This chapter was quite short, but it made a very valid point about a crucial part of middle schools: advisories. Wormeli talks about his thoughts on a more effective advisory system. Instead of meeting every other day or once a week and having boring, meaningless lessons, schools should employ the full day advisories. This type of meetings would only happen a few times a year, but would be more beneficial to teachers and students if done correctly. Wormeli’s experience exampled showed that students can get closer because they learn something about one another that they would have never seen in a classroom setting. Various ideas were mentioned for full day, out of the classroom advisories, but that is not always possible, so here are some team building type activities that get students working with each other in the classroom. There are also these middle school advisory activities that are typically done in the classroom that will aid teachers in learning about their students.
Most of the experiences talked about in our blogs reflected the old school advisory setting. Short periods where the Pledge of Allegiance and announcements were done and nothing else really got accomplished. To all of us, this all day advisory idea seems promising, but there are still some concerns. Like, how are we going to ensure that students actually show up for the day? And how do we get parents on board with allowing their child to go hiking or what not? The one concern I really connected with was how to deal with the hesitation from students for these outdoor type activities. I would have never wanted to go hiking or rafting in fear of getting hurt or whatever. Getting students interested in this advisory program will probably be the most difficult task. There are other frequently asked questions about advisories that are answered by Jim Burns.
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