The Harkness table refers to a style of teaching wherein students sit at a large, circular table with their teachers, in use at many American boarding schools and colleges. It encourages classes to be held in a discoursive manner. The name for the method comes from the oil magnate and philanthropist Edward Harkness, who presented the schools with a monetary gift in 1930. He described its use as follows: A boarding school is an educational institution where some or all pupils not only study, but they also live, amongst their peers. ... A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, or reputation to a charitable cause. ... Edward Stephen Harkness (1874 - 1940) was an American philanthropist. ...

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 are used most notably by Phillips Exeter Academy, which highlights the tables' use in its curriculum on its website, as well as other American independent schools, including The Pingry School, Memphis Jewish High School , Hathaway Brown School, Horace Mann School, The Hotchkiss School, Palmer Trinity School, Asheville School, St. Paul Academy and Summit School, American Hebrew Academy, St. Mark's School of Texas, St. Paul's School, Middlesex School, St. George's School, The Masters School, Germantown Academy, Kingswood-Oxford School, Milton Academy, Tampa Preparatory School, The John Cooper School, Regents School of Austin, Rocky Hill School of East Greenwich, RI and The Lawrenceville School. Phillips Exeter Academy (most commonly called Exeter, also Phillips Exeter or PEA) is a co-educational independent boarding school for grades 9–12, located on 619 acres[1] in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA, fifty miles north of Boston. ... The Pingry School is a private college preparatory day school for K-12 education with two campuses in New Jersey. ... Memphis Jewish High School in Memphis, Tennessee, began operation in August 2006. ... Hathaway Brown is an all-girls private School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, founded in 1876. ... The Horace Mann School is an independent college preparatory school in New York City. ... The Hotchkiss School is an independent, American college preparatory boarding school located in Lakeville, Connecticut. ... Palmer Trinity School is an independent, college prep, coeducational Episcopal day school located on 54 acres in Palmetto Bay (a Miami suburb). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... The American Hebrew Academy (AHA) opened on September 10, 2001 in Greensboro, North Carolina, as Americas first and only liberal, coeducational, pluralistic Jewish boarding school. ... The St. ... St. ... Middlesex School The Circle, Middlesex School, Concord, Massachusetts Clay Centennial Center, Middlesex School, Concord, Massachusetts Middlesex School is an independent preparatory school for grades 9 - 12 located in Concord, Massachusetts, USA. It was founded in 1901 by Frederick Winsor, who headed the school until 1937. ... St. ... The Masters School, affectionately known as Dobbs by its alums, is a private boarding and day preparatory school in Dobbs Ferry, New York. ... Germantown Academy is Americas oldest nonsectarian day school, founded on December 6, 1759 (originally named the Germantown Union School). Germantown Academy (also referred to as GA) is now a K-12 school in the Fort Washington suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, having moved from its original Germantown campus in... Kingswood-Oxford School is a private day school located on Trout Brook Drive in West Hartford, Connecticut. ... Milton Academy is a private, preparatory, coeducational boarding and day school in Milton, Massachusetts. ... Tampa Preparatory School is a private non-denominational school located in downtown Tampa offering classes to students in 6th grade through 12th grade. ... The John Cooper School is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational day school located in The Woodlands, an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Texas. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational, independent preparatory boarding school for grades 9-12 located on 700 acres in the historic community of Lawrenceville, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, U.S. five miles southwest of Princeton. ...

Harkness learning can vary — most notably between liberal arts subjects such as English, and scientific subjects, like math. There are general principles and goals, however, that go along with this method. 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. In the history of education, the seven liberal arts comprise two groups of studies, the trivium and the quadrivium. ...

External links

• Philips Exeter Academy website on the Harkness Table
• The History of the Harkness table