by Michael Shaughnessy
Victor W. Henningsen is an Instructor in History and the Social Sciences at Phillips Academy Andover , MA . In this interview he discusses tradition, high expectation, greatness, and the influence of good teachers on students.
1. First of all, how long have you been at Phillips Academy in Andover , Massachusetts ?
Well, I was an inmate at the old, all-male Andover for four years as a student in the 1960's. I've been teaching at the new, co-educational, and infinitely better school for twenty-five years in two installments.
I hadn't planned to go into teaching. I'd been laid off from my job as a park ranger in Vermont when the first oil crisis led to significant cuts in parks and recreation funding. My options at the time were working on the lift crew at a Vermont ski area or apprenticing to a canoe maker. Then I happened to talk to an acquaintance on the Andover faculty who mentioned a job that was opening up and I took it, intending to stay only a year. I started out in fund-raising, but relatively quickly moved into running a dorm, instructing in the school's outdoor program and, finally, teaching history. I discovered that I loved teaching, and particularly loved the fact that independent schools gave people the opportunity to play multiple roles at once-there is no "administrative track"---so I could be a college counselor, assistant to then headmaster Ted Sizer, work in admissions and publications, run the outdoor program, supervise a dorm, and still be a classroom teacher.
I worked there for five years before heading to grad school. My wife and I returned in 1985. We hadn't intended to go back, but Andover made a great offer at the right time for us, so back we went. We've been here ever since.
2. Who have been some of your more successful graduates?
How do you define "success"? Fame? Most people know that both Presidents Bush graduated from Andover . What about Henry L. Stimson, the original foreign policy "Wise Man"? Hiram Bingham, the man who discovered Machu Picchu ? Doctor Spock, the Baby and Child Care man? William Sloane Coffin, the minister and social activist? Actors James Spader, Dana Delaney, and Liv Wilde? Theater impresario Peter Sellars? Journalists David Ensor, Evan Thomas, Sarah Chayes, and Buzz Bissinger? Biographer Stacy Schiff? Samuel F. B. Morse, the man who invented the telegraph? Artists Joseph Cornell, Walker Evans, Frank Stella, and Peter Halley? Writer Tracy Kidder? There are lots more.
I would say, though, that the graduates I count as "successful" are the ones who turn out to be good human beings, thoughtful adults, caring parents, contributing members of their communities. One of my most respected classmates is a plumber. Probably the most talented student leader I ever taught never went to college: he became a gifted chef and is now a cabinetmaker. Position and worldly success matter less than character.
And I like to remember that when I joined the faculty we had two graduates on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List-both radical political activists from the 1960's.
3. Tradition must play a large role in Phillips Academy . How do you go about instilling greatness and the scholarly tradition?
I dispute the notion of instilling "greatness." I don't know what that means and I certainly wouldn't claim that anything we do makes people "great." I do think we labor to instill excellence, both in performance and as a standard to measure oneself by. We help kids understand that they can work harder than they thought possible and achieve at a level they never believed possible. You do that by providing students with stimulating teachers who demand a lot. Even more importantly you do that by seeking a diverse student body in which kids have two things in common: good minds and a willingness to use them. There's no secret to that-all good schools do this and I'm sure a lot of them are better at it than we are.
As to the "scholarly tradition," we don't train scholars per se. Few of our kids go on to be scholars in the traditional sense. But we do want them to understand a wide range of disciplines; to understand, for example, how to think like a biologist and to understand how and why that's different from thinking like a historian. I hope that we instill a lifelong intellectual curiosity in our students, as well as a facility for, as an old friend once put it, "wisdom in knowing and courage in doing."
4. How do YOU convince your students as to the importance of history and knowing about the past and its importance?
Usually by saying something like "Either you learn and understand this or you'll spend your life in the power of those who did and do."
But, really, it's not much of an issue. Our kids may not like history, but they understand that it's something they need to know and know how to do. They understand that knowing how to think like a historian, to think historically, is useful and will serve them well in the future. They also understand, or come to understand, that thinking historically is different than thinking like scientists or mathematicians, which they also must learn how to do.
