|
Type:
Old Horace (vol 5-17) |
When teachers at
At
The faculty at
Making a student's education more personal is the base on which all the common principles of Essential schooling stand; and in many schools like these, advisory groupings are emerging as one way to work toward this aim. If even one teacher in a school knows a student well and cares what happens to her, the theory goes, chances increase dramatically for that student's academic success. More, advisory groups can promote the principles of unanxious expectation, trust, and decency in students' relations with their teachers and others, both in school and outside it.
But are advisory groups the path toward personalizing a student's school experience, or merely a lightweight substitute for paying individual attention to intellectual development in the classroom itself? Should life issues be included in advisory sessions, or should their focus be primarily academic? Where is the line between teacher and guidance counselor, between adviser and parent-substitute, between private dilemmas and social or intellectual obligations? As we looked at such programs in a dozen Essential schools nationwide, it became clear that advisories serve as a lightning rod for many of the most provoking questions facing school people today. Whether the advisory group is "essential" --a key tool in a school's commitment to the principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools --is a question individual schools must explore as they move toward change.
One view of the advisory's purpose assumes that to know a student individually means to know his mind well --the better to work with him in a classroom context. For best results, argues the Coalition's Director for Schools, Bob McCarthy, the system should match advisers with students they actually teach, not arbitrarily as it sometimes done. Further, the purpose of an advisory session should be to work on developing, both individually and in a group context, the inquiring habits of mind that mark a scholar. Socratic seminars, book discussion groups, debate on school and community issues, and philosophical investigations might all augment one-on-one coaching in this model of the advisory relationship.
But many of the programs we looked at were shaped along much different lines. To know a student's mind well is not enough, they posit if his education is truly to have meaning in the real world, it must address his situation in society too. The advisory group is used, in these schools, to practice skills in group dynamics and human relations that can be used for everything from governing a school to making the most personal decisions. And the individual commitment teachers make to their advisees aims to forge bonds that include the student's home and private life as a crucial part of schooling.
In practice, if we try to separate advisory groups into two models, the
academic and the personal, the lines between them will quickly blur. "Kids
don't let you do it," says Bob McCarthy. "They are going to push you
to take an intellectual discussion into a concrete realm that makes sense in
their world." Likewise, advisory groups may discuss the most personal of
issues while applying principles of evidence and argument that train students
in critical thinking. "If you start a discussion about what you'd do if
you were drafted to fight for oil against
In fact, some of the best advisory group discussions start with historical,
literary, or scientific situations that pose compelling moral dilemmas. In her
1984 book Making Decisions, from which several exercises are reproduced here,
Nancy Faust Sizer sets out such cases in 26 pairs
--one drawn from students' own environment, one from the world at large to
encourage analytical thinking and moral reasoning. Emphasizing respect for the
reasoning process over the actual outcome of the decision, she argues, allows
students to "compare, dissect, resolve" their common and individual
principles. (Published by Longman Publishing Group in
In the end, it seems, the main point of a good advisory program is to help the student feel that it matters what he is doing with his mind and his life and to recognize the ways in which the two relate. "The adviser is often the only adult in school who has a clear notion of a student's whole schedule, whole day, and whole life," says Rick Lear, a senior researcher at the Coalition of Essential Schools. "It makes the system much more sensitive when a kid has a problem. The adviser has a sense of whether the problem lies in an academic area, or with a particular teacher, or in some life problem. Advisers become advocates for kids in the system --sometimes they are even referred to explicitly by that title."
Is it really necessary to make formal time for teacher-student interaction
in order to attain a more personal education? "Very good teachers often
have this kind of relationship with their students already," says Kent
Lowry, a teaching intern and adviser at
In practice, the advisory groups we saw included a broad mix of purposes and techniques. Sometimes academic or even remedial in nature, sometimes almost purely social or personal, they have grown from each school's own vision of its needs and priorities, its students and its community.
The adviser-student relationship may be as simple as a brief daily encounter in which students can touch base with someone who has a special interest in their progress. It may have a primarily administrative focus, with the adviser monitoring attendance, helping plan a schedule, and meeting to discuss grades and future plans. Or it may provide a steady arena in which intellectual habits and challenges are addressed.
"One of the best advisory sessions I have seen was at Paschal High
School in
Academic enrichment is also built into advisory sessions when teachers use them as book discussion groups. "Two things could happen at once," one principal says who favors this model for his school. "The kids could stretch their minds by reading interesting works of clear value, maybe introducing controversial issues; and their discussions could generate critical thinking and get teachers and kids to know each other as they explore different important questions through reading."
Building a strong student role in their own government is an important aim
of some advisory groups. At
Almost all advisory programs make some effort to help students plan for career and college, though few actually substitute advisory groups for conventional college and vocational guidance counseling. Planning field trips to colleges and career fairs, practicing interviews, and doing exercises designed to identify personal strengths and goals all can take place in advisory groups.
Some advisory groups carry out community service projects; and some schools
use the time for special presentations or other activities that bring the
school community together. At
Most advisory systems also serve as the first step in resolving discipline
issues, either individually or in the group. At
Across town at
Goldman is among the many teachers who have used "dialogue journals" between students and teachers as a private arena in which to bring up important issues. Others go even further, introducing exercises in group dynamics to train students to open up emotional and behavioral issues. Such teachers see their activities as educating the whole person, not invading a private arena. "If you can't identify what you think and feel and why, you won't get far in an intellectual discussion," one said. "Listening, problem-solving, and conflict resolution are life skills and analytical skills. They require training and practice."
