What is Harkness?

Recently, CVU's 10th and 11th grade Harkness Building Coaches traveled to Harwood Union High School to participate in Harkness discussions with their counterparts at that school. The pictures below show a trust-building warm-up activity and then discussions completely led by students. In particular, CVU and Harwood 11th graders - who have a bit more training than the 10th graders - facilitated the discussions for the 10th graders. As is typical in high-quality Harkness, all the teachers had to do was sit back and observe. Magic only begins to describe it.

CVU will host Harwood's Harkness Building Coaches for a similar summit on Thursday, December 14.

We asked Brad Miller, a CVU social studies teacher to help our community learn more about Harkness. Here are his responses in a question/answer format. Thank you for your leadership on this valuable work, Brad! 

What is Harkness?

The Harkness Method began in 1930 at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH, and is still their primary mode of instruction today. It has since become very popular in the private school world, in large part due to Exeter’s renown.

In short, The Harkness Method asks that students be responsible for their own learning. Instead of the teacher being the sole deliverer of content, students are taught to engage with each other using the tools of civil discourse, taught to engage with content through annotation and questioning, and then taught to make sense of that content together ‘at the table’ (pictured above) using those tools of civil discourse. The teacher’s role is more to steer discussion and collaboration towards key understandings rather than leading them to those understandings through lectures.

Does Harkness at CVU look the same as Harkness in private school?

No. CVU - or any public school - can’t replicate the private school model. Instead, we teach a Harkness curriculum that operates within our capacity. We use highly scaffolded steps to bring our students ‘to the table,’ so to speak. While our version takes more time and has more steps, many CVU students at this very moment are skilled enough that they could sit down at the table with Exeter students and you wouldn’t notice a difference.

What’s the difference between a Harkness discussion and a Socratic Seminar?

Think of Socratic Seminar as one of the final steps along the Harkness process. Socratic Seminar is a discussion in which the teacher comes prepared with questions for the students to answer in order to achieve an understanding about content. Harkness pushes one step past that and instead asks the students to be the ones preparing questions. They would then engage each other in discussion, with the teacher there to provide direction and quality control.

Are Harkness discussions just freewheeling, dorm room-style riff sessions?

No. Successful Harkness teachers prepare vigilantly beforehand to make sure that their discussions are ones in which there aren’t interruptions, there is clear direction, content is the driver, and every voice matters. A student won’t be successful at Harkness simply by talking the most. The quality of their comments and their active listening are more important than their ability to talk a lot.

Is Harkness just meant for the Humanities classroom?

No, but Harkness does look different in different disciplines. For example, it’s totally reasonable for Humanities teachers to expect their students to be able to sit in circles of 10-12 and have discussions about content. That might not be applicable to, say, a math or science classroom. Instead, in that context, Harkness might look like groups of 4-6 collaborating on problems or labs. One is not more valuable than the other, especially since the same skills of civil discourse can be taught and assessed. The teacher’s goals, how students reflect, and what’s being assessed are all potential commonalities between Harkness in different disciplines at CVU.

What’s the difference between Harkness and a debate?

Harkness isn’t a setting in which students seek to ‘win’ or ‘own’ each other, as they might say. It’s a setting in which students are asked to unpack complex content together through civil discourse. Sure, disagreement is a natural part of Harkness, but ‘winning’ is not something that’s prized within the pedagogy. Perhaps a teacher might use a Harkness discussion to help their students prepare for a debate.

What's the current status of Harkness at CVU? 

An after school class to help educators learn about Harkness is now in its third year and I’m proud to say that my co-teacher, Kathy Cadwell, (from Harwood) and I have trained 27 CVU teachers in the Harkness Method. Over and over again, I have seen that Harkness allows students to be heard, to take risks, and to experience a much more equitable version of classroom discussion than I had used in the past.

How many CVU students have been trained in Harkness?

Every single 9th grader received training last year. Additionally, most current juniors participated in some degree of Harkness training during their 9th-10th grade years. The ripple effects that teachers are seeing in their 10th and 11th-grade class discussions are profound.

What do CVU students like about Harkness? 

The responses below come from anonymous surveys given to 9th graders last year.

• I liked the emphasis on including everyone in the discussions.
• I liked the passionate discussions, how it was so polite without any interruptions and I loved the vibe of the room.
• We didn't interrupt, like, at all, and that was great, as that's something I get mad at my friends for doing. I think we all had great points to share too.
• I think I did a good job listening to others and letting others talk. I have a tendency to talk for a long time, and I think I did a good job holding back and letting others have the floor.
• We had a lot of really good connections to things you would never think of connected to what we were talking about. Hearing these made what we were talking about easier to understand.
• I think it gave me some new ideas and a deeper understanding of the units than I would have learned on my own.
• I liked to hear everyone's ideas, and I liked to see my classmates growth.
• It was a good way to get ideas for the LEAF formatives and summatives. I also think it was a good way to get comfortable with sharing your ideas to a group and potentially disagreeing with others.
• I felt like I was heard and my opinions were valued. I didn’t feel embarrassed when I messed up or stumbled over my words. I felt very included.
• It is really hard to be actively in the discussion if you are not prepared.
• I really liked how we had a lot of control as the students.