| The Abelard School | |
| Sapere aude - Don't be afraid to think! | |
| Location | |
| Toronto, Ontario, Canada | |
| Information | |
| Principal | Mark Young |
| Grades | 9-12 (+13) |
| Campus | 203 College street, 4th and 5th floors. |
| Established | 1997 |
| Homepage | http://www.abelardschool.org |
The Abelard School is a small private school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, named after the 11th century scholar and philosopher Peter Abélard, and its teaching philosophy is based on a Socratic approach. It is a small school, with a yearly enrollment of 45-50 students, 7 full-time faculty members, and 3 part-time faculty members.
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The school was founded in 1997 by a group of four teachers from Thornton Hall: Brian Blair, Michelle Lefolii, Shai Maharaj, and Alina Rossinky.
In September 2006, The Abelard School moved to a new location at the intersection of College St. and Beverly St., on the top floor of a 5-story office building on the southeast corner. During the summer of 2010, the school once again expanded by acquiring a large portion of the fourth floor of that building.
The education provided by the Abelard school has several distinguishing traits.
Abelard offers many courses, with classes ranging in size between one and ten students. The actual list of courses offered, however, often depends on interest and the importance of taking a certain course. Additionally, Advanced Placement courses (AP) are offered to students who excel in certain areas, and who consistently achieve outstanding results in said areas. Some students may even choose to stay an extra year (commonly referred to at the Abelard School as "grade thirteen") in order improve their grades and/or take more courses. Students are strongly encouraged not to specialize while in high school, and thus end up taking courses as varied as Physics and Latin concurrently.[1]
The classes taken by Abelard students differ greatly from those taken in a standard Canadian high school. In addition to the standard mandatory French language language class in grade nine, students must take French in grade ten (though some students, especially those to whom English is a second language, are exempted). In a similar vein, Latin is also a mandatory course for grade nine students. These grade nine students must also take a Foundation Studies in the Sciences course, which covers both grade nine and ten science, and which emphasizes the interconnections between all the scientific fields, instead of simply taking a single grade nine science course. The nature of Foundation Studies in the Sciences allows students who wish to take Biology, Chemistry and Physics until grade 12 to only take two science courses a year (instead of the usual three), which allows students to diversify their course makeup, and makes writing AP exams easier. Grade 10 English students take a specialized course. In addition to teaching the ministry requirements, the course also requires students to read a wide survey of classical texts so that they can better understand the foundations of all of modern literature. Note that students arriving in grade ten still need to take Foundation Science[2]
Students are rarely in a single traditional grade. This is because many students take courses at other grade levels. Although some students will take a course at a lower grade level than their current one (such as Foundations studies in the Sciences), many, by virtue of excelling in a certain subject, or by virtue of having the capacity to understand a certain subject, take courses above their grade level. Thus, to an Abelard student, one's grade is only a measurement of how many years one has to graduate.
This unique atmosphere and philosophy has often led the Abelard School to be featured in articles about progressive education.[3]