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Best advisory ever: A How-To & How-Not

HowTo: Have a good advisory

  • Eat. Stop at the store. Pick up some donuts, mini-muffins, and assorted fruit. Advisory isn't a fun place for students. Make it more inviting. Bribery through food is a good start.
  • Apologize. Mainly apologize for using the "curriculum" you're supposed to be using. Be honest. Tell them you were trying to the the right thing, but some times the "right thing" isn't what's right.
  • Talk. This is big. At this point students will most complain about how stupid advisory is and how it could be used for so many more useful things. Complaining is good
  • Share. Show a couple video clips you particularly like. Show a couple video clips students like.
  • Enjoy. The first advisory meeting you've had all year that wasn't forced or awkward.

Advisory (a.k.a. mentor/mentee, homeroom, seminar, etc.) is designed to be a time where students meet with a teacher to form a relationship outside of the traditional teacher/student interactions. Teachers meet with the same group of students for all four years of high school with the expectation that deeper and more lasting relationships will be formed between students and teacher. I believe that a well executed advisory can be a positive influence on school culture and student success. However, our system is broken.

In a nutshell, here are the major problems:

  • We meet with our advisories every two weeks for 30 minutes. This isn't enough to form lasting relationships.
  • Activities and "curriculum" used for advisory are developed on an "as-we-go" basis.  There just isn't time to develop this stuff on the fly.
  • A small, under-attended, over-stressed committee of five or six individuals designs the "curriculum" that is used for advisory. Six simply isn't enough people to tackle this monumental task.
  • All levels use the same "curriculum" materials. All grade levels- and especially freshman and senior levels- should have their own goals and activities.

Today, I quit. I stopped using the materials provided. I stopped using any formal materials. I couldn't put my students or myself through that uncomfortable hell of pushing through an activity that neither of us thinks is appropriate or helpful.

If you had been visited my classroom during this time you wouldn't have been blown away by anything that happened. If you had been in my classroom for every other advisory to see the awkward and forced interactions that used to be the norm you'd understand my enthusiasm more clearly.

As educators we want so much for advisory to be valuable that we forget the most valuable part is just getting to know our students. You don't need a formal curriculum for that. You just need time and desire (a few donuts don't hurt either).

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The power of talking with (not at).

Deborah Meier:

"There's too often a very off-putting kindergarten teacher's voice, and so on all the way through the grades. I catch myself speaking that way on occasion. What would schools be like, I imagine, if we learned to use our conversational adult voice within its four walls. It might immediately remind us that we are keeping company with kids, not lecturing at them. It might also suggest to them that they might speak to us in the same way. After all, our way of talking, arguing, persuading, and thinking aloud are, however unintentional, models for those we share the space with. How might we, in short, create for the young settings in which they learn how to join us in the adult world?"

A student critiqued my discipline style this week: "Is that how you yell? It's not very scary. I think you should yell louder when you get mad."

I wasn't trying to yell, but clearly the student (and I doubt he's alone) has certain expectations for how he'll be talked at by teachers. I'm pretty laid back to begin with, but I try hard to not let those moments of frustration lead me into moments I'll regret. I'm not an authoritarian. I tried it out for awhile when I first started teaching but it didn't agree with me. I just ended up feeling like a jerk. And my students, though perhaps quieter, were more distant and no more engaged in their learning.

As my authoritarian regime failed, I began focusing on engagement. If students are engaged and interested in what they're doing, they're not going to be planning a coup d'etat. Too often teachers are only interested in keeping their students quiet and looking industrious. Learning in real life is usually loud, awkward, messy, and full of failed attempts. I'm still not very good at incorporating authentic real life learning in my classroom, but when I get do it's full of beauty, relationships, and often complaints from teachers in rooms neighboring yours that your class was making an ungodly amount of noise. They couldn't be further from the truth.
_______________________________
Quotes from Bridging Differences: Keeping Company With Kids, Not Lecturing at Them

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I need your help!

I need your help.

The background

Each teacher at my school is assigned what they call a mentor/mentee group. It's generally the same idea as an Advisory, Forum, Seminar, etc. that many schools are doing nowadays. We meet every other week for 30 minutes.

