Welcome to Sri Atmananda Memorial School.  Teachers in a KPM School understand that children have unlimited potential and that they want to learn, get along with others and be productive in the world.  At our school, the teachers create a relationship of trust with every student.  KPM training provides teachers the guidance they need to change old habits and find within themselves the words, attitudes and actions that help them earn the trust of children and use it to encourage their overall integrated development.

I first learned about this teaching approach in 1994, while visiting with a friend who had just returned from a trip to India.  Our conversation revolved around my friend's work at a school there and my husband's experience working with children and adolescents in a clinical setting.  We heard about the need for documentation of their program.  This led to an offer for our family to travel to India where my husband, Cliff Chapman, LCSW (Ret.), observed the school.

When we arrived in India, we were informed that our son would be allowed to visit the school as a guest student during our stay.  Although we tried to maintain the focus of the trip on Cliff's project, we were soon carried away by our own experience as parents.  The school atmosphere felt like a place where we would have liked to go to school and it resonated with us as parents.  The regard the teachers had for the children was nurturing and supportive, not at all critical or punitive. 

The first day our son, Mars, came home from school I knew there was something special happening there.  He had a look of joy on his face so incredible that I will never forget it.  Everyday he was eager to go to school and he continued to be enthusiastic despite the fact that he was in a completely unfamiliar environment.  Mars was learning, we were also learning how to support him, and before we left to return home we inquired about the possibility of opening a school like Sri Atmananda Memorial School in Texas.  This became even more important after we returned to Austin, because when Mars returned to the school he was enrolled in for Kindergarten, he said, "Mama, I just want to teach the teachers how to teach the way they do in India." 

This school opened in September 1995 with six teachers.  Cliff and I were two of the six, all of whom had paid for their own training at the model school that summer.  There were six students, Mars was one of them.  The students who remained in the school from that first class graduated in June 2007 and they are all attending college.

The years since have been filled with opportunities and challenges.  The student body has grown, and though most of the original teachers have moved on, new ones have stepped up to the task.  Although the general conversation about education today still discusses accountability and high-stakes testing, there is also an increasing awareness of the importance of relationships in schools.  Sri Atmananda Memorial School understood the importance of relationships, defined the most constructive teacher-student relationship precisely, and has practiced it for over twelve years.

For more information on the school, please come to an Open Doors Coffee at the school.  We invite you to learn more about Sri Atmananda Memorial School and the KPM Approach to Children.

Pattye Henderson, Director