Call it a happy confluence: The National Park Service has launched a restoration project at the Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site even as Superintendent of Schools Erin McMahon has pledged to make town public school students among the highest scorers on state comprehensive assessments by 2027.
What does one have to do with the other? Plenty, in our view.
The approach to accomplishing McMahon’s goal shouldn’t be confined to drilling students on MCAS practice tests; it should include an investment in academic investment that can easily include giving town students hands-on experience in archaeology and preservation techniques.
Located on Central Street, the Iron Works with its buildings dating back to 1646 is one of only eight national historic sites in Massachusetts located outside Boston.
Students have traipsed through the site for decades on field trips and student-written book reports on the Iron Works could probably fill a library.
Field trips are educational, but no education experience surpasses the opportunity to learn by doing. The restoration work offers an ideal opportunity to acquaint students with historic preservation and archaeology.
It’s hard to imagine town officials and the National Park Service could not conceive a program allowing students to observe and even participate in renovation work on the 17th-century blast furnace, charging shed and other site features.
Giving students a learning-by-doing education at the Iron Works is a great way to pay tribute to Saugus’ pride in its history. The town bought the Iron Works House in 1945, authorizing the lease to the First Iron Works Association and setting the stage for researchers to converge on the publicly-owned property and begin restoring it.
Their work led to an Act of Congress designating the Iron Works a National Historic Site in 1968, putting the site on par with the Lexington battlefield, Salem’s maritime historic sites and the Adams presidential properties in Quincy.
Once the Iron Works restoration is completed, the town and the Park Service will undoubtedly schedule a completion ceremony. Imagine if that happy event included students who enhanced their education by diving into history just blocks away from their homes?
