Writing by:

Foss Tighe

Blog post |
Remote Learning: When Governor Baker announced on April 29th that schools would remain closed in the state of Massachusetts through the end of the school year, he also emphasized the importance of continuing and expanding “remote learning” for… Read more ›
Blog post |
A few months ago, my kids were planning a big sleepover of SVS students at our house. Besides the usual suspects, there was one new name. I immediately start asking what I thought were the key sleepover questions: Did they like frozen pizza? Were… Read more ›
Essay post |
The great Greek historian and traveler Herodotus includes the following conversation with the queen of Persia in his histories. He is trying to explain how things are in the Greek democracies of the 5th century BC. Persian queen, Atossa, asked him… Read more ›
Blog post |
Sudbury Valley nay-sayers often point to the lack of grades and high school grade point averages as one of the great risks of sending your child to SVS.  As I understand the argument, a good grade point average is necessary to get into the… Read more ›
Blog post |
It started with the 12-year-old girl down the street who told my daughter she would never get into college. I am sure many of our friends, who were devoting untold hours to ensure that their children excelled in public school, wanted to say the… Read more ›
Blog post |
This is a tough question. SVS lacks the more traditional ways of bench marking a child’s progress through school. There are no parent-teacher conferences, no grades, no MCAS scores, no curriculum, no classes and no grade point averages. There is… Read more ›
Blog post |
During this holiday season, my daughter gave each of her SVS friends pillow cases. Using a fabric marker, each pillow case was emblazoned with a block of text. Then each pillow case was rolled up like a scroll and tied with a ribbon. The result… Read more ›
Blog post |
  Cori, my oldest daughter and Kali, one of her close friends at SVS, are having a good-humored debate about which one of them reads more books. This debate has been going on so long now that for Christmas their friends bought them each a… Read more ›
Blog post |
Summer vacation is over and on the way to school I make my now predictable joke. “Did you complete your assigned summer reading? How about that social studies diorama for Danny?” My kids smile and roll their eyes. My mind drifts back to when my… Read more ›
Blog post |
Last week I found an example of “life imitating life”. Or more specifically life at SVS was imitating life in Washington. I am fascinated by the quirky details of democratic institutions. So, I got a little thrill when the 50-50 vote in the Senate… Read more ›
Blog post |
Recently I was struggling with ideas on how to get the kids to help out more around the house. I found myself pondering what leverage I had over the kids. We have chosen not to make their allowance dependent on chores and I don’t want to regulate or… Read more ›
Blog post |
There are so many ways that SVS challenges the way we think about school and education. Some are deep and profound others are just strange. Recently my daughter asked if she could sleep over at a friend’s house. It was mid-week and my first thought… Read more ›
Blog post |
While I was reading Daniel Greenberg's essay (“Are 1000 Pictures Worth One Word?”) on why it has been so difficult to convey the SVS experience in film and pictures, I found myself thinking about the evolution of my own understanding about what… Read more ›
Blog post |
When we first enrolled our girls in SVS, I thought the emphasis on having both parents and kids sign things was a little silly or forced. The kids were nervous, not about going to SVS, but how they should sign. Was the first name and last name… Read more ›
Blog post |
When I was growing up, I cherished every opportunity not to go to school.  If I had a cold, I would play up the symptoms to get a day off. Snow days were manna from heaven. And so it was with my own children in public school. As parents with… Read more ›

Authors