The seed, sapling & tree

At a time when preschools prepared children only for formal schooling, Daphne Gomez imagined something radically different By: Bindu SarathA kindergarten curriculum with the overall development of a child’s personality at its centre was not a concept Kerala was familiar with in the early 1980s. When Daphne Gomez founded L’ecole Chempaka in Thiruvananthapuram in 1984, knowingly or unknowingly, she was launching a new way of pre-schooling.

The ‘Chempaka Way’ carries a keen note of emotional trust and care, extended not only to each child but also to the family and home.That was a time when preschools were meant only to be a training ground for the formal academic learning that would begin two years later. But Daphne Gomez, a follower of Tagore, implemented a humane educational system that was in touch with the environment and aimed at overall personality development.

The mentoring at Chempaka has been rooted in secular concepts and in celebrating other cultures.Instilling a sense of confidence in each child is the core idea behind the training. Every child performs at the Annual Day; assemblies and festivals are celebrated with active participation from all. Empathy and the value of teamwork are picked up along the way. Even before the rest of the world began thinking about carbon-neutral concepts, Daphne Gomez had initiated steps to inculcate environmental awareness.

She had said no to disposable plastics on the school campus. Decades ago, she had already introduced the concept of mindfulness to her students.While conducting workshops, Gomez has her own way of choosing a topic, one that might seem simple but carries great significance. In one of her workshops, she posed a question that made everyone pause: While our children are good at speaking out, why are they not as good at questioning? She points to Socrates, who always dared to question, and quotes the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna keeps questioning Lord Krishna.

When children ask questions, she believes it is better to question them back rather than answer directly, so they stay engaged and learn to think for themselves.Like a seed that grows into a sapling and then a tree, the Chempaka Way extended from the sandbox to cover all levels of schooling. The late architect Vernon Gomez and Daphne Gomez built two full-fledged schools in beautiful settings.Born in 1948, Daphne Gomez completed her postgraduation in English and American Literature and her Bachelor of Education at Madurai Kamaraj University, followed by a doctorate on the modern American playwright Edward Albee. She began her career as a tax officer in London, where she worked for four years before moving back to India. She taught at Vikaasa School in Madurai during its early years, before taking up a lecturer’s post at Mar Ivanios College, Trivandrum, where she taught English and American Literature for 24 years. Her time at Vikaasa School triggered her inner calling to work extensively on a child-centric pedagogy.Vernon Gomez was the visionary behind Chempaka’s growth. The couple started their first kindergarten at their own house in Pattoor.

Vernon Gomez had a gift for turning barren land into a paradise for children—L’ecole Chempaka's Edavacode campus won the Indian Institute of Architects’ Silver Leaf Award for transforming derelict land, a former rock quarry, into a haven for learning. Their son, Sacha Gomez, is a homeopathic doctor currently practising in the UK, and their daughter, Maya Gomez, is an architect and artist.Daphne Gomez remains sweet seventeen in her late seventies. When age finally caught up with her, she made a decision that, too, marked her uniqueness—she happily passed on her dream project to a new management. Chempaka now has fourteen kindergartens to its credit, and continues to expand beyond the capital city under its present chairman, VNP Raj.(The writer was a teacher at L’ecole Chempaka under the mentorship of Daphne Gomez)