Mamura Azizova is a teacher in Grace Montessori’s Primary classroom. She has worked at Grace Montessori since 2019 but started her teaching career as a Kindergarten teacher in Uzbekistan in 1999.
Mamura knew from a young age that she wanted to be a teacher as it is a tradition in her family; her grandfather, mother, uncle, and aunt were all teachers. Her grandfather used to tell her that “teaching is the noblest profession. You can change the lives of your students without knowing it. They will remember your advice 30 or 40 years later.”
This familial inspiration led her to graduate from Uzbek World Languages University in Uzbekistan with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Arabic Languages. She received her Montessori certificate from the Montessori Institute for Teacher Education.
Mamura deeply believes in Montessori philosophies and their differences from traditional school teaching. She enjoys how children can move around freely and choose lessons independently. In fact, Mamura says her proudest moments as a teacher at Grace Montessori are when the student becomes independent and can complete lessons without any mistakes. She can see the joy in their eyes as they finish tasks, such as counting long chains of beads in math.
“My favorite student memory is when I saw one of my students close the lid of Binomial cubes [one of the sensory work lessons in the Primary classroom]. He was so excited that he got it right. He kept saying, ‘I did it! I did it!’”
In addition to the fulfillment Mamura gets from working with students, she also feels Grace Montessori’s teachers and staff are her second family. She is always grateful for the teachers who give her new ideas and the administration who understand cultural differences.
In her free time, Mamura enjoys spending time with her family, cooking with her sons, and finding new recipes from different cultures.
Want to learn more about the Grace Montessori School experience? Click here for more information.
