in conversation with Manika Gupta
Rajni Rawat Chopra, a resident of Sector 26 and Director Shri Ram Wonder Years, with 15 plus years of experience in elementary education.
Question: Tell us little bit about yourself and where are you from, and your education and your life in Noida
Answer: So I’m born and brought up in Delhi . I did my schooling from DPS Mathura Road, I am a Dipsite. My whole family is mostly into education. My dad was an estate administrator for DPS Mathura Road. So the administrative streak to education industry came from there. I started teaching right after my college.
I ran my own small play school for four years with my mother, where we had a strength of more than 62 kids, which gave me a lot of experience. Then I moved on to the American Embassy school and stayed with them for 10 years. There I learnt a lot of new ways, new technologies and new methodologies of teaching from all over the world. After that, I took a little break for my son. Here, I am back with all my experience, and all my knowledge with opening of a preschool to give some value to the little kids.
Question: What’s your take on parents involvement and engagement in child’s early education?
Answer: Parents being the first teachers of the child and the most primary teachers, I feel the safety, warmth and sensitivity that they give the child first is very, very important. In the education world, when the children come, we look for collaborations from parent because the child’s basic discipline comes from the house, the child’s basic nature comes from the house.
Question: According to you, when and why should a parent send their child to a preschool?
Answer: Preschools for me are the child’s first steps into the real world. It is very different for them to come to a different set up and meet a new set of adults. so from 1 year to 2 years we have a mother toddler programe where they are accompanied by one of the adults from their family (mom, dad or grandmother) and 2 years onwards they come individually. It all begins 1 year onwards.
Question: What motivated you to start a preschool?
Answer: I have been in the education industry for 15 years or so, and coming from elementary education industry, I think it was very natural to start a school myself .. After an experience of so many years in such wonderful schools that I have worked for and gaining insights into forms of teaching methods, i wanted to give back to the society . Our education system has undergone many changes and I wanted that the children should get a better grounding in their formative years, and hence, I decided to open my pre-school so I can share all my experience, learnings and ideas to make it a happy place for the little ones.
Question: You said you wanted to give back to the society, but did you find this industry as a way to give back to society?
Answer: Absolutely. And as they say, that the future of mankind comes from nurturing the child, because he or she is going to grow up into an individual . So, yes, beginning right from the base is what I feel we need to do. This is a way to give back to the society as it means beginning right .
Question: Do you also use tech tools to educate?
Answer: We do! We do use tech tools but we balance our technology usage with these little kids. Well, this is a preschool and the kids are very, very little. So what they like most is the movement, the freedom to move. They like to run, they like to play.
Yes. Technology being very important, we try to balance it out as much as we can. There are some topics which we pick up, just like a little story or a fun shape game if they want to play. So we have a big screen and we make them play on that just to give them a little variety and give them a very light touch of technology.
Question: So what, according to you, is the most important element for a successful business?
Answer: Let’s not say ‘successful business’ , but future of a preschool . So I would say that a preschool and for that matter, any school is always evolving. So according to my thinking the future of a pre-school or any school is bright if they know how to move according to the trends while keeping the core values intact.
Societal conditions are changing rapidly, so we have to be flexible, to be upgraded and looking for ways to provide what is needed at an apt time.
In order to have a successful play school business one must have an engaging curriculum backed by good market research and safe and stimulating environment.
