bus to go to Sendurai village till 6 A.M. Suddenly a driver said that the way to that village got damaged because of rain and I need to take an another route which is 15 Km more.
I have to do it. When I got down in Sendurai and reached Mani’s home , I got a very warm welcome from his parents. By 10 A.M I started transferring all the school materials from Mani’s home to our building. Nelson the young man helped us. Our teacher Miss. Kalaivani joined with us and we went into the home and started shaping the school.
Boxes were opened, materials were taken out and placed upon rolling cloth mats in the main hall. Books were properly arranged and a small bed was spreaded and the reading corner got created. Prayer hall was prepared with special Gods photos and a big lamp was placed in the centre. Our 2.5 years hard work in collecting the materials made us to change a home into a Montessori environment. Our 2 .5 years hard In this context I convey my regards to my Montessori trainer the ‘’ great aacharya’’ [teacher] , Dr. Rajendra Gupta sir in Bangalore Indian Montessori Training centre. He has 35 years experience in Montessori education all over the globe.
We started listing out the domestic needs from soap to needle and thread. Then the teacher got explained and presented with every Montessori material. We discussed the Montessori and Gandhiyan views on children and education. I said, ‘’ I am going to stay here till December 31. So every day we are attending the training session. , by May -2008 we are admitting the students’’.
But God had some other plan. Next day 2 children ran into our school building and immediately started exploring the materials as if they are very familiar to us. One little girl around 2.5 years old just started threading the wooden beads. Another boy just took the animal models and started talking about them to our teacher.
Yes! Namma Veedu Montessori School has started with 2 children on 26. 12. 2007.
I am like a light cloud floating in the sky. My mind was chanting all the chants to God to have a good start. I came to train a teacher, but the school has commenced. All our dreams became true after two and a half years work. Hard work never fails.
When the children took and started working with the materials, my eyes spilled tears out of joy and emotion. I stood near Dr. Montessori and Ms. Rukmini devi [She and her husband, Dr. Arundael brought Montessori to India] photos and thanked them. My heart prayed her feet to bless our service to this tiny village of India.
The untrained village tailor:
The schools got decorated simply with black color hanging cloths made out of 300 meters cloth threw away by my school in Madras. I have to thank Mr. Chettiyar, our village tailor who has done an excellent stitching work with this long cloth material within a day. He understood the needs of the school and gave suggestions about various shops in the village. He also took me to the shops and introduced me and the school to the shop keepers and got many things for cheap rate. Today our school got decorated with many hanging cloths and book hangers. The hanging cloths were pinned with many colorful photos and all main communication papers.
The tailor also gave a bag full of waste bits of cloth for craft work. He prepared the texture material with 8 different varieties of cloth pieces for our school. While working he has explored and appreciated the Montessori Method of education. He has stitched beautiful small bags for touch and feel exercise. He also gave many wooden rods and made our school banner to flutter in the chill breeze of Southern mountains around Sendurai.
Every day the environment made the children to explore experience and work with many essential practical life activities. They all did the exercises with their level of perfection. I am sharing very important observations in our school.
1. Reema is 2.5 years old. She is our first student. She just ran and entered into the house and shouted with joy and explored the materials. Immediately she picked up the threading activity and started working. She did not ask for her mother. She did not cry at all. She carried out her washing activity for 55 minutes.
2. Bala is 4 is old. He was waiting to join in our school but his parents have put him in a conventional school. When he came and explored the activities immediately he started crying and said that he don’t want to go to his school. Today twice in a week he is attending our environment. He urinated in the garden. So we called him and gave 5 minutes talk about toilet habits and ecology. Next day he went to the bath room and used it.
3. Keerthana is 3 years old. She came on the second day running into the hall with Reema asking for animals models. This child has started talking with respecting suffix in Tamil language immediately that evening after listening to our teacher’s language.
The school has become a magical paradise for these children. Their parents are happy about the work and method. Slowly our teachers Miss. Kalaivani and Miss.Rathi will bring out the perfection in Montessori education. The entire village is seeing our school. The villagers are excited to hear about the work pattern. Many children of various age groups stood out side of our compound wall and started watching our activities. The school is rooting on various areas of child development with God’s blessings. Let me share many more observations later. We thank Mr. Ayyannan and his wife Ms. Dhanam for warm love and service to our school. Let us celebrate this New Year and Montessori school centenary year with this happiness.
Let us serve the children!