(As we continue our series of posts celebrating fifteen years as a school, here’s one from staff member and parent Beth Williams. Enjoy!)
This collage is from Fairhaven School’s recent participation in the worldwide Inside/Out project. Many students, staff, parents and alumni joined! Follow this link to see a gallery of photos from the remarkable collaboration. Below is the group action statement we provided to the project organizers to describe Fairhaven School:
Fairhaven School is celebrating its 15th Anniversary. Every summer, our students, ages 4-19, count the days to come back to school instead of counting the days until school lets out!
• As Maryland’s first Sudbury school, we believe education can look different! Without tests, grades, or standardized curriculum, students pursue their own educational paths. Students also run the school, sharing equal votes under a democratic framework.
• We promote self-directed learning.
• We acknowledge that children need time and space to figure out who they are and what they want to become.
• We trust that they will do just that, with adult support but without unnecessary adult intervention.
• Graduates of Fairhaven School are succeeding in a wide variety of colleges and careers.
We want the world to know that education can successfully happen in a different paradigm.
Inspired by the Inside/Out project, we created our own collaborative artwork as a way to dedicate the new Circle Garden. After collecting from School Meeting members what single word best described Fairhaven School, we sifted flour stencils, creating our own impermanent word cloud.