2018-19 Perspectives

2018-2019

Perspectives Harkness Learning and Teaching

Every year over Parents’ Weekend, we offer a short talk and then “Q&A” about Harkness learning. Not every parent can attend that little session, and many who can actually leave the session with more questions about the details of how we operate than they were asking when they arrived. We offer this publication, then, to help parents and other participants in the school community to see and consider a few more of the particulars of what we’re up to, and why, and how.

PERSPECTIVES

3

Table of Contents 4 Learning How to

Think 8 When the World

Worlds in the Classroom

14 Surrender.

It’s Their Trip.

20 Embracing Silence at the Harkness Table

24 Students Changing Their Minds

28 Seven Harkness Essentials

4

PERSPECTIVES

Introduction • Listen In mid-August, shortly before we launched into faculty meetings, I attended a workshop on meditation.

When the instructor was outlining the fundamentals of getting into a meditative state, one of the things he emphasized was just listening to your mind—just listening and not talking back.

“When you’re trying to make your mind blank but your mind won’t do that, don’t worry about it,” he said.

He added, “When you’re trying to leave conscious thought behind but your mind just keeps on talking to you, that’s okay. Leave your mind open. Eventually, it will clear.

Meanwhile, if it’s still talking to you,

you probably need to listen. There’s stuff going on there that you need to pay attention to.”

As anyone with any real experience of life has learned, sometimes what we’re seeking isn’t what we need.

Sometimes what we don’t want to hear is the thing we need to hear.

What my meditation instructor was telling me wasn’t what I had expected to hear from him. What I’d expected was a dogmatic declaration about the need for total escape from ordinary consciousness. What I got instead was something that struck me as right in line with what Harkness teaches, at least as Phase 1 of the learning process: “Just listen.” That is:

“Don’t argue. Don’t advocate. Open up and consider the possibilities.”

When people are sitting together in front of a challenging problem, trying to figure out exactly what’s going on, trying to determine how to proceed, it’s easy to get antsy and to seek quick satisfaction through action. We all know this exhortation: “Don’t just sit there; do something.”

Some of us have been lucky enough to hear the rejoinder: “Don’t just do something; sit there.”

So clever! Also, so wise!

How many things have we done—in our personal lives, in our life as a nation, to the planet we share—that we wish

we’d considered more carefully beforehand?

This year’s edition of Perspectives doesn’t encourage inaction.

Lawrenceville’s commitment to Harkness education is, in many ways, a commitment to “taking arms against a sea of troubles.” But it is, more particularly, a commitment to action carefully informed; to initiative subjected, before it happens, to critical scrutiny—and, after, to critical review.

There are so many things I’d like to say in this little intro, the last of my tenure as Lawrenceville’s Harkness Chair, but I can think of nothing more important than this

basic message that we try to impart to our students: Don’t react reflexively. Respond reflectively. Or, rather, after having reflected. Ideally, after having solicited the input of others, after having given their input, both welcome and unexpected, careful, generous consideration. “Don’t just do something; sit there.” Don’t just blurt, then act on, the first thing that comes into your head. Open up. For a while, at least, just listen.

– Pier Kooistra The Robert S. and Christina Seix Dow Distinguished Master-Teaching Chair in Harkness Learning

PERSPECTIVES

5

Learning How to Think SHINAE PARK,MENTOR TEACHER, SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

A

lthough it may sound strange, an understanding of physics is not the ultimate goal of the physics course that I teach. In our classroom, physics is primarily the means by which we internalize a new way of thinking, by using experimentation, reasoning, discussion, and math to approach problems in creative ways. As such, physics class is not just for students who intend to study physics or science in college. It is for anyone who wants practice learning how to think.

Students have opportunities to experience some of the best parts of science—the struggle for understanding that culminates in the joy

of discovery, the camaraderie of a fruitful collaboration, and the application of reason to explain the mysteries the universe. Science is not just about answers; it is an ongoing process of discovery. This is what makes the Harkness style such a meaningful way to teach science.

Harkness encourages active, collaborative learning. Students use labs, demos, and group discussions to wrestle with the evidence and make their own realizations. As the mission of the Lawrenceville Science Department states, we endeavor to “introduce students to both the beautiful simplicity and intriguing complexity of the world to foster a life-long curiosity about the world in which they live.” We aim

“Students have opportunities to experience some of the best parts of science—the struggle for understanding that culminates in the joy of discovery, the camaraderie of a fruitful collaboration, and the application of reason to explain the mysteries the universe.”

to do this by providing an environment where students are encouraged to explore ideas and make connections with their peers and with the world around them.

There is a tradeoff here, of course. Being given answers is quick and confidenceboosting, and you can cover a lot of ground this way. Discovery is slow. It is uncomfortable and requires vulnerability as students make mistakes publicly on the way to consensus.

It involves mental dexterity as students are asked to define concepts uncovered in labs before being given the proper scientific terminology. Students often feel frustrated with the lack of certainty, where natural laws are a best guess based on available evidence rather than textbook-given immutable truth.

But this process is what leads to deeper learning, and this consensus amidst uncertainty is the closest classroom approximation to real scientific practice. We want to allow students the freedom and flexibility to learn science organically and avoid detaching meaning from

the work by giving too many hints before they have a chance to figure things out themselves.

