This is the first part of a consultative summary for Ballou High School, in which I define innovation and apply programmatic elements from String Theory Schools, as requested.

1. INN OVATION
What Is Innovation?
Innovation is the intersection of curiosity, responsibility, and empowerment!
Ballou High School is a community of learning. It consists of scholars and masters of craft. Together, they pursue innovation to
comprehend self, others, and the world. The curious scholar initiates learning. The masters facilitate—individually, in partnerships, and
collectively. The masters, then, uncover definitions of responsible scholarship from the scholars, and they live in their integrity. Once curious,
the scholar defines an essential question about self, others, or the world. When sufficiently facilitated, the scholar will pursue the answers to that
question and understand why it matters. At this point, empowerment occurs. The scholar decides what to do with the answers. The scholar
determines how to present the question with its solutions. She or he does this so that the community of learning may impact families,
neighborhoods, the city, the nation, and the world.
Imagine: Each scholar burns as bright as the Fourth of July while the masters sustain the afterglow.
How Do Scholars and Masters of Craft Model the Key Design Levers of Innovation?
As expressed by String Theory Schools, the key design levers, or elements, of innovation are known as Pathways to Passion, Mobile-
First Approach, and Real-World Culture.
PATHWAYS TO PASSION consist of two domains. In the first domain, grade nine scholars at Ballou High School explore who they are by
determining the type of learner and creator that they are. Through exploration, scholars collaborate with masters of craft to ascertain their
personality profile and their matrix of multiple intelligences. The profile and matrix do not limit scholars; but rather, guide them to excel through
their strengths rather than struggle through their deficits. It is a model of abundance, not lack.
Grade ten scholars explore disciplines: communication arts; theatre; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM);
dance, and music. The purpose of exploration is not to excel but to appreciate and wonder. Masters collaborate with scholars to know the
fundamentals of each discipline while scholars make connections between each discipline.
Grade eleven scholars dedicate themselves to one discipline. It is their major. They expand into another discipline. That is their
minor. The major and the minor must merge an artistic discipline with a scientific discipline. The scholar then pursues essential questions that
they form and the masters of craft structure.
Grade twelve scholars, finally, take control of their learning while the masters only advise. The scholars propose a course of study to
answer an essential question, review the literature necessary to understand the context for the question, collect data, interpret that data, and
present their findings. Their presentation is to be a work of art—it is their contribution to the world and the means by which they enter the world
of work and/or university.

2. MOBILE-FIRST APPRAOCH refers to the patterns of use that scholars have with technology. Scholars at Ballou High School already know
how to consume technology, but they do not know how to create technology. Therefore, masters facilitate the positive use of devices and
encourage exploration that just might create new application, software, and hardware. As String Theory Schools advocates, scholars might use
1-to-1, 24/7 iPad tablets as learning devices. Masters might use iTunes U to upload custom-designed curriculum and supplemental materials as
the online learning management system. Scholars and masters might use Apple TVs as interactive classroom boards.
However, mobile-first is not mobile-only. Traditional methods still exist, and partnership between paper and digital is mandatory.
Additionally, a responsible use of technology requires students to acknowledge that technology is currently designed to “mind hack,”
that is, to condition both scholars and masters to remain attached to technology to the determent of their health, if unchecked. Therefore, scholars
and masters engage in mindfulness, meditative reflection, counts of joy, gratefulness, exercise and nutrition, and periodic fasts from technology.
REAL-WORLD CULTURE connects scholars with experts from outside the community of learning. With support from masters, scholars
connect with artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs, whom Ballou High School adopts as experts-in-residence.
Experts-in-residence mentor scholars professionally by ensuring that the scholars understand how they engage in teamwork to manage
expenses, inventory, scheduling, design, marketing, and technical expertise when employed within a business, start-up, non-profit, or academic
organization. The scholars shadow their mentor and support them in their work by completing tasks that utilize professionally advantageous and
marketable skills, which have potential for paid summer internships.
When the learning material is
not just on the board, it helps to understand
that these rules were not useless discoveries
but are part of the world around us.
Experiencing them helps increase
understanding and reduces
the fear of learning. — a grade ten scholar
How Do Scholars and Masters of Craft Pull the Key Design Levers to Be Innovative?
Scholars and masters pull the key design levers when they do so collaboratively. There is little innovation without collaboration.
COLLABORATION SUPPORTS SCHOLARS FURTHEST FROM OPPORTUNITY because it is a process for quality learning and partnership. It is
relational. It is based on trust. Masters of craft at Ballou High School co-plan and co-teach through station teaching, alternative teaching, or team
teaching. Simultaneously, scholars collaborate with partners, groups, the whole class, and class-to-class to engage in problem- and project-based
learning that is rich with inquiry.
Collaboration does not exclude. Neuro-atypical scholars retain the same respect from their peers and receive the same expectations
from masters (with equity and accommodation) as any neuro-typical scholar does. At Ballou High School, neuro-atypical scholars learn—in
many cases, for the first time in their lives—that the so-called disabilities and disorders that they exhibit are strengths that deserve empathy.
Their brain structures, like all brain structures, may exhibit inconvenient symptoms, but their cognitive strengths and positive characteristics
overrule any difficulties they encounter.
Therefore, diversity is strength when all scholars and all masters collaborate. Peace, calm, and safety also reign when collaboration is
the primary mode of interaction. A scholar cannot harm another scholar in action, word, or thought when they must collaborate.
ADAPTATION AND CHANGE TO SUPPORT SCHOLARS are necessary with one final regard: the relationship between masters of craft and
masters of care; that is, what is typically understood in other communities of learning as the relationship between generalists and specialists. At
Ballou High School, masters of craft and care collaborate as equals. There is no hierarchy in which one is higher and the other is lower. Scholars
do not even know the difference between the two; therefore, all are respected. As a result, neuro-atypical scholars do not experience the stigma
or sense of isolation that is prevalent in many communities of learning.