When Maria Montessori began to develop her pathbreaking teaching method in the early decades of the 20th century, she perhaps did not visualise what would happen in the world in a hundred years — and in Kolkata in particular.
Montessori, the Italian educator and doctor, had tried to formulate a method that would allow children to act freely in an environment that met their needs. The Montessori school would be equipped with small furniture, appropriate for children, and children would choose their own activities. Montessori observed that the children, after a point, would show “spontaneous discipline”. The Montessori method was greeted worldwide as a key to the cognitive and creative development of the child.
“But now one of the first things I am asked is if my school has AC or CCTV,” says Punam Mitra, who runs Stepping Stone Montessori House in Salt Lake.
The school, established in 1990, was much in demand for the next two decades or so, but has only about 35 children now. Mitra, 70, noted for her perfect poise and her forceful personality, had started the school after leaving a managerial position in a large company. The school was a labour of love. But now she sounds disturbed.
With the advent of teaching practices that have led to a new kind of teaching space, with very different environments from a traditional Montessori school and often, a very different aesthetic, Mitra feels her school is unwanted.
She also struggles to understand why, when the development of a child should be the focus, a school should be expected to provide entertainment, celebrate every festival and organise fancy dress opportunities, almost at the expense of everything else. Some playschools, or pre-schools, encourage such trends.
“But what does a two-year-old understand about clothes? It’s for the parents!” she cries. “It’s for Instagram! But If I am taking photographs all the time, when do I work? I will not turn my school into an entertainment zone, or a zoo, or a resort,” she adds in a decisive voice, preferring to be labelled “outdated”.
But she also questions why she should be called “outdated”, when the Montessori method is not.
Mitra, a Punjabi who married a Bengali, was born and brought up in Kolkata. She did her BA (Hons.) from Shri Shikshayatan College in the city. She had a BEd degree, but worked as a secretary for an organisation for some time and moved to her second job at a large company, where her talents were noticed and she was promoted to the managerial level after a few years.
But when a friend offered her space and suggested that they should start a school together, she left her job and started Stepping Stone, using her own savings. Her two children were still small.
The school was a success from the word go. “We started with 70 children in February 1990. It was unheard of. Salt Lake required such a school then,” she says. Soon, the number grew to 120. The school eventually moved to its current one in BF Block in Salt Lake.
Its reputation grew. “I had attended a course based on the Montessori method,” says Mitra.
Helped by other teachers, who are smiling and informative, Mitra takes me on a tour of the school. It is spacious and soothing to the eye — “I will not paint the walls in any glaring shade,” says Mitra — and lined with cheerful charts, paintings or stitched cloth hanging on the walls. Most of the learning materials are Montessori equipment obtained from Hyderabad. Compared to the stuff that children these days are surrounded by, these may appear plain, even austere at first. But on closer inspection, they turn out quite stunning.
Most of the activity equipment is made of wood and are either pairing devices or can be arranged in order of size or matched in terms of colour or maybe made to perform several of these together. Mitra shows me quite a delightful set of framed pieces of cloth fitted with zippers and buttons of different sizes. “These introduce the child to managing clothes,” says Mitra.
“You must see how happy a child is when she learns to use any of these,” says Mitra. A toy is not necessarily a shiny, glossy, fast-moving thing. “A child may be happier with a broken toy that has been with her than a remote-controlled car. I have a wooden cone that children love. They just slide rubber bands up and down the cone.” “Children will start to learn to look after themselves, after the environment and social behaviour. Say please and thank you. I don’t even know if anyone considers these things anymore, but if you are sneezing you cover your mouth and lower your head, and if you are coughing you cover your mouth and turn your head away,” says Mitra, laughing, as if herself aware how anachronistic this sounds.
But looking at the beautifully crafted wooden frames and other materials, one is also reminded how good wood and cloth feel to the touch, unlike plastic. Most of the Montessori equipment is made of wood.
The pieces that are used as sensory objects, such as wooden cylindrical pegs of different sizes in a row, or strips of wood that are colour-coded, appear to be based on the concept that a number, or a letter, or anything, is just not a sound or a symbol, but also explicable by being related to a tangible object. Children learn concepts with clarity as they correspond to something real.
“I have also noticed that children yawn too much at school these days. They go to bed very late,” Mitra says, smiling again. She suspects the smartphone may have something to do with that, too.
Children between two and four years usually study here, but the school can accommodate students till they are six. A child who had studied till he was six at Stepping Stone went on to do very well in the next one.
“At one point we had 250 children. Then many other schools for children came up. Bigger schools also lowered the age for admission to their lowest classes,” says Mitra.
The biggest blow was Covid. “After that, the number just dwindled,” says Mitra.
“I will never install an AC or a CCTV. They are against my principles,” says Mitra, who comes to the school every day and stays from the time it starts till it closes. “It’s been 33 years and I realise how happy it makes me. What saddens me is that I still have so much to give to children, but I am not wanted any more. At this age, why should I sacrifice my principles?”
So she is thinking of closing the school down. She will wait for the next admission season and decide. “I want a graceful parting. I want to be remembered as someone who did not compromise her principles and held on to what she thought was good for the well-being of children. This was my life,” she says.
“And then, one day, away from all this, sitting in my rocking chair, I will only have happy memories,” she says.