Still the defining feature of the School’s educational life, the Conference Plan seats 12 students around an oval table along with their teacher. Eye contact—between student and teacher, and student and student—is unavoidable.

Students are therefore challenged to be well-prepared and to participate in class discussions. Classes become personal, alive, and creative. Students challenge teachers, express themselves, and risk being wrong. “There's a feeling of intellectual camaraderie,” says one student. “Sometimes we even gang up on the teacher and find ourselves going way beyond where we thought we could go with our ideas.”

Some Lawrenceville classes, such as mathematics and science, are best taught in a lab or lecture hall, where the teacher can use the blackboard or lab equipment to demonstrate examples. And faculty have introduced an array of educational technology—from CD-ROM to Powerpoint presentations to Web page construction—into the Harkness classroom. In every case, however, classes remain small and intimate. As one student puts it, “Our teachers won’t let us get away with saying ‘like’ and ‘you know.’ We have to explain exactly what we mean and support our ideas with evidence.”

Most Lawrenceville teachers live on campus and are therefore available for individual conferences with students well beyond consultation periods scheduled in each school day.