Whether their focus is primarily academic or personal, advisory groups require new roles for most public school teachers, and they are often frightening ones. To advise a group well may take training in new skills, and it will certainly take more time, both to prepare for the advisory sessions and to invest in individual students. The results, say those who do it, are well worth the effort; but in the process new questions are raised about the roles teachers and students should play in our educational system.
No one denies that advisory groups make extra work for teachers. If the group's goals are well articulated, to reach them involves careful planning?in essence, an entire new curriculum may emerge, including anything from consensus building and human relations to philosophical explorations, study skills, or career planning. Some schools, believing that the main point is to get to know students better, leave the use of advisory time completely up to individual teachers and groups. Others set up more formal expectations, but allow substantial variation in how to meet them. In either case, preparing for an advisory session is just as important as preparing for a class, and many schools help teachers out with handouts, workshops, and suggestions.
"Typically people start out trying to narrowly describe what they will do, so it won't be overwhelming," says the Coalition's Rick Lear, who often works with schools just beginning advisory efforts. "Then as teachers get to know kids they develop their own sense of what's appropriate and what their limits are. Within any one building there will be a range of responses --those who are more comfortable will make themselves more available to both students and parents." Still, he concedes, advisories do take more time than people once expected. "You're getting involved in the lives of kids," he says.
Some teachers thrive on this; others back off from the intensity of the experience. In his days at Central Park East Mike Goldman, for example, would give students and parents his home phone and set evening calling hours for between six and seven. "I never once had a student or parent abuse the privilege," he says. But one teacher at an alternative school with a high priority on home visits told me that the level of involvement in students' lives was "too much for me. I'm leaving to teach in a more strictly academic situation."
Especially if a school's advisory focus is more broadly defined, some school
people balk at giving advice to young adults on personal issues. "Some
things are rightly none of my business," one teacher told me.
"They're the parental domain--they're not for me to know." In many
cases, though, teachers must come to terms with the fact that if they do not
care about the personal lives of their students, no one else will either. For
schools in troubled communities like
Once somebody does start to care, in whatever context, the results can be
swift. Because 45 percent of
Ironically, however, a successful advisory effort can make a teacher's life harder, as more difficult students show up in class regularly. "Now that they're coming, you have to figure out what to do with them," Pasadena High's Judy Oksner says. "They are not only poor academically but they can present behavior problems."
Many teachers are reluctant to get involved in advisory programs because they fear they are unqualified to deal with serious problems that might arise. To address this, most schools encourage continual dialogue between guidance staff and teachers, emphasizing that the adviser's role is to spot problems, not necessarily to solve them, and training teachers to recognize signs of trouble. More serious behavioral or emotional problems, such as drug or alcohol use, are usually referred to guidance counselors or other professionals, although in some schools the adviser takes part in those meetings. The advisory relationship here can serve as a crucial early warning system, school people say. "All I had to read was a hint in her advisory journal that one student was thinking about suicide," one teacher told me. "The safety net went out, and the student got counseling in time to help. At no time did I have to actually sit down with the student and counsel her about her suicide plans --I wouldn't have been prepared for that --but the system saved her."
Others balk at a quasi-guidance role for teachers for a more political reason: they worry that guidance staff will be cut with the change, or that their own work will unfairly be increased. The evidence is that advisories augment rather than substitute for the guidance counselor's job. But other administrative changes may be necessary to put an advisory system into place. A group of perhaps 15 seems the ideal size, for instance; but this may be unworkable given the student-teacher ratio. To solve this some schools ask administrators, librarians, and other non-teaching staff to serve as advisers. Other schools may need waivers from teacher contract clauses or district regulations, especially when advisory groups count as a credit-bearing class.
Any advisory position can get sticky; those who do it best are comfortable working with opposing interests. "Being an advocate for a kid may put you in conflict with your peers," Rick Lear says. "It could be another teacher the student is having problems with."
The new role also can cause discomfort as teachers start thinking of themselves not solely as evaluative educators, but as coaches involved in both the intellectual and the emotional lives of their students. "This may lead to a decision to consider the evaluative relationship itself differently," notes Coalition senior researcher Patricia Wasley. "It ties right in to exhibitions, interestingly --the more you know about what a student is interested in, the more effectively you can coach her to demonstrate mastery. But this more holistic approach requires a significant leap for teachers."
But even teachers who oppose
Teachers who have worked with advisories for years say their extra efforts pay off dramatically in the classroom. "I've seen drastic changes in students because someone cares about them as an adviser," says Mike Goldman of his years at Central Park East. "Attendance goes up; the kids work harder; study skills and academic performance improve." A good advisory system, he argues, sets a tone in which students want to come. "Small groups don't fall apart," Goldman says emphatically. "The advisory group breaks down the 'house' concept one more step --it sets up a family group within the larger house family."
As new advisory programs get going, even teachers who are not predisposed
toward their new role report satisfying results. In
At the graduation ceremony for