The Harkness table is a large, oval table used in a style of teaching, The Harkness Method, wherein students sit at the table with their teachers. This teaching method is in use at many American boarding school

Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

s and colleges. It encourages classes to be held in a discursive manner. Developed at Phillips Exeter Academy

Phillips Exeter Academy

Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...

, the method's name comes from the oil magnate and philanthropist

Philanthropist

A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

 Edward Harkness

Edward Harkness

Edward Stephen Harkness was an American philanthropist. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, one of four sons to Stephen V. Harkness, a harness-maker who invested in the forerunner of Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller's oil company. Harkness inherited a fortune from his father...

, a graduate of St. Paul's School (Concord, NH) who presented the school with a monetary gift in 1930. It is used in many states and has dramatically changed education. described its use as follows:

What I have in mind is [a classroom] where [students] could sit around a table with a teacher who would talk with them and instruct them by a sort of tutorial or conference method, where [each student] would feel encouraged to speak up. This would be a real revolution in methods.

Harkness tables have been implemented at numerous institutions, including:

• American Hebrew Academy
  American Hebrew Academy
  The American Hebrew Academy is an American Jewish pluralistic college preparatory boarding school. The coeducational school is located in Greensboro, North Carolina with a 100 acre campus designed by Aaron Green, protégé of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright .- History :The academy was...
  
  
• Annie Wright School
  Annie Wright School
  Annie Wright School is a preschool-12th grade independent school of about 450 students. It is a co-ed day program through grade 8, and an all-girls day and boarding school in grades 9-12. The upper school offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme...
  
  
• Appleby College
  Appleby College
  Appleby College is an international independent school located in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, founded in 1911 by John Guest, a former Headmaster of the Preparatory School at Upper Canada College...
  
  
• Asheville School
  Asheville School
  Asheville School is a private, coeducational, college-preparatory boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina. Founded in 1900, the Asheville School campus sits on in the Blue Ridge Mountains and currently enrolls 270 students in grades nine through twelve...
  
  
• Ashley Hall
  Ashley Hall
  Ashley Hall is an all girls' school in Charleston, South Carolina, founded in 1909 by Mary Vardrine McBee, who headed the institution for many years. It is the only girls college-preparatory school in the state. Ashley Hall's pre-school is the only coed part of the school...
  
  
• Belmont Hill School
  Belmont Hill School
  Belmont Hill School is a prestigious independent boys school located on a campus in Belmont, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. The school enrolls approximately 440 students in grades 7-12, separated into the Middle School and the Upper School , and refers to these grades as "Forms" with a Roman...
  
  
• Berkeley Preparatory School
  Berkeley Preparatory School
  Berkeley Preparatory School is a Pre-K to Grade 12 private college preparatory school. Founded in 1960, it is located on a campus in Tampa, Florida, USA...
  
  
• Calverton School
  Calverton School
  The Calverton School is a college preparatory, private, day school located in Huntingtown, Maryland, approximately 45 minutes east of Washington, D.C. and 30 minutes south of Annapolis, Maryland...
  
  
• Cape Henry Collegiate School
  Cape Henry Collegiate School
  Cape Henry Collegiate School is an independent coeducational school in Virginia Beach, Virginia....
  
  
• Charleston Collegiate School
  Charleston Collegiate School
  Charleston Collegiate School is a co-educational, nonsectarian, independent day school organized by Lower School , Intermediate Level , Middle School , and Upper School . It offers a college-preparatory curriculum. The school has an enrollment of approximately 220 students, with a minority...
  
  
• Cheshire Academy
  Cheshire Academy
  Cheshire Academy is a college preparatory school located in Cheshire, Connecticut. Founded in 1794 as the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut, it was the tenth private academy founded in the United States....
  
  
• Choate Rosemary Hall
  Choate Rosemary Hall
  Choate Rosemary Hall is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut...
  
  
• Cranbrook Schools
  Cranbrook Schools
  Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities...
  
  
• Culver Academies
  Culver Academies
  The Culver Academies is a college preparatory boarding school and summer camp in the United States. The Culver Academies is composed of three entities: Culver Military Academy for boys, Culver Girls Academy , and the Culver Summer Schools and Camps . Collectively known as Culver Academies located...
  