The first meeting was essentially to fill out paperwork. The second and third meetings students completed a survey (which took 10 minutes max) of what they'd like to see mentor/mentee become. Needless to say, my jaded group of seniors could pretty much see exactly what I could: No one (including staff) really knew what it was supposed to be about. I certainly hadn't been briefed on the goals of the program or the purpose behind its inception.

What I did know is that my attendance rate was about 75%, that we were supposed to do more than shoot the breeze, that we don't actually get plans for what we're supposed to be doing each meeting until the night before (or morning of), and that I didn't know diddly about diddly about how things worked at this school.

What to do?

Fed up and frustrated after our third meeting, I asked my vice-principal (who is in charge of the mentor/mentee committee) about the broad goals of mentor/mentee. He answered pretty much the way I expected: (1) to ensure a positive relationship between teachers and students outside the academic environment, and (2) to use as a forum for disseminating information.

Instead of simply going off the reservation and planning my activities, I decided to attend the next planning meeting and share some of my thoughts. I didn't simply want to become that teacher that poo-poo's everything and just goes off and does whatever they want. I wanted to help improve the program.

The meeting

6:50am. 1st floor conference room. Early. This morning. The meeting went fine, I don't think I did a great job of sharing my views. They were in the middle of going over some of the student survey results, so I didn't want to just totally jump in and sidetrack the meeting.

It became clear that as a school we're still trying to hash out exactly where and how this mentor/mentee program fits. Most of the discussion at the meeting was long term, which wasn't what I expected. I was expecting discussion about planning the next session.

The next step

I decided to send out an email to the committee members sharing my concern over the lack of relationship building activities being provided, and then sent them a link to my school wiki where I brainstormed a list potential ideas (many skimmed off the ideas of others- thanks!). This seemed relatively well received, though it's by no means a fix to the situation.

Where I need help

Many of you may teach in schools that have advisories, forum, seminar, or whatever else. What activities (both in your classroom and school wide) have you done that were successful?

I'm going off the reservation next time around. I'm just hoping to take the rest of the school with me. 😉

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"Fun Facts"

I've taken to adding in "fun facts" to my class. I'm not sure if I got this idea from Dan Meyer in the first place, or if I stumbled upon it independently and then had my habit reinforced by his enthusiasm for a little fun unbound from the "standard" curriculum. They

Pro-crast-i-na-tion: I've seen all of my students do one of these at some point. I've done most, especially the "imaginary computer games with your furniture."

Kung Fu Bear : I used it as a pep talk for my students while they were working on a presentation project. When you go to the zoo to see a bear, it's pretty impressive. Bears usually are just lying around at the zoo, so it doesn't take long to get over the impressiveness and move on. However, this bear decided he was going to take his game to the next level (here's when I started the video). He wanted people to sit up and pay attention to him. People come from all over to see Kung-Fu Bear. People will watch him for hours. He's mastered his game. I then told students I didn't want their presentations to just meet the bare (hardee-har-har) minimums. Don't just be a lazy bear. Be a Kung-Fu Bear!

21 Accents: Some classes loved it, others hated it. I was badgered by one class to play it multiple times spanning through the end of that week. In another class, I was asked to turn it off about 15 seconds in and never play it again. It's amazing how different the personalities of my classes are this year.

I Love the World (The Earth is Just Awesome): I posted on this earlier. The class that hated the 21 Accents video loved this one. Wonder if there's some psychological reasoning behind that...hmm... My other classes enjoyed it, but didn't constantly demand to see it over and over and over and over...

666: I got the information for this from a RadioLab show (RadioLab totally blows my mind). Want to grab every student's undivided attention in a class (yep, even the ones who haven't earned a single credit since 3rd grade)? Throw up a 5 ft. x 5 ft. 666 on your projection screen- the room will almost assuredly fall eerily quiet. Here's the story I told 'em about their favorite numbers: It turns out the oldest known manuscript of the book of Revelations says the "number of the beast" is actually 616. Interestingly enough, this is the area code for much of west Michigan (where I spent my undergrad years). I've embedded the section of the show below where it tells the full story. Or you can visit the RadioLab episode site.

I'll try to update you with more good finds as I come across them.