St Pierre student sets sail for scholastic seas

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/07/2015 (3181 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It takes Annie Martel five minutes tops to walk from her home in St Pierre-Jolys to the school she has grown up in, Ecole Communautaire Real-Berard.

That five minute limit won’t change for Martel when she enters Grade 11 next month. In fact, her walk from her new bed—a hammock—to class should be even shorter.

What will be different is where her class is, changing each day sort of like the course of the wind.

IAN FROESE | THE CARILLON
Annie Martel will spend her Grade 11 year studying on a floating school.
IAN FROESE | THE CARILLON Annie Martel will spend her Grade 11 year studying on a floating school.

Martel’s education will set sail when she gets aboard a school unlike almost any other: her classroom will be on a Norwegian tall ship.

For 10 and a half months, the St Pierre native will be enrolled in A+ Academy, aboard a majestic ship that has navigated the far seas since 1927. Her Grade 11 year will be spent on a boat and in about 20 different countries.

Understandably, she’s quite pumped for school to start again, even if summer holidays just began.

“I am actually very excited. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited for school to start,” said Martel, now 15 years of age who is celebrating her sweet 16 later this month. “I mean, I love school but this is crazy.”

There are few adventures more enticing to many than travelling the world, and here Martel will actually experience it at a young age, visiting four different continents along the way.

“It’s always been my dream to travel the world,” she said. “I know I’m pretty young but it’s been a dream of mine. I feel like I’m always up for new challenges and I just thought that throughout my Grade 11 year maybe I can try something a little more challenging.”

Her older sister Karine came across a Facebook post earlier this year about the floating classroom, which she showed her younger sister. Intrigued at first, Annie began to think more seriously about the prospect this spring. She applied and was accepted, scoring a nice scholarship, too.

A regular day on the boat will be busy, notes Annie Martel. Wake up is at 6 a.m. Her 60 new classmates from around the world will also be assigned specific duties related to caring and maintenance of the ship. There is a designated time in the morning and afternoon, when students will work on navigating and sailing the ship with help from trained personnel. Each student will also have the opportunity to experience sailing at night.

It’s not all fun and games: there are classes, too. Studying English, Chinese, physical education and a class on art, communication and technology are mandatory. Martel’s electives are the standard fare: math, chemistry and world history.

There may be no better way to study the world from a boat, and then setting foot in various countries. Their boat will set off from Norway next month and hug the European coast, making numerous stops, before arriving in South America. In the Pacific Ocean, they will debark in various islands until they visit Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

In total, they will come ashore at about 20 countries, spending a few days in each place to learn and, of course, enjoy some downtime.

It will be quite the experience for the teenager.

“I think it’s going to force me to mature a bit. When you’re on a boat for a year, without your parents, you’re going to have to mature and be more responsible,” said Martel, the youngest daughter of Brian and Michele.

She said she will miss her family and friends during her year away, but felt this is an experience she could not decline.

“I think it’s going to pass by pretty quickly,” she said.

That’s one phrase you don’t hear said about school too often.

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