Down the hall, young students are playing in the Kid Nook like they have been for weeks, animating piles of dolls big and small for hours . In the old building, teens are continuing their latest Dungeons and Dragons campaign. People are swinging on the playground; computer gamers are playing League of Legends. Packs of boys will certainly be waging their Nerf wars in the forest later. Play. It remains the most prevalent activity on campus. As the students say, “what’s up with that?”
A Fairhaven parent sent me a link to an article in this month’s Atlantic Monthly about Melvin Konner’s brand-new, 900 page book The Evolution Of Childhood that provides clues. (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/play-8217-s-the-thing/8028/) Here’s a paragraph from the article:
Konner is especially interested in play, which is not unique to humans and, indeed, seems to have been present, like the mother-offspring bond, from the dawn of mammals. The smartest mammals are the most playful, so these traits have apparently evolved together. Play, Konner says, “combining as it does great energy expenditure and risk with apparent pointlessness, is a central paradox of evolutionary biology.” It seems to have multiple functions—exercise, learning, sharpening skills—and the positive emotions it invokes may be an adaptation that encourages us to try new things and learn with more flexibility. In fact, it may be the primary means nature has found to develop our brains.
With freedom, we gravitate to play. My best writing time feels playful and open-ended. The results of play are serious, sometimes even life-changing. As Konner documents, a habit of play balances life, and stimulates growth. We seem even to be hard-wired to do it. Here at Fairhaven, it reigns supreme, setting the table for the mysterious transformation from childhood to adulthood. Fortunately, our democratic structure at school compensates for the pervasive play. Rules, limits, and consequences keep chaos at bay. Should the doll-players not clean up, they might lose access to the room. When the Nerfers left water balloon shrapnel on the grounds, they had to do grounds work. And so on.
Next week I travel to Sudbury Valley School to serve on their diploma committee, and in preparation I’m reading the theses of eighteen graduate candidates. The thread that runs through all of their papers? Play. Coming (and staying) to your nearest Sudbury school, it is the sine qua non of successful development, the pinnacle of human developmental adaptation.
“The true object of all life is play.”
G.K. Chesterton
“Letting your mind play is the best way to slove problems.”
Bill Watterson
“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.”
We often think in terms of “growing up at Fairhaven.” This month we’ve hosted and enrolled a number of younger students, and each one reminds me of what the arc of a Fairhaven career might feel like.
To our youngest students, the school must seem big in every way. We have twelve acres, with a forest. We have a veritable forest of older students to wander among and one day comprehend. We have two buildings with some twenty-odd rooms, not to mention the six bathrooms. The lawbook is huge. Young students who pass the computer certification also have limited access to the internet.
Then, one might ask, how large is a young person’s imagination? For surely they have unlimited access to it here. Whether through play, or books, or art room supplies, even our youngest students surf the endless wave of their own minds at play. So, yes, being a student at Fairhaven must seem enormous in many ways .
As they grow , our students learn their place in all of these areas. They learn the paths in the woods, often finding their favorite spots. They might master climbing the swingset poles. They become friends with students of all ages. They learn the rules, then learn to follow them. Always, it seems, they discover the contours of their creative worlds. Their worlds sing, they might splash green across a canvas, they might dance across the Chesapeake Room floor. Often, these young people play at being older. It might be “house” and she’s the mom. It might be “school,” and he’s the teacher. Cops and robbers, war games–the mind wanders.
Then, one day, they are older. Most years, at least one senior Fairhavener explains their bad mood to me by saying, “Fairhaven’s just not like it used to be.” I look at them: they used to play in the stream and now they’re a lifeguard. Or they used to ride the scooter down the hill and now they drive a car on food runs. They used to spend most of their time as a defendant in the Judicial Committee, and now they’re a JC Clerk . You get the picture.
By the time somebody leaves, the school seems small, and the big rest of the world beckons. They leave with their imaginations intact, with their creativity still keen. Mostly, they leave with a sense of mastery, over this place, over information and how to get it, over themselves, and, crucially, mastery over the fears about whatever awaits down the road. We can only wish them well, and look forward to seeing them when they come back to visit.
