Jaya Auntie
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| Dr. Jaya and Myself |
Sometimes things just happen to us and we are left with many "Why?" thoughts. It has just happened to me. I was as usual taking a walk with my little daughter on a beautiful morning in May, I knew someone was walking behind me. I am so used to stopping and letting people go ahead of me pretending that I am fixing my baby's blanket and this morning I did the same. I let this slender evenly paced woman overtake me.
As I resumed my walking I noticed that she had a very long beautiful braid almost coming down to her waist. Immediately so many guesses ran through my mind, "She could be Indian...wait, let me walk faster and overtake her to see if she is really Indian!" And so I did, huffed and puffed hurriedly. I overtook her and looked at her and spotted a beautiful red dot(bindi) on her forehead, I knew she was from India but as I looked at her she looked right back at me. When I got nervous I started talking. I asked her if she was from India and the answer was, "Take three guesses, the answer is yes, yes and yes!" and we burst out laughing. We had a nice introduction and found we carried India with us. It was a very joyous meeting. This wonderful person is 'Jaya Auntie'...
Dr. Sarada and Montessori Materials
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| Dr. Sarada and Myself |
...Now as we talked I mentioned to her that I was moving back to India to start a Montessori school, she was very happy and wanted me to get in touch with her friend in Chicago who is a Montessori Teacher. And this wonderful person in Chicago is 'Sarada Auntie.'
Dr. Sarada has taught Montessori for many years and is a celebrated author and a scholar. Dr. Sarada had run a Montessori program for many years and happened to have some Montessori material in her basement. She offered to give it to us and..."Lo and behold... we have a significant amount of material to bring back to India with us." So, we rented a pick up truck and drove to Chicago over the week end with our good friends Paritosh and Sunaina. It was much fun and of course we had the baby changing, feeding and playing all through the way.
Treasure in the Garage
Now as we pulled in the drive way we saw a few boxes and some materials lying on a sheet in the garage. We saw Sarada Auntie and Jaya Auntie come out through the door and were surprised to see all of us show up. A very warm welcome brightened our faces and the fatigue disappeared. Soon we looked at everything and started packing, we were only expecting a few things but there were many.
Most of the classic Math and Sensorial materials kept coming out of the boxes. As we looked through the boxes, Dr. Sarada's eyes were filled with tears, she had kept these materials for such a long time, they were very special to her. She had always wanted to give them to someone who could use them in an appropriate way.
I hope these materials will be used appropriately by little hands in our classroom. Dr. Montessori herself was very apprehensive of anyone using her didactic apparatus without training and understanding the purpose behind it.
Treasure in the garage........to be continued in Part 2
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