  
• Cushing Academy
  Cushing Academy
  Cushing Academy is a coeducational college preparatory boarding school for grades 9 through 12 plus an optional postgraduate year located in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1865 in fulfilment of a bequest by Thomas Parkman Cushing and opened in 1875, and is sometimes cited as the...
  
  
• Deerfield Academy
  Deerfield Academy
  Deerfield Academy is an independent, coeducational boarding school in Deerfield, Massachusetts, United States. It is a four-year college-preparatory school with approximately 600 students and about 100 faculty, all of whom live on or near campus....
  
  
• Emma Willard School
  Emma Willard School
  The Emma Willard School, originally called Troy Female Seminary and often referred to simply as "Emma," is an independent university-preparatory day and boarding school for young women, located in Troy, New York on Mount Ida, offering grades 9-12 and postgraduate coursework...
  
  
• The Fieldston School
  Ethical Culture Fieldston School
  The Ethical Culture Fieldston School, known as "Fieldston", is a private "independent" school in New York City and a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. It has about 1600 students and a staff of 400 people , led by Dr. Damian J...
  
  
• Germantown Academy
  Germantown Academy
  Germantown Academy is America's oldest nonsectarian day school, founded on December 6, 1759 . Germantown Academy is now a K-12 school in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, having moved from its original Germantown campus in 1965...
  
  
• Glenelg Country School
  Glenelg Country School
  Glenelg Country School is a nonsectarian, co-educational independent day school in Howard County, Maryland, adjacent to Columbia, Maryland and between Baltimore and Washington, D.C...
  
  
• Greens Farms Academy
  Greens Farms Academy
  Greens Farms Academy is a K-12 independent preparatory co-educational day school in the Greens Farms section of Westport, Connecticut, drawing 650 students from numerous towns of central southern Fairfield County. Greens Farms Academy is located on a campus near Long Island Sound, a salt marsh and...
  
  
• Greenwich Academy
  Greenwich Academy
  Greenwich Academy is an independent, all-girls preparatory day school in Greenwich, Connecticut. Founded in 1827, it is the oldest girls' school in Connecticut. Greenwich Academy's motto is Ad ingenium faciendum, "Toward the Building of Character."...
  
  
• Guilford High School
  Guilford High School (Connecticut)
  Guilford High School is a four-year public high school in Guilford, Connecticut. According to the school website,College Board Scholastic Assessment Test and Connecticut Academic Performance Tests results for GHS students are consistently above state, regional and national averages...
  
  
• Hathaway Brown School
  Hathaway Brown School
  Hathaway Brown is an all-girls private school in Shaker Heights, Ohio, founded in 1876. It is also Ohio's second oldest college preparatory school for girls. The HB experience spans the early childhood program, primary school, middle school, and upper school.-History:Founded in 1876, Hathaway...
  
  
• Havergal College
  Havergal College
  Havergal College is an independent boarding and day school for girls from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Named for English hymn composer, author and humanitarian Frances Ridley Havergal, the school was founded in 1894 by a group of men led by The Honourable H...
  
  
• Highland School
• Hopkins School
  Hopkins School
  The Hopkins School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational day school, located in New Haven, Connecticut....
  
  
• Horace Mann School
  Horace Mann School
  Horace Mann School is an independent college preparatory school in New York City, New York, United States founded in 1887 known for its rigorous course of studies. Horace Mann is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League, educating students from all across the New York tri-state area from...
  
  
• Isidore Newman School
  Isidore Newman School
  Isidore Newman School is a private, nondenominational, co-educational college preparatory school located on an campus in the Uptown section of New Orleans, Louisiana.-History:...
  
  
• Jackson State University
  Jackson State University
  Jackson State University is a historically black university founded in 1877 in Natchez, MS by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York. The Society moved the school to Jackson in 1882, renaming it Jackson College, and developed its present campus in 1902. It became a state supported...
  
  's W. E. B. Du Bois Honor's College
• Kent School
  Kent School
  Kent School is a private, co-educational college preparatory school in Kent, Connecticut, USA. The Reverend Frederick Herbert Sill, Order of the Holy Cross, established the school in 1906 and it retains its affiliation with the Episcopal Church of the United States.Students at Kent come from more...
  