For this to work, students need to be equipped with a strong foundation. To avoid talking in circles without approaching the answers, we start with the basic foundations of science so that students have the tools to move forward—representing numbers, thinking about errors, and designing experiments, for example. Once students have gained the confidence and skills they need to think responsibly about the material, they have the opportunity to discover physics through guided activities and problems. They have back-and-forth discussions where they try to use data and reasoning to convince each other of the right ideas. They see surprising results and work together to try to explain them. They derive the majority of the physics equations we use by taking their own data, fitting it to a mathematical model, and interpreting the parameters of that model.

Labs are used to introduce the material (to

“Once students have gained the confidence and skills they need to think responsibly about the material, they have the opportunity to discover physics through guided activities and problems.�

PERSPECTIVES

7

“The evolution of this discussion points to the beauty of Harkness teaching. Students obtained a far deeper understanding of Newton’s Laws than if we had all agreed in the first place.” maximize the chance of student-led discovery) rather than to reinforce it. Students learn physics by doing it.

I recall one particular class when students were studying Newton’s Laws of Motion.

After conducting an experiment which involved subtle and unexpected results, the

8

PERSPECTIVES

class came together to try to figure out what happened. One student claimed that an object experiencing a constant force would move at a constant speed, while the rest of the class collectively disagreed. The lone student argued enthusiastically, defending his ideas using data and logic. One by one, others in the class came to his side, until his view was held by the majority. The remaining opposition had to articulate their hesitancy to switch sides ever more clearly in the face of a changing tide.

After a lengthy discussion, we finally came to the correct conclusion: the lone student was wrong.

The evolution of this discussion points to the beauty of Harkness teaching. Students obtained a far deeper understanding of Newton’s Laws than if we had all agreed in the first place. They gained experience in thinking through their ideas, using data to support their hypotheses, and defending their ideas logically.

They obtained a better sense of how personal biases can prevent us from seeing the data

clearly, and of how to avoid being swayed into the wrong explanation. Would it have been faster for me to just tell them the answer from the start? Yes. But the act of learning would not have been nearly as meaningful.

We have a framework for the course, with specific content goals and requirements. No matter how interesting the discussions might be, at the end of the unit the students need to leave the room having learned the proper physics, and this requires varying levels of teacher intervention. But years - or decades - from now, the success of their Harkness education will not be measured in how many of Kepler’s Laws a student can recite, but rather, how effectively they are able to process ideas, how accurately they can use data to guide their thinking, and how clearly they articulate their thoughts. A successful student of physics is not necessarily the one who knows the answers, but rather the one who is comfortable with uncertainty and appropriately skeptical of claims that aren’t backed up by evidence.

PERSPECTIVES

9

When the World

Worlds in the Classroom PHIL JORDAN ’85, RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY

The “world worlding” phrase arrived recently in my head, like a Zen koan inviting a journey.

Did it come from an old, fondly-read college text? When I searched, I found reference to Heidegger. Riding waves, rich with meaning for roundtable teaching, I would like it to help guide this essay, like a bell buoy providing direction and aim, tolling, “This way!” to all Harkness learners.

W

hat does it mean to study “worldview” in the spirit of the above Harkness koan?

There is no other concept that gets so much play in Introduction to Religious Studies. As the gate to a great deal of what we do in the Religion & Philosophy Department, one of “IRS”’s primary aims is to cultivate fresh forms of seeing. This applies not only to student efforts to gain keen eyes for our material, but also to perceiving the manifold ways religion shapes its practitioners’ vision. But how do we practice the world worlding that sends students in search of the Torah, the Buddha’s unique insight under the Bo Tree, or the New Atheist

“As the gate to a great deal of what we do in the Religion & Philosophy Department, one of “IRS”’s primary aims is to cultivate fresh forms of seeing.”

10

PERSPECTIVES

The process could not be effectively learned, however, without a few ground rules: • T he classroom is a welcome environment for wild creativity, which is modeled and encouraged.

• P articipation is a must – showing and telling.

• W e insist on excellence from each other in articulating, expressing, and understanding our work, which defines the wildness of our creativity.

• S elf-assessment and peer assessment build up a greater capacity for expressive and creative ideas.

“It all starts with the range of backgrounds at the table that allows for diverse windows into both the “tonic” and “toxic” potential (Prothero 9) one finds inside every tradition.” critique of religion? To explain, I will place IRS features and scenes next to themes from the summer faculty reading. In this way, we will see how motifs like Zoretta Hammond’s Deep Culture, story-ifying and the third space provide frames to highlight how the world changes shape with the help of IRS Harkness learning.

When I read Culturally Responsive Teaching

12

PERSPECTIVES

& the Brain by the above author, I was amazed by how well her focus on Deep Culture aligned with our departmental concerns. As the realm that delivers the “tacit knowledge and unconscious assumptions that govern our worldview,” Hammond highlights the link between this level of culture and how “every brain makes sense of the world” (125; 123).

We can leverage this insight in numerous ways, including her chief concern for how diverse students suffer when their styles of learning get downplayed, or ignored. In the case of IRS, the exploration of worldview begins on our opening day, when my sections compare the 1966 “Is God dead?” Time cover to its 2014 sequel celebrating 20 million Kumbh Mela Hindu pilgrims.

By brainstorming the factors that account for the difference in these contrasting takes on religion, the students start to ponder the many influences that condition such divergent perspectives. As an encounter with several traditions unfolds, their powers of vision

improve through training in the five essential skills of identifying, reading, critical-lens writing, researching, and comparing religions.

With our emphasis on the living practice of people—without whom all worldviews would be mute—students come to see religions as multi-vocal, interactive with culture, and capable of both evil and good.

