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| Harkness as performance art |
I cherished the days I had time to sit in on his class. He was masterful in his command of the Harkness classroom, transforming it into performance art.
What made him so good? For one thing, he knew how to use silence.
I wandered in one day to discover his room invaded by other visitors. It was parent's weekend. So the Harkness table was circled by an audience. The students were working their way through some novel - I don't remember what it was. That is the secret of the Harkness experience that some miss. The finest moments come when the text is simply the pretext for enabling the classroom dynamics. That becomes the focus as the students discover their own talents.
But this day, inexplicably, Fred got started off on the wrong foot. What a bad day for him to stumble! He threw this random question to get things going:
After the first term, I traveled up to Maine's Washington County to visit Fred and Ellie at their home in Roque Bluffs. This remote spot is nearly 300 miles from Exeter, a five-hour drive. It offered the classic beauty of coastal Maine, but far enough away to be affordable on an Academy salary. Someone on the faculty discovered it, then several others bought properties there for retirement.
I arrived in the midst of heavy December snowfall. Weathered in, we kept warm around the woodstove telling tales. Fred shared the local lore. At one point, the subject turned to things spiritual. I'd brought my meditation cushions to maintain my Vipassana practice. Oddly, Fred seemed disinterested.
As the winter storm passed, the skies cleared the next night. This revealed a spectacular full Moon illuminating a chest-high pristine snowfall. Looking out into the night, Fred turned to me, "Are you ready to experience my spirituality?" We put on our winter gear and headed out towards their backyard, a vast field that reached down toward the shore.
We swept through the fresh powder heading towards the shoreline. The crisp and clear air, the Moon-bright landscape, our effortless motion through the seemingly solid snow - how can I combine or pick apart these elements to capture the ineffable sense of joy we shared drifting through the cloud-like layer? Then, awe entered suddenly as the stark white landscape gave way to the pitch black ocean. We stood silently, absorbing the wonder.
Fred never got to share his retirement there with Ellie.
I remember returning to campus for Fred's memorial service. Many shared of how he lived and died doing what he loved. To the end, his devotion to his teaching and to his students was unmatched. Even confined to an oxygen tent gasping for breath as the cancer ate his lungs, he insisted on writing student's college recs. He'd promised this to them before he was suddenly taken ill. He fulfilled his pledge.
During the service, everyone received a slip of paper with Faith. Focus Flow. printed in italics. After, as Phillips Church emptied out, I overhead some of colleagues, linguists, chatter.
I wandered in one day to discover his room invaded by other visitors. It was parent's weekend. So the Harkness table was circled by an audience. The students were working their way through some novel - I don't remember what it was. That is the secret of the Harkness experience that some miss. The finest moments come when the text is simply the pretext for enabling the classroom dynamics. That becomes the focus as the students discover their own talents.
But this day, inexplicably, Fred got started off on the wrong foot. What a bad day for him to stumble! He threw this random question to get things going:
"What about the doughnut?"
It proved to be a non-starter, too obscure. No one had a clue.
It proved to be a non-starter, too obscure. No one had a clue.
For me, working the Harkness classroom is like sailing. You needed to build up momentum in the conversation going downwind. You get the kids talking about something, anything. Then, then tack upwind from that to move through the text. Here, we were stalled, pointing into the wind.
He persisted. "What about he doughnut?"
Some attempted to interpret this as metaphor. Wrong. "What about the doughnut?" he repeated.
We sat in awkward silence - the class and spectators. Fred seemed utterly at ease, calm and relaxed.
Next, attempts at deflection. These comments aimed to offer Fred an easy out - a new, more productive area to get a conversation going. They were inviting. As the students offered their intriguing take on the reading, Fred listened attentively. But as they finished, he asked again mystified - how could they forget? "What about the doughnut?"
My skin crawled watching on the sidelines. Fred seemed off on the one class where he needed to be on - with parents expecting to be impressed. They had the bad luck to catch him on an off-day. I'd never seen him miss. This wasn't just disappointing - it seemed odd as the minutes passed. The only thing coming clear in the confusion - he wasn't going to budge.