Maybe they’ll check out the newest, smallest students and remember their first days here. How big it used to be.
It’s around midnight on a Wednesday night and just as I’m starting to fall asleep, it starts. Young women are screaming and gallivanting down the hall of the dorm that I live in here at Washington College. I swear, every time it happens (which can be pretty often), I want to march down the hall and pick up a JC form to fill out. And then I remember. No, I’m not at Fairhaven anymore. I can’t write people up for leaving trash outside or being too loud or running down the hall. But I do have a lot of freedom, just like I did at Fairhaven. I have the freedom to take the classes I want to, though there are a lot of requirements. I can lie out on the campus green and read a book or chat with friends, though it’s not as great as playing Capture the Flag.
There are many similarities between Fairhaven School and college, I feel like. Sometimes I don’t even notice it. It makes me feel sorry for the kids here who feel like they have to break free of something- their parents, high school, whatever. I believe it’s because I attended Fairhaven that I’ve never felt that kind of remorse. I’ve learned to truly appreciate my education. I’ve also learned that a lot of people don’t. As I’m in college on basically a full scholarship, I appreciate and utilize all of my time here and don’t understand when other students skip class (though I did once by oversleeping).
As scared as I was about starting college, it really isn’t that different from what I imagined it to be. There are house parties and movie nights and studying until you think your eyes will fall out and starting that paper the night before it’s due. If anything, college has taught me time management. There are deadlines and there are consequences. As an avid procrastinator, I’ve had to rethink some of my homework habits. I have also had to sort of learn how to study again, something I never really had to do at Fairhaven. Sure, I would memorize lines for plays but that was about it. I’ve had to relearn things and sometimes ask for help, which, for some reason, is something I absolutely hate having to do. I guess I must be stubborn or something. Here’s a little college anecdote. The second or third week of classes, I had a sociology paper due. I hadn’t really written a paper since my thesis and before that, who knows when. So I hiked very slowly over to the Writing Center, taking deep breaths on the way. Just as I was about to open the door of the building, I did a 180. I turned around and started walking back to my dorm. Then I turned around again. I did this a couple times. Myself eventually convinced me that I wasn’t stupid and that asking for help was okay. Needless to say, I went to the Writing Center, which was immensely helpful. A week later, when my teacher was handing back our papers, I wasn’t too hopeful. Turned out that I had gotten an A- on the paper. Not too shabby. I also made the Dean’s List last semester, with a 3.6 GPA. The only B I had was in my favorite class, Creative Writing. Go figure.
This semester has been a bit tougher, not to mention busier. Even though I quit the crew team, which I had joined in the fall, I find myself having a lot more work. It seems that the professors expect more of us this semester, which I truly cannot believe is almost over. It seems like a couple months ago I was tearfully reading my poem at graduation, but no, it’s been almost a year. I’m still learning the ups and downs of college life and of life in general. But I like to think that so far, I’ve got a pretty good handle on it.
Fairhaven Players peform at Parent Appreciation Night. (photo by Salvia Lani)
On behalf of parents and Assembly members I would like to thank all of the Fairhaven students and staff who worked so hard to execute an absolutely flawless and enjoyable evening dedicated to parent appreciation. Although we as parents have a pretty good idea of the amount of work involved in producing such a soirée, you succeeded in making it appear effortless.
First of all let us thank the public relations committee for sponsoring an event where our only responsibility as parents was to show up, eat, and be thoroughly entertained. Kitchen Corporation provided us with a superb menu of Italian cuisine that included vegan lasagna that was well worth going back for seconds. Our evening’s musical entertainment provided by Music Corporation included a delicate violin solo, rhythmical percussions and a rock out performance from the Fairhaven Players band. Theatre Corporation performed a sneak preview of one of their upcoming one acts, and I am confident many of us will be back to enjoy the full production.
So whatever contribution you made to the evening’s festivities (be it digital dancing provided by Computer Corporation, slinging food in the kitchen or entertaining us with your talents), let it be known that we parents enjoyed the opportunity to be appreciated and to celebrate as a community. Moreover, watching all of you function together with such exquisite synchronization made us very proud and earned all of you a few more rides to and from school.
