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ShareWhile seeking admissions for her four-year-old daughter, Radhika Bajaj came across a playschool in the central suburbs that called itself a Montessori, but didn't seem like one.
Radhika, who is a trained Montessori teacher says, "The teachers were not trained."
When Radhika confronted the school authorities, the answer she got was far from comforting: "A teacher told me that Montessori was synonymous with playschools, that's why they use the term."
The city has over 12 Montessori schools across the Western and the Central suburbs which are accredited to the Montessori Society founded by Maria Montessori.
Zarine Malva, director of the Sir Ratan Tata Montessori Training Institute says, "Usually, children go to a Montessori when they are two to four years old. Private institutes are opening playschools without trained teachers, and attracting parents by using the term 'Montessori'."
Montessori education aims at teaching through activities like folding napkins, or letting toddlers play with moulds in different shapes or smell tiny bottles with different ingredients for tasting or smelling.
The tools that set a Montessori apart from the regular playschools is the apparatus and the training Montessori teachers get.
The apparatus includes measuring instruments, plastic alphabets, blocks containing knobbed cylinders of different depths and diameters, along with other equipment.
Shahana Gupta, a Montessori teacher says,
"The Montessori apparatus cost over Rs4 lakh. Not many people are ready to invest so much, so they open aplaygroup and call it a Montessori."