As for me personally, the reason I returned to teaching high school was because I got tired of preaching to the choir-the already converted-in college sections. I found that the kid I most enjoyed working with was the one who was only in the course to get the credit. Once, memorably, a student told me "Look, I'd rather spoon feed rats than be in this course." That's the kid I want to teach-the skeptic. I enjoy the challenge of convincing those kids that history is not some arcane exercise accessible only to the exceptionally literate, but something that they can do-and enjoy! In my experience, most people who are truly excited by history got that way because they had a terrific high school teacher. There are worse things in life to do than to try to be that teacher.
So I guess I would say that I just try to share with my students the excitement I feel about history and hope that it rubs off. The best example I have that it sometimes works comes from the winter we studied the impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson while the Clinton impeachment trial was in progress. My sections split into groups to do in-depth analyses of particular aspects of the 1868 trial-the individuals involved, the issues, the strategies on both sides-and every day they reported on their research into the Johnson case and we discussed the Clinton situation in relation to that research. At the end every student voted on the charges leveled at Clinton and wrote at length explaining his or her vote. Students read each other's explanations and we had one of the best classroom discussions I've ever witnessed. One student was missing: he'd skipped out the day before, flown to Washington and talked his way into the Senate visitors' gallery to watch the vote.
That, obviously, is an extreme example. But I remember my first department chair telling me that the federal government would give me a lesson plan at least once a week and boy was he right! Think of what's happened since I started in 1974! How can you miss as a history teacher with all of that current material to jump-start students in examining the past?
5. Some are born into greatness, some achieve greatness and others have greatness thrust upon them. What do you try to do at Phillips Academy ?
As I noted above, I dispute this "greatness" idea, so I'm going to pass over this question.
6. Do you have rivalries with other schools? Perhaps Phillips Exeter Academy?
Sure, but they're all athletic, not academic. Oh, I know our admission office spends a lot of time calculating who "won" on the overlap with Exeter , in particular, but the rest of us don't pay attention to that. When I was department chair, the Exeter chair and I talked regularly; many departments meet regularly with their counterparts up there.
The athletic rivalry with Exeter is fierce and Exeter Weekend is a big deal each term, but we compete with a lot of other schools and each team has its nemesis. I work in our track and field program and although the rivalry with Exeter is important, our closest meets are always with crosstown rival Andover High. Those are real nail-biters!
7. How do you maintain high academic standards in the current cultural climate?
By bringing together the most diverse group of talented young people we can find from all over the world who have two things in common: good minds and an eagerness to use them. Put them with good, committed teachers and you're off and running.
And, remember, we're a boarding school. There's no abrupt clash between school and street here, because we control the street. Ready access to the Internet and the advent of cell phones have challenged that a bit, but our kids spend a great deal of time on their work. They're ambitious and competitive, sometimes driven, and they don't waste time on TV or hanging out at the mall. My only concern about this is that their ambition and drive does not always fuel the development of the contemplative qualities necessary for true scholarship.
8. Why is it important for student to have an understanding of the great works of history- and the important leaders and their philosophies?
Here's a kind of an answer that's taken from the introduction I wrote for our department's "Statement of Purpose." In the original, the "I"'s are "we's", since I was speaking for my colleagues as well as for myself. As I look back at it, I think it's as good a response to your question as any. So here it is:
"The ancient Greeks thought that humans faced the past. Seeing clearly only in retrospect, blind to what lay ahead, the Greeks believed themselves to be, in classical scholar Bernard Knox's striking phrase, 'backing into the future.' Although we now regard humans as facing the future, our notions of wisdom correspond with those of the Greeks. They believed wise those who could look forward as well as back and, understanding the relation between the two, see clearly in both directions. In the broadest sense, teachers of history seek to develop such vision in their students.
I believe that the practice of history, that is, the use of its methods in the analysis of evidence and in the construction of narratives and arguments, sharpens an individual's ability to reason well, to speak with confidence, and to write clearly. I also believe that the study of this discipline lends perspective to personal experience and enrichment to the life of the mind.