Some attempted to interpret this as metaphor. Wrong. "What about the doughnut?" he repeated.
We sat in awkward silence - the class and spectators. Fred seemed utterly at ease, calm and relaxed.
Next, attempts at deflection. These comments aimed to offer Fred an easy out - a new, more productive area to get a conversation going. They were inviting. As the students offered their intriguing take on the reading, Fred listened attentively. But as they finished, he asked again mystified - how could they forget? "What about the doughnut?"
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| The missing treat |
"What about the doughnut?"
An unsettling silence began to settle in. Focus turned from trying to spark a conversation to leafing through the pages of the reading. Fred just sat peacefully, confident that eventually someone would satisfy his peculiar demand.
An unsettling silence began to settle in. Focus turned from trying to spark a conversation to leafing through the pages of the reading. Fred just sat peacefully, confident that eventually someone would satisfy his peculiar demand.
It took some time, going line-by-line through the 40-odd pages assigned, but finally someone found it. Some character, as an aside, offered that something was "like a doughnut." That was it. Nothing more. Nothing more at all - a throwaway line that an editor might have excised from the text.
What followed proved Fred was one of the best to ever conduct class at PEA.
Now that we had a discussion underway, it turned to tugging at this loose thread. What about the doughnut? It wasn't random at all. How did it connect to larger themes? With Fred's occasional guidance, the students unraveled the entire fabric of the book from that single strand. The seemingly unimportant detail was, in fact, what stitched the structure of this literary work together. By the end of the class, everyone had a gut-level understanding of what sets literature apart. No detail is unimportant. Read with attention and miracles happen.
Fred's style perfectly embodied his signature catchphrase: Faith. Focus. Flow. The best part was his effortless and unassuming manner. His mastery was unalloyed with any arrogance.
Outside the classroom, Fred was an enormously engaging conversationalist. We enjoyed wide-ranging discussions. He also told me wild, improbable tales about his life. I remember in particular his love-at-first sight experience meeting Ellie, the love of his life. She was a fixture on campus, too, back to my student days. In a harsh place, she was the kind spirit working in the Academy's bookstore.
He told me that, in his younger days, he was doing spy stuff in Berlin. He wandered around the city with an attaché that contained a loaded .45 automatic. One weekend, he went out on a date to a house party. That's where he encountered Ellie. The recognition that they were life partners was immediate and mutual. As his date wandered out of earshot for a moment, their discussion turned to how Fred should kindly, lovingly extricate himself from her. No easy way to dump a date, but perhaps they could make it easier. It didn't have to be cruel. Fred and Ellie were kind like that.
I forget the details about how they came to the Academy. It was an earlier era where a talented person could walk onto campus and, with enough panache, land a gig. However they arrived, I don't see Fred taking a conventional route. Nowadays, the school's reputation demands a level of professionalism that requires serious credentials - a PhD and proven talent. Sadly, that means eccentric, unusual characters that have made for some of the most legendary teachers get weeded out. They resist the assimilation necessary to get "properly" credentialed.
However Fred found his way to the Harkness table, it was destiny. What was hard to bear was the jealousy this inspired in some of our colleagues. His class transformed kids. They talked about the magic. This was all-too-much for some. A few mockingly referred to him as "The Great Tremallo."
What followed proved Fred was one of the best to ever conduct class at PEA.
Now that we had a discussion underway, it turned to tugging at this loose thread. What about the doughnut? It wasn't random at all. How did it connect to larger themes? With Fred's occasional guidance, the students unraveled the entire fabric of the book from that single strand. The seemingly unimportant detail was, in fact, what stitched the structure of this literary work together. By the end of the class, everyone had a gut-level understanding of what sets literature apart. No detail is unimportant. Read with attention and miracles happen.
