September 22, 2005

Farida Akbar has the proud distinction of being the only Asian who has been elected in the ‘Association Montessori Internationale’ (AMI) Pedagogical Committee based in Holland, which, among other tasks, continues to oversee the development and manufacturing of the Montessori teaching aids and accessories. She has been serving on this eight-person committee for the past five years and visits AMI Holland twice a year for meetings, writes Rumana Husain

In order to learn more about the workings of the Montessori Association in Karachi, I meet Farida Akbar, the Director of (Montessori) Training and Chief Executive of the Training Centre, at her home. Akbar keeps a busy nine-to-five schedule, while her retired husband looks after their five beautiful pomeranian dogs. She tells me that their three children are living abroad.

Farida Akbar has the proud distinction of being the only Asian who has been elected in the ‘Association Montessori Internationale’ (AMI) Pedagogical Committee based in Holland, which, among other tasks, continues to oversee the development and manufacturing of the Montessori teaching aids and accessories. She has been serving on this eight-person committee for the past five years and visits AMI Holland twice a year for meetings. This is a well-deserved honour, as she has served the Montessori cause for over three decades.

Montessori is the single largest pedagogy in the world. Although statistics may not be readily available, we know for a fact that in Pakistan the Montessori system, for ‘schooling’ pre-schoolers, is the most popular system, and is adopted by most educators.

Far from reading Dr Montessori’s The Discovery of the Child, many of them may not even be adhering to her basic philosophy and approach towards ‘an environment that is supportive for the cognitive and sensory development of children.’ Yet ‘Montessori Schools’ can be found in every corner of various urban and semi-urban areas of the country.

Dr. Maria Montessori, the Italian educationist who was forced to leave her country during World War II and spend the rest of her life in the Netherlands, believed that “Mankind can hope for a solution to its problems, among which the most urgent are those of peace and unity, only by turning its attention and energies to the discovery of the child and to the development of the great potentialities of the human personality in the course of its formation.” Her conviction, research and pursuit resulted in 1929 in the formation of the AMI, which strives to maintain the integrity of Dr Montessori’s work, as well as to ensure that it is carried on worldwide.

Akbar reminds me that in Pakistan, Gul Minwala’s contribution in this field has been a remarkable inspiration for the followers of the Montessori system. After her demise, it is Farida Akbar who is the torchbearer.

Originally hailing from Lucknow, Akbar was already armed with a BEd, an MEd, and another Master’s degree in educational psychology from Aligarh when she came to Pakistan in 1960 to join the rest of her family in Quetta.

Her brother was in the Pakistan Army, and soon thereafter was posted to London. He suggested that she should come along with him. Although their mother was educated at home, and had likewise tutored Farida at home until she was twelve years of age, being a broad-minded lady she happily agreed to let her daughter go abroad.

Akbar lovingly recollects the first twelve years of her life that she spent entirely at home in the company of her mother, who had earlier lost three daughters. This somewhat explains her initial reluctance to send Farida to school. “I was thoroughly spoilt, but my mother taught me everything that she could –– from Deputy Nazir Ahmad’s books to other contemporary literature, as well as cooking, sewing, darning, knitting, embroidery, painting –– I was groomed like a proper girl,” she smiles.

Once in school, she found the English language difficult, but learnt it right from the basics when she was admitted in class nine. She surprised herself as well as her parents when she secured top position in her higher secondary school exams, and continued to get scholarships until she graduated.

During her stay in London, she enrolled at the Institute of Education. This was in the early sixties and there was a shortage of teachers there. She was requested to teach English and Maths to children ranging from age seven to fifteen. After her return to Pakistan in 1964, she was offered a post at the Karachi University but this coincided with another proposal ––- a marriage proposal –– and she accepted the latter.

Akbar recalls the early years of her own children –– how she used to sit and observe them at school –– refusing to go home and relax. Mrs Thobani, and particularly her sister Mrs Arifa Saifi, who ran the Montessori school that her children were attending, urged her to sign up for an AMI course.

“In those days,” says Akbar, “the course was restricted to just two hours in the evening for one academic year. I completed my diploma under Mrs Minwala, and was deeply fascinated by the Montessori approach and its methods.”

I ask her if she had come across the Montessori system when she was studying for her Master’s. She replies that there was only one paragraph on the system in one of her books. It was only after she learnt the testaments: ‘Education should be a help for life; Follow the child; Education should begin when life begins’ that she started to appreciate the Montessori approach, which offers a broad vision of education as an aid to life.

“It is designed to help children as they grow from childhood to maturity. Its flexibility provides an atmosphere within which each individual child’s inner directives freely guide the child towards wholesome growth. Children progress at their own pace and rhythm, according to their individual capabilities.”

During the early nineties, Farida Akbar went back to London to train for a course dealing with children from age zero to three, and then stayed there for two more years to teach.

In reply to a question regarding the prevailing practice of Montessori schools becoming preparatory institutions for the sake of admission to particular schools, Akbar concedes that there is a big confusion surrounding this. She also laments that there are very few committed and sincere teachers available these days.

Montessorians are supposed to serve as advocates for all children –– championing the rights of the child in society. She agrees that a forum must be created whereby heads of some frontline schools and Montessorians could come together to exchange views, and for discussion and debate vis-à-vis this issue.

The blame for over-burdening young children does fall on the Montessori schools as some primary schools feel that they subsequently have to ‘undo’ much that the child was taught at the Montessori and begin afresh.

On the other hand, many Montessorians place the onus on the primary schools, saying that their demands are such that if they do not teach the child ‘enough’, the schools as well as the parents complain that the child has ‘wasted’ her/his time at the Montessori, learning little or nothing.

There is much wisdom, experience and awareness that someone like Farida Akbar –– a trainer of trainers –– can share, not only with those few who enroll in the Training Centre and the Montessori Association, but also with people at large. In order to increase awareness among parents and teachers, among people who are committed to the cause of education, and also among those who run schools as businesses, it is imperative that the right questions are asked, and the right answers provided. It is almost a hundred years since the Montessori movement began. We should not spend another hundred years grappling with its meaning and methodology.

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