In April, 2005, film-maker Danny Mydlack made a lovely documentary abour Fairhaven School, Voices From The New American Schoolhouse. Here is the trailer. Enjoy!
Danny staffed here at Fairhaven for the 2007-2008 school year prior to founding Arts And Ideas Sudbury up the road in Baltimore.
In the patch of woods just outside the school office, three boys sneak by. Two more lurk deeper in the trees. Suddenly, they’re sprinting across the school grounds. Two outdoor games have been big on campus lately: “Hunters and Prey” and “Infected.” Both are hide-and-seek variants and can involve anywhere from ten to thirty students at a time. Hallmarks include people flashing past, hiding as long as possible, and shouting from deep in the forest. Games can last for hours.
Crossing from one building to the other yesterday, taking a few minutes to deeply notice the players, I again asked the question we ask so many times : what’s going on here? Obviously, the players are breathing fresh air, exercising, and developing relationships, all hallmarks of outdoor play. Furthermore, the open-ended quality of the games fosters critical and strategic thinking in the players. But what about these particular games makes them so compelling?
Intense games of hiding and seeking seem to reinforce biological drives and instincts. Quoting from landscape theorist Jay Appleton’s Prospect-Refuge theory,
“at both human and sub-human level the ability to see and the ability to hide are both important in calculating a creature’s survival prospects . . . . Where he has an unimpeded opportunity to see we can call it a prospect. Where he has an opportunity to hide, a refuge. . . . To this . . . aesthetic hypothesis we can apply the name prospect-refuge theory.”
We are hard-wired, then, both to take refuge and to seek higher ground. For millions of years on the savanna, or in the woodlands, humans needed both prospect and refuge to literally survive. Here in the Mid-Atlantic, wolves are long gone, as are saber-toothed tigers. Most students get their food from supermarkets. Still, they satisfy basic drives when they play their games. Although whether or not they will survive may not be at stake, whether or not they will thrive surely is. Brains and bodies anticipate the need to find prospect and refuge, to seek and to hide. At Fairhaven, the students fulfill this need.
Our working thesis is that free range young people develop best. Playing Hunters and Prey, from a point of prospect, they are learning how to take stock of a situation and they then experience the good (or bad) things that this assessment brings. They are also learning how to hide, or more broadly put, to take refuge. Refining these individual traits in the social matrix of a game only intensifies their value. Given the stakes and the outcomes, the oft-repeated phrase it’s just a game falls short of the complexity.
Later in the day, two students relax from the prospect of the wrought iron rockers on the porch, the highest ground at Fairhaven. Noticeably pleased to be blending in by talking with me, they tell me casually that they’re playing, that they’re part of the game swirling below. Nevertheless, some aspect of them stands ready, at a moment’s notice, to spring from their spots at the merest whiff of an approaching hunter.
Fairhaven alum Kat Steigerwald (left) graduating from Prescott College
December 10, 2009
Dear Fairhaven-ers,
I am finally graduating! There is actually snow on the ground here in Prescott today, which makes me think of Maryland. Please find my senior project enclosed. It recounts some of my experiences volunteering for hospice this semester- an amazing experience. I also have the honor of presenting my project at Baccalaureate this weekend. Prescott College graduation is a lot like Fairhaven- each student picks a mentor to speak about them, then the student has a minute to cry (or do whatever!)
Thank you all so much for being part of my journey. I know that I wouldn’t have found such an amazing college if my time at Fairhaven hadn’t empowered me to take responsibility for my education. Now I just need to find a grad school…
Love,
Kat
With Kat’s permission, below are some passages from her senior project, a booklet entitled Reflections On Being With Dying.
For this study I added an additional two days of hospice volunteering per week, in addition to the one day I have been doing at a care home for over a year. These two days took place in The Hospice Family Care inpatient unit, which houses patients who are in need of symptom and pain management, respite care, or who are actively dying. I also researched the psychological and emotional processes of death, dying, and bereavement to inform me of what I should expect to witness while volunteering. Part of my project also involved a more personal exploration of death that included doing meditations and practices to become mindful of my life and the inevitable end to it.