Once routinely taught as a story of "progress," in which objective truth could be sought, identified, and applied, the study of history has grown more complex, its lessons (if any) vague; its uses less immediately obvious. History teachers used to believe that they knew most of the legitimate historical questions and had almost all of the answers. I do not-cannot-lay claim to that degree of certainty. On the other hand, as I labor to help students to prepare for a future we can only dimly discern, I do believe that it is worthwhile to model for my students dedication to a discipline that takes as a guiding principle James Thurber's observation: 'Better to ask some of the questions than to know all of the answers.'"
9. Who has influenced YOU and why?
I had a grandmother who loved history and a father who encouraged his children to read widely. Both opened their libraries to me as a child, so I got bitten by the "bug" very early on.
I was fortunate in my teachers all the way through. As I got more serious about history in college, Edmund S. Morgan, Hans Gatzke, George W. Pierson, and Mark Lytle all played significant roles in instilling some discipline into my somewhat whimsical approach to the field although they couldn't have known that, given my limited participation in their classes. In graduate school, David Kennedy, David Tyack and Donn Ferhrenbacher at Stanford all helped me hone whatever talent I had for the work. When I finished my doctorate at Harvard, I was lucky to have Patricia Albjerg Graham, Marvin Lazerson, and Patricia Nelson Limerick as members of my dissertation committee. Each played a major role in shaping me as a teacher and scholar.
My many colleagues at Andover over the years have had a regular and abiding influence on my development as a teacher. Theodore R. Sizer, who was headmaster when I first joined the faculty and for whom I worked as assistant to the headmaster, probably shaped my long-term development as a secondary school teacher more than anyone else. As part of my work as his assistant, I team taught a senior elective with him-so I have the distinction of noting that I taught my first class at Ted Sizer's dining room table (we taught in his house on campus).
I would be remiss, though, if I didn't mention the many people I worked with during my years as a park ranger and member of many trail crews in the mountains of New England . No historians there-indeed, most of them never went to college-but I learned a lot from them about what we at Andover call "the great end and real business of living." If you read Norman Maclean's story "USFS 1919", which you'll find in his wonderful book A River Runs Through It , you'll see what I mean.
10. Tell us a bit about Phillips Academy and what led you to it .
I want to dispel the stereotype some people may hold of Andover as "an island of Republicanism in a sea of democracy," as one historian memorably described schools like Groton , St. Marks, and St. Pauls, which were founded in the late 19 th century to be just that.
Phillips Academy, and Phillips Exeter too (founded by cousins), comes from a different educational tradition; that of the old New England academies, specifically designed to take all comers as long as they had talent and a willingness to work hard. Our constitution commits us to educate "youth from every quarter" and to "learn them the Great End and Real Business of Living." Quaint eighteenth century prose but it packs a real punch. To them it meant that any plowboy with a head full of Latin could come and get an education and rise in life. We had scholarships from the very beginning and if you look back at the old rosters of the 18 th and 19 th century, you'll find lots of kids from the surrounding area but also people coming from all kinds of outlandish places, like the Sandwich (now Hawaiian) Islands . George Washington sent his nephews to Andover because he was not happy with the narrow and self-satisfied teaching available to them in Virginia . He wanted them to have a broader outlook on life.
What it means today is a co-educational school of just over one thousand students and just over two hundred faculty, drawn from 47 American states and territories and 26 foreign countries. Students of color make up thirty-five percent of the student body; faculty of color are eighteen percent of the whole. We award over $11 million in financial assistance to over 40% of the student body. Unlike almost every other private institution I know, our student profile does not resemble the "dumb-bell" profile, with big bulges on the full-pay and full-aid ends and little representation in the middle: our profile is even across the spectrum, which is to say that we haven't lost the middle class.
We participate in student exchange programs in France , Spain , Italy , and China . We are involved in teacher and curriculum development in programs in India , Pakistan , Bangladesh , Kenya , and Tanzania . In the summer we run a number of outreach programs, including two specifically directed at working with minority students in improving writing skills and in preparing talented public high school students to enter college majors and careers in science, mathematics, and technology. We sponsor an intensive summer program preparing college students and recent graduates from diverse communities for graduate school leading to teaching careers.
