Alum Spotlight: Pherooz Karani '92
The International Montessori School of Prague (IMSP) includes in its mission statement a commitment to empowering students to become “confident, compassionate and engaged citizens of the world.” If this confidence-forward, globally minded mission language is familiar, it is not a coincidence. IMSP Head of School Pherooz Karani ’92 has been at the helm of her school for a dozen years, leading her community through tremendous growth while reflecting and drawing on her NCDS experience.
“I have NCDS to thank for the work I do now. My Hesed program opened my eyes to working with children,” said Karani. “For Hesed, I worked in a women’s shelter and spent a lot of time with the children. I felt like I was doing something very useful and meaningful. Sister Nelson in particular was a firecracker who opened my eyes to so much injustice in this world. She had such a central role in making me the activist that I am today. She introduced me to Howard Zinn, and it’s been non stop since then!”
Karani draws on all of her NCDS role models as she leads her school in Prague. “Mrs. Mignone! She was forever a role model for compassion and gentleness and I think about that a lot when I’m trying to balance being firm and clear but also being understanding.”
Karani’s path in teaching and school administration has taken her from Boston to New York, London, Florida, and now to Prague, Czech Republic: the European country that sustained the most COVID-related school closings over the past two years.
“Switching to remote learning in an environment where so much of our pedagogical approach is hands-on and small group activities presented unique challenges,” said Karani. “With toddlers and young children in the program, the struggle was significant. We were not in the position to refund families because we value our faculty, and we needed to pay them.”
Karani knows exactly what it means to be on faculty at a Montessori school, as she was at Montessori Educare School in Newton for over 10 years. “Working with 25 three-to-six year old children was exhausting, and by 2005 I was feeling rather burnt out,” she explained. “My head of school offered me a position as her assistant, and she deeply involved me on the administrative side of things. I fell in love with the work. I loved bringing order to things and engaging in long-term planning. I felt like I was still serving children in a meaningful way, which is my purpose and passion in life. After that year, the school offered me a job as Director of Admissions.”
Karani’s move to admissions in 2010 proved helpful later in her career. “The first eight years at IMSP I was really driving admissions and placement along with my Head of School duties,” she said. Part of stabilizing the enrollment was crystallizing the mission of the school. An English-language, international Montessori school, IMSP had the benefit of offering much, but it lacked a focal mission, which Karani knew would ground the institution. “When I came on, we began our transition from being known primarily as an international, or English-language school, into a specifically Montessori school.”
Karani engaged an entrepreneurial spirit within herself, rallied colleagues, built coalitions, and began the work of rebranding, along with re-educating the current families and prospects. With characteristic humility, Karani explained, “Don’t misunderstand - I wasn’t some savior who came in and changed our school single-handedly - we all did it together. It was hard, and we lost some community members along the way, but in six years we doubled the size of our enrollment.”
With a clearer identity, strong enrollment, and committed faculty, the now-steady IMSP ship sailed into the COVID-19 storm head-on. “This may sound crazy, but we were kind of prepared for it,” recalled Karani. “I remember in January 2020 reading something in the news about the virus and it made me nervous. At our next faculty meeting, days after reading that piece, I asked our teachers to start thinking about remote learning for our students. So when we got our first school closure, we pivoted to remote learning the very next day.”
Remote learning in an early educational setting presents its own set of challenges. Karani noted that while they were quick to offer online learning, the process of refining those offerings was on-going. “We figured out what didn’t work and what did work. We even had closures this fall, and by then we were a well-oiled machine. That said, it was never easy or smooth, and all children suffer through remote learning.”
For Karani and her staff, of the many missing connections caused by COVID, some of the hardest were losing the day to day interactions with the children in school. In fact, Karani had developed a practice of engaging with students as much as possible, despite her administrative identity. “The only way to combat missing the kids in the classroom was to intentionally develop relationships with students. I learned that from Sister Rogers,” Karani explained. “One of the things I appreciated most about her is that she always greeted us by name and would stop to ask us questions about what we were doing and what we were interested in. That is a model for me as Head of School, and I did not have that experience in any of my previous schools, or even at university. Her model behavior has stuck with me all this time.”
Karani hoped to return to more day to day contact with students as the new school year gets underway. Coming together for in-person learning for the first time since closures last year, Karani and her colleagues noticed that many young students had to be reacclimated to classroom expectations. “We are focused on the whole child and have social, emotional, and moral expectations; those skills were rusty. There was a lot of petty fighting because the children forgot how to be respectful. For first grade and older, we were teaching a lot of conflict resolution.”
As Karani planned for a new school year, she anticipated more of what a return to in-person learning brought this past year: joy. “In-person learning and events catalyzed so much joy,” she said with a smile. Eternally optimistic, Karani believes there may be a silver lining to COVID when it comes to distilling the values of early education. “At the beginning of COVID, it felt like people were talking about childrens’ social and emotional development. I hope we continue to look at children for their whole being. I think this is especially true in America, where we are often so focused on academics and test scores. The heart of the matter is the child, and children are the hope for the future. It’s up to us to nurture the tremendous potential of each one.”