It all starts with the range of backgrounds at the table that allows for diverse windows into both the “tonic” and “toxic” potential (Prothero 9) one finds inside every tradition.

A simple gender assessment of the pronouns

assigned God in monotheistic faiths reveals the patriarchal dynamics in the act of naming the sacred. Such means of revealing what is partially hidden serve to surface unconscious assumptions in ways that help widen student angles of vision and expand their developing worldviews. If we chart our course well, they will start to make use of a searchlight that turns on itself, as they learn that to effectively encounter the Other they must probe their own guiding lights, too.

This brings us to another departmental way of allowing the world to world that relates closely to Hammond’s work. In her section on the method of “story-ifying,” Hammond observes, “The brain is wired for stories…

And when we are being told a story or telling it, the brain’s neurons light up not only in the language processing parts but in other regions just as if we were performing the action ourselves” (135). Such a promising neuro-reality sets the stage for adventuresome learning, through a set of “thick descriptive”

approaches we adapted from anthropologist Clifford Geertz. In describing religion as “a system of symbols” that “clothes reality in conceptions of a general order … whose [resulting] moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (90), Geertz insists that the most authentic interpretations will look for ways to inhabit worldviews. Though we cannot embed ourselves with a people to gather context as ethnographers do, we can seek a small taste of this intimacy by means of role-play and story work. Through class projects like improvised Upanishad sessions, or “Thus I have heard” Buddhist dialogues, our students navigate virtual worlds for the nearexperiences Hammond describes.

Although playful, there is significant challenge involved in stepping into imagined shoes to construct understanding through creative work with sophisticated worldviews.

My favorite recent example was a recorded audio piece entitled “The Maya Busters,” which featured a detective office in pursuit

of the Hindu unborn and undying self, Atman. Hammond confirms that narrativizing techniques serve to enhance student learning, by helping the mind sort through “cognitive routines” to find relationships, identify similarities and difference, see how things fit together in a system and recognize point of view (135). This sets the stage well for the “persona writing” we will sometimes have students do; and rare is the section where hidden stars don’t emerge, students who excel at this inventive work.

PERSPECTIVES

13

As minds on the edge of adulthood, our IRS students are in the exciting stage of what Hammond calls “proximal development” when it comes to establishing worldviews.

They may thus find themselves homed in on the human condition in a sustained way for the first time. (One thinks of Gauguin’s elemental queries: Where do we come from?

What are we? Where are we going?) To enable this kind of vertical plunge, my department coined the phrase “complex ideas,” which we have described as the essential ideas, themes, symbols or metaphors that make up the enduring parts of a religion. In this way, when students explore the many meanings of elaborate events like the Hajj, they need to surface and talk through Islamic notions like Dhikr (remembrance), Ummah (shared community), and Tawhid (Oneness of God). Such a practice of tapping traditional language helps them enter conceptual vistas through analytic discussion that charts the depth, breadth and diverse voicings of worldview. To do so not

14

PERSPECTIVES

only makes the unknown less foreign, but also “the familiar strange” (Hammond 55), as we will often hear when students say things like, “I grew up Christian and thought I knew my tradition, but boy does it look different now.”

To bring this worldview roundabout to a close, I want to add one final dimension that gives Religious Studies and all Harkness learning the best chance to wiggle and world.

When Zaretta Hammond describes culturally responsive classrooms as “sociocultural third spaces” (144), her vision takes a “liminal” turn. A category developed by Victor Turner for “betwixt and between” transitional times, liminality describes settings where different rules hold, to help identities break their old molds. Although classic examples include pilgrimage and traditional rites of passage, the atmosphere is comparable when Hammond speaks of creative places “for students to explore their individual and collective identities through different kinds of discourse” (144). Such a vision of young

people navigating their selfhood in a setting where diversity thrives goes a long way toward capturing the Harkness ideal after which all Lawrentians strive. Having lived in the liminal space of a Zen temple that believed in koanspurred Great Awakenings, it is hard not to believe we are doing some good in a world that needs fresh “worlding” big time. ∂ Works Cited Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. London, FontanaPress, 1993.

Hammond, Zaretta, and Yvette Jackson. Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Thousand Oaks, Corwin, a SAGE Company, 2015.

Prothero, Stephen. God is Not One:The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World. Harper Collins Publishers, 2010. *Martin Heidegger uses the “world worlds” phrase in his classic book, Being and Time; but in the spirit of Zen koan, we will let the words float and stake their claim, undefined.

“...figuring things out for themselves helps create enduring knowledge that sticks with the students beyond their time at Lawrenceville.�

PERSPECTIVES

15

Surrender.

It’s Their Trip.

JOHN HUGHES, DIRECTOR OF EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION

The student asks, “What bus do we need to take?”

“I’m not really sure,” says the teacher.

Scanning the displays of maps, advertisements, bus and train schedules, the student inquires again, “But where is the hotel located?”

The teacher shrugs.

“I’m not really sure.”

“Ok, what’s the conversion rate so I can account for the tickets?” asks the student.

Ambiguously, the teacher replies, “Perhaps someone else in the group can answer that for you.”

Reinforced, the student sets out to answer those questions.

E

ach year over one hundred Lawrentians venture beyond our gates through participation in our Harkness Travel Program. Traveling domestically and internationally, in urban, rural, and wilderness settings, they participate in powerful transformational learning experiences that will create essential understandings of themselves and of the world of which they are all integral parts.

