A love of learning

Courtney Dickinson (“Ms. Courtney’’), Anova’s uber-energetic founder and codirector, is not surprised. The youthful dynamo behind one of the state’s most innovative schools embodies the energy of Robin Williams, the Energizer Bunny, and Alvin the Chipmunk — on caffeine.

“What’s most exciting and meaningful about all this is to walk into classrooms and see children being inquisitive,’’ Dickinson says. “It’s so exciting and compelling for me. Kids really engage; they don’t have a ceiling on their learning.’’

But they do have walls to display example of that learning. Resembling many families’ home refrigerators, the wall décor is students’ hand-painted pictures, science projects, and poems. Codirector Heather McAvoy points out the lesson behind the wall coverings. There’s a five-step engineering model for continuous improvement (“Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Improve’’); 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 script, is the mandate.