“I have NCDS to thank for the work I do now. My Hesed program opened my eyes to working with children,” said Karani. “For Hesed, I worked in a women’s shelter and spent a lot of time with the children. I felt like I was doing something very useful and meaningful. Sister Nelson in particular was a firecracker who opened my eyes to so much injustice in this world. She had such a central role in making me the activist that I am today. She introduced me to Howard Zinn, and it’s been non stop since then!”
Karani draws on all of her NCDS role models as she leads her school in Prague. “Mrs. Mignone! She was forever a role model for compassion and gentleness and I think about that a lot when I’m trying to balance being firm and clear but also being understanding.”
Karani’s path in teaching and school administration has taken her from Boston to New York, London, Florida, and now to Prague, Czech Republic: the European country that sustained the most COVID-related school closings over the past two years.
“Switching to remote learning in an environment where so much of our pedagogical approach is hands-on and small group activities presented unique challenges,” said Karani. “With toddlers and young children in the program, the struggle was significant. We were not in the position to refund families because we value our faculty, and we needed to pay them.”
Karani knows exactly what it means to be on faculty at a Montessori school, as she was at Montessori Educare School in Newton for over 10 years. “Working with 25 three-to-six year old children was exhausting, and by 2005 I was feeling rather burnt out,” she explained. “My head of school offered me a position as her assistant, and she deeply involved me on the administrative side of things. I fell in love with the work. I loved bringing order to things and engaging in long-term planning. I felt like I was still serving children in a meaningful way, which is my purpose and passion in life. After that year, the school offered me a job as Director of Admissions.”
Karani’s move to admissions in 2010 proved helpful later in her career. “The first eight years at IMSP I was really driving admissions and placement along with my Head of School duties,” she said. Part of stabilizing the enrollment was crystallizing the mission of the school. An English-language, international Montessori school, IMSP had the benefit of offering much, but it lacked a focal mission, which Karani knew would ground the institution. “When I came on, we began our transition from being known primarily as an international, or English-language school, into a specifically Montessori school.”
Karani engaged an entrepreneurial spirit within herself, rallied colleagues, built coalitions, and began the work of rebranding, along with re-educating the current families and prospects. With characteristic humility, Karani explained, “Don’t misunderstand - I wasn’t some savior who came in and changed our school single-handedly - we all did it together. It was hard, and we lost some community members along the way, but in six years we doubled the size of our enrollment.”
With a clearer identity, strong enrollment, and committed faculty, the now-steady IMSP ship sailed into the COVID-19 storm head-on. “This may sound crazy, but we were kind of prepared for it,” recalled Karani. “I remember in January 2020 reading something in the news about the virus and it made me nervous. At our next faculty meeting, days after reading that piece, I asked our teachers to start thinking about remote learning for our students. So when we got our first school closure, we pivoted to remote learning the very next day.”
Remote learning in an early educational setting presents its own set of challenges. Karani noted that while they were quick to offer online learning, the process of refining those offerings was on-going. “We figured out what didn’t work and what did work. We even had closures this fall, and by then we were a well-oiled machine. That said, it was never easy or smooth, and all children suffer through remote learning.”
For Karani and her staff, of the many missing connections caused by COVID, some of the hardest were losing the day to day interactions with the children in school. In fact, Karani had developed a practice of engaging with students as much as possible, despite her administrative identity. “The only way to combat missing the kids in the classroom was to intentionally develop relationships with students. I learned that from Sister Rogers,” Karani explained. “One of the things I appreciated most about her is that she always greeted us by name and would stop to ask us questions about what we were doing and what we were interested in. That is a model for me as Head of School, and I did not have that experience in any of my previous schools, or even at university. Her model behavior has stuck with me all this time.”
Karani hoped to return to more day to day contact with students as the new school year gets underway. Coming together for in-person learning for the first time since closures last year, Karani and her colleagues noticed that many young students had to be reacclimated to classroom expectations. “We are focused on the whole child and have social, emotional, and moral expectations; those skills were rusty. There was a lot of petty fighting because the children forgot how to be respectful. For first grade and older, we were teaching a lot of conflict resolution.”
As Karani planned for a new school year, she anticipated more of what a return to in-person learning brought this past year: joy. “In-person learning and events catalyzed so much joy,” she said with a smile. Eternally optimistic, Karani believes there may be a silver lining to COVID when it comes to distilling the values of early education. “At the beginning of COVID, it felt like people were talking about childrens’ social and emotional development. I hope we continue to look at children for their whole being. I think this is especially true in America, where we are often so focused on academics and test scores. The heart of the matter is the child, and children are the hope for the future. It’s up to us to nurture the tremendous potential of each one.”