The Element: Where youth development meets real-world learning
Imagine a high school nestled in the heart of one of the newest, most popular developments in Canada’s capital, located amid one of the city’s most desirable and vibrant neighbourhoods.
Then put this high school inside an open, high-ceilinged, warehouse-style space with a variety of study and classroom areas, a commercial kitchen, an art-and-design studio and a science lab.
Add an authentic Montessori teaching methodology, Ministry of Education approved education offering Ontario Secondary School Diploma credits furnished by a staff of talented, committed and diverse teachers and infuse it with positivity, individuality and reinforcement.
Put basketball courts, a skating rink, a skateboard park, green space and ball diamonds just beyond the doors. Forge ties with community and business resources just down the street, and put a public library just across the canal.
This would be The Element High School, offering two distinct programs for Grades 7-8 and 9-12, each designed to address unique stages of development in young minds, a place where youth development meets real-world requirements.
Operated by OMS Montessori since 1966, the program expanded from Grades 7-8 in 2003 and moved to its current home in Lansdowne Park in 2015.
Beside the Horticultural Building and across from the Aberdeen Pavilion with the Farmers’ Market plaza in between, it may just be the coolest high school in Ottawa, a living example of the Montessori philosophy of hands-on, experiential learning.
“The Element High School is really designed around students being in their element,” says Greg Dixon, school director. “We want students to feel at home and engaged and respected.
“To do that, you have to be in the heart of where businesses are. And so The Element has been designed to allow students to go out into the real world and seize their key learning in real life experiences.
“They’re making that connection and we are not just speaking theoretically.”
That means taking a chemistry lab to a pottery workshop in Hintonburg, harvesting and sorting food for the Ottawa Food Bank, forging a fundamental understanding of business practices through an entrepreneurship program that taps into the local business community, or volunteering at November’s Grey Cup game next door at TD Place.
The school’s AWOL, or Authentic World of Learning, program fosters communityservice projects or internships with input from the students. The program develops confidence and responsibility in adolescents by successfully immersing them in larger, adult-world activities in fields like geology, astronomy and nutrition.
The high school students have taught computer skills to adults and have raised money for a local soup kitchen, learning key life skills in the process.
The school’s Maker’s Space has a 3D printer, woodworking equipment and a fullfledged arts studio. The Grade 7 and 8 students are responsible for planning and cooking lunches for classmates three days a week, which includes grocery shopping on Mondays.
Lansdowne-area restaurants teach them skills and students gain food-handling and food preparation skills while working in a commercial kitchen.
In the Grade 7 and 8 program the school year is divided into six sessions, with students given the option of focusing on areas of particular interest within the session of study. They are given 20 per cent of their days during the last term to work on projects of their choosing, reflecting their own passions and interests.
Says Dixon: “It is a practical education, with strong, rigorous academics.”
For more information visit www.elementhighschool.com.