Within the mode of our Harkness Travel Curriculum, students not only gain knowledge in the study of our curricular and cocurricular disciplines, but also gain “how-to” knowledge that amounts to essential life skills

“Traveling domestically and internationally, in urban, rural, and wilderness settings, they participate in powerful transformational learning experiences that will create essential understandings of themselves and of the world of which they are all integral parts.”

16

PERSPECTIVES

and sensibilities. Harkness Travel engages our students through real leadership contributions and serves to more effectively deliver program learning objectives than the traditional adultled travel model. Simply because Lawrenceville takes our students out of our campus houses and classrooms, does not mean that we abandon our House and Harkness mission in the field. In fact, we believe the Harkness Travel Program embodies the Lawrenceville mission by bringing both House and Harkness learning along with us.

Each program is led by three dedicated faculty members who share their expertise and commitment to mission as facilitators of our larger experiential learning objectives.

Lawrenceville’s travel focus, then, is not on leading our students through a place and telling them what to know, but rather on empowering them to make sense of the experience for themselves by turning their destination into a place-based classroom with opportunities to gain a deeper and broader

18

PERSPECTIVES

understanding of topical learning objectives through guided practice, reflection, and dialogue.

This process begins with the faculty planning the program of their dreams, and then allowing the students to adapt that plan into an experience of their own. The framework

and core itinerary still remains in the hands of the faculty planners, but after surveying the students with pointed questions about objectives, the ownership of the program is transferred to the students who research and share their personal interests with their peers in the field. Student leadership roles and

responsibilities, created during the pre-trip orientation process, rotate while in the field for a collaborative and empowered experience.

Whether it is a mathematics program studying Pythagoras on Samos in Greece, service learning in a sustainable community in Tanzania, a cultural tour of Eastern European cities to study the Cold War and Human Rights, or a wilderness expedition into the mountains of Nepal on a journey of comparative religious exploration, our faculty build the scaffolding for a great program. They also create tailored Program Readers/Journals and provide relevant resources for the group.

The Journals consist of maps, daily itineraries, readings, reflective questions, and space for writing–essentially the learning framework of the program.

Each student also selects a theme or topic to explore in-depth, based on their own related interests, researching and preparing a field lesson to share on the program. Often we find that our students present more detailed

and nuanced lessons with reflective Harkness questions that are even better received by our student colleagues than those offered by many of the local guides we employ. Truly, our students participate and contribute as active learners in program delivery itself.

Essential in this process is for faculty to step back and allow room for mistakes, even failures. Establishing student responsibility in the program personalizes the experience for every student. Leadership roles provide real transferrable learning opportunities as each student serves and receives feedback from the group. Ownership, commitment to the program’s success, and shared responsibility directly lead to engagement. An engaged student cohort is less likely to make bad-risk decisions.

This is where growth as a competent traveler begins to emerge. It is one thing for the adults to push and herd the group, keep them on task, direct them to the right destination, following typical roles of decision-

“We find that our students present more detailed and nuanced lessons with reflective Harkness questions that are even better received by their student colleagues than those offered by many of the local guides we employ.” makers and followers that are comfortable and familiar in many schools. It is quite another for the student leaders to decide when to get up and get moving for the day, when to break for meals and where to eat, what to pack for the day, what bus or train to catch, sometimes

PERSPECTIVES

19

even what to do on a given day – all in an effort to follow the outlined program itinerary.

Ultimately, mistakes are made and the reallife learning that comes from this process is essential to student growth.

Additionally, twice a day the Leader gathers the group in a place-based Harkness discussion of the day’s learning and group experience.

Often the leader or student teacher will use the time to deliver a presentation of a related curricular learning or provide the group with a reflective journal prompt. The faculty do have a voice in this process; only now it is as members of the group, sharing and redirecting as needed. Daily meetings allow for student reflection and analysis so that the group will grow as a “cooperative”. Announcements, check-ins, opportunities to praise, honest discussion of issues, and thematic dialogue are all included in the meeting. The routine helps structure the day and promotes a tighter bond that benefits understanding of the curriculum and learning objectives.

20

PERSPECTIVES

Finally, Harkness Travel benefits the overall risk-management of our programs. The increase of student leadership has translated into increased student buy-in to the program’s objectives and expectations. Adult leaders can focus more readily on the big picture of the program, delivering the larger learning objectives, maintaining safety awareness without being distracted by the details that

the students are now empowered to control, and intervening when necessary. In turn, it becomes a more rewarding experience for the adults, too.

For more information, video testimonials, and specifics of the Harkness Travel Curriculum, we invite you to visit: https:// mhanewald.wixsite.com/harknesstravel

10 Faculty Commandments for True Harkness Travel 1. Plan well, but know things won’t go as planned.

2. Once you’ve planned, surrender. It’s their trip.

3. Remember: One size doesn’t fit all.

4. Engage them with real decisions.

5. Give them the tools for success.

6. Be patient, and let them fail.

7. Keep daily Harkness meetings sacred.

8. Create good “ba”: the space, place, relationships for learning.

9. Facilitate. Don’t direct.

10. Trust the process.

“Ultimately, mistakes are made and the real-life learning that comes from this process is essential to student growth.�

PERSPECTIVES

21

Embracing Silence at the Harkness Table KATHERINE XIONG ’19

E

ven by freshman standards, my first year of Harkness was nothing short of a disaster. We emphasized our ideas by raising our voices.