  
• Kents Hill School
  Kents Hill School
  Kents Hill School is an independent college-preparatory school located in Kents Hill, Maine, outside of the state capital of Augusta. Kents Hill School instructs students in grades nine through postgraduate. Students attend Kents Hill from across over 50 communities in Maine,...
  
  
• Kingswood-Oxford School
  Kingswood-Oxford School
  Kingswood Oxford School is a private day school located in West Hartford, Connecticut. Originally two separate schools, Kingswood School and Oxford School for boys and girls respectively, KO is now a co-educational institution and offers grades 6 through 12...
  
  
• The Lawrenceville School
  Lawrenceville School
  The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational, independent preparatory boarding school for grades 9–12 located on in the historic community of Lawrenceville, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, U.S., five miles southwest of Princeton....
  
  
• Landon School
  Landon School
  The Landon School is a private, nonsectarian, college preparatory school for boys in grades 3-12, with an enrollment of approximately 675 students. The school sits on in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.-Background:...
  
  
• Leysin American School
  Leysin American School
  Leysin American School is a co-educational independent boarding school focusing on university preparation for grades 8-12 . It is located in the alpine resort village of Leysin, Vaud, Switzerland, 90 minutes east of Geneva...
  
  
• Loomis Chaffee
  Loomis Chaffee
  The Loomis Chaffee School is a premier coeducational boarding school for grades 9–12 and postgraduates located on a 300-plus acre campus in the Connecticut River Valley in Windsor, Connecticut, six miles north of Hartford...
  
  
• Lower Canada College
  Lower Canada College
  Lower Canada College of Montreal is an elementary and secondary level private school.The college was founded by the Church of St John the Evangelist in 1861 as St. John's School and changed its name to Lower Canada College in 1909, replacing an older school by that name that was founded in...
  
  , Montreal
• Maimonides School
  Maimonides School
  Maimonides School is a coeducational, Modern Orthodox, Jewish day school located in Brookline, Massachusetts. The school was founded in 1937 by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and his wife Tonya Soloveitchik...
  
  
• Memphis Jewish High School
  Memphis Jewish High School
  Memphis Jewish High School in Memphis, Tennessee, began operation in August 2006. It closed May 31, 2010. It was a Modern-Orthodox Jewish co-educational school. It is a dual-curriculum Hebrew - English school founded by Andrew and Jan Groveman, Jack and Marilyn Belz, and Mark and Sally Wender...
  
  
• Mercersburg Academy
  Mercersburg Academy
  Mercersburg Academy is an independent, coeducational boarding school for grades 9-12 located in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, United States. The school's mission is:...
  
  
• Middlesex School
  Middlesex School
  Middlesex School is an independent secondary school for grades 9 - 12 located in Concord, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1901 by a Roxbury Latin School alumnus, Frederick Winsor, who headed the school until 1937. Winsor set up a National Scholarship Program for the school, the first of its kind...
  
  
• Milton Academy
  Milton Academy
  Milton Academy is a coeducational, independent preparatory, boarding and day school in Milton, Massachusetts consisting of a grade 9–12 Upper School and a grade K–8 Lower School. Boarding is offered starting in 9th grade...
  
  
• Northfield Mount Hermon School
• Pacific Ridge School
  Pacific Ridge School
  Pacific Ridge School is an independent co-educational University preparatory school for day students in grades 7–12. The school is located in the exclusive Bressi Ranch community of Carlsbad, a coastal resort town located in North San Diego County...
  
  
• Palmer Trinity School
  Palmer Trinity School
  Palmer Trinity School is an independent, university preparatory, coeducational Episcopal day school located on in Palmetto Bay, Florida . The school currently enrolls 600 students in grades 6-12....
  
  
• Phillips Exeter Academy
  Phillips Exeter Academy
  Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
  
  
• Randolph School
  Randolph School
  Randolph School is an American independent private kindergarten-through-12th-grade college preparatory school chartered in 1959 in Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama. It started in an antebellum home on Randolph Street with just a few elementary classes...
  
  
• Ransom Everglades
  Ransom Everglades
  Ransom Everglades is an independent, non-profit, co-educational, college-preparatory day school serving grades six to twelve in Coconut Grove in Miami, Florida. It formed with the merger in 1974 of the Everglades School for Girls and the Ransom School for Boys...
  
