Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

travelled to New Hampshire to attend a five-day conference on Harkness learning hosted by the Philips Exeter Humanities Institute. The Harkness method is used to foster probing conversations driven by student questions and observations. For Dr. Reuter, a Latin and philosophy teacher at Havergal since 2002, the experience was a revelation. In the article titled “What’s So Revolutionary About Harkness Teaching?” that he contributed to A Classroom Revolution: Reflections on Harkness Learning and Teaching 28 , he explained that  … education, as its etymology suggests, is the act of drawing out or leading out, and the etymology of conversation is the act of turning together to face each other. If you grant, as the Platonists insist, that understanding cannot be taught, then conversation or dialogue is the natural consequence. We need to turn to face another and draw out one another to see if we really and truly have a shared understanding. The “meeting of minds,” a “shared understanding,” can only take place in the shared space of dialogue … Cicero claims that this type of conversation actually transforms human beings from being disparate, random, and fragmented collections of persons (a cultural mosaic gone mad) and brings them together into a unity and harmony that leads to human culture.  The first Harkness table arrived at Havergal in 2008, and there are now five in the Upper School. The table symbolizes the learning experience: the participants sit as equals, and it is easy for them to “turn to” one another as they wrestle with questions for which there may not be one right answer. Speaking of the teacher’s place at the table, Dr. Reuter observed that “[t]hrough dialogue you discover the Socratic common ground. You learn where students are. That’s where enquiry begins. Then, together you move into the terra incognito, into uncharted lands.” He also explained that

Creating, Connecting and Exploring Suzanne Bowness,  Torch , Spring 2017 “Laura McRae, Chair of Teaching and

Learning, ‘notes that a focus on thinking can be one of the best ways to challenge students. ‘One of my students said that you can always do the knowledge piece, you can always do more research and you can always check your commas. But thinking—you never know when you start and you never know exactly when you stop. That makes it both the scariest and the most exciting part of any project because it’s what gives you the most excitement, yet it’s the part where you feel the most exposed.’”

“Creating, Connecting and Exploring” Torch , Spring 2017

lives of those around the world can’t be addressed from only one stance. For example, our Grade 12 students are asked to understand and explain the Rwandan genocide. That requires several lines of inquiry—legal, historical, cultural, political. It’s not a single-perspective issue. Very little in our world can be well understood through a single lens. One such framework is Learning Through Dialogue, two fine examples of which are Harkness Learning in the Upper School and learning conversations in the Junior School. Traditional classrooms have featured the teacher as “the sage on the stage,” and, of course, a lecture format is still useful when students require a solid knowledge base. However, when the primary goal is teaching for understanding, the teacher is more effective when she or he is “the guide by the side,” one who facilitates meaningful learning conversations. In 2006, four Upper School teachers, Lindsay Norberg, Alistair Macrae, Mark Reuter and David Sumner,

108  HAVERGAL COLLEGE