"Moving the Table" from The Exeter Bulletin, Spring 2009

Students in Exeter's Mexico term-abroad program

In the span of one month, Aida Conroy ’09 has gone from being an only child to having two younger brothers. She walks them home every day after school and sometimes spoils them with candy. She’s also gotten pretty good haggling at the local market, and can usually cut the price for an item she wants in half. Conroy, who was once unable to identify Taichung on a map, can now navigate the maze of streets in Taiwan’s third-largest city with ease.

She thinks entirely in Chinese, too, and what she thinks is that her time in Asia has been better than she had ever expected.

A year before Conroy began her senior winter term in Taichung, she was an upper sitting in the Elm Street Dining Hall eating brunch and listening to another student regale her with stories from his fall term in Grenoble, France. His enthusiasm was infectious and his declaration that being overseas had yielded experiences that could not be found around a Harkness table was hard to ignore. Conroy knew what she had to do, and she recruited Cal Holt ’09 to help.

“Chinese has always been one of my favorite subjects,” Conroy says, “but four hours a week never felt like enough. When you go abroad, you learn more than just new vocabulary, you learn new customs and traditions.”

Conroy and Holt met with Ming Fontaine P’01, P’04, P’06, Chinese instructor; Vicki Baggia P’91, P’92, P’03, chair of the Modern Languages Department; and Ron Kim, associate dean of faculty, and asked that the Academy establish a new winter term-abroad program in a Chinese-speaking country. “When we hit dead ends, we would all go right back to the drawing board,” says Conroy. “We were also in constant contact with other students who were considering a term abroad in a Chinese-speaking country. We [acted] as their voice when meeting with the faculty. What impressed me most was how supportive the faculty were of the program. Only at Exeter would I have been able to make my dream of going abroad a reality in [less than] a year.”

So Conroy got the chance to immerse herself in Taiwanese culture, live with a host family and take classes at Providence University. She has become a connoisseur of the local food, buying dishes from street vendors and bubble tea at teashops. She studies hard during the week, but much of her learning often occurs during weekend trips to places like Hong Kong, or by reading Chinese books to kindergartners at the local school near her Taichung home.

Conroy’s experiences in Taiwan are not unlike those of other Exonians who have traveled to France, England, Ireland, Mexico, the Bahamas, or even Vermont for a fall or winter term away from campus. Exeter’s many off-campus and term-abroad locations give students the ability to bring the spirit of Harkness on the road and overseas. During those two to three months, they become fluent in a language, assist people with disabilities, or learn to harvest trees and use them for fuel. What follows are reflective moments written by students, alumni/ae and faculty about their journeys, and what they learned along the way.

LESSONS
There are lessons to be found in books and in conversations around a table. Then, there is the learning that occurs by being in new places: events that inform our thinking about others and ourselves. These experiences enrich our discussions when we return to the table, and often influence the paths we choose to take afterward.

There are moments in life that hold the possibility to change the way you look at the world, to change your perceptions of humanity, to change your mind. But there is a specific moment that can change your life. In that moment, you recognize not only do you love the people around you for what they are, but also that they are the same as you. You no longer see a difference between the able and the disabled. In that moment, your love for the community becomes even greater as you appreciate and learn from everyone’s varying abilities and struggles. Peter [an emotionally disturbed man] taught me to create love from misunderstandings, shouts, tears, and simple smiles. Peter taught me how to create love from dysfunction, and to share it with the one person who wants it the least and needs it the most.
—Jacqueline Story Stephenson ’06, Ballytobin in Callan, Ireland, 2006

By living in Mexico for two months, there are many things I could not learn any other way. For example, you learn more about how Mexicans understand life, you get introduced to their gastronomy, you can understand more about what the pre-Hispanic culture means to them, you learn a good deal of slang, etc. Then, later in the classroom, when I need to talk about Mexico, I won’t be talking from the books, but from real experience. My students, I hope, will get that.
—Fermín Pérez-Andreu, Spanish instructor and resident director of the 2009 Cuernavaca, Mexico, program

I return to Taiwan with students almost every year [for the summer program], but Taiwan changes so rapidly that I feel I have so much to learn every time I come! I hope to learn more traditional ways that Chinese people celebrate New Year and worship their ancestors while I am here.
—Ming Fontaine, resident director of the 2009 Taichung, Taiwan, program

Grenoble definitely changed me. I became fluent in a second language, which has driven what I want to become. Since my senior fall, I have learned another language (Spanish) and plan to learn even more. Grenoble taught me that with as much immersion as possible, you can learn so much more about a place than just its language. Getting a full understanding of another culture showed me that I have the chance to do that over and over again in my life. Grenoble was just the start!
—Lauren Argenti ’07, Grenoble, France, 2006

Here in Ireland, the competitive spirit that is so present in the Harkness classroom is gone—and apart from the reading we do for our tutorials, none of the things we do in our daily life we do simply for the sake of studying. The chores we do are not necessarily enjoyable at all times, but it is still serving a purpose that is far more useful, I would say, than memorizing historical facts or dates. The learning here is part of the living, and it is through the cooperation with Christina LaSala ’07, with the co-workers, and with the people in care here that I am learning every waking moment of the day.
—Justin de Benedictis-Kessner ’07, Ballytobin in Callan, Ireland, 2007

COMMUNITY
Non sibi and Harkness exist beyond the Academy grounds, wherever individuals have chosen to form a community and live, work and learn together. It could be on a woodlot tucked in the green hills of Vermont, or at an arts center in Ireland where the able and disabled are labeled only as equals. It could even be on a tennis court in eastern France.

