This is the Academy building. (Tour guide mode: math, history, religion, Greek, and Latin classes are taught in this building.) The neatest thing about the Academy building is that Mr. Parris's classroom is there. And I am just so very fond of Mr. Parris.

This is the library. I spend most of my free time here. (What? No social life? Ah--but the library is the place to be. Read on.) I go to the Periodicals room on the ground floor (if I want to glance up every thirty seconds to see who just walked in) or up in my carrel on floor 2M (if I want to give Tyler and Emily math help.)
One minor point:
A carrel is not one of those things you can keep horses in. That would be a corral. A study carrel, or at least mine, is a desk, chair, lockable cabinet, and window where I can--guess what--study!
Now you have learned a new word. So you can continue with your life, powerful new knowledge in hand!

The neatest thing about the library is that it is empty in the middle. There is a big empty space called Rockefeller Hall, because someone whose last name was Rockefeller was very fond of air and thus decided to buy some in the middle of the library so he could put his name on it. The very sad part of this story is that it is impossible to write on air, so the only time anyone knows it's called Rockefeller Hall is when something happens there and they write it in the program. This was a rather expensive way to learn this simple fact of physics, but at least we got a nice library out of it!

This is class. Oh, yeah!

In fact, this is my history class from the fall of ninth grade ("prep fall"). (It was Parents' Weekend--there usually aren't random adults around the edge of the room.)

This is my favorite part of Exeter. Classes are based on discussion; we talk about the homework: We discuss the reading in history and English (and French) and our solutions in math. Crucial note: not our answers--our solutions, how we got there. I like it.

You will notice that we are sitting around a table. Sometimes the teacher sits at the end, sometimes on the side (but not usually on the corner.) You can't see Mr. Kim in this picture because he is writing on the board. (We needed a little extra direction only a month after coming to Exeter...) The idea of sitting around a table is that we are all equals in the discussion.

It is called a Harkness table because Mr. Harkness donated lots of money (five million dollars in 1930) so Exeter could buy tables and reduce class sizes. (Tour guide mode: each table is specially designed for the classroom it will be in. Square rooms have round tables; long, skinny rooms have hotdog-shaped tables.) The discussion actually depends a lot on the table. For example, while it is easy to talk to someone across the table, it is logistically impossible to discuss something with someone seated right next to you. I mean, you have to turn your head 90 degrees, over your shoulder, towards the person. Try it--you don't talk that way.

This is where I have learned to ask questions. (Lesson: if you ask a question, such as, "Where do you see that in the text?" then you don't have to answer it yourself.)
Harkness is very cool. I like it.

And that is all I have to say about school.

I have one last point:
It is possible to conclude that I do not like Exeter from the fact that I left for a term to attend the Mountain School. However, that would just be an inaccurate assumption.

You see, the Mountain School teaches us the way learning is supposed to be: A small, close community where learning is integrated with the rest of life. But there is a reason that TMS has only 45 students and about 15 faculty members: That just can't work on a big scale.

So if a school has to have 1,000 students, Exeter does it right. Three of my five teachers at TMS mentioned that I know how to discuss. That's Exeter right there. Thus, I think I have the best of both: I learn skills at Exeter, in the best way skills like discussion and math can be taught, and then I go to the Mountain School to see how to apply skills in life.

So there's my explanation.

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