Euler’s identity, ei ‘ + 1 = 0 , frequently cited by scientists as the ultimate example of a “beautiful equation,” is also the favorite formula of longtime mathematician and Mount Madonna School (MMS) teacher Premdas Rohan.
“All of complex analysis can be described with this amazing equation,” commented Premdas. “It looks complicated, but it’s built on simple premises and metaphorical thinking that all humans can do, and sixth and seventh graders, in particular, can understand.”
Science, technology, engineering and math (S.T.E.M.) and stewardship all connect in Premdas’ middle school classroom. Step inside, and from the first glimpse of walls covered in maps, student work, a Periodic Table of Elements, images of the universe, and diagrams depicting a healthy water cycle; to geometric K’nex models, bags of recycled items waiting to be repurposed, bins of assorted odds and ends, Apple computers, a microscope, and Lego robotics kits — it’s clear that in this space, students are invited to engage with a creative curriculum that goes beyond explicit core standards and integrates implicit lessons in collaboration, expected — and unexpected — problem solving and building relationships.
Premdas came to Mount Madonna Center (MMC) in 1980 and joined MMS in 1981, when he and wife Sarojani co-founded the MMS preschool-kindergarten program.
In the more than three decades since, Premdas has taught not only MMS’ youngest students, but math and science for middle and high school students, and coached numerous sports teams. Simultaneously, he worked to infuse his own longstanding passion for education with supporting each student’s capacity for learning, personal development and understanding of math and science.
“I was attracted to teaching as a career not in college, but ten years afterward when I visited a Montessori children’s classroom in my hometown,” Premdas explained. “The children were happy, engaged and learning; and were treated with respect and, even more, as the princes and princesses that they would grow up to be. It was something to visit a classroom and see 2 to 6-year-old children working together as a community. It was clearly a learning environment were kids were happy and learning, focused and engaged.
“Thirteen years later, what attracted me to teaching mathematics at the middle and high school levels were recollections of my freshman year of high school, where I was blessed with a mathematics teacher who not only knew the material (calculus) but was able to present it in a way that I could learn. He had high standards and we had to work really hard. It was the most enjoyable course I have ever taken, partly because of the material and partly because I identified with the teacher. I want my students to feel the beauty, power and fun of mathematics.”
Premdas holds an M.A. in secondary education science from San Jose State University, a California clear teaching credential in mathematics, elementary (multiple subject) and high school (single subject); and a B.A. with honors in mathematics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He also holds a Montessori early childhood teaching credential, has completed training in service learning, and was recognized as a lead teacher of the Monterey Bay Area Math Project from 1985 to 2004, He has also completed the Monterey Bay Area Research Institute (MBARI) Lego Robotics Training and is a California Math Council member.
Students and parents who’ve passed through Premdas’ classroom — or had him as their volleyball, flag football, basketball or soccer coach — are likely to recall his easy-going nature, sharp intellect, and straightforward approach to encouraging students intellectual capacity and athletic development. Premdas’ own story and path to MMS, however, may be less well known.
Born and raised in Miami, Florida, Premdas was the seventh of 13 children (six girls, seven boys) in a devoutly Catholic household. He recalls a childhood filled with outdoor adventures, such as building rafts from palm fronds, lots of neighborhood kids, dozens of bicycles strewn haphazardly across front lawns and summer days spent swimming in Biscayne Bay with friends and siblings until sunset.
“We sure did some crazy things growing up,” he acknowledged, shaking his head, “and our parents gave us the space to learn through action and consequences.”
His father, Laurence B. Rohan, was an army veteran who served in Europe during WWII. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, he became a lawyer and later ran his own legal practice in Miami. Rohan’s mother Rosemary, who grew up riding horses in rural Kentucky, spent more than two decades raising her children, before returning to school and training to become a nurse. She then went to work at a local hospital, working until retirement at age 78!
Premdas recalls both parents as disciplinarians who were ‘rough’ early on, but easier-going later in life.
“There were rules for running a household of 15, for sure,” he acknowledged. “Everyone had jobs, every day. We attended church on Sundays, and I was an altar boy and member of the boys’ choir until I was 12. My parents frequently told us that ‘thought, word and action should be united for a truly spiritual life’.”
Following his high school graduation, Premdas worked as a carpenter, refinishing furniture as a local antique store. Sarojani, who hails from New York, was attending the University of Miami and working at a nearby health food store.
“Sarojani says she remembers me coming into the health food store even before a mutual friend introduced us,” said Premdas, smiling with a twinkle in his eye, “but I don’t remember.” When they did meet, there was an immediate and strong connection. They were together in Florida for four years, before visiting the West Coast and MMC in 1979 to take part in an early yoga teaching training. That community experience was so positive, that they extended their trip by a couple weeks and became one of the first couples to be married at MMC!
Back in Florida, Sarojani began teaching at a Montessori school in South Miami and a few months later, Premdas joined the staff as well. Not long afterwards they were invited by a friend from Florida, Kalpana Kachuck, who was living at MMC at the time (and was the current MMS principal), to move to MMC and start a preschool and kindergarten program for MMS.
“By way of invitation she told us, ‘we don’t have any materials, we don’t have a budget, we may not have a building, but somehow we’ll make it work’. We didn’t even know if we actually had a job,” Premdas shared. “It was an open-hearted gamble.”
