<p>rbc, hmmm. Interesting observations based upon the impressions of your daughter. Please let me share my impressions and observations.</p>
<p>One day last fall, I attended every class that my son takes at Hotchkiss. In his English and AP Modern Euro History course, I found the students massively engaged in the materials. There, every student spoke long and often, while the teachers guided the conversation at an extremely high level, especially for 10th graders. As a Harvard graduate, I was quite impressed with the scope and depth of discourse by most of the students. And… surprise… the students used the Harkness Method, tables and all. (How does Exeter differ from Hotchkiss here? What am I missing?)</p>
<p>Now, as for my son’s AP Chem and honors Math classes, there was less give and take in class there than in the English and History classes, but there were no stale lectures either. In Math, each student had to place on the board his or her work on certain problems, explain it and then defend it. Thereafter, the teacher would comment on the work. The Chem teacher took a similar approach in his class. Now, I think that there may be a different approach at THS than PEA in the sciences and maths. I do agree that there is no pure Harkness Method here at Hotchkiss, although the THS approach seemed quite engaging and demanding.</p>
<p>In my son’s German II class, there were only four students. The exchange between students and teacher was incessant and always in German. My son has gone from a German idiot to near fluency. (Last month, he, along with two others in his class, were offered opportunities to spend their summer in Germany on full paid scholarships because they scored so well on a standardized test recently.) </p>
<p>In sum, I was most impressed with the Hotchkiss teachers, students and their “intellectual engagement” with their material. I’m sure that PEA students are equally engaged, although I have never sat in on any classes there. Even if I had, I doubt that I would be ready to pronounce “real differences” between the classes at two renown prep schools and then boldly announce that there was less intellectual engagement at one school than the other until I had spent a great deal of time, money and enegry comparing one to the other. Until you and your daughter make such an investment, you might want to be a little more circumspect before making cavalier and broad statements about “real differences” and “intellectual engagement” when comparing Hotchkiss and Exeter classes… in my humble opinion.</p>