Sonam Dolma Rising

In 1959 her parents left their native Tibet and traversed the mountains to Nepal. Here the found sanctuary in the Khampa Refugee Camp, where in 1985 they had a child and named her Sonam Dolma.

Her father, understanding the complexity of educating his daughter in Nepal, took her to the doors of Shree Mangal Dvip Boarding School when she was almost six years old, in 1992. There she remained as a boarding student until 2001, Grade 10.

Upon entering her senior years at V.S Wiketan, she became severely ill and had to end her formal schooling. It was then, that the home she had known for over a decade, offered her the role as Teaching Assistant. By 2005, Sonam Dolma had honed her skills and worked in Learning Support Classes, until 2009. It was in 2010 that Sonam began her role as Nursery teacher at SMD.

For the past 13 years, this has been her work, her passion and for the past 21 years this has been her school.

While Sonam Dolma's story is not unique to this corner of Nepal, she, herself unequivocally is.

For you see, Sonam Dolma educates children from the age of five, who are brought to the school from the Himalayan mountains, from villages above 3,000 metres. They have not seen cars, let alone ever sat in a classroom.

What makes this educator so unique is her innate combination of Tibetan Buddhist practice, with modern classroom scaffolding and targeted skill development.

Sonam Dolma begins her day with a meditation session - asking her students "what are you going to do today, this whole day?" She never fills the room with the answer, instead the children diligently close their eyes and sit in the quiet of their own comfort, a comfort created by Sonam Dolma.

Throughout her years of teaching Sonam Dolma has merged Buddhist practice into her lesson plans, with each step of every lesson comes calm. First, the children listen, then they read, then they practice, then they play.

To bring them back to their contemplative place, she calls them to meditate and so they do, as if in some way they have known to do this since birth.

In observing Sonam Dolma, and watching the extraordinary development of the children, it is clear she has found the secret recipe of success. Contemplation creates calm and when the children are calm they can succeed. As demonstrated by the youngest student in her classroom this year, who came down from the mountains 39 days ago, and can already spell rainbow, and draw the colours in order of the song, having never heard the English language spoken before she stepped foot in Sonam Dolma's classroom.

In preserving the Himalayan culture, Sonam Dolma honours its uniqueness through the power of her teaching. She is no wallflower. Demonstrating how she refuses to teach the students the alphabet in order - because they simply learn the order, they do not learn the letter. So I move the letters, she says, and ask them to correct them, that is why they are spelling so quickly.

If any teacher wants to see the unequivocal master of classroom management, an educator so unique they are changing the world, they should visit the classroom of Sonam Dolma. When we sat together at day's end today, I asked her, what she worried about for these children. She said, "I worry in Grade five and six that they will not be disciplined. "You see", she said, "if he is smart that's good, but if he has no discipline being smart is no use."

Sonam Dolma remembers the power of her mothers words when she began her career, and carries them with her every day. She would say to me, do not beat the children like they do in other schools, be good to these children, they are poor, their parents are not with them, do good unto them. And for Sonam Dolma this is Dharma - if I teach, they will learn, and thus Dharma is within me.

Sonam Dolma is ardent that she will never leave her school, her students, and the staff. She says that she can only give back what she knows, and that is teaching, in return she needs nothing - for she has the best students, and this is Dharma.