Preschool education is a fast developing sector of Indian educational system and this is a two way process. The modern parents seek high standards of early childhood education for their children while preschools search for effective, up to date ways of delivering it.
The remarkable feature of Indian preschool education is that it readily adapts different teaching methodologies from all over the world. Moreover many preschools nowadays don’t follow just one method of teaching, but successfully implement few of them. This gives a child an opportunity to be a versatile person since the beginning of his/her life.
There are widely accepted preschool teaching methodologies followed by a modern preschool education. One of them is a very well known educational approach developed by an Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori.
The Montessori Method makes an emphasis on independence, the liberty of the pupils in their spontaneous manifestations (Mont.1912), respect for a child’s natural psychological development and technological advancement in society.
The Reggio Emilia educational method was started in Italy after the World War the II when the children needed a quick approach to learning. This method has such important points as community participation, parental involvement. Reggio Emilia educational tradition puts the natural development of children and their close relationship that they share with their environment at the center of its philosophy.
Waldorf or Rudolf Steiner Education is based on the understanding of the human being as, that is, as a being of body, soul and spirit. The educational method of Rudolf Steiner thus is based on the thought that the whole person has to be touched by educational process. The Waldorf teaching method emphasizes the role of the arts and the inner life. The art is taught do develop the sense of independence through the creative skills. In the Waldorf early childhood education emphasizes the oral language and reading and writing are not formally taught in the early years.
Playway Method is a child centered method in which play is the main way of learning. The Playway approach makes educational process more lively, diverse and enjoyable. The play is considered to be the most natural way of learning. The playway methods are being used in the preschools’ curriculum for teaching of languages, mathematics, social sciences through such activities as songs, free play, dramatic play etc. The playway method allows the process of learning to be adapted to the interests and needs of a particular child.
The Kinderpillar preschool’s primary goal is to provide quality early childhood education to the young children. In order to achieve this, curriculum at Kinderpillar preschools integrates the above mentioned teaching methodologies along with the implementation of the latest educational approaches such as:
Theory of Multiple Intelligences which was proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983. He believes that there exists a multitude of intelligences, quiet independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints (Gardner, 1993). In education the theory is mostly understood that the children learn in different ways, the problem is to identify what child learns in what way.
Brain-Based Learning. The early years of the child’s life are the most critical to developing the pathways in the brain. Children are capable of learning more at this stage, because there is rapid synaptic growth and brain activity is at its peak. During this stage of rapid brain development, if the right connections are not made, brain cells will start disappearing. Brain-Based Learning helps the child make conscious and unconscious interconnections, provides hands-on learning experiences through engaging activities that encourage the use of both hemispheres of the brain.
The Kinderpillar Play School understands the needs of modern early childhood education and blends traditional teaching methodologies with the latest educational approaches. This makes The Kinderpillar preschools the perfect place for the children to learn and to be developed into successful open minded adults.
(Article Written by Anna Sizova Dhingra)