We like to say that we're a private school with a public purpose; a national high school with an international dimension.
Phillips Academy was founded a few weeks after Washington 's army marched out of Valley Forge . Like the republic, it was a gamble. All these years later it's still a gamble-but one well worth taking.
I think I made clear in my earlier answers what led me to Phillips Academy . What I've detailed here is why I remain.
11. If I were one of your students, what book or books would you want me to read? What would you DEMAND that I read?
Let me respond to that as a teacher of American history, specifically. I prefer to teach primary sources rather than books, although inevitably you wind up doing both. There are so many great books out there that to single out only a few would be highly subjective and totally unfair.
Let me talk about documents, which are much more fun anyway. There are a few that I think teachers of American history ought to make sure that all kids read. Since I tend to be a bit of a "nut" on the Revolutionary and Early National periods, my list is heavy in those areas and pretty traditional. I expect that my colleagues who teach using more of a social history lens than a political history one would suggest a different list. What matters in the end is that students understand why we are so passionate about the documents, whatever they are.
So here are my nominees for what might be called the "framing documents" of a democracy and that we ought to teach every year. Others would no doubt nominate others, but here's my very basic list of essentials.
The Declaration of Independence, particularly the second paragraph, which clearly articulates the revolutionary republican principles by which Americans defined themselves and sets forth their understanding of the nature of fundamental political power and the nature of governments.
The Constitution as amended, which not only attempted to put that ideology into operation in a functioning government, but was revised regularly in the light of experience to make it work better.
Federalist No. 10, which articulated how such a government protects, rather than oppresses liberty.
Washington 's Farewell Address, which identified the tensions inherent in the political system that developed out of the Constitution and provided a guide for resolving them.
The Gettysburg Address, which redefined the United States from a union to a nation.
Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union message, the Four Freedoms address, which asserts the fundamental values and purposes of a democratic republic and its possible role in the world.
Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech which addresses the central points of every one of the previous documents while summoning the nation, again, to a "new birth of freedom."
I've always been attracted to and urge students to read the work of historians who can write , who tell an interesting story. Barbara Tuchman had a sign over her desk which asked "Will the reader turn the page?" I always mention that to my students as I commend to them the writings of Francis Parkman, Tuchman, David McCullough, and Joseph Ellis, to mention only a few of the more graceful prose stylists whose work I admire simply for the enjoyment of their writing. For a tour-de-force demonstration of the power of a historian to turn everything we thought we knew about something entirely upside-down, I always recommend David Hackett Fischer's Paul Revere's Ride as one of the best works of American history to hit the shelves in the last twenty years.
As far as one book that everyone should read at some point, I would nominate the first hundred pages or so of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, which cover his early training as a cub pilot "learning the river" under the tutelage of the unforgettable Horace Bixby. It is one of the best books on education ever written in the United States .
12. What question have I neglected to ask?
Well, perhaps, "How do you stay fresh?"
I never teach my courses the same way twice running: I spend much of my summers reviewing and revising, sometimes radically, so I don't get into a rut.
Every so often I try to do something that makes me feel like a student again. The emphasis in that sentence is on "feel": feel unprepared, feel anxious, feel dumb. We get so comfortable in our classrooms. We're the center of attention; we know the answers; we know what's coming next; we're in control. Without quite becoming aware of it, we become arrogant. We lose our capacity for empathy and, imperceptibly but no less certainly, we lose our effectiveness at reaching students.
The antidote to that is to place ourselves in situations where we are expected to perform but know nothing and feel powerless. It doesn't matter what. Some years ago I signed on to work as a volunteer museum educator at a local science center. I had to learn a lot in order to deal effectively with the elementary school students who comprised most of our visitors and it got really interesting when I began doing reptile shows with the museum's two boa constrictors. I made a lot of mistakes; I re-learned how to ask for help; and over and over again I was reminded that this was how students in my classroom probably felt. You don't need snakes to do this-just go out and make yourself vulnerable by trying to master something new, in public. Make yourself a better educator by welcoming the opportunity to feel dumb. Humility is a teaching skill too. |
