The first five years
of a child’s life are critical for development. The experiences children have
in these years help shape the adults they will become. This is when
foundations for learning, health and behaviour throughout life are laid down.
Gone are the days when a playschool was a waiting room for children not yet age-eligible for regular school admissions. If preschool is your child's first point of independent contact with adults and children outside her familiar circle of family and friends. But teaching methodology or curriculum is serious business even in a playschool. Specialised systems of teaching such as Montessori have formed the basis for many a preschool for decades.
Gone are the days when a playschool was a waiting room for children not yet age-eligible for regular school admissions. If preschool is your child's first point of independent contact with adults and children outside her familiar circle of family and friends. But teaching methodology or curriculum is serious business even in a playschool. Specialised systems of teaching such as Montessori have formed the basis for many a preschool for decades.
An educational approach developed by Italian physician and
educator Maria Montessori. Montessori education is characterised by an emphasis
on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child's natural
psychological development. This approach is scientifically designed, guiding
children systematically through series of activities, gradually increasing in
complexity. Very few play schools in India
are purely Montessori while most others have included certain Montessori
methods into their curriculum. This is usually in the form of a Montessori lab
where students are allotted a block of work time, working with specialised
educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators.
Play schools in India have also
adopted best practices of other teaching philosophies such as those of Waldorf
Steiner and John Dewey, the Reggio Emilia approach. Another well recognized
approach that has proved effective is the integral education system, instituted
by Sri Aurobindo. This system lays emphasis on five principal aspects
corresponding to the five principal activities of the human being; the
physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual. Each method
discussed above has enough merits to be able to achieve these objectives, if
implemented competently, in part or whole. The problem arises when a
school adopts the name of a well-known methodology without proper training and
blindly follows the structure. The result would be a repetitive and aimless
process that does not challenge either the instructor or the student.
When choosing a play school, parents must find out what they
can about the implementation of the teaching system rather than just knowing
which system is followed. It does not matter if it is one system or a
combination of many, as long as the instructors are well trained and the
methods are implemented as intended. A proper and thoughtful approach to
learning will show itself in basic factors such as the layout of class areas,
equipment used, hand-on activities and the balance of teacher-children driven
activities. The key is maintaining the ideal balance of creativity, flexibility
and structure that makes learning joyful for the child.
