Like any good theater project, Fairhaven’s recent outdoor production of MacBeth proclaimed its merits on many levels.  Student actors, crew, and sound all executed their jobs with distinction. Fulfilling the doomed Scottish king’s prophecy–Blood…there will be blood–oh, yes, there was blood.
The autumn trees made a perfectly gloomy backdrop. The witches bewitched and the swordplay thrilled. [...]

I recently had the great honor of directing a play at Fairhaven. Many know that theatre is very near and dear to my heart. I formally taught it in the public schools for many years. Throughout my time there, I was constantly battling budget cuts, focus on core subjects, emphasis on the sports program…one gets [...]

“She wouldn’t play with me, even after I asked her!”
She’s young and she’s upset. Her friends at school console her in the stairwell when she cries about the incident. Staff members, including me, check in, see she’s upset but okay, and move on. Although the intricacies of why these friends are in conflict are lost [...]

How does a mind grow?
How does a person become a person?
Sometimes the best measures are collages, as thoughts take shape before our eyes. In no particular order, then, here are some things we’ve seen and heard in this, the first month of our twelfth year at Fairhaven School :
The twelve-foot swings arc all day. So [...]

When Congressman Wilson of South Carolina shouted “You lie” during President Obama’s speech the other night, it became yet another example of the coarsening of the political dialogue in the nation. What’s become of civility?
Picture, if you will, a different meeting that also convened this week, not far down the road from the chamber where [...]

Welcome back to Fairhaven!
As we begin our twelfth year, we give thanks for the opportunity to provide young people a unique educational environment, a place where freedom meets responsibility.  Sometimes we marvel at the contrast between the light-filled experience of starting the school year at Fairhaven as compared to starting at a traditional school.
In the [...]

After sixteen years at Evergreen Sudbury School in Maine and Fairhaven School in Maryland, I retired in June. It was time to go and I have exciting plans, but leaving was hard. (And I hope to be back now and then as a sub.) I was tempted to write a thesis about how school has [...]

It is indeed May here on campus. Just last week students found a toad, a skink, and a worm snake- all in one day. After a week of cool spring rains, it was as if all the reptiles and and amphibians decided to warm their blood at once, and students did not miss the excitement. [...]

I sit here in one of the new grey office chairs and listen to the voices outside the door. There are little girls playing a pretend game in the Kid Nook; they are giving precise instructions to each other as to how to play the game they just made up. The voices continue. I [...]

A British documentary recently profiled Sudbury Valley school. Here’s the video link.