Lynne Lawrence began the day sharing three of the Pearls of yesterday and addressing housekeeping matters. She introduced some additional guests that were present including two 6-12 children, who stayed for some of the morning.
Lynne then introduced Sraddhalu Ranade, a scientist, educator and scholar based at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India. Sraddhalu shared his understanding of a current global crisis, for which the solution is consciousness. He described his two principles of teaching. Firstly, that nothing can be taught and that our process of learning is an emergence of what was already innate. Secondly, that the mind must be consulted on its own growth. Many of the principles espoused by Sraddhalu ran parallel with those of Montessori. At the end of his presentation, he read out a historic message written by Montessori ‘To the children’ on the occasion of the founding of his ashram.
After lunch, the participants were divided into new reading groups and broke into these groups for deep study from Montessori texts. Later in the day, the Assembly returned to the three working groups to progress the three projects of EsF values and principles; Educateur preparation; and Capturing stories. Lynne closed the day by inviting comments and written Pearls from participants. The Indian Group met again under the direction of Uma Ramani to continue their exploration of ways forward, including a proposed pilot programme. The Assembly was brought together later to view a wonderful performance by local children singing Indian songs and playing recorder. The children and their families joined the participants for dinner afterwards.
