Dena Capano teaches history at Classical High School but she is really an archaeologist and her students are the tools she uses to dig deep into Lynn’s past.
Capano rounds her kids up annually and takes them on a field trip to talk to local seniors who endured combat as teenagers and grew up without electronic devices. During Black History Month in February, she took the opposite tact and brought seniors into her class to talk about life in Lynn half a century ago.
Capano is a young teacher but she already has discarded a view of her profession that places the teacher in the role of an usher shuttling students through their required courses and giving them a brief peek at history. From her viewpoint, teaching is about turning students into educators and sending them out of Classical to learn about the city they live in and understand it.
She doesn’t know how many of her students will stay and build adult lives in Lynn and how many — maybe within months — will move out of the city. She does know that young people who stay in the city are the future adults who will build and shape it. Defining Lynn’s future is a task, in Capano’s view, that cannot be done if students do not understand their past.
Longtime community activist Lena Roberts reminded Capano’s students last week that “this city is as good as you make it.” She urged students to stay in the city and — as their incomes increase — spend their money here.
Capano shares that viewpoint, but she encourages students to learn about the past, to find out who shaped the city and how they did it and use those lessons to make their own mark on Lynn. She knows students can draw inspiration from books or films and, in doing so, set their young lives on a new course, but Capano believes people who have spent decades shaping Lynn are best-suited to influence young lives.
Lillie Jones told Capano’s students how she cleaned homes as a young woman and spent 35 years as a Girl Scouts mentor, published cook and a pioneer in early childhood care going to homes across the city with a book and a toy for new parents.
Capano told her students Roberts and Jones symbolize a time in Lynn when “people knew each other and knew their neighbors.” She hopes that way of life is one her students will adopt for many years to come.
