Philosophy

The “i” in element-i represents how we fundamentally perceive education, which is to say it should be individual, interest-centric and interactive, and support the inner freedom of the children.

People are individualistic and social creatures yearning to be free. At the same time, though, people seek relationships, appreciation and recognition. The element-i philosophy brings these two aspects into harmony.

Educating children to become innately free, mature and strong individuals that reflect themselves and the world around them and accept responsibility for their actions and the consequences of these actions is the vision and purpose of the element-i educational concept. Inner freedom refers to the ability to act on the basis of insight – the ability to think about something and to understand what one wishes to do, to consider the consequences of one’s actions, to be consciously affirmative and to accept responsibility for one’s actions.

The element-i philosophy represents a particular concept of freedom. Rather than being “free from something”, our concept of freedom focuses on being “free to do something”. A free society thrives through and consists of individuals aware of their responsibility in their community. They know that their own individuality is important andthat it’s all dependent on themselves.

An essential and fundamental aspect of this educational concept is the need to recognise childhood as a self-contained phase of life. Children need to be able to live out their childish needs. Our educators have the utmost faith in a child’s abilities and encourage children to be independent through the element-i educational concept.

What does this philosophy mean specifically for element-i’s educators? Find out here how the educational philosophy is put into practice.