Welcome to chisai School

Where children learn quickly through fun Harkness discussions

Welcome to chisai

At Chisai, we use the Harkness Table method to make learning fast, fun, and deeply engaging for every child.

The Harkness Method has good results, due to the peer engagement and personal ownership so the material really sticks. It's an efficient way to learn!

Background: The Harkness Method comes from the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy in the USA, with ex-pupils like Mark Zuckerberg. They can run this method as they have small classrooms with only up to 12 students per table to 1 teacher.

Under this method children cannot daydream in class (as I sometimes used to do) or just take notes hoping to understand the topic later (I am also guilty of having done this in the past). Instead, they need to do the prep, and enough prep to help their fellow students, need to interact with the other students, then the knowledge more effectively stays with them.

This is a good video from Phillips Exeter Academy on what their students should expect when sitting at the oval table: How you'll learn

This is a description on how it is used for mathematics: Harkness and Math

This is a view of an actual Phillips Exeter mathematics class with a much older group of students: Harkness In Action: Math (youtube.com )