The Amazing Harkness Philosophy

What is Harkness?

You could say it's a table, oval, with enough room to seat 12 students and a teacher…

Or you could describe its impact: "The respect we feel for one another grows out of being together at the Harkness table and extends to every aspect of our lives here," Tyler Tingley, Principal

And it's more …

It's a way of learning: everyone comes to class prepared to share, discuss, and discover, whether the subject is a novel by William Faulkner or atomic and molecular structure. There are no lectures.

It's a way of being: interacting with other minds, listening carefully, speaking respectfully, accepting new ideas and questioning old ones, using new knowledge, and enjoying the richness of human interaction. You see the Harkness philosophy played out on our dorms, in our theater productions, on our playing fields. It's fun, it's exhilarating, it’s the way to be.

It's how you learn to love learning: listen to what students and teachers have to say about Harkness …

So why is it called Harkness? It all started with a man…

"To question things that are in doubt is easy. But to question the unquestionable is what's really hard. And that is what I've learned to do at Exeter: to question things, no matter how obvious they are and to know that until we know why, we don't really know anything at all." – Jina, ‘08

Visit a Harkness Table on Video

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