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Mrs. Edijana Daisy Feldman has a deep passion for the education of children. In the city of Sapele, Delta State, where she runs her Mona School, she appears to be setting standards with her practical, innovative approach to teaching and discipline.

The establishment of Mona School has been Mrs. Feldman’s major pre-occupation these past 10 years. Mona is a Montessori-inspired school. She says: “I am convinced that the Montessori approach is just what Nigerians need as a method of formal education because Montessori is a way of life. It is a philosophy about how human beings ought to live their lives and treat one another. It is the educating of the total child. It provides opportunities for the child to develop physically, mentally, socially ad emotionally.

At Mona School, she has created a loving and caring atmosphere for learning. The approach she adopts to discipline the children is to talk to them and listen to their statement to know what caused the undesirable behaviour. Then, the teacher proceeds to solve the problem.

Various methods of discipline are used at the school. One is the re-direction of the child before he creates a disturbance. Another method is the removal of the child from the situation: a misbehaving child is asked to sit away from the group. There is also the use of natural and logical consequences and moral virtues. In this approach, a virtue is chosen every term as a standard for the school and this helps in checking everyone’s action.

Mrs. Feldman further says: “We are raising these children in our school without spanking and spoiling. We train these children to see discipline as a personal effort since discipline comes from the inside”.

Edijana Daisy Feldman was born on June 10, 1963 in Sapele. She had an N.C.E in History/Religion in 1985 and a B.A. Ed in History/Education in 1989. She went through training in Montessori Methods in Canada in the year 2005. She also did  a diploma programme at Modern Montessori International, London.

Mrs. Feldman was conferred with the Development in Nigeria Merit Award by PSR Magazine in 2011.