No one ever stopped to cite the text. And through this chaos, my English teacher remained silent, patiently drawing and redrawing lines on our Harkness map as we interrupted, ignored, and steamrollered each other’s words.

Towards the end of spring term, he finally put his pencil down. “You’re literally shouting at each other,” he said. “If this is what you think of Harkness…” He trailed off. But we all heard the implicit criticism:You’re doing it wrong.

At the time, I blamed Harkness warriors— the people who interrupted others to say little to nothing of substance. But though they do cause major issues, I have realized that the true bane of good Harkness is the culture such warriors embody, one based on the notion that for Harkness to be productive, people can never stop talking. We were all participating in that culture that day, not just the warriors. We had been doing so all year.

Our attempts to avoid awkward pauses or breaks in conversation lie at the heart of students’ common frustrations: that discussions have become in-class regurgitations of textbook material or exercises in rephrasing ideas rather than generating new ones, more

“...I have realized that the true bane of good Harkness is the culture such warriors embody, one based on the notion that for Harkness to be productive, people can never stop talking. ”

focused on achieving the appearance of participation than on producing thoughtful responses. And those attempts underlie the discussions that jump from point to point without drawing satisfying conclusions, then dissolve into struggles for dominance. They underscore Lawrentians’ constant fight to be heard without having to listen—and to speak

24

PERSPECTIVES

without having to think.

In its purest form, Harkness should be a conversation, one that follows a conversation’s basic courtesies. It should be based primarily on listening and on taking the time to understand someone else’s words and to fully consider them before responding. It should include natural pauses after someone finishes

speaking. And it should make equal space for silence as it does for sound. Silence may feel awkward, but it means that people are thinking.

When these criteria are met, Harkness succeeds not only because students reach more interesting conclusions and better understandings of the texts they read, but also because students learn to frame their learning not as a competition, but as a synergistic enterprise that emphasizes intellectual generosity and respect. That understanding lies at the core of all academic pursuit—and at the heart of the effective leadership Harkness is designed to teach.

I realize now that the real issue we faced in freshman year was our failure to have respectful conversations, let alone respectful Harkness.

And as my English teacher realized, teachers alone cannot solve this problem. The solution, instead, must come from the students: It must start with us becoming more self-aware.

“Harkness should be...based primarily on listening and taking the time to understand someone else’s words....Silence may feel awkward, but it means that people are thinking.�

Students Changing Their Minds Together VICTORIA STITT, TEACHING FELLOW, 2016-2018 HARKNESS TEACHING COACH, LAWRENCEVILLE SUMMER SCHOLARS, 2018

L

ike most educators, I consistently return to moments in the classroom throughout any and every given day. I replay each exchange, and I question how I can teach better.

During my two years at Lawrenceville, I learned that the difficulty in teaching lies not in mastering the content (though that is important). Rather, the difficulty lies, first, in how one interacts with one’s students in an effort to foster trust and, then, in how one cultivates the opportunities for students to create strong relationships with one another.

Creating strong relationships in the classroom is crucial, for teaching and for learning.

Through Harkness, I’ve been able to

establish a more equitable classroom environment in which all relationships thrive.

When I first interviewed at the Lawrenceville School, I had not heard the term Harkness.Yet I had attended a school in which many teachers emphasized discussion-based, student-centered, and collaborative learning.

If you ask any teacher of Harkness, they will confirm that that is just what Harkness is. It’s learning together. It’s not about performance or ego, but about opening your mind to new ways of thinking and seeing. It’s about students changing their minds together.

I’m always impressed by that particular quality in students—their ability to acknowledge that their opinions have shifted.

“It’s not about performance or ego, but about opening your mind to new ways of thinking and seeing. It’s about students changing their minds together.”

26

PERSPECTIVES

PERSPECTIVES

27

There is something to say for the student who adheres to their interpretation of the text and will fight until the bell rings: “Nick is a phony!

Just like Gatsby!” And yet, it is the student who is so carefully engaged, so incredibly attentive to their peers, who recognizes and verbalizes the nuances in their peers’ opinions; it is the student who is genuinely trying to see their peers’ perspectives who finds ways to both synthesize others’ comments and complicate them.

When planning classes for Lawrenceville Summer Scholars, I went in with the goal to push my students to see through each other’s eyes, again with the intention to cultivate an equitable environment. As the Harkness Coach, I wanted to help other teachers to do the same. In a Harkness classroom, the teacher operates mainly as a facilitator. From crafting questions before class to changing the lesson plan to accommodate the unexpected turns the students take, Harkness teachers must be attuned to their students individually and

28

PERSPECTIVES

collectively. It is their duty to know when to step in and when to pull back; when to recognize and trust that a student will chime in and say precisely what it was that the teacher was planning to say—they merely took a detour to arrive at the conclusion that someone who has mastered the content would have arrived at years prior.

It is also Harkness teachers’ responsibility to guide students to recognize when they have contributed a bit too much, and when another hasn’t contributed enough. They do not merely bestow information upon their pupils. Rather, they scaffold students’ ability to think critically, to engage with material thoughtfully, to evaluate the ideas of their peers carefully, and to moderate their own participation so that there is a genuine and thoughtful sharing of

perspectives. Harkness teachers are facilitators of discovery, and this requires patience and insight.

