Opinions, Not Feelings
Upper Meredith Coogan says, "Junior Studies is the one class where you have to learn how to do Harkness. You can't rely on older students or people who have been at Exeter for a while." Prep Susan MacDougall, who is in a Junior Studies section taught by Bill Hagen, says it hasn't taken long for her class to get the hang of it though. "In the beginning the discussions were really awkward — long silences, everyone looking at Mr. Hagen — but now they are great." When those great discussions begin to take place, English teacher Ralph Sneeden says he stops his classes to point out exemplary exchanges between students. Learning what Exeter teachers expect of students, "what they are looking for," is one of the most important benefits of Junior Studies says senior Maribel Hernandez. Standing Up Against the Odds While learning the art of Harkness table discussion is central to the goals of Junior Studies, it is by no means the only skill students need to learn. The course is broken into three classroom units and one library unit and is organized around the theme of "the individual standing up against the odds." This year, the "individuals" include Vietnam War Memorial designer Maya Lin, Antarctica explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, and astronomer and physicist Galileo. The field trip to the ropes course, about midway through the term, corresponded with their reading of The Endurance about Shackleton's heroic survival and rescue, while attempting to reach the South Pole.  "The 'odds' takes on a different definition with each unit, so students come to see the central theme as an evolving metaphor," says Bill Hagen. "Maya Lin was not only going against the hawkish conservative sentiment of her time, she also went against the tradition of memorial design in Western culture — she shifted the paradigm. Shackleton, by contrast, united a group of men against the forces of nature to survive. Galileo struggled against the forces of human nature — in this case fear of displacement from the center of God's creation — to tell a wider truth. I hope our preps see the relativity of belief systems and that the best systems emerge from group consensus like the experience of the Harkness classroom." Using the thread of the individual against the odds, the Junior Studies curriculum encompasses study of literature, art, history, science, and religion. Exploring the material across disciplines is a key attribute of the course, one that makes it innovative in secondary school curricula, says Aquilino. "Some educators say high-school-age students are too young for an interdisciplinary approach, but brain research shows just the opposite. When you see students making connections between the material we're studying and what they are learning in their history classes, that's when it really gets exciting. Collaborating across disciplines with my colleagues in other departments, pushing the envelope in ways we might not in our own disciplines, that's what has kept the course innovative even after 10 years."
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Religion instructor Jamie Hamilton says, "We are trying to teach students that what they feel about what we are studying is not the same as having an opinion. It is a huge leap for them to form an opinion based on evidence — huge." Hamilton says as significant as that leap is, it is still only part of the challenge for students. "They also have to learn that class is not just about coming to share one's own opinion. It is collaborative. They should leave class with points in mind that are different from the ones with which they came." 
Lixian Hantover says that in her previous school she "never even had the chance to hear other people's opinions. We simply handed papers in to our teachers. The discussions we did have were about issues everyone agreed on, not the controversial topics we study here." Addie Aquilino says seeing this transformation in new students is one of the greatest thrills of teaching. "You see the 'ahs' go around the table when a student learns something from another student, something they hadn't thought of. They figure out it is not a matter of smarter, but of different perspectives. We're teaching them to deal with ambiguity."
In addition to learning to support oral arguments at the Harkness table, students learn to think, read, and write critically. Students are given guidelines for reading different kinds of texts from short stories to academic journal articles. Throughout the course they receive several assignments which give them practice in different forms of writing-descriptive, narrative, argument papers using evidence, and lab reports. Aquilino says in recent years, the faculty has also added assignments which enable students to develop their "critical eye" as well. For instance, while studying Maya Lin, students were asked to draw the Korean/Vietnam memorial on campus and the World War I memorial in town. In class, they then interpreted the symbolism of these memorials and gave visual evidence for their interpretations.