The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • P6

6 Globe North The Boston Globe THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2011 Hingham house tour echoes book by Eleanor Roosevelt At independent school, students stay engaged PAT GREENHOUSEGLOBE STAFF The students in Heny Taraz's grade 4-to-6 classroom stay focused during a lesson on plant reproduction. chanan, executive director of the Hingham Historical Society. The result was that three-quarters of the photos in the book, which was supposed to be representative of the entire country, are of Hingham. That rare, out-of-print edition will come alive tomorrow and Saturday at the society's 87 th annual house tour. Two of the homes featured in "This Is America" will be part of the tour, and a copy of the book will be on display at the society's headquarters at Old Derby Academy at 34 Main St.

Two of the homes in the book are on the tour. The two-entrance Captain Benjamin Loring House on Leavitt Street was built by saddlemaker Thomas Loring in 1690. Shipmaster Isaac Hinckley's 1811 brick-ended home at 126 Main with its neoclassical details, is also in the book. The 87th Hingham Historic House Tour is 10 a.m.-4 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday.

$30, $25 in advance. 781-749-7721. A month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Eleanor Roosevelt set out to capture the nation's idealized spirit. She ended up producing a paean to Hingham. "The shady streets of Hingham are lined by a thousand quiet homes, some of them mansions whose beauty and dignity date from the Colonial period, others modern and small and unpretentious," Roosevelt wrote in the book "This Is America." "The same contrasts exist in every town in America, but the same love of freedom and liberty dwells in every home." Roosevelt discovered Hingham in a visit with photographer and coauthor Frances Cooke Macgregor in her Stoddard Road home.

It was Jan. 6, 1942, and the first lady felt she had come upon the perfect vehicle to help Americans remember what was at stake in the war and what they were fighting for. Hingham provided "the template for a microcosm of American ideals," said Suzanne Bu script, is the mandate. At Anova, there's also room for mistakes. Anova's emphasis is not perfection.

Proudly applauded on the hallway walls are the K-2 grade students' haiku. Uncorrected, misspelled words and phrases describe a pencil: "us fell piece of wood," "writing implo-ment." This month, Anova completes its inaugural school year, educating 30 children from Somerville, Newton, Belmont, Winchester, Medford, Lexington, Woburn, and Melrose. Next year's plan aims higher: four classrooms with 10 to 14 students each, Dickinson reports. Annual tuition is $12,500, plus a required Apple laptop. "It's not about 'facts in the Horan says, "but do they know where to access information." Last year, to ensure the school readiness for its September launch, Dickinson required parents to contribute their time.

Clearly vested in the school's success, they did about 1,100 hours painting walls, building a website. With its lease at Melrose's former Beebe school ending, Anova will be moving to space on two floors within the First United Methodist Church of Melrose on Main Street. "We are thrilled to be staying in this community," says Dickinson. Besides changing location, Anova plans to expand through ANOVA ContinuedfromPage 1 Codirector Heather McAvoy points out the lesson behind the wall coverings. There's a five-step engineering model for continuous improvement Imagine, Plan, Create, a science project on cells displays results of children's own interpretations: a diagram, an essay, even a comic strip.

"We like to give children choices," McAvoy says. The other wall, covered with haiku on loose-leaf paper, shows results of Horan leading a 20-minute, write-all-you-can poetry frenzy. Second- to fourth-grade students worked in pairs or trios. Life skills, such as collaboration and leadership, McAvoy notes, are just as important as math, reading, and science. The classrooms are designed to foster collaboration.

Instead of tightly crammed row upon row of desks and chairs with the teacher's desk up front, three or four small tables with chairs tucked underneath are purposely spaced out around the classroom. Like miniature professionals, students confer and debate at the tables, some standing, some leaning. Sometimes they sit. Teachers are not boxed in between a large desk and the blackboard. They stand.

Walk around. Ask questions. Facilitative learning, not repetition or following a curriculum fer," says Laura Wattenberg, referencing arts and sports. But for the Winchester resident and parent of a fifth-grade daughter, "Anova fills a niche, a niche that needs filling." For some children, the biggest challenge isn't a lack of homework or after-school activities, but friendships. "We construct classroom communities and did pretty well," Dickinson says, "but some kids didn't land with a friend." In a more typical school with more children, she points out, there's a higher chance for finding friends.

How does Dickinson measure success? Is the child engaged and happy? She illustrates, telling of one boy, who like many Anova students, was "really disengaged" in his previous school. Shortly after being at Anova, the boy's mother saw a difference. "My son is back," she told Dickinson. "I haven't seen my son in a while." But now there's a new problem. When the school day ends at 2:45 p.m., the child doesn't want to leave.

the eighth grade, and hire more teachers to the current pool of seven full- and part-timers. Dickinson remains calmly confident. "We'll be figuring it out along the way, she says. "Making things perfect is the enemy of getting things done." Anova is not for everyone. Of the initial 37 who enrolled, seven left.

