Julien Abesdris was uncomfortable with the huge student population at a Toronto-area high school and frustrated about being unable to get help from his teachers.

Louis Heidensohn, 11, dives into a book in English class with Dragon Academy principal Meg Fox, rear.

Louis Heidensohn, 11, dives into a book in English class with Dragon Academy principal Meg Fox, rear.

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"I was a self-conscious kid," the 18-year-old says. "But I decided to switch because of the people at the school. I didn't like the idea of being part of any group."

Not having to deal with high-school social cliques was one reason he enrolled in the private Dragon Academy two years ago. The other reason was that the alternative school provides a more intellectually challenging environment, the Grade 12 student says.

Located in a three-storey Victorian mansion in Toronto's leafy Annex neighbourhood, the co-ed school is home to 50 students in Grades 7 to 12. As with many alternative schools, such as Montessori schools, it uses non-traditional teaching methods and is focused on helping students reach their individual potential.

"A lot of the teachers helped me become a person," says Mr. Abesdris, who says his first year was demanding. "They really made an effort to show they were there to help. That got me through. I learned a lot from my teachers and wouldn't be who I am today, if it wasn't for the school."

The Dragon, as it's known to students and faculty, is noted for its Socratic teaching method, which emphasizes discussion and dialogue with teachers, and an integrated curriculum that often leads to collaborative efforts involving all students, such as creating wall-sized murals that resemble Mayan calendars as part of an art class or staging 30-hour fasts to promote awareness of world hunger.

The school also describes itself as "museum-based," although that term is used loosely. About once a week, students participate in a variety of cultural activities, ranging from attending workshops at Opera Atelier to performances at Tarragon Theatre.

Founded in 2000 by Meg Fox, a former University of Toronto and York University lecturer with a PhD in English literature, the school dispenses with standard techniques such as rote memorization.

Instead of sitting in neat rows of desks, students gather around a seminar table and engage their teachers in sometimes heated discussions on a range of real-world subjects.

"Ours is a progressive school, with a capital P," says Dr. Fox in her book-lined office, just steps from two seminar rooms filled with students engaged in courses such as music theory.

She notes that the school adheres to four key principles: freedom of expression, creativity, collaboration, and commitment to social justice. Based on decades of research in cognitive science and educational psychology, it aims to enhance each student's ability to learn.

"Most schools are comfortable with the traditional method, which is didactic in nature, even though we all know it's not the best way to learn things," says Dr. Fox, speaking also as a parent of three. In that kind of setting, teachers teach from a textbook, standing in front of students, whose knowledge is measured in tests and quizzes.

At the Dragon — which is partly modelled after the Dragon School, a co-ed private school established in 1877 in Oxford, England — students are encouraged to take an active role in the classroom and share in the quest for knowledge.

"The point is, the teaching of answers is collaborative," Dr. Fox says. "We encourage students to do homework, not just for practice, but for research. They can learn something, and bring it to the class."

The method is evident in the humanities and arts, she notes, but there's also collaborative problem-solving in math and sciences.

"We are more active in our approach, and much less based on memory and fact," she says. "To understand something, you have to go through the process, making mistakes, discussing your observations and exploring."

Tuition fees range from $14,750 for returning students to $16,500 for new students. About 20 per cent of the students receive financial assistance from the school, through fund-raising events and support from an organization called Friends of Progressive Education, an arms-length charitable foundation.

One of the school's distinguishing characteristics is the quality of the discussions, says Seth Halvorson, who has taught for 12 years at public and private schools in the United States and Canada, including more than two years now at the Dragon.

"I learn a significant amount, not just about the material we're discussing — such as the causes and consequences of World War One — but I see it through fresh eyes," says Dr. Halvorson, who teaches eight courses ranging from Grade 9 English to Grade 12 social sciences. "There are very bright kids here. They like to learn and like to do the work. School is fun. It's not a chore."

The school's small size promotes not only a keen sense of community but also individual responsibility and consideration for others.

"We're all part of the community," explains 17-year-old Carmi Sienna, a student since 2002. "If someone leaves his Chinese-food lunch lying around somewhere, for instance, that place is mine, too. ... As a school, we have to do everything."

With a student-teacher ratio of about 10 to one, getting more attention than they would normally receive in a public school is one of the top benefits for students — and a lot is expected of them both personally and academically.

Dr. Fox says the school has a 75-per-cent retention rate. Of those who have left, about half did not fit well, while the rest departed for other reasons such as a desire to attend a larger school or a reluctance to work as hard as expected.

Indeed, the school does make tough scholastic demands. "In my first year, I struggled a lot," recalls Chris Humber, 16, now in his fifth year at the Dragon. But he credits his English and history teachers with encouraging him to finish his first year.

When the pressure mounted in his second year, he again thought of leaving. "But I was told by the vice-principal, 'If you leave, you may have more fun, but you won't get as much out of it.' From then on, I kept with it."

By the time Mr. Humber got to his third and fourth year he had hit his stride: "I began to enjoy writing essays."

The Dragon's atmosphere also emphasizes learning to think independently, says Mr. Sienna, who turned to the school six years ago because he was failing at another private school where he objected to memorizing meaningless scientific facts.

"The teaching method is not all about telling students a bunch of facts. It's all about getting students to understand, to give birth to their own ideas," he says.

"Socrates compared himself to a midwife and said, 'I don't plant ideas in people's heads. I help them in the process of giving birth to the ideas,' " says Mr. Sienna.

"The school has completely changed my life."

Special to The Globe and Mail