New Video Shows Harkness Discussion at Shore
The installation last September of hand-crafted, authentic Harkness discussion tables in eight Shore classrooms has dramatically enhanced teaching and learning for fifth through ninth grade students.
A new video shows the tables in use in history, science, and English classrooms as well as a fifth grade homeroom. In the piece, Shore faculty members discuss the benefits of incorporating Harkness-style discussions into their teaching, and they reflect on the impact the tables are having throughout the curriculum.
A new video shows the tables in use in history, science, and English classrooms as well as a fifth grade homeroom. In the piece, Shore faculty members discuss the benefits of incorporating Harkness-style discussions into their teaching, and they reflect on the impact the tables are having throughout the curriculum.
The acquisition of the discussion tables was the result of Shore’s extraordinarily successful Parents Association Spring Benefit held in May at Ipswich’s Turner Hill, where families donated more than $100,000 toward the purchase of the furniture. The existing traditional classroom tables replaced by Harkness tables were donated to the Beverly Children’s Learning Center, newly opened across from the school on Cabot Street.
The Harkness table design and teaching methodology were created at Phillips Exeter Academy in the 1930s, when philanthropist Edward Harkness challenged the Exeter faculty to create an innovative way of teaching that would include every child in the classroom learning experience. The result was an oval wood table that ensured that every student could be seen and every voice could be heard. Today, authorized reproductions of the original Harkness table are produced by a single company, New Hampshire’s D.R. Dimes, whose artisans built the tables for Shore. They were painstakingly crafted from locally-grown hardwoods and finished in an environmentally-friendly, yet extremely durable, coating that can stand up to many decades of classroom use.
“Shore faculty members have for years incorporated the Harkness methodology into our own style of student-centered, discussion-based teaching, which begins as early as fourth and fifth grades,” says Assistant Head of School Ben Kennedy.
“The introduction of these eight new tables in Shore’s science, history, and English classrooms,” Kennedy continues, “dramatically enhances the school’s leadership in a method of learning that puts children at the center of their own education. Just as our tablet computers and SmartBoards are tools that facilitate learning, so too is the distinctive oval Harkness table, with its carefully calibrated proportions to promote eye contact and human interaction, a transformational piece of technology.”
English teacher Sander Van Otterloo notes, “I have a sign in my room that states, ‘the table does not discriminate.’ It's a simple statement, but there is something powerful about the notion that while the table's role is to bring us together, we are the authors of the conversation. It is our responsibility to be honest, open, and encouraging to everyone at the table. After all, we are all sitting face to face, and eye to eye. Sitting at the table literally and metaphorically levels the playing field. I am no longer the sage on the stage. I am part of the community at the table, and everyone's voice counts equally.”
Agrees history teacher Noah Clarke, “I always thought—and I know you will find many Shore teachers who feel—that discussion-based teaching shouldn’t be the exclusive preserve of high school and college students. Sixth graders, seventh graders, eighth and ninth graders—even fourth and fifth graders—they can all talk to each other, learn how to question the text or the data, and come to their own conclusions together around the table.”
Of the transformation in his science classroom, where a Harkness table supplements traditional lab work surfaces, Oliver Hay attests, “Students are now driving the discussion of new topics. They look to each other more, and me less, to analyze data, to solve problems and questions, and to draw conclusions. Remarkably, students are learning more from the hands-on work that we do because they use dedicated discussion time around the table to reflect on what they did, observed, and discovered. They are making connections with the material, and with each other, in ways that I’ve not seen before.”
“It’s authentic learning,” says Upper School Social Studies Chair Gwen Sneeden of the Harkness methodology. “Sitting 12 to 14 middle school students around a table and asking them to think and talk combines the very best of what this age group wants: to be treated with respect, to be in charge, and to talk.”
Sneeden continues, “The Harkness pedagogy interacts fluidly with the cognitive growth spurts and the need for energy release that middle schoolers are experiencing. When my students gather at the Harkness table for a discussion, each of them knows that his or her voice matters. They are part of a collaborative dynamic that uses extended conversations, which help them understand their ideas are real, valued, and meaningful. Most importantly, these students thrive when they are at the center of their learning. The Harkness approach puts them there.”
Announcing the Harkness table acquisition to the community, Shore’s Head of School Larry Griffin said last year, “Education today is changing, becoming more hands-on than it ever has been before. This fall, as a result of the incredible generosity of the Shore community, our fifth through ninth grade students experience an entirely changed teaching dynamic around the Harkness table that puts them at the forefront of the evolution of learning for the 21st century.”
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A ninth grade history discussion in a scene from the video
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Eighth graders in a science classroom
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History teacher Noah Clarke discusses Harkness teaching in the video
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In the video, history teacher and Social Studies Chair Gwen Sneeden listens to a student discussion
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A discussion in Louis Frank's Grade 5 homeroom
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Exeter's 'A Classroom Revolution: Reflections on Harkness Learning and Teaching,' which features an essay by Noah Clarke
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Assistant Head of School and Head of the Upper School Ben Kennedy with Exeter's Harkness volume
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Shore Country Day School’s mission is to provide an education that inspires a love of learning and encourages children to embrace academic challenge. We seek to build character, cultivate creativity, and value diversity as we help our children become healthy, compassionate citizens of the world.
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