Fred's style perfectly embodied his signature catchphrase: Faith. Focus. Flow. The best part was his effortless and unassuming manner. His mastery was unalloyed with any arrogance.
Outside the classroom, Fred was an enormously engaging conversationalist. We enjoyed wide-ranging discussions. He also told me wild, improbable tales about his life. I remember in particular his love-at-first sight experience meeting Ellie, the love of his life. She was a fixture on campus, too, back to my student days. In a harsh place, she was the kind spirit working in the Academy's bookstore.
He told me that, in his younger days, he was doing spy stuff in Berlin. He wandered around the city with an attaché that contained a loaded .45 automatic. One weekend, he went out on a date to a house party. That's where he encountered Ellie. The recognition that they were life partners was immediate and mutual. As his date wandered out of earshot for a moment, their discussion turned to how Fred should kindly, lovingly extricate himself from her. No easy way to dump a date, but perhaps they could make it easier. It didn't have to be cruel. Fred and Ellie were kind like that.
I forget the details about how they came to the Academy. It was an earlier era where a talented person could walk onto campus and, with enough panache, land a gig. However they arrived, I don't see Fred taking a conventional route. Nowadays, the school's reputation demands a level of professionalism that requires serious credentials - a PhD and proven talent. Sadly, that means eccentric, unusual characters that have made for some of the most legendary teachers get weeded out. They resist the assimilation necessary to get "properly" credentialed.
However Fred found his way to the Harkness table, it was destiny. What was hard to bear was the jealousy this inspired in some of our colleagues. His class transformed kids. They talked about the magic. This was all-too-much for some. A few mockingly referred to him as "The Great Tremallo."
Moonlit Spirituality
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| Roque Bluffs: Rough & Ready |
I arrived in the midst of heavy December snowfall. Weathered in, we kept warm around the woodstove telling tales. Fred shared the local lore. At one point, the subject turned to things spiritual. I'd brought my meditation cushions to maintain my Vipassana practice. Oddly, Fred seemed disinterested.
As the winter storm passed, the skies cleared the next night. This revealed a spectacular full Moon illuminating a chest-high pristine snowfall. Looking out into the night, Fred turned to me, "Are you ready to experience my spirituality?" We put on our winter gear and headed out towards their backyard, a vast field that reached down toward the shore.
We swept through the fresh powder heading towards the shoreline. The crisp and clear air, the Moon-bright landscape, our effortless motion through the seemingly solid snow - how can I combine or pick apart these elements to capture the ineffable sense of joy we shared drifting through the cloud-like layer? Then, awe entered suddenly as the stark white landscape gave way to the pitch black ocean. We stood silently, absorbing the wonder.
Fred never got to share his retirement there with Ellie.
I remember returning to campus for Fred's memorial service. Many shared of how he lived and died doing what he loved. To the end, his devotion to his teaching and to his students was unmatched. Even confined to an oxygen tent gasping for breath as the cancer ate his lungs, he insisted on writing student's college recs. He'd promised this to them before he was suddenly taken ill. He fulfilled his pledge.
During the service, everyone received a slip of paper with Faith. Focus Flow. printed in italics. After, as Phillips Church emptied out, I overhead some of colleagues, linguists, chatter.
"It sounds profound - in English. But put it in French or German - prattle."
Even in death, it was too much for some to simply accept and appreciate the way Fred touched so many lives. Somehow, they felt slighted by his genius in the classroom.
Ernie Gillespie famously said "I don't think anybody has ever claimed that Exeter is a warm nest." But this left me cold.
Ernie Gillespie famously said "I don't think anybody has ever claimed that Exeter is a warm nest." But this left me cold.
***
Others, too, keep Fred's memory alive. When Dan Brown Came to Visit tells of how some unknown writer with a debut techno-thriller novel out stepped in for Fred at his untimely passing. Ned Hallowell, the famed doctor who brought ADD and ADHD to the popular consciousness, lovingly remembers Fred in his memoir, Because I Come from a Crazy Family: The Making of a Psychiatrist.
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