  
• Regents School of Austin
  Regents School of Austin
  Regents School of Austin is a classical, Christian school located in Austin, Texas.-About Regents:Regents School of Austin is the largest classical Christian private school in the nation, located in Austin, TX...
  
  
• Ridgefield Academy
• Ridley College
  Ridley College
  Ridley College is a co-educational boarding and day university-preparatory school located in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 20 miles from Niagara Falls...
  
  
• Rocky Hill School of East Greenwich, RI
• Rutgers Preparatory School
  Rutgers Preparatory School
  Rutgers Preparatory School is a private, coeducational, university preparatory day school located in Somerset, New Jersey serving students in Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade...
  
  
• Second Baptist School (Houston) Annie Wright School
  Annie Wright School
  Annie Wright School is a preschool-12th grade independent school of about 450 students. It is a co-ed day program through grade 8, and an all-girls day and boarding school in grades 9-12. The upper school offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme...
  
  
• Shady Side Academy
  Shady Side Academy
  Shady Side Academy is a private, secular coeducational PK-12 preparatory school located on three campuses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, established in 1883.- Campuses :Shady Side Academy has three campuses in Pittsburgh....
  
  
• St. Anne's-Belfield School
  St. Anne's-Belfield School
  St. Anne's-Belfield School is a co-educational, independent boarding and day school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.The school is located on in Charlottesville, VA, USA, near the campus of the University of Virginia....
  
  
• St. Andrew's School (Delaware)
• St. George's School
  St. George's School, Newport
  St. George's School is a private, Episcopal, coeducational boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island, USA, just east of the city of Newport. The school was founded in 1896 by the Rev. John Byron Diman, a member of a prominent Rhode Island family. It sits on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean...
  
  
• St. Mark's School of Texas
  St. Mark's School of Texas
  The St. Mark's School of Texas is a nonsectarian preparatory day school for boys located in Preston Hollow, Dallas, Texas, USA. The School offers grades 1–12.-History:...
  
  
• St. Martin's Episcopal School
  St. Martin's Episcopal School
  St Martin's Episcopal School is a private school in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.Founded in 1947, St. Martin’s provides a college-preparatory education within a coeducational environment that features focus on academics, the arts, athletics, service learning, and religious...
  
  
• St. Paul Academy and Summit School
  St. Paul Academy and Summit School
  St. Paul Academy and Summit School is a college preparatory independent day school in St. Paul, Minnesota, for students in grades K–12....
  
  
• St. Paul's School (Concord, NH)
• Tampa Preparatory School
  Tampa Preparatory School
  Tampa Preparatory School is a coed, independent school serving grades 6-12 located on the Hillsborough River across from downtown Tampa and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, enrolling 680 students...
  
  
• The American School in London
  The American School in London
  The American School in London is an international, independent K-12 school in St John's Wood, London, England for students aged between 4 and 18 years. Established in 1951 by Princeton graduate Stephen Eckard, it is the oldest American school in the city and the only non-profit American school in...
  
  
• The Barrie School
  The Barrie School
  Barrie School, formerly the Peter Pan School, is an independent school for all grades of pre-collegiate education located in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC....
  
  
• The College Preparatory School
  The College Preparatory School
  The school's strict academics and small size have translated into an admissions rate lower than many American colleges and universities. In turn many students from College Prep go on to study at America's top universities, and approximately one-third of each graduating class matriculates into Ivy...
  
  
• The Community School of Naples
• The Dunham School
  The Dunham School
  The Dunham School is an independent, inter-denominational, Christian, college-preparatory, coeducational day school in Louisiana, founded in 1981. It serves students from pre-kindergarten through grade twelve...
  
  
• The Ensworth School
  The Ensworth School
  The Ensworth School is a private school located on two separate campuses in Nashville, Tennessee.The original school, with grades "pre-first" through eighth, opened in 1958 with 152 students. The school opened in a large Tudor-style home; its distinctive architecture became a symbol of the school...
  
  
• The Episcopal Academy
  The Episcopal Academy
  The Episcopal Academy, founded in 1785, is a private, co-educational school for grades Pre-K through 12. In 2008, it relocated from its Merion, Pennsylvania campus and Devon, Pennsylvania satellite campus to its new campus in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania...
  
