During a discussion with William
Buckley on Buckley’s Firing Line
program in 1988 Mortimer Adler said, “When the great books are well taught in a
seminar, they are not taught as antiquities, they are not taught as objects of
art, they are taught as raising moral and political and human problems which
are just as pressing today as when they were written.” Adler, one of the
founders of the Great Books movement in the United States, and a promoter of
the Paideia projects, was a tireless proponent of reading and discussing the
great books of Western civilization. And while this search for meaning and
understanding lacked a commitment to the foundational truth of the Christian
faith, it has been an inspiration to many teachers whose own education, they
have discovered, was woefully insufficient. Interestingly, at the same time
Adler was helping to bring the great books seminar back to American
universities in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the philanthropist Edward Harkness
donated $5.9 million to Philips Exeter Academy in New
Hampshire to fund a new seminar-approach to teaching and learning at the
secondary level. The Harkness method and the Harkness table, named for Mr.
Harkness and the teaching method he promoted, has emphasized the discussion of
books and ideas around specially-designed tables in a growing number of schools
ever since.
At Veritas School, Harkness
discussions, used mainly (though not exclusively) in high school classes, are
content-focused and teacher-led, but student-centered. That is, the students
carry the load of learning how to ask, and of discussing, the questions raised
by the content they are studying, whether this is Paradise Lost or a topic in ancient history. We’ve been most
successful in implementing Harkness discussions in high school humanities
classes—Humane Letters, Rhetoric, Theology—but the principles are being applied
in languages, math and science classes, as well. (Middle-school level and
elementary teachers have also successfully integrated beginning discussions
using materials such as Teaching the
Classics.) Student-driven but content-rich and teacher-led discussions of
books and ideas are particularly well suited to classical and Christian
schools, where the emphasis is on older students evaluating ideas and
presenting their understanding to others clearly and persuasively, and,
ultimately, taking responsibility for their own education.
Of course, there was nothing really
new in either Adler’s seminars or in the Harkness method of teaching. Excellent
teachers have always discussed ideas with their students, requiring the
students, as they are able, to increasingly do the heavy lifting, as the
teacher questioned, encouraged, led the discussion. Students in our discussions
are all expected to be able to articulate their understanding, and to ask
questions both of the text and of each other. There is no hiding in a good
seminar discussion—careful preparation and a thoughtful search for truth are
critical. Ideally, these discussions occur around an oval-shaped table where
all students can see and interact with each other. Since the architecture of a
place (and a classroom in no exception) significantly impacts what goes on in
it, we are working to provide more of these tables for our classrooms.
Having students in rows is more
efficient for certain tasks—organization, individual work, teacher access to
students, group instruction—but the arrangement of the classroom environment
highly influences intellectual habits and routines. The furniture becomes the
lesson. The teacher speaking in front becomes the focus and the learning tends
to flow one way, and the message to students is that efficient organization and
passive compliance are what is really important. An excellent teacher, of course,
will find ways to engage students whatever the arrangement. And there are times
when a teacher needs to be at the
center of the intellectual and organizational action in the classroom. However,
if the teacher (rather than the student working with the content) is always at
the center, then what may be the most important lesson students learn is that
learning is directed by someone else, that it is something done for them, or to them, depending on their enthusiasm
for it. Once away from this classroom they may find that learning is something
they’re just not interested in or aren’t sure how to do on their own.
It’s important to note, however,
that we don’t approach discussions as a kind of free-for-all sharing time
during which anything goes. Rather, teachers guide students to prepare
thoroughly and then discuss carefully and thoughtfully, applying both their
content knowledge and their biblical worldview to the problems raised. But the
bulk of the work in the discussion is placed squarely where it should be—on the
students. This requires consistent
training, for students and for teachers, in learning how to ask effective
questions, what kinds of responses are most likely to get to meaning, even how
to conduct a civil discussion. But the pay-off is rich, especially for those of
us who teach older students. For example, in one of our last class periods of
this school year, my 11th grade Humane Letters class (all 18 of
them) sat around our lone (for now) Harkness table and conducted a
forty-five-minute challenging and thoughtful summary discussion of Gene Edward
Veith’s Postmodern Times. They asked
questions about the meaning of passages and the truth of the concepts, made
connections to previous learning, and encouraged reluctant speakers to be more
involved. My entire contribution amounted to two questions. Of course, it has
taken three years of practice and training to get to this point, and it isn’t
necessarily the ideal that the teacher would be so minimally involved—sometimes
the teacher participates significantly, correcting misperceptions, adding
connections to previous learning, even turning the discussion into a
presentation, as needed. The point is that the seminar discussions have helped
students reach a point where their education is largely their own. All
education is essentially self-education, and the Harkness method requires
students to make significant steps in their learning.
This emphasis on student
responsibility in the discussion, by the way, is where we think our discussions
deviate from ‘socratic’ ones, at least as that term is often applied. In some
versions of the Socratic discussion the teacher, through a series of questions,
leads the students inevitably to the truth; when it’s all over the students may
be justifiably impressed at the wisdom and ability of the teacher, but may have
very little idea of how they arrived where they did. Certainly they would be
frequently unable to recreate the journey. In a Harkness discussion, the
students are not following; they are required to help lead. This active
engagement means that the students take more ownership of their learning, the
result being that understanding is more fixed in their minds. These discussions
are an outstanding method of checking for understanding, and provide students with
instant and descriptive feedback on their ideas, as other students either
confirm or challenge them. And, of course, the teacher will offer corrective or
encouraging comments, as needed. One of the unexpected benefits I have seen is
that retention of understanding of the topics from our discussions is much better than when we used to merely ‘go
over’ or even ‘discuss’ together in other ways. Harkness discussions require
deep engagement and direct participation with the material in ways that lead to
greater long-term retention. This helps most students make connections to
previous learning very naturally, and others can be taught to do so.
Highly-engaged student discussions,
with students required to not only answer questions but ask them, not only
respond to teacher leading but to lead, develop in students a capacity for
thoughtful, careful understanding of the text or subject at hand. Students
improve their skills in presenting ideas effectively, but also in interacting
with the ideas of others in a way that is collegial and respectful. The
rhetoric stage does not always have to be about confronting and defeating
error. It can be also be about working together in the search for, and
application of, the truth of scripture in all areas of life. Harkness discussions
provide students with wonderful opportunities to do all of this.