Toddlers and their moms danced to Old Macdonald had a Farm and made friends with Red Riding Hood and Mowgli as animals, birds and insects made merry in the jungle at the golden jubilee celebrations of Mongrace Montessori House.
The school, which was set up on Short Street in 1964 and now has a branch in New Town, has been holding celebratory programmes for the past year. The event at Kala Mandir came as a grand finale to the year-long jubilation.
The programme began on a nostalgic note with the principal of the school's Short Street branch, Suman Sood, taking the audience down memory lane with a visual presentation. It showed how academicians Monjusri Chatterjee and Grace W. Pina started the school on Short Street and how Mongrace got its name (from the names of its founders). There were pictures of batches of former students and teachers at work or having fun. Many of these pictures have been collected from former students.
"We at Mongrace tried to go beyond classroom teaching," Sood added, as she traced the school's journey from its early days to the present. Along the way, the school saw a change in management, being taken over by the Suresh Amiya Memorial, a public charitable trust founded by Sadhan Dutt in 1984. Mongrace now has two more branches - one in New Town and the other in New Delhi. The principals of both the branches were honoured on the occasion.
The guests at the programme included Rt. Rev. Ashoke Biswas, the bishop of Calcutta, Rakhi Sarkar, the director of CIMA, and Ranjan Mitter, the principal of The Future Foundation School.
"Mongrace provides holistic education. That has been largely possible because of the dedication of the teachers and their willingness to innovate," bishop Biswas said.
Sarkar lent a personal touch to the proceedings as she spoke of the time when her daughters were students of Mongrace and how she often saw harried mothers memorising nursery rhymes when she went to drop them off in school. But she decided to let the school do the necessary grooming and teaching and has never regretted her decision. "My daughters sailed through their formative years and Mongrace managed them so well. I never had to memorise rhymes for them," she said.
Sarkar also had some friendly suggestion for young mothers - "Please do not worry too much. Enjoy bringing up your child. There's a lot of scope for kids today."
Mitter traced his life's journey and how Sadhan Dutt had been an inspiration for him. "Our mindsets are rooted in our past. Modern education helps children prepare for an uncertain future," he said.