The Mountain School is unique in the respect that there are only 45 students per semester. Add to that the 15 or so faculty and their families, and you’ve got a community of about 60 people. During my time there, I not only grew to love the fields, the sheep, the streams, and the sugar maples, but those 60 people as well. Most of those whom I imagine will be my lifelong friends were part of my semester at the Mountain School. In my experience, the bond that you forge with someone can be stronger because it originated during a mid-afternoon hike on snowy trails, or because that person offered to help you feed the outdoor wood furnace on a particularly chilly Vermont evening.
—Joe Harmon ’08, Milton Mountain School 2007

Once a week, I’d go out after lunch with nine students to cut down trees for firewood. In winter, we’d put on snowshoes and long underwear. In spring, we’d put on rain jackets. The kids got better and better with their axes, and with the hard work of sawing logs to burnable lengths. We’d pile up the wood in stacks and watch each week as the piles grew. It was incredibly satisfying to know that we were helping to heat our dorms and buildings. I remember teaching class after wood crew and always having little pieces of sawdust falling off me. It made me really happy.
—Jim DiCarlo, instructor in science and former Mountain School resident faculty member

I really enjoyed the opportunities we had to connect with [teachers] on a personal level. We had the chance to visit all of their homes, and we even prepared and ate meals with their families. I had the unique opportunity, I should note, to play tennis on a weekly basis with our Art History instructor. At the time, I was 17. He was 76. Better yet, when he wanted to give me more of a challenge, he brought his friend so we could play doubles. His friend was 80.
—Conor Flynn ’08, Grenoble, France, 2007

There is something about being in a different country, outside the American frame of mind, as well as being outside the general frame of an education, that is impossible to get while at Exeter. In Ireland, there were no classrooms. The mentality of the Harkness table was there in the ‘real-life’ interactions that took place every day. The way that decisions were made for the community suggested the collective discussion atmosphere of an Exeter classroom. No one person made the decisions, and each person was recognized for their input and opinion. It took leaving the Exeter classroom to really see how the Harkness mentality can be applied to life. Being in Ireland made me realize how beyond an education the Exeter [experience] is—it’s learning for that “real world” everyone talks about all the time.
—Justin de Benedictis-Kessner

FOOD AND FAMILY
Food has long been considered a universal language, one where flavors and eating rituals speak for the history and customs of a particular place. Eating is also inherently social, a natural strengthener of the bonds between family and friends.

I have been saturated with Mexican culture. I really love it here, even though it’s completely different from living at home. Before coming here, I was actually pretty nervous about the food choices. I’ve never been a huge burrito or taco fan, so I came here with the idea that I really wouldn’t enjoy the food. It turns out I love everything about Mexican food. I haven’t tried one thing [that] I haven’t craved to have a second time. My personal favorites are the green enchiladas that my [host] mother makes and this chocolate cake with a layer of flan on top. The last time she made both, I was at her side writing down every detail of what she was doing and what ingredients she was using. I want to be able to bring the food back home with me!
—Elara Mosquera ’09, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 2009

The people here take great time and care in the preparation of the food, and it shows. The food is almost always tasty and fresh. Every day during lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day, my Mexican [host] family gathers to eat and talk for hours. It’s a great testament to their commitment to both food and each other.
—Jeannette Moon ’09, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 2009

Our students took part in a series of cooking classes, offered by Marie-Pierre Nougier, wife of Jean-Pierre, one of our language teachers. Students met in groups of four at the Nougiers’ home for half-day sessions on French cuisine. In just a few hours, they would prepare an entire, elaborate menu, and then sit down and share the delectable meal they had created. Recipes included classic and local specialties such as pommes dauphines, salade aux noix and tarte tatin. The homey conviviality of these get-togethers was as memorable as the irresistible culinary treats consumed during the lessons.
—Kitty Fair, French instructor and resident director of the Grenoble program 2005–06, 2006–07

What I will remember most is the importance of family that my French [host] family taught me. They made a point to eat dinner together every night, spend time together on the weekends, and generally be there for each other as much as possible. After having lived at a boarding school for three-and-a-half years, I had missed this closeness of family. Even though the McConnell [Hall] faculty and my friends were like a family, it was nice living in a house with [host] parents for a term of high school.
—Lauren Argenti

Interested in learning more?

Read the article as it appeared in the magazine...

Check out other articles from The Exeter Bulletin, Spring 2009...

Read about Exeter's off-campus programs...