"We're about progressive education," Dickinson explains. "Some parents really want a structured approach. We don't believe that's important." Nor homework. Anova's "no busywork" philosophy concerns some parents; their kids, not surprisingly, not so much. Medford resident Melissa Ress says Jasmine, her fifth-grade daughter, "has had an absolute blast" at Anova, and plans to return next year.

But Ress voices concerns, as her daughter and older students move forward, that they learn the discipline that homework teaches, such as study skills and time management, which she believes they need to be successful. There's also the limitations of being a small start-up. "We recognize we won't always have the resources a larger school can of NV I COLD FUR STOR North Shore's ONLY Furrier with CERTIFIED Vaults on premises To learn more about Anova, go to www. anovaschool. org.

1 1 GLAZINGHB Restyle or Repair your old coat Stop in for a Complimentary Consultation Supporters cite bike-trail progress GLAMA FURS Swampscott gets 'green' aid 978-535-01 70 www.glamafurs.com 525 Lowell Peabody, MA Congratulations! The state Department of Energy Resources has awarded Swampscott $143,800 through the Green Communities Program. Swampscott earned the designation after demonstrating a commitment to energy conservation for conducting an inventory of municipal energy use and making the commitment to cut that use by 20 percent over five years. The funds will be used for energy conservation measures in town buildings, including lighting retrofits and steam trap upgrades, and to partly fund the joint town plannerenergy coordinator position approved at Town Meeting in May. DAVID RATTIGAN Brian Walker Reading, MA 978-799-1250 RECIPIENT OF THE CHAIRMAN'S But by clearing their sections and applying stone dust, Winslow said, Everett and Maiden are allowing the public to begin enjoying the trail. "We are focusing on getting something done at the moment and working toward support for the paved trail," said Winslow, noting that area legislators, notably state Senator Thomas M.

McGee of Lynn, have been strong advocates for the project. Berger said Everett decided to move ahead with developing its trail segment based on the project's local support. "There is strong commitment to creating recreational opportunities and linking the neighborhoods," the city development official said. "Everything came into place and Iron Horse made its presence known in the Northeast, and we were able to work with them." Bike to the Sea hopes to see progress on the trail extend to the other three communities along the route Revere, Saugus, and Lynn. But lease negotiations between those communities and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority are stalled over concerns with the contract language proposed by the local officials said.

"We are enthused about the idea," Revere Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino said. "But right now, the lease agreement that has been proposed to the city of Revere by the has language we can't accept." He cited sections that would leave the city potentially liable in the event of environmental contamination, and would require it to purchase liability insurance. "We are still negotiating," he said. "We have had a variety of meetings, but at this point we are still trying to resolve any liability issues," said James Marsh, Lynn's community development director.

If that happens, he said, Lynn would be interested in moving forward with the project, including exploring the possibility if funding could be secured of building a pedestrian bridge over the Lynnway to route the trail along the city's waterfront. Saugus Selectman Scott Crabtree said his board recently referred a lease proposal from the MBTA to the town counsel, who also cited liability concerns. He said he is hopeful those can be resolved. "Overall the town has been supportive," he said. "This would be a great benefit to the community." COUNCIL NORTHERN STRAND ContinuedfromPage 1 er," said Winslow, a board member and former longtime president of Bike to the Sea who is also a Maiden School Committee member.

While the overall goal of the project has not changed over the years, some of the particulars have. Originally known as Bike to the Sea, the proposed path about five years ago was renamed the Northern Strand Community Trail. Its route has also changed, including a shift of the terminus from Revere Beach to the Lynn-Nahant beach. The current proposal calls for an approximately 9-mile route extending along the right of way of the former Saugus Branch Railroad line from West and Wellington streets in Everett through Maiden, Revere, and Saugus to Lynn, and then along a surface-road designated bicycle lane to Lynn Shore Drive. Organizers say the project has gotten a boost with Everett and Maiden's signing of 99-year agreements with the MBTA to lease at nominal cost their sections of the Saugus branch right-of-way to use for a recreational trail.

The Everett agreement came in 2008 and Maiden's the following year. Then last fall, Everett reached an agreement with the Iron Horse Preservation Society under which the Nevada-based group would remove the iron rails and wooden ties from Everett's 1.2-mile section of the trail at no cost to the city in return for being able to keep the material it removes. Iron Horse began the removal process last fall and is nearly finished, according to Larry Berger, Everett's assistant director of community and economic development. As part of the project, the group will also be applying a stone dust surface on the trail, in part using gravel from the rail bed. The trail is set to open this fall.

Maiden is preparing to hire a contractor to clear its approximately 2.5-mile segment of the trail and install a similar crushed stone surface, according to Beth Debski, a project director for the Maiden Redevelopment Authority. She said the work, which will also involve measures to allow safe crossings at 1 1 streets, is due to begin late this summer. Winslow said if the Northern Strand trail project is ever fully built, the plan calls for it to be paved along the entire length. But he said that could cost as much as $20 million, and, given current state and federal funding constraints, his group is not optimistic about those funds being awarded soon. Membership in the Chairman's Council is reserved for those Federated Marketing Representatives who achieve outstanding marketing results and customer service.

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