Exeter
Mock Trial Defended
In September my mock trial team put on a short mock trial for assembly for the whole school. One of the Exeter students, not on the team, did not much like what he saw, and he posted a long critique on his facebook page. As is the way of these things, other people saw the…
Read MoreHarvard Mock Trial
This past weekend I took about twenty Exeter kids to Harvard for a mock trial training weekend. The weekend has two main components: lectures by the Harvard students, in which they explain some of the basics of mock trial, and a scrimmage among the various high school students, in which they get a chance to…
Read MoreGraduation
It is seven am on what promises to be a beautiful graduation day here at the Phillips Exeter Academy. In one sense I do not have any of my own children graduating; my son graduated from Exeter in 2011 and my daughter (God willing) will graduate one year from now. In another sense though I…
Read MoreTop Ten
The Phillips Exeter Academy Mock Trial Team, of which I am the proud coach, just won tenth place at the 2013 National High School Mock Trial Championship. At the awards banquet Saturday night, the top ten teams are “called out” and honored, starting with tenth and proceeding to first. We knew that we had a…
Read MoreWhy I Write
I gave a TED talk this morning during the Exeter assembly: about why and how I write history books. The video will be up soon on the Exeter Talks website, but here is the script. Good morning Exeter. As TJ said, I write history books: biographies of famous Americans. When Exeter students ask how I…
Read MoreMock Trial
Phillips Exeter Academy has once again won the New Hampshire state mock trial championship. What is more amazing, three of the top four teams in the state were Exeter teams. I wanted to write, while it is still fresh in mind, about how this happened. We knew, a year ago, that our first team would…
Read MoreCum Laude
The Cum Laude Society is the high school equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa: an elite academic honor society. Here at Exeter, about twenty percent of each year’s graduating class is honored with Cum Laude membership. An even smaller group, about five percent of each year’s senior class, is honored with early membership in Cum Laude.…
Read MoreExeter Event
I spoke last night to an enthusiastic audience at the Exeter Historical Society. It meant so much to speak both to a few of those who taught me, years ago at Exeter, and those whom I am teaching now, in the mock trial club. I hope that my presentation lived up to the mock trial…
Read MoreEnd of Term, Part 2
We are now in our last few days of school here at Exeter: tomorrow most of the students other than the seniors will depart; graduation is Sunday; I am leaving for Virginia early Tuesday. Yesterday I had the privilege of sitting in my wife’s math class as the students presented their projects. This was multivariable…
Read MoreExeter Excellence
It is an amazing time of year here at Phillips Exeter, not only because it is finally warm and sunny, but because of the end-of-year displays of student excellence. I have been privileged, over the past week, to see excellence from many students in many forms. Evan Soltas, the most brilliant 18-year-old economist in America,…
Read More