When observing classes last summer as the Summer Scholars Program’s Harkness Coach, I found that Harkness looked different in each class. Classes in which the majority of students were 11 years old may not have gotten to the point at which students facilitate their own discussion.Yet, teachers found ways to push students in that direction. One teacher’s approach to establishing a student-centered and equitable classroom designated a different student each day to be the class’s homework moderator. Each student was at one point challenged to be the teacher. They stood up, asked one of their peers to answer a homework question, and after a student responded, the

“Harkness teachers are facilitators of discovery, and this requires patience and insight. ”

moderator would ask follow up questions: How did you approach answering that question? Why did you make X decision?

Another teacher wanted to break her students’ habit of raising their hands but also ensure that her students did not speak over one another, and she resolved to give her students a talking stick. In traditional Harkness fashion, she sat away from the Harkness Table and took notes. Her students flew solo with the talking stick, only talking when holding it and patiently waiting until the person holding it had finished speaking before raising a hand. After ten minutes of this somewhat tedious exercise, the teacher acknowledged that the students did a good job of listening to one another and she took the talking stick away to allow the conversation to flow more organically. These 11- and 12-year-olds gained momentum, remained focused, and began selfmoderating their participation.

To achieve the level of dexterity that Lawrentian seniors demonstrate, that the

teachers at Lawrenceville come to expect of their seniors, it is imperative that teachers scaffold carefully. Harkness, like all pedagogies, necessitates that a teacher meet their students where they are and challenge them, which is what these two teachers did. If there’s any one thing for teachers to gain from my experience this past summer, it’s that observing one’s colleagues is most illuminating. In the midst of observing, I often find myself already making adjustments to my own practice—already creating a lesson plan that echoes an innovative approach my colleagues have taken.

To cultivate a successful Harkness classroom, I’ve found feedback to be most instrumental.

Students learn Harkness skills most effectively when they are asked to focus on them consciously, and when teachers ask them to be metacognitive about their work. The teacher tells students where they are, where they could be, and how to get there. The essential student behaviors that teachers of Harkness look for when convening a class—and behaviors

that they follow up on with their students in the feedback that they give them—are their abilities to listen intently, to focus on the task at hand, to respond to peers, to challenge their peers, to challenge themselves, to change their minds and verbalize that change, and to lean into discomfort in order to grow.

This past summer merely reinforced my belief in the Harkness method, for students who learn in a Harkness classroom gain critical thinking skills, the ability to respond both logically and with emotional intellect, and how to exercise humility. Harkness doesn’t breed good performers. Rather, students learn to be their most authentic selves, selves that are thoughtfully prepared and open, in the classroom, and such authenticity extends well beyond the Harkness Table.

PERSPECTIVES

29

Seven Harkness Essentials PIER KOOISTRA, ENGLISH MASTER, HARKNESS CHAIR

30

PERSPECTIVES

T

his is my final year serving as Lawrenceville’s Master-Teaching Chair in Harkness Learning. Before I say anything else, I have three big, hearty thank-you’s to express: I’d like to thank the School’s leaders for granting me this amazing opportunity to dig deep into something about which I’m passionate.

I’d like to thank Christina Seix Dow and Bob Dow for the generous gift that supports Lawrenceville’s ongoing efforts to realize, with ever greater fullness and finesse, the mission of Harkness education.

And, of course, I’d like to thank my many partners through the years, the teaching colleagues, both here and elsewhere, the parents, and, of course, the students who in innumerable ways have helped me to do what Harkness is all about—to learn by teaming up, exchanging observations, tossing questions back and forth, sharing our provisional responses, then joining forces to subject these

responses to critical review…and practical, evidence-based improvement. Thank you all!

It’s been a lot of work but, in spiritual terms, a big, joyous party. And no party is complete without some presents. So—because people who know that soon I’ll hand off this wonderful work to someone else (to keep it going and growing, which, of course, is another thing that Harkness is about) keep asking, “What are the most important things you’ve learned in this job?”—here are my Seven Harkness Essentials, offered as parting gifts.

1: Harkness is, first and foremost, about listening.

It’s true that the participants in a shared learning enterprise have to speak up; that the process works only if, as they dive into studying something together (a text, a data set, a problem), the individuals involved venture their own particular first impressions,

questions, and preliminary experiences. But the purpose of having participants speak up is not, ultimately, to grant any of them an individual platform.

Yes, each person involved must contribute (otherwise, s/he’s not fully involved).Yes, all members of the group must “find and use their voices.” Yes, doing so is crucial to the development and fulfillment of each person. But what we’re about in the end are development and fulfillment made complete by learning how to produce better understandings through consulting with others.

To construct the fullest understandings of complex phenomena? One must learn to look, then look again; to posit hypotheses about what one is seeing, then subject such first inklings to rigorous testing. How can we design the best solutions to the challenges of which life is always full? Each of us must learn, through experience cultivated by operating in various collectives, to offer our own best first hunches about how to take on a problem.

Then we have to learn how to improve upon those hunches—to build outward and upward—by interacting with others and their best observations, questions, and ideas. After all, others always end up having noticed and wondered about details that haven’t registered— yet—with each individual in the group.

Now, how do we deal with the fact that in each group, at least at the start (if the people involved haven’t yet figured out how to achieve not only universal but equitable participation) there are always people with more clout and people with less? How do we deal with the fact that, at the start of any group

process that isn’t carefully managed, there are always first hunches and pet theories and priorities that get more attention? What can we do, as we set out to discover the truth—the whole truth and nothing but the truth—and, then, to design the best means by by which to optimize its positives and redress its negatives.

We can listen.

