Perhaps the most essential elements of Fairhaven School are our two pillars, freedom and responsibility. Why do we afford the students here so much freedom, anyway?
I read with great interest Sarah Wildman’s March 22nd Opinion piece in The New York Times, The End of the Free-Range, Device-Free ‘Stand by Me’ Childhood. When my family lists our favorite movies, “Stand By Me” always ranks near the top. Based upon Stephen King’s novella, “The Body,” the movie checks many boxes: compelling coming of age story, fine acting, nostalgia, grief, Maine scenery, and a classic soundtrack. For the purposes of this post, however, let’s focus on the remarkable degree of freedom its protagonists, all children, experience throughout the film.
Freedom is the natural state of childhood, and Fairhaven’s educational program relies upon the innate curiosity of free people to explore and discover both themselves and the world. In practice and structure, we balance this remarkable degree of freedom with the responsibility of participating in a democratic school. All agreed upon and decided together, the school’s rules and practices ensure that freedom never slides into dangerous territory. While adapting to freedom comes quickly, students earn and develop the responsibility over time, creating a unique and, as the movie reminds me, a retro childhood in this digital age. Students explore the forest, play games indoors and out, invent and modify games, create art, cook food, and live here in a way their grandparents might recognize.
Freedom is the bedrock of the Fairhaven School experience, and responsibility flows from freedom, doesn’t it? Since only you are accountable for your actions and choices, you immediately become responsible for whatever you do freely, both practically and philosophically.
Wildman focuses on the freedom of the characters in “Stand By Me” in this paragraph:
I, too, was struck by the sheer wildness once permitted children. The autonomy of the boys in “Stand by Me” is vastly different from the freedoms allowed a child living in 2026, when each is practically AirTagged, when we can track a car or a person’s phone across a map on a device in our palms, when we can know each moment of every day where each and every person in our home can be found. A gathering of children is more likely to be in front of a screen than with a rucksack and a deck of cards, as in the movie. Children are all too often found languishing alone in their bedrooms, direct messaging their friends, which not only reduces the likelihood of their being covered in leeches but also vastly decreases their chances of discovering anything at all.
While we at Fairhaven School do access electronic devices regularly (and thereby enhance our lives,) this element of the life of the school coexists with countless three-dimensional experiences. And although, thankfully, the stream at Fairhaven flows too well for our students to encounter leeches (a memorable moment in the movie), the intrepid young people here do get to explore Mt. Nebo Creek, climb trees, build forts, play cards, play pickup sports, ride bikes, and fashion lives similar in many ways to the young people’s lives in “Stand By Me.” After almost three decades of students, we at Fairhaven School can verify that freedom vastly increases their chances of discovering anything, anything at all, both about themselves and about the world they inhabit.
Mark McCaig
March 27, 2026
