New Harkness Tables Transform Classrooms
The installation this summer of hand-crafted, authentic Harkness discussion tables in eight Shore classrooms will dramatically enhance teaching and learning for fifth through ninth grade students.
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, “will dramatically enhance the school’s leadership in a method of learning that puts children at the center of their own education. Just as computers, calculators, 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.”
The acquisition of the discussion tables is 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 authentic Harkness furniture. The existing traditional classroom tables replaced by Harkness tables were donated the Beverly Children’s Learning Center, newly opened across from the school on Cabot Street.
Says 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.”
In anticipation of the new tables’ arrival for the fall term, faculty members met over the summer for a Harkness teaching and learning workshop led by Phillips Exeter’s Ralph Sneeden, the husband of Shore’s Social Studies Chair Gwen Sneeden.
“It’s authentic learning,” says 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 earlier this year, Shore’s Head of School Larry Griffin said, “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 will 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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Grade 9 students around one of Shore's Harkness tables
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Workers assembled one of the hand-crafted tables
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A new table in a science classroom
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Over the summer, faculty attended a workshop on Harkness
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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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