Abby Karos is the co-director of the city’s first self-directed learning centre.
Students enrolled in a new kind of “self-directed” learning institute set to open at the Bronson Centre in January will mark a return of formal education to the original site of Immaculata High School.
The Compass Centre for Self-Directed Learning is planning to launch a pilot program for the January to June term.
Andre Morson, co-director of the Compass Centre, says this is the first centre of its kind in Canada. The program is modeled on the North Star Centre for Self-Directed Learning in Massachusetts. Morson worked with North Star before deciding to work with Abby Karos, the centre's other co-director, to open a location in Canada.
Morson describes the Compass Centre as an “alternative” school, as opposed to a normal private school. The school allows students to create their own education scheme around their own abilities and interests.
The school does not have tests, assignments or grades, but this does not hurt the students’ chances of getting into university. In the school, they are legally classified as homeschoolers and use the school’s resources to learn what they want, when they want and how they want.
“If we have tests and evaluations and assessments, that provides a competitive environment, and it changes the dynamic and the motivation of why they are going to learn and what they are going to learn,” Morson says.
Students who wish to enroll in the centre’s first term in January will be getting a discount in tuition for participating in the pilot-program phase. Tuition will range from $1,250 for one day of instruction per week, or $3,500 for a four-day week.
The centre offers workshops students can attend with an open-door policy, and students can request workshops, talks or even private tutoring sessions on subjects of their interest. Students can also choose to learn through internships or co-op placements.
Lauren Kniewasser, a 2012 Canterbury High School graduate specializing in the arts, says she is thankful that she went to a school that allowed her to pursue her love of art and says this created a better learning atmosphere.
“Everyone had a purpose and everyone was there for that purpose,” she says. “Everyone was so much more willing to work. They just had more motivation in general . . . It’s not the kind of high school that you dread going to, it’s somewhere that you walk in and feel special.”
Morson says the distinction that the Compass Centre is not a conventional private school is important. It is a not-for-profit organization, he says, and is really there to serve the students.
“Even though we charge tuition, our advantage is that we won’t turn away families that are unable to pay,” says Morson.
At Compass, clients can provide “alternative contributions” that allow families to provide work or contributions at $25 per hour in exchange for the remainder of tuition they cannot afford.
“We want to work with kids,” he says. “If they’re not happy in school we don’t want them to be miserable. We want them to be happy.”
Corey Mayville, manager of the Bronson Centre, says that this is the sort of organization the building tries to bring in as tenants. The centre has a mandate to attract smaller, community-based organizations with limited resources.
The centre has a long history of fostering education. The building was the home of Immaculata High School for 65 years until 1994, when the Catholic secondary institution packed up and moved to a new home on Echo Drive just southeast of Centretown.
Besides the building’s educational history, Morson says being in the Bronson Centre also makes strategic sense for what they do. Since students can opt to learn though internships with businesses and organizations, being in a building with other community-based organizations allows for links to be made for internships for the students.
This is especially helpful for students whose parents are wary of allowing their child out in the city alone for the day.
Since students don’t sign in and have the freedom to come and go as they please, parents are sometimes concerned about the lack of structure, says Morson, but he argues that young people should be given more credit in that regard.
“When you empower somebody with that ability, and there is that level of trust, then you’re going to get remarkable things,” Morson says, “because you’re not forcing them to do anything.”