Another role we’ve seen grow and develop at school is the role of animal caretaker. So many of our young people have strong feelings for and about animals. We have always had ethical vegetarians and vegans on campus. Students have kept snakes on campus. We had a fish tank for a year or two. Now…
(In May, 2012, Ting Schule, a Sudbury school in Berlin, invited Fairhaven staff member Mark McCaig to speak at a public event. Here is the first half of his remarks.) Who Will I Become Today? Role-Playing as a Way to Understand Fairhaven School “The essential human characteristic is creative imagination. It enables us to master…
(Ting Schule, a Sudbury school in Berlin, Germany, recently hosted Fairhaven School staff member Mark McCaig to present his talk entitled “Who Will I Become Today? Role Playing as a Way to Understand Fairhaven School.” Here he posts some impressions of the experience.) *** Humbling, having to ask for translation when the four-year-old boy talks…
On Friday, March 23rd, Fairhaven School hosted a panel featuring three alumni- Pallas Bane (class of 2008), Thor Jensen (class of 2005), and Erin Gregory ( who chose not to graduate and left in 2005.) The 2011-2012 school year is beginning to feel like “The Year of the Alumni,” as we have enrolled a record…
Last week, the Opinion Pages of the New York Times printed a compelling article about creativity and education. Yet again, a thinker (in this case writer and filmmaker Hanif Kureishi) has inadvertently argued for the efficacy of Fairhaven School! In an education world increasingly intent upon systematizing conformity (even by medicating young people), truly our…
Reprinted below is an article the Sudbury Valley School journal published last month. It captures so well the reality of growing up in the twenty-first century, we decided to post it here. Enjoy! “There’s More’n One Way to Skin a Cat”* by Mimsy Sadofsky We have a lot to muse about as we struggle to…
Last month, for the thirteenth year in a row, Fairhaven School’s Theatre Corporation staged a production. This year, they decided to host a dinner theater. Staff and students set up the room, and parents cooked the baked ziti and black beans. The mother of the murder “victim” baked bread from scratch! Our resident student pastry…
Sometimes the news we hear from alumni is just lovely. This just in, from the email Inbox: Fairhaven School alumna Erin Umstead, class of 2005, has just released her first EP of music, “The Norway EP.” Please support her work, just another example of the interesting, creative lives our alumni continue to manifest. (Kudos also…
We often hear students and families consider public school, so from time to time we post or link to articles reminding readers that you often get what you pay for with schooling. This one comes from the Washington Post and is written by a guest and School Board member who took his District’s 10th grade…
(The following was presented by Fairhaven School staff member Mark McCaig at the 2011 Fairhaven Sudbury conference and then again last Friday for parents in the Chesapeake Room at Fairhaven School. The talk opens and closes with a video clip of former United States Poet Laureate W.S. Merwin reading a poem and answering questions posed…
Last week in between cases in Fairhaven School’s JC (Judicial Committee), a student restated Stephen Hawking’s theory that time stands still inside a black hole. “Although a watch would probably explode in there, if it didn’t, he thinks it would stop recording time.” The school year is back, and the best forum I know for…
(Fairhaven School graduated seven students last June. As a way to celebrate the class of 2011, over the next month, we will be posting the theses that they successfully defended. In italics below is a brief description outlining how somebody earns a Fairhaven diploma, followed by the third thesis. Enjoy! Students who have spent at…
