Worth the Very Long Wait...

 


Today was the first Advisory group of the school year.

It was also the first official school-wide community-building endeavor I've been part of.

This is my 29th year in the classroom.


This has been a dream of mine for many years, having been School Improvement Co-Chair and the Character Group Chair for a while. It seemed Advisory would become reality several times in my tenure, only to see the timing was off. This will be an excellent way to live our our school Character Goals of Honesty, Empathy, Responsibility, and Determination!

Advisory is meant to be a dedicated time period with a smaller group size than a typical class. It's also meant to strengthen ties within the school--the teachers that run Advisory groups may or may not have their own students in their groups. 

Advisory is not a homework-help activity, but rather is meant for us to get to know one another in a setting without expectations of formal learning or grading. Today's activity started with the teachers giving a brief explanation to the students of our goals for the group and a short introduction of ourselves. Students then wrote answers to some low-stakes, fun questions (Would you rather be part of a karaoke or dance contest, and why?), crumple the paper and throw it around the room. Students would pick up a paper, read the answers and guess who wrote the answers.

I was very happy with today's experience, and, more importantly I feel our students were, too. I look forward to next week's session.

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