<p>XXR… my son, who just finished his prep (9th grade) year at Exeter, completely agrees with you and also estimated that probably well over 90% of his class grew to love Harkness math. He struggled with it for 5-6 weeks before becoming comfortable with it, partly due to having been placed something like half a level too high in his first term of math - but it was a rewarding struggle too. (He earned only a B- his first term but went on to earn straight A’s in his second and third term math.)</p>
<p>I don’t know whether the Harkness math pedagogy would work well for students that were not of the earnest, highly talented type that populates Exeter. And I have no reason to believe that the Harkness math pedagogy stands alone as the best of all math pedagogies. However, I do believe that there is particular value to employing Harkness uniformly throughout all of the subject areas at Exeter. Just my $0.02</p>
<p>By the way, Exeter math SAT average scores are almost always #1, so its Harkness math pedagogy must be doing something very right!</p>