The School System Next Door
Rea,
You know how some of your friends go to Montessori schools here in Austin? And you’ve probably noticed how different they seem from your regular school - mixed ages, kids choosing their own activities, no traditional grades. Well, here’s something cool: there’s a direct connection between the Montessori system and the neighborhood where I grew up in India.
I grew up in Besant Nagar in Chennai, which is home to the international headquarters of something called the Theosophical Society. Think of it as a place where people from around the world came to study different religions, philosophies, and new ideas about education and human development. It was founded in the 1870s and moved to this beautiful campus in Chennai in 1882.
The woman it’s named after, Annie Besant, became the president of this society in 1907. She was fascinated by innovative approaches to education, especially one developed by an Italian doctor named Maria Montessori. Montessori had started her first school in 1907 in the slums of Rome, working with about 50 children who were considered “difficult.” Instead of forcing them to sit still and memorize lessons, she let them move around, choose their activities, and learn through hands-on materials.
The results were so remarkable that educators from around the world came to see what she was doing. Annie Besant was one of them, and she became a big supporter of Montessori’s methods.
In 1939, Besant’s successors at the Theosophical Society - George and Rukmini Devi Arundale - invited Maria Montessori to come to Chennai to train teachers in her method. She was 69 years old at the time. What was supposed to be a short visit turned into a seven-year stay because World War II broke out and she couldn’t return to Italy.
During those years, she lived right there on the Theosophical Society campus and conducted the first official Montessori training courses in India. She refined her methods and trained the teachers who would spread Montessori education across the country.
What makes the Montessori system so different from your school? Instead of everyone the same age learning the same thing at the same time, Montessori classrooms mix ages. Older kids naturally help younger ones - kind of like how you instinctively knew to help the little kids at summer camp. Children choose their own work from specially designed materials, learn at their own pace, and aren’t graded with tests.
When we visit Chennai in December, we’ll be able to see the Theosophical Society campus where Maria Montessori spent seven years developing the educational. It’s one of those funny connections - how an idea that started in Italian slums, got refined in Chennai, and now influences schools right here in Austin.
Love, Abba