MMS’ inaugural preschool and kindergarten program began in 1981: Sarojani taught six preschool students in a converted space in the MMC Log Building, while Premdas had eight kindergarteners in the downstairs basement of Sarada and Dayanand Diffenbaugh’s house up the hill. The Pre/K program was born!
“We were close by but miles away,” he said, laughing. “Even then we did a lot of hiking and walking with the students, and at that time there was a 100% more interaction with the MMC community. It was very organic.”
By the program’s second year, Premdas recalls receiving a small budget of around $50 for supplies, which they used to buy crayons for their students. The blocks, chairs and tables they needed Premdas made by hand in the MMC woodshop.
In 1983, two significant milestones occurred: the Rohans welcomed a son, Dov Frances (’01); and a donation from a friend of MMC resident Vishnu Priya Dozier provided funds for the building of a dedicated Pre/K classroom — and planning for what would become the Lakeview Building got underway. The Rohans designed the new classroom space together, and with strong community support, the project was completed over the course of a year. Premdas was again busy in the woodshop, building tables, chairs and all of the shelving needed for the classroom. After buying paint and painting the walls, they were ready to welcome students into this special, new learning space. Together they taught in the Lakeview Building for the next 15 years.
Toward the last third of this 15-year period, Premdas started teaching algebra II and pre-calculus to MMS high school students. That continued for two or three years, then, although he kept teaching five mornings a week, he returned to school to complete his bachelor’s degree, math credential and master’s degree.
Following his graduation, Premdas left the Pre/K for good. By this time the Pre/K had grown to about 30 students, with different aides and lots of help. He moved next to teaching high school math.
“At that time I was the entire department,” he said. “The lower grades were still growing and classes were still super small. By the time I transitioned to teaching middle school math and science, my last high school geometry class, comprised of ninth and tenth graders had about 24 students, so MMS had grown to roughly twelve students per grade.”
More time passed and classroom spaces changed, too. When the Courtside Building (now the home of the third and fourth grade classrooms) was erected, it was used for middle and high school math and science classes. Premdas, the school’s science chairperson at the time, played a lead role in designing both of these classrooms.
Throughout these years Premdas coached several MMS sports teams, including girls and boys high school volleyball, middle school boys volleyball, middle school flag football, basketball and soccer; and boys Summit Club volleyball.
An avid weekly tennis player, he has twice been the liaison for obtaining funding from the Shapiro family (Yogi, ’94 and Sita, ’96) to refinish the tennis court located between the Courtside Building and fifth grade classroom. Premdas, with the support of parent Suzy Stevens (Cooper, 12th), had hoped to begin a student tennis club, but these efforts so far, haven’t been fruitful.
Tradition is important to Premdas, and his favorite MMS tradition is the eighth grade Rite of Passage (ROP). For more than 20 years, he helped to coordinate and participate in this outdoor experience, and while he no longer participates in the student portion of ROP, he and Sarojani, for several years, have led a parents’ support night that takes place the first night the eighth graders are away.
“While ROP is a tradition that I still super enjoy, I am really comfortable to be transitioning to looking at this transformative event from more of an adult perspective.” he explained. “For me now, being involved on the parent end is a way for me to remain engaged in a way that seems natural and real.”
When he’s not teaching, Premdas enjoys leading yoga classes at MMC, tennis, mountain bike riding, playing golf, snowboarding, occasional surfing, travel, including annual summer trips to Salt Spring Island and Canada, and, in the past few years, scuba diving.
Premdas’ son Dov, a certified scuba instructor, taught him how to dive, and accompanied him on diving trips to Thailand (open water), Belize (deep water at The Blue Hole!) and in the Monterey Bay (cold water) for certifications.
“Diving is like entering into deep meditation,” observed Premdas. “First you have to relax your anxiety, then quiet your breath, then feel the magic of the quiet conscious world open up to you.”
He remains very close with his siblings, all of whom still live on the East Coast. His extended family keep in touch through an active web blog and family reunions take place every two years.
While Premdas says he doesn’t spend much time reading (“I read math books, does that count”), he is quite proud of a significant literary project currently underway — a translation from Sanskrit to English of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita written by MMC mentor Baba Hari Dass. It’s a 2,000 page, three volume tome. The first two volumes are complete and being sold through Amazon; while work is underway on the final section. Proceeds from the book sales benefit the Sri Ram Ashram in Haridwar, India. Premdas taught himself to read Sanskrit just so he could undertake this translation project!
“I just did it,” he said, modestly. “I studied a lot, and one letter at a time, I just learned it.”
Thought, word and action — and spirituality — are united in Premdas’ life, and he says he is grateful for the opportunities he’s had as a teacher, to work with so many children through the years.
“I see, in all of the different ages of kids I’m experienced in teaching, that each age has its own unique and interesting quality. The young ones in preschool and kindergartens are just so blissful; by high school, students’ intellect and character are really blossoming, and in middle school, it’s a blend between these two. I feel honored to be able to witness all of these amazing stages of the human condition.”
####
Contact:: Leigh Ann Clifton, Marketing & Communications,
Nestled among the redwoods on 355 mountaintop acres, Mount Madonna is a safe and nurturing college-preparatory school that supports students in becoming caring, self-aware and articulate critical thinkers, who are prepared to meet challenges with perseverance, creativity and integrity. The CAIS and WASC accredited program emphasizes academic excellence, creative self-expression and positive character development. Located on Summit Road between Gilroy and Watsonville.
