Howard Gardner School Fosters Unique Learning

Howard Gardner School Fosters Unique Learning

By Miles Kresic

Erick Johnson of Loudoun’s Howard Gardner School

Something special is happening for a small group of talented students in Northern Virginia. At the Howard Gardner School, located on separate campuses in Alexandria and Loudoun County, educators seek to “help bright, creative, non-traditional learners use their unique strengths to thrive academically, intellectually, and emotionally.”

The Howard Gardner School is a nonprofit with an independent board of trustees.

“It’s designed around its mission, there’s no shareholders,” said head of school Erick Johnson. For ten years, he has overseen both campuses which support a total of 48 students, 36 in high school and twelve in middle school.

It’s an intentionally small, independent, experiential school serving grades 6-12 with a mission statement that read “to help bright, creative, non-traditional learners use their unique strengths to thrive academically, intellectually, and emotionally.

In the Fall of 2022, the school opened its Loudoun County campus, just east of Dulles Airport on the Route 28 corridor. Because of added demand, they expanded to include a new middle school program on that campus.

“We want our faculty to really know the kids,” Erick said, adding that he first came to the school as an English teacher two years before he stepped up as head of school. Fundraising eventually paid for the first Alexandria campus, with classes held in an old rented farmhouse in the Rose Hill area of Alexandria.

“I interviewed when they had just cut the ribbon for it, maybe six weeks before I interviewed,” he said. “They had just built what we now call our Alexandria campus.”

He instantly felt a connection upon arriving.

“I spent four or five hours talking to the kids, having lunch with the faculty, and it just felt like home,” he said. “It felt like this is where I should be”.

The school is premised on guiding children with unique abilities through their learning experience in a way that will encourage them to find themselves. For many of the students, the journey to unlocking their true potential begins at Howard Gardner.

“The key is do you have these unique strengths,” Erick said. “Is there a brilliance in you that for some reason you’re not accessing, and so the goal is to access that. The goal is to help these learners to thrive. We get a fair amount of kids that have something oddly brilliant about them.”

The school not only fosters unique learning and creativity among its students during their academic careers there but also regularly stays in touch after they graduate. They check in with them two years out from graduation, then six years, then twelve years.

There are only twelve open spots for new students each year and it’s a highly selective application process. Most people hear about the school through word of mouth.

For more information about The Howard Gardner School, visit their website at www. thehowardgardnerschool.com.