He describes the problem-solving approach as "the act of asking people what they need before you start creating solutions for them." So instead of immediately building a car, a designer might ask those who will drive it what they want the car to do.
The new independent college preparatory boarding school focuses on the method. Students will be steeped in the practice, before they go on to create products while tinkering with "state-of-the-art" technology, said Kressy, also founding director of the MIT Integrated Design & Management master's degree.
"They'll be able to create anything they can imagine. What they'll find is the challenge is not making what they imagine. The challenge will be imagining what to make," said Kressy.
The Locke Drive school opened its doors in September to more than 70 students in grades 6-12. Officials at the academy are nearly complete with a $30 million renovation that will include a new education building and innovation lab.
Currently, the school is housed at the former Verizon training center, retrofitted into a school.
For day students, tuition rates for the next school year are $40,425 for grades 6-8 and $44,625 for grades 9-12. Rates for residential students are $61,425 for grades 6-8 and $65,625 for grades 9-12.
Students begin their day at 8:30 a.m. with some tai chi and a half-mile walk around the school to "get their heart rate up," said Thomas Woelper, founding head of school. Students then have classes in math, science and the humanities, as well as a lesson in innovation and design.
Project time is set aside each week for interdisciplinary learning. Three times a week, there's a 45-minute block for wellness.
Woelper called the attention placed on mental health "a central strand."
"We know the old model of education has produced a mental health crisis in our students," said Woelper.
Woelper said he sees students solving problems that would apply to everyday problems, such as creating a pathway system to a pond.
"These aren't ivory tower kind of conceptual topics that do not have real world grounding," he said.
During a recent school day, freshman Ileana Fournier, 14, was investigating how to create rubber band-powered car that can recharge itself. Lila Lewandowski, also 14, was learning how to use a high-tech calculator in math class to find the slope of a line through a scatter plot of data points.
For each of them, New England Innovation Academy is a far cry from their previous schools.
"I was just learning to get good grades and memorize it," said Fournier, who is originally from Lawrence but is boarding at the school. "I'm learning it more for fun, which is honestly weird to say because it's school."
From 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 2, the school will hold an open house for the new building.
When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out as school founders were trying to get the school off the ground, Woelper said he felt overwhelmed. But, "in an odd way," he said the pandemic's interruption was helpful, saying it forced some to "consider new options."
"Given how unsettling and unsatisfactory education was just by virtue of the situation — virtual or two days in, two days out — I think the pandemic accelerated some trends in education and made some people more willing to try out something new," said Woelper.
©2021 MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, Mass. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
