Our Story

A history of hard work and lasting change.

The history of Fayerweather is the history of a deeply held commitment to the innate curiosity and capacities of children. We opened in fall 1967 in three rented basement rooms at Lesley College: four teachers and seventy-three students, ages five through thirteen. The founding faculty had read Dewey and Piaget, knew John Holt and Bill Hull, and had visited English primary schools. Two of the first four teachers were English themselves.

The first decade was a scramble. Three heads in eight years; payroll was not always a sure thing; the school moved twice before putting up a building of its own on Fayerweather Street in 1969. What held was the work. Children were trusted with serious tasks and expected to explain themselves. Disciplines stayed connected because that is how a child's understanding of anything is developed. Teaching was examined publicly. By 1972 we were hosting around five hundred visiting teachers a year, and a faculty group ran Children's Thinking Seminars for more than a decade, taping their own discussions and arguing over the transcripts week by week.

The faculty kept inventing. In 1981, twenty middle schoolers wrote and published The Kids' Book of Divorce; Random House picked it up, and the class went on a six-city tour. Projects of that ambition continue to happen because we have maintained our radical belief that children are capable of learning and doing big things. We moved to 765 Concord Avenue in 1998, and the classroom doors have stayed open to any teachers who want to observe.