  
• The Governor's Academy
  The Governor's Academy
  The Governor's Academy is an independent school located on in the village of Byfield, Massachusetts, United States ; north of Boston. The Academy enrolls approximately 385 students in grades nine through twelve, 70% of whom are boarders...
  
  
• The Guivy Zaldastanishvili American Academy, Tbilisi
  Tbilisi
  Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
  
  
• The Hill School
  The Hill School
  The Hill School is a preparatory boarding school for boys and girls located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia....
  
  
• The Hotchkiss School
• The Island School
• The John Cooper School
  The John Cooper School
  The John Cooper School is an independent, college-preparatory, nonsectarian, co-educational day school located in The Woodlands, an unincorporated planned community in Montgomery County, Texas, United States.-Overview:...
  
  
• The Kinkaid School
  The Kinkaid School
  The Kinkaid School is a K-12 non-sectarian school in Piney Point Village, Texas, United States.The Kinkaid School is the oldest independent coeducational school in the Houston, Texas area . The student body is divided into the Lower School , the Middle School and the Upper School...
  
  
• The Masters School
  The Masters School
  The Masters School, known as "Masters", is a private, coeducational boarding school and day college preparatory school located in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Its campus is located near Manhattan in the Hudson Valley in Westchester County...
  
  
• The Pingry School
• The Taft School
  The Taft School
  The Taft School is a private, coeducational prep school located in Watertown, Connecticut, USA. The school was founded by Horace Dutton Taft in 1890. It has 570 students, about 470 of whom live on the campus. Taft is a member of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization...
  
  
• Upper Canada College
  Upper Canada College
  Upper Canada College , located in midtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is an independent elementary and secondary school for boys between Senior Kindergarten and Grade Twelve, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The secondary school segment is divided into ten houses; eight are...
  
  
• Wellington College, Berkshire
  Wellington College, Berkshire
  -Former pupils:Notable former pupils include historian P. J. Marshall, architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, impressionist Rory Bremner, Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge, author Sebastian Faulks, language school pioneer John Haycraft, political journalist Robin Oakley, actor Sir Christopher...
  
  , UK
• Metairie Park Country Day School
• St. Martin's Episcopal School
• The Dublin School
  Dublin School
  The Dublin School is a preparatory private high school with a small student body. It is located in Dublin, New Hampshire, near Dublin Pond and Mount Monadnock. The school enrolls around 130 students per year.-History:...
  
  
• The Harpeth Hall School
  Harpeth Hall School
  Harpeth Hall School is an all-girls private college preparatory school for grades 5-12 in Nashville, Tennessee.-Ward-Belmont:Harpeth Hall’s history dates back to 1865 with the founding of Ward Seminary for Young Ladies...
  
  
• The Moses Brown School
  Moses Brown School
  Moses Brown School is a Quaker school located in Providence, Rhode Island, founded by Moses Brown, a Quaker abolitionist, in 1784. It is one of the oldest preparatory schools in the country.-Founder:...
  
  
• The Roxbury Latin School
  Roxbury Latin School
  The Roxbury Latin School is the oldest school in continuous operation in North America. The school was founded in Roxbury, Massachusetts by the Rev. John Eliot under a charter received from King Charles I of England. Since its founding in 1645, it has educated boys on a continuous basis.Located...
  
  
• Woodberry Forest School
  Woodberry Forest School
  Woodberry Forest School is a private, all-male boarding school located in Woodberry Forest, Madison County, Virginia, in the United States. Woodberry's current enrollment is 402. Students come from 28 U.S...
  
  

Harkness learning can vary — most notably between humanities subjects such as English, and technical subjects, like math or physics. There are general principles and goals, however, that go along with this method regardless of subject matter. The main goal is to encourage students to come up with ideas of their own and learn good reasoning and discussion skills. Depending on his or her style, the teacher may interact very little, interjecting only to guide the discussion.

External links

• Harkness Tables
• 'Edward S. Harkness, 1874-1940', Richard F. Niebling, Phillips Exeter Academy
  Phillips Exeter Academy
  Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
  
  (PDF)
• Wellington College
• Cape Henry Collegiate School