Fairhaven School students become ambassadors of radical happiness for everyone they meet. Strangers marvel at how articulate they are, their ability to entertain themselves, their desire for justice, their comfort occupying their own skin, and their ability to speak up and be heard. Fairhaven School students and graduates present an alternative childhood, where trust in oneself forms the foundation for a life well-lived.
At a recent Talkabout co-hosted with visiting staff and students from Houston Sudbury school, staff member Mark McCaig began the discussion with some thoughts about “What’s Normal at a Sudbury School?”
“One thing that always stands out to me about Sudbury schools is the healthy relationships they create between children and adults. The Fairhaven staff were our allies and supporters, not separate, different, or more important than us. They spoke to us as equals and patiently allowed us to navigate our own paths – both in our personal and educational lives.
There is no doubt in my mind that I am the engaged and empowered person I am today because of my time at FHS. It will always hold a very special place in my heart.”
We all think our kids are special and brilliant and couldn’t possibly do the bone-headed things other kids do. As a staff member with two kids at school, I was able to see that my kids—although, of course, brilliant and special—were among peers who were equally brilliant and special, and that my kids were just as capable of spinning tales at the dinner table about why they’d been hauled into JC through no fault of their own.
On Saturday, June 9th, we celebrated twenty years of Fairhaven School. In addition to joining our annual Capture the Flag game, about two hundred current students, alumni, founders, and friends of the school visited, shared stories, played music, ate brick oven pizza, and dug up the time capsule we buried in 1998. Founder and staff member Mark McCaig shared these remarks in the backyard at the time capsule ceremony.
Although I can’t believe it now, looking out at all this rain, a couple of days ago the weather was very hot and humid. One of the younger girls invited me to go to the stream with her, so we walked together down the winding, forest stairs. The leaves on the trees are now toughened up, and the sun is almost completely covered, except for the occasional diamond of light shining down. She got in the water, I stayed on the shore.
I have been working at Sudbury Valley School since my kids were little. They are older than many of you are now, and those of my grandchildren that are old enough to go to school are going to a school like Fairhaven, and like SVS, in Oregon. So it is clear to me: I trust children. My children trust children. I even trust grownups.
Since we first opened our doors, we have spent hundreds of hours playing kickball. This year, however, tension caused by players trash-talking, disagreements about rules, and a general malaise descending on the game threatened its existence. How the players addressed these issues exemplifies problem solving at Sudbury schools, and might concretize how our community functions.
“I’ve been part of Fairhaven School from day one. I was a member of a founding family…I’ve had the freedom to decide how to spend my days for most of my life. This means that I was in charge of my education. To most parents this may seem like a risky move but my parents really believed in the school and trusted me to make the right choices. I’m so glad that my parents took that risk. Not being forced to take classes and have homework made me want to have classes and I chose whether or not I had homework. Because this was my decision I would really pay attention and learn a lot.”
My son was comparing Fairhaven to the public school he attended until he was eight. “You know,” he said, “when I went to my old school, I was always doing things because someone told me to. I did things to make my teachers happy, or to get someone to like me, or to be like everyone else. At Fairhaven I do things for myself, and I don’t have to worry about what other people think.”
The one thing that makes my job as a staff member at Fairhaven School interesting and challenging is that it offers an ever-changing kaleidoscope of experiences. No day is ever quite the same as the one before, because the infinite potential of human creativity is unfolding before me on a daily basis. I have observed that when students are given the chance to create what they want, many unexpected and rich experiences evolve.
“4:50 – that magic number. Each day we hear the page echo through both buildings telling us it’s time to go. We grab our lunches, backpacks, art projects or instruments, pack them in our cars and drive back home only to return the next day. I’ll miss the drive, to be honest. There’s nothing quite like rolling through the shade of trees on Queen Anne and pulling up to Amy on her little pink bike, little boys playing four square, then turning off the car no longer hearing Fugazi or Mewithoutyou or whichever CD Eli’s blasting that day, then putting the Camry in park and walking up the stone path into school.”
