Forest Bluff Montessori School speakers embraced in India
by linda blaser lblaser@pioneerlocal.com February 7, 2012 12:42PM
Paula Lillard of Lake Forest presented the talk, "Parent and Teacher Collaboration in the Interest of Children", during a visit to India last month. | Submitted photo
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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:09AM
It was the slide show of the 18-month-to-3-year-old students hard at work at Forest Bluff Montessori School in Lake Bluff that resonated most with some of the parents and educators in India.
“It was a revelation as to how we prepare an environment for that age group,” Uma Shanker of India noted in an e-mail.
Lynn Jessen of Lake Bluff showed the slides during a two-week working visit recently to Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai she took with her mother, Paula Lillard, and sister, Angeline Lillard, a professor at the University of Virginia.
The lectures by the trio caused quite a stir. Some 1,500 Indian parents and educators attended the talks and countless more were introduced to Montessori education in Lake Bluff and the U.S. through newspaper articles and a television news story that covered the visit by the Montessori experts from the U.S.
Returning Jan. 30, Paula Lillard of Lake Forest, said she was still processing all she had experienced on the journey and is looking forward to a delegation coming from India to observe the school she and Jessen co-founded in Lake Bluff.
Great meeting
The Indians, for their part, were delighted to meet Paula Lillard.
“Almost everyone we met has read at least one of her books, and they were thrilled to meet her in person,” Jessen said of her mother, who has written four books on Montessori education.
Jessen, too, has co-authored books on Montessori, and her sister Angeline was invited to present her findings from her book, “Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius.”
The Montessori community in India is small but growing.
“They’re trying to get more of everything,” Jessen said
Both Paula Lillard and Jessen said they were struck by how well the children in India took to Montessori materials and classrooms, despite their poverty-stricken home life and classrooms.
‘Really
concentrating’
In some areas, “the condition of the building was so awful,” Jessen said, yet “the children were really concentrating and working away.”
“In India, there were 30 to 40 children in one class,” Paula Lillard said. And yet, it made no difference in their behavior.
“It was exciting to see how hard they worked, how kind they are to each other,” Paula Lillard said.
Jessen said the parents in India are concerned about the same issues for their children as parents here.
“They asked all the same questions,” she said.
For Paula Lillard, the opportunity to meet with the Montessori community in India was affirming.
“Montessori people all over the world are really quite special wherever you go,” she said. “They are very committed people. They have a common language and they’re all trying to do the same thing.”
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