(from “Introduction”)
Another reason why I chose to spend time with people who are dying is that death is a completely universal experience. As a future therapist I could choose to specialize in addictions, multicultural perspectives, or adolescence (to name a few), but emotional issues surrounding death is one of the few things that I can connect to everyone about….I am able to relate to hospice patients whose lifestyles are completely different from mine, because all of the differences fall away when we get down to the business of life and death.
(from “Facing Facts”)
Days have a way of passing and leading into the next so fluidly that it is not unusual to wake up one morning and wonder “how the heck did I get here?’ Finding meaning in life requires being intentional about how we spend those days. I agree with [psychiatrist and author] Viktor Frankl that participating in life creatively, experiencing the parts of life we believe to be of true value, and the attitude we take toward our limited time in this world will lead to a meaningful existence.
(from “Meaning”)
I remember seeing one particular patient, Wendy, who was very confused and quiet. In the beginning of my visit I found myself chitchatting quite a bit, and only getting brief, indifferent answers from her. Once I realized how much I had been leading the conversation I quiteted down and let her get lost in her own thoughts for a while…During her stories she spoke very slowly, only a few words at a time. “You don’t notice getting older,” she began slowly, “and then one day you are…” After an extended pause she concluded, “and surrounded by elderly people.” This insight was very sweet, and certainly worth the wait.
(from “Silence”)
It is a cold and cloudy day today, and although this project must now come to an official end I know that death and dying are subjects that I will continue to explore until my theoretical death becomes a reality. Reflecting on the questions and ideas that have arisen for me this semester has helped me clarify how my relationship with death can make me a better counselor, volunteer, and friend. I will continue to foster gratitude, compassion, intention, a search for meaning, and the ability to sit with suffering in my life. And, knowing that there may not be a tomorrow, I am now going to throw on a coat, strap on some boots, go for a walk, and seize the day.
(from “Conclusion”)
Thanks, Kat for sharing your project with us. And Congratulations!
Just before Winter Break, after more than twenty years on the forefront of education, our colleagues at the Sacramento Valley School voted to close the doors on their Sudbury school. As one of the first generation of schools who modeled themselves after Sudbury Valley School, SacVal has served as an inspiration and support to us at Fairhaven School from the beginning.
At Sudbury schools conferences, the wise words from SacVal staffers always got our attention. Likewise their contributions on our listserve. Two Sacramento Valley staff members, Kaye-Lynn Peterson and Brenda Gustin, served on Fairhaven’s Diploma Committee in recent years. Former Fairhaven staff member Cameron Lyons used to work at Sacramento. We Sudbury schools are a small community!
As you good people move on, we write to offer our gratitude, appreciation, and these words of encouragement: your work has changed hundreds of lives, and bolstered thousands. May we all be so lucky!
Down the hall, young students are playing in the Kid Nook like they have been for weeks, animating piles of dolls big and small for hours . In the old building, teens are continuing their latest Dungeons and Dragons campaign. People are swinging on the playground; computer gamers are playing League of Legends. Packs of boys will certainly be waging their Nerf wars in the forest later. Play. It remains the most prevalent activity on campus. As the students say, “what’s up with that?”
With freedom, we gravitate to play. My best writing time feels playful and open-ended. The results of play are serious, sometimes even life-changing. As Konner documents, a habit of play balances life, and stimulates growth. We seem even to be hard-wired to do it. Here at Fairhaven, it reigns supreme, setting the table for the mysterious transformation from childhood to adulthood. Fortunately, our democratic structure at school compensates for the pervasive play. Rules, limits, and consequences keep chaos at bay. Should the doll-players not clean up, they might lose access to the room. When the Nerfers left water balloon shrapnel on the grounds, they had to do grounds work. And so on.
G.K. Chesterton
Just before Winter Break, after more than twenty years on the forefront of education, our colleagues at the Sacramento Valley School voted to close the doors on their Sudbury school. As one of the first generation of schools who modeled themselves after Sudbury Valley School, SacVal has served as an inspiration and support to us at Fairhaven School from the beginning.