Workshop 12 will not be continued next year. Over the past few years, Andover students have been able to take part in Workshop 12, an interdisciplinary class for Seniors in which they conduct targeted research on various topics. The Workshop, taught by Correen Martin, Instructor in English, Andrew Housiaux, Instructor in Philosophy and Religious Studies, Ellen Greenberg, Instructor in Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, and Eugene Hughes, Instructor in French, did not follow a concrete structure. Instead, Workshop 12 provided students with a more flexible schedule that worked around students’ individual projects.
The reasons behind the discontinuation of Workshop 12 remain unclear. Housiaux, one of the teachers of Workshop 12 who is leaving Andover, commented on his regret with the discontinuation.
“Earlier this Fall, I was informed that Workshop 12 would not be continuing. I share in the disappointment of the members of the Andover community who, like me, had hoped that it would,” said Housiaux.
Solar Lu ’24, a student in Workshop 12 this Spring, described what a typical class period would look like. They discussed how class content often varied in form, ranging from independent research to group discussions or field trips.
“In the first half of the term, we had teacher-lead projects. These groups included Public Health Humanities, Listening to the Buddhists in our Backyard, Visualizing Inequality, and Three Towns. We would meet with these small groups to plan our project, either group based or independent within each theme, discuss what we’ve researched, go on field trips, meet with experts, work on completing the projects, etc. The second half of the Workshop is dedicated towards independent projects of our choosing… We’ve heard from people who work in education, medicine, artificial intelligence, producing musicals, etc,” wrote Lu in an email to The Phillipian.
Ashley Park ’24, another Workshop 12 student, recounted her lasting memories from The Workshop. She spoke on how the time the class spent together as a part of The Workshop allowed the students to create special bonds.
“We actually took a few moments last week to reflect on our Workshop experience, and what a lot of people were saying was the things that we were able to learn from each other. Because of the [schedule], you have to dedicate basically every day to the workshop, rather than having specific class [periods]. That really bonds all of us, all 21 of us, in a very unique way. Not in a way where we’re helping each other solve math problems, or helping [each other] summarize a book for English class. But rather, more like teaching each other, informing each other with life skills that you really can’t experience anywhere else. That’s what really made the workshop just a very memorable experience,” said Park.
Students in The Workshop do not receive numerical grades. Park commented how the lack of a concrete grade in the course provided students with the opportunity to learn more freely.
“We have a rubric that explains different goals we should reach within the term, and one of the goals that we have is called ‘learning to learn.’ I think that was a very crucial part of my experience in The Workshop… There’s a lot of interdisciplinary research done, and there’s a lot of individual research that you have to take responsibility for, that’s very important when you’re trying to learn something compared to [when you are] just getting the answer,” said Park.
Agreeing with Park, Jenny Jin ’24, who also took The Workshop, pointed out the differences between the teaching styles of Workshop 12 and other classes. Jin mentioned how the faculty used The Workshop’s teaching methods to think about creating change in current teaching models.
“The Workshop is more about exploring. [The faculty] lets us explore stuff ourselves and try to figure out what we like best and how we work best, so even if sometimes we fail, they’re pretty understanding and they actually encourage us to fail more so we can learn more from the failures. Shout out to them, they worked really hard to make this happen, and they worked really hard to try to push and to make people think about how education should be structured,” said Jin.
Correen Martin, a supervising faculty member and one of the original organizers of The Workshop back in 2020, is leaving Andover after the conclusion of this school year. She commented on how The Workshop has been one of the highlights of her time at Andover.
“I will look back on my experience with The Workshop as one of the best parts of my whole time at Andover. I’m lucky enough to have been one of the original group that conceived, planned, brainstormed and dreamed, yes I’m going to use the word ‘dreamed,’ the program. From the planning to the researching, talking, actually teaching in it, and being a part of it, [The Workshop] has really been one of the highlights of my almost ten years at Andover,” said Martin.