Yes, listen. Really listen. Not just to the inputs that resonate with our favorite points of view. To everything. Not just listen; consider.

Not just consider; explore. Not just explore; test. And as the results of our tests emerge, what should we do when those results don’t square with the answers we were hoping for?

Listen! Listen and adapt. In fact—based on fact—listen and adopt. So, first and foremost, if Harkness is to amount not just to a pretty, little exercise granting everyone a chance to blah, blah, blah, but a process yielding substantive educational and practical results, it must be based on real, disciplined listening. Keep this in mind: The first syllable in Harkness is Hark.

PERSPECTIVES

31

Listen! Listen and adapt. In fact, listen and adopt.

2: Harkness learning, when done right, constitutes a chance to practice collective critical thinking.

In a way, in what I’ve written above about listening, I’ve already acknowledged this. But I want to unpack the details a bit.

What is critical thinking? It is the process of subjecting our own thinking to systematic critical review. It requires asking a lot of questions: Are we on the right track? Are our founding premises accurate? Is our evidence reliable? How can we test it to answer that question definitively? Are our provisional conclusions logically sound? What about the questions we’re asking—are they, in fact, the right questions? Do these questions set us up to address all dimensions of the problem we’re trying to take on? By what process/es can we

32

PERSPECTIVES

get to the truth—the full, complicated truth?

What is this move?

The essence of critical thinking is a vitally important dispositional move: Learning to proceed not from an arrogant confidence based on “knowing” that “I’m right!” but, instead, from the humble position that “I’m wrong.

There must be ways in which I’m wrong.

What are they? How can I work with others to figure that out?” Once that becomes a person’s—and a group’s—starting place, real understanding becomes possible.

How do I know when my classes are really getting somewhere? When I start hearing sentences like this: “Hey, Svetlana, I’ve never thought about the problem from that angle.

What you’re saying doesn’t square with my experience at all. Would you please walk me through how you got there?” Or: “Wow, Josh!

That’s fascinating. So, what you’re saying is that I might be right with regard to A, B, and C. But I may, in fact, be wrong about X,Y, and Z, and that’s because I’ve neglected to factor

in L, M, N, O, P. Can you help me to see the details that I’ve not yet noticed, and to see the implications that you believe emerge from those details?”

I always find myself thinking, “Oh, baby!”

Why? Because I know we’re really thinking.

We’re really exploring. We’re scrutinizing the details. We’re putting our thoughts through the ringer. We’re not afraid, having worked so hard to get just this far, to discover that, in fact, we have way more work to do.

Now, why, when the group with which I’m toiling away has just identified a whole new array of tasks to perform, would I get excited? Because we’re now on the move— genuinely on the move—to forming, first, the critically designed means by which to get somewhere substantive and, then, the essential factual foundations from which to construct a properly vetted fuller, finer understanding of whatever we’re studying. And because I can see that the people with whom I’m working, like me, derive real joy from knowing that we’re

PERSPECTIVES

33

not just letting ourselves believe what we want to believe; we’re doing our work right and, as a result, gathering momentum in our quest to get closer to some crucial piece of the truth.

3: Harkness, then, is fundamentally about changing one’s mind.

It is about working with others, purposefully, doggedly, joyfully, to use the preliminary impressions and findings of a collective—the findings developed through conscientious acts of individual preparation—to help the group to get further. In a properly functioning Harkness learning environment, one doesn’t come to class to defend one’s first impressions, to win a debate by battling to the death to advocate for one’s own take on the data, as developed through doing homework. One comes to class to use such first impressions as springboards from which to make important conceptual leaps.

34

PERSPECTIVES

Of course, one shouldn’t—one mustn’t— engage in changing one’s mind casually. One shouldn’t change one’s mind because Mitsuka over there is more popular, and it would be great to acquire a little social capital by aligning myself with her. One shouldn’t change one’s position because doing so fits better with the questions that the teacher has been asking—questions that seem to imply a certain preferred outcome. One shouldn’t change one’s mind because…well, because this is all so tiring. One should adopt new conclusions because these conclusions align with the facts—with all of the facts.

4: Harkness has a twin: Diversity.

The world of magazines, newspapers, scholarly journals, and TV news shows is teeming at the moment with claims about the capacity of more diverse groups to produce better understanding and, from it, wiser, more effective business plans and public policy. Most

of these claims are grounded in excellent— i.e., responsibly undertaken, facts-based— research.

Lawrenceville, through the past few decades, with accelerating determination and impact since the turn of the millennium, has been working remarkably hard to set up the school community to take advantage of the power of diversity. I see this power in action every day.

I’m in my fifteenth year at the school. When I first arrived, in 2004, I was struck by the social richness of this wonderful place, with faculty and students from all over the US and the world. I was also, to be frank, struck at that time by the relative homogeneity of the school, as compared to my then-even-morediverse prior institution. We had people here from all over the place, and from so many different walks of life. We had people from all kinds of distinct faith traditions and a host of ideological backgrounds. But not all of these people felt, in the L’ville environment of 2004, entirely comfortable—let alone invited,

entitled—to speak wholeheartedly from and of their experience.

Change is never easy. Even for an individual who wants to change, constructing new forming new habits, whether of mind or body, is immensely challenging. For groups, with their complex moving parts—their dynamic human parts—change is even harder. But as I do my work, I watch the groups of which I’m lucky to be a part change every single day, especially in the classroom, where our students pour themselves into the changing that is essential to growing. And as they do this work, I can see, with crystal clarity, the urgent importance—in fact, the absolute necessity—of leaning on our social complexity in order to arrive at fuller, finer understanding.

