Why I love ILM Montessori

Our glowing signboard

Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford, is inspiring. I’ve watched it a couple of times. A line that stood out for me is when Steve says, “I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life.”

Well friends, now, I’ve gotten lucky too.

Since December 2012, I have involved myself in a passionate project. A project that has taken over every single waking moment. This is not like the flings that I have had in the past. In fact it’s like falling in love all over again. It’s deeper than that. It’s love with a purpose, a higher purpose.

Oh how much I love learning and how much I love teaching. I’ve covered the walls of my office with books. I’m constantly consuming content. While having lunch, or driving to work even when working out at my gym, I’m always listening or watching a lecture (an occasional movie). (On a side note, these days, I use several techniques, tips, tricks to speed up the rate of which I consume material, but that’s a story for another blog post).

It’s when I’m learning that I am the happiest. The only thing that makes me happier than gobbling up books and videos, is by serving content instead. Hence, I love writing,I love drawing and i love delivering the occasional speech too.

Schooling was a dream project since…since…well since I was in school. As a school boy, I remember overseeing my principal making the bus schedule and I was mentally making notes on how he was going about it.

Even today, walking through any school hallways, observing classrooms I’m in awe. The transformation that’s taking place in classrooms. In every class, there’s the teacher. Impacting the the lives of generations.

Life gifted me with amazing teachers. (Even today God has blessed me with an amazing teacher/mentor). The golden lessons I learnt at school then, I teach my kids today. While whispering a silent prayer to my educators.

Launching ILM Montessori:

An impulsive phone call led myself and seven other also passionate friends to get into a conference room. This was around the Christmas of 2012.

We poured our hearts out at one marathon meeting after another. Week after week, midnight after midnight, we clarified our vision. We went to the depths of the question why we wanted to start a school in the first place. We finally were as specific as we could be to what we wanted and what we didn’t.

We had clarity, took the plunge and committed to a property where our children would study. Our dream was on its way to become reality. And as of today, it’s turning out way better than we had imagined!

With tremouondous excitement and a fair dollop of nervousness we launched ILM Montessori and began our academic year on 18 June 2012. It has been heaven since then.

Our Journey so far:
We’ve been documenting our journey at our blog. Here are some of our high points:

We hosted the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art exams
– We received heart-warming testimonials from our parents. Watch them here.
– We’ve documented our learnings into our hit report. How to select a Preschool for your child.
– Currently we are preparing and rehearsing for our Annual day celebration.

Why I love ILM Montessori

Gosh, I love this project.  However, it’s not always been smooth sailing.  We’ve had our share of downs.  But even when setbacks hit, we do what it takes to get up and get rolling again. I often reflect why am I so attached to this project/venture then others.  Clear reasons surface.

1. The purity and selflessness at ILM Montessori: One of the reasons why we wanted to start our own school is because of the rampant commercialisation of education. In a commercial educational venture there’s always the possibility of self-interest taking over the interest of the school or children. ILM Montessori is a non-profit venture. The trustees have no profitable stake in it whatsoever. So why are we still so involved, it’s not for they money, it’s because we are in love with ILM. We do charge close to commercial rates. We do that so we can give our savings back to the school in terms of better salaries, better infrastructure and better facilities.

2. Working with an amazing diverse group:
Working with our group of Trustees. Every meeting of ours I feel even more motivated and charged towards the project. My daughter studies at ILM Montessori. She does so because I want to put her in a school where it is these people who are in charge. I have complete confidence in their integrity, sincerity and passion. There’s magic when working with a group of skilled, motivated, sincere individuals. At times that’s all on needs. Other perks begin to seem trivial.

3. The immense intangible reward of the project itself:
During my day job I’m involved with a team to create and sell homes and office spaces. Seeing a real-estate project come to life has it’s thrills. But it’s no comparison against crafting beautiful minds, shaping purposeful lives and working on changing the world for a better tomorrow. As I’ve mentioned, I have had amazing teachers. I can do the things that I do, because of my teachers. I am the person I am, because of my teachers. Here’s a chance for me to be part of that great tradition and help give a little back.

Here’s to the Crazy Ones:

To paraphrase another Steve Jobs quote. In one of his last ever interviews Steve speaks about the secret of success.

He says if you look at those who have been successful, a quality that they all have is that they are insanely passionate about what they do. That passion helps them when the going gets tough. Because when things are really difficult, a sane person would do the most obvious natural expected thing. He would quit. Why, because he is sane.

It’s the crazy passionate individual who pushes through. Because he’s not in it for the money. He’s not it for they glory. He’s doing it because that’s all that he loves doing. It is he who is often successful.

We’re open for Admissions:

We started our school with just Pre-Primary. Now, in the forthcoming academic year we are beginning the Primary section of our school. We’re great believers in the beauty and elegance of the Montessori system. For the first three Primary years we will continue to follow the Montessori methodology. Do wish us luck and Please pray for our success.

Visit our Blog here to see what we’ve been upto at ILM Montessori:
Do Like our Facebook Page here:
You can download a pdf of our brochure here:

Finally, I’ve included a few pics from our photo gallery below.
Have a glimpse of our wonderful ILM Montessori:

 

ILM Boys having a Great time!

Girls just wanna have fun!

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