Outside the Bubble

Pursuing Other “Avenues”Exeter’s faculty are involved in every aspect of life on campus. From the classrooms to the dorm rooms, from the athletic fields to the club meetings, instructors shape their students’ lives from their first day of prep fall until their gradua- tion ceremony. However, sometimes faculty choose to break out of the Exeter bubble.When Ty Tingley retired from his position as principal of the Acad- emy in 2009, he expected it to be the end of his time working in schools. Much to his surprise, he quickly became involved in the founding of Avenues, a private school in New York City, and is now a Co-Head of

School there.“Sometimes a big idea comesalong and you just have to follow it,” Tingley said. “Avenues is a big idea.” Built upon principles of global readiness, the development of the academic skills and values of its stu- dents, along with the utilization of a stellar faculty, the available resources in the city, and the constant, ongoing research and refinement of its own program, Avenues has embraced the upside to being a new establishmentin a field of traditional institutions. “The world of education is slow to change. Avenues seemed like an important and very big leap into new space,” Tingley said. “Exeter is over two hundred years old. Tradition is a palpable part of the school. At Avenues, every morning begins anew tradition.”

“Technology, immersion lan- guage teaching, and challenge-based learning are part of the DNAof a new school. But we are trying to incorpo- rate the best educational practices we can identify. We use the Exeter math curriculum in the Upper School and have the [slightly modified] Hark- ness table.”In addition to Tingley, three other faculty members left Exeter to work at Avenues. Tara Misenheimer, Tiffany Trotter, and Jonathan Wang are part of the team of teachers work- ing to develop the new school.“The faculty come from a range of backgrounds and experiences, but all are committed to the pursuit of global education and the creative process,” Trotter, former historyinstructor and Avenues’ current head of ninth grade and history-focused humanities instructor, said.

“As a teacher, the core of my teaching approaches has remained the same, both from before my arrival at Exeter to after my departure. At the end of my Exeter experience, it was clear to me that Exeter wasn't home, and so I've launched off once more. I got a lot out of my time at Exeter and hope I contributed something approxi- mating what I gained, but my future path leads elsewhere. The beauty of the world we live in, though, is that we are privileged to be mobile, connected people, and so I can connect to the most important part of Exeter -- its people -- anytime, anywhere.”Misenheimer, at Avenues for a one-year stint, will return to Exeter in the fall.Exeter Collaborates With Other SchoolsExeter faculty members have been working to advance both Hassan's immediate priorities and the Academy's philosophy of non sibi by volunteering their teaching skills at schools across the country.“We have expanded the opportunities for our teach- ers to leave campus and share their teaching with those in public schools as nearby as in Raymond, New Hampshire and in other nonprofit schools across the country and around the world,” Hassan said.The collaboration between Exeter and The Noble Network of Charter Schools in Chicago is a venture of particular interest to Hassan. Working with the Director of Summer School Ethan Shapiro, Noble Street students and teachers have already attended Exeter’s Summer School, and the Exeter faculty have had teaching opportunities in Chicago.Johnny Griffith, English instructor, and Tom Seiden- berg, math instructor, taught in Chicago this past summer. The pair taught high school students for two weeks and exposed them to Harkness pedagogy, while engaging in frequent course evaluations, similar to the METIC system at Exeter.“It sharpens your own approach,” Griffith said. “Our students at Exeter come to us expecting to be asked to do their work for every class, every day, and, because of the pervasiveness of Harkness pedagogy at Exeter, students get very good at it very quickly. In this kind of situation you really do have to be highly engaged in the process of introducing skills and techniques to students, working with them on how to engage at the table, how to ask questions, how to annotate a text, how to come to class prepared.”“It’s been a fabulous opportunity for me, and there seems to be enthusiasm for this from other teachers. I do think that there are increasing opportunities for this kind of teaching, and I think Exeter’s really starting to get the value of it.”In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from students, the program has been expanded from twelve to fifteen days for this summer.Math instructor Gwynneth Coogan and English instructor Brooks Moriarty piloted this type of outreach program at Exeter. They have worked at Raymond Middle School in Raymond, New Hampshire, teaching seventh

and eighth graders.This summer will be Coogan’s fourth working atRaymond.“It has taught me a lot about Harkness, and it hastaught me a lot about the way people learn,” Coogan said. “It’s reinforced some of the ideas I’ve had about the way Harkness works and the way our math pedagogy works here. For the students, I think any time you give kids another way to see ideas, you just strengthen the school that they are working in and give them another perspec- tive that learning isn’t boring, that learning isn’t dull, that it isn’t something that you have to do because you’re told that you should do it.”“The faculty members do so many different types of professional development, and we are so blessed. We have such a great environment, such a positive, supportive environment for doing professional development. I think that anybody who tries something like this is going to learn so much about their own teaching, and to understand how much of the Harkness pedagogy is wrapped up in a school with great facilities and twelve smart kids in every class--how much of what we do is wrapped up in that and how much is wrapped up in ‘wow, this is a really great way to learn.’ You can’t learn that here, you have to try it out other places.”Raymond Middle School has felt the impact of Ex- eter’s outreach program.“I think when you have an increasing number of students that have this kind of attitude about academics, it helps raise the level of attitude about the importance of learning, and I think we’re seeing that,” acting principal at Raymond Mike Chouinard said.There are currently thirty-four students signed up for this summer, a number which has consistently climbed every year the program has been in place.In addition, both seventh grade language arts class- rooms at Raymond have Harkness tables donated by the Academy.“We’re having a lot of repeat students. They’ll be in- volved in seventh grade, and then they’ll come back around in eighth grade and sign up again. I think the students have discovered the approach that the Phillips Exeter teachers have had, being different from what the kids face during the year, to be meaningful enough for them that they want to keep doing it every year.”Hassan continues to plan for the future of these non sibi endeavors, following in the legacy of his esteemed predecessors, like Tingley and Saltonstall.“As I look ahead, I am committed providing faculty with opportunities that they can use to enrich their own classrooms and as well as enrich the classrooms of the nonprofit schools with which we collaborate. We have much to learn from one another.”

“Exeter has always had an institutional mission to help improve the practice of education nationally as an extension of the idea of non sibi," Tingley said. "This dates back to the time of Principal Saltonstall, who believed deeply in the ‘public purpose of private educa- tion.’ That idea is that schools like Exeter are privileged by their wealth and history and with that privilege comes the responsibility to help shape the education for others.”