Remember: One of the fundamentals of Harkness learning—and of any true education—is learning to change one’s mind, to align one’s understanding with the facts, all of the facts. While difficult, this is easier to do in the company of people whose distinct

experiences grant us a wider variety of angles from which to look at the problems we’re confronting and the facts at our disposal.

5: Diversity, in order to be optimally impactful, must be partners with genuine Inclusion and Care.

We’ve all watched war movies in which Sal from the Bronx and Ernie from Oklahoma get blown away by incoming grenades because they can’t cooperate long enough to make good use of the intel coming in over the radio…while, in the next foxhole over, Wotan from St. Cloud and Joey from Philly escape near-certain oblivion by teaming up to concoct a brilliant diversion and, then, an escape plan.

Harkness can’t work its most powerful magic if we just throw people together, coach them on the technical procedures most conducive to responsible idea-making, and hope for the best. Harkness really works when

it’s embedded in a community. It works when the people interacting with one another and with one another’s contributions have—and feel—a clear stake in one another’s wellbeing.

Harkenss works best, generating a massive surge in productive outcomes, when the people who are teaming up really care for one another; when they don’t hope, merely in a vague, idle way that their neighbors are ok; when, instead, they not only take in one another’s thinking but take on one another’s hopes and fears, personal goals and needs; when, in fact, they get actively involved in supporting one another through the real-life challenges that all of this thinking-together is intended to help us to address more effectively.

These, of course, are among the reasons why we’re about House and Harkness, why these two ways of organizing our community need to work—and work best—hand in hand. Or maybe I should say: Heart to heart, while holding hands.

PERSPECTIVES

35

36

PERSPECTIVES

6: Full, active participation can’t be optional.

No individual student in a Harkness classroom can be said, properly, to “take a course.” A Harkness class, when properly convened, is a team, and its members, when operating effectively, make a course, together.

Everybody has to contribute. One isn’t making an adequate contribution by engaging only in listening. One must listen. One can’t participate responsibly without listening, and listening carefully. But listening isn’t enough.

Each member of a learning group must take the social and emotional risks involved in putting one’s thinking out there, in sharing the elements of one’s prior experience that influence that thinking.

The people enrolled in a dance class can’t function as students if they’re not studying dance. And they can’t study dance in such a way that they actually learn to do it—and do it better—if they’re merely watching others

dance. They’ve got to get into the activity.

They’ve got to put themselves on the inside of what it means to think about movement, then labor at figuring out how to execute—and improve upon—ideas about movement.

The people enrolled in a swimming class can’t learn to swim by sunning themselves on the grass near the pool deck. They’ve got to get in the water. They don’t have to plunge into the deep end at first. It’s fine—in fact, it may be wisest and most productive—for them to cling to the edge of the pool early on. It’s fine—in fact, eminently reasonable—for the student of swimming to practice various skills essential to swimming in isolation, and for the swimming teacher to encourage this more manageable approach to learning a complex process.

By extension, it’s fine for students to learn to “dance” or “swim” in a Harkness context by means of a method of incremental development. But they must be developing.

And to be developing, they must be

participating, and planning to build upward and outward in their practice and application of the skills essential to effective dialogical inquiry.

7: Not only is it acceptable for the teacher to guide a Harkness learning venture; such guidance, especially in the early stages of our students’ education, is essential to success.

The ultimate goal of a Harkness educator is to get almost completely out of the way, to yield the time and the floor in class to students so that they can team up to figure out how to express and explain—and then respond to— even the most complex phenomena on their own. Many of my best classes, especially the ones involving seniors, are the ones in which I’ve tasked a small group of students with leading, I’ve trained them in how to lead, and

PERSPECTIVES

37

I get out of the way to facilitate the process of critical interchange. In those classes, often my only immediately visible contribution is to say to the day’s leaders, “Well, guys, you ready?”

And then I hand things over.

Having handed things over, what am I doing? I’m furiously scribbling notes, trying to capture the students’ most productive moves, trying to track their prevailing intellectual patterns, both individually and collectively.

Having scribbled these notes, what do I do next? I send a lot of emails and memos that, first, affirm the students’ best moves and, then, identify for them next steps to take in learning how to develop even more sophisticated thinking by reading more closely and speaking and listening more carefully.

Obviously, students, even from the finest schools, don’t arrive here ready to lead classes entirely on their own and, in doing so, to produce properly sophisticated understanding of complex phenomena. So, how do we get them there? This question makes clear why

38

PERSPECTIVES

it’s perfectly fine, in fact necessary, for students in a Harkness school (a school ultimately about teachers’ getting out of the way so that students can take over) to spend some portion of their time here getting direct instruction in how to think—and think well, responsibly— for themselves.

So, at first, we teachers often convene Socratic dialogues. We ask lots of questions. We guide our students towards synthesizing the details our questions have elicited. We guide the students, then, towards forming properly assembled conclusions that acknowledge the implications of all of those details. But then, rather than continuing to play this particular facilitating role, we reveal to the students what kinds of questions we ask, and we hand the question-asking over to them, and then we watch—and feed back—so that they can learn how to do this work autonomously.

“What does it all boil down to? Or, rather, build up to? We live together to open our minds. We learn together to change them.

If we do these things, and learn to do them well?

We can work together to change the world for the better.”