ADVISE COMPROMISE? OR

Teachers and students discuss the efficiency of Advisory and improvements that can be made.

By Ella Shafer

For 30 minutes every even day, underclassmen make their way to assigned Advisory classes where they are mentored by upperclassmen. While juniors and seniors also engage in this time, the mentor program specifically provides lessons and activities to underclassmen.

According to Ryan McCoy, one of the freshmen Advisory teachers, this allotted class time serves the purpose of teaching life lessons as well as forming a school community.

“[Advisory] is a place for students to feel like they have a place on campus, especially if they’re not in a sport or other activity, where students feel like they can connect with other students and teachers,” McCoy said.

Sophomore Adam Wang said that most students have grown to like Advisory and participate due to its social aspect.

“I feel like Advisory is a beneficial time to talk with friends that I enjoy spending my time with when I don’t usually talk to them in the school day,” Wang said.

Advisory has undergone many shifts along with other schedule changes at BVN. Senior Supriya Bolla has been a mentor since her junior year and said the atmosphere of Advisory has changed over time.

“Freshman year, I feel like [Advisory] was a lot more hands-on, for Gifted at least, and the mentors were a lot more dedicated to the lessons,” Bolla said. “Now, it’s more like a causal ‘oh, if you really want to do homework you can,’ even though we’re supposed to be following the lessons and teaching people how to be better humans.”

When discussing her experiences with mentoring throughout her junior and senior year, Bolla mentioned that students’ attention spans require a stronger work ethic.

“Being a mentor you realize how hard it is to get everyone to listen and use that time effectively,” Bolla said. “I think it’s just a little more frustrating than I thought it would [be] in trying to get engagement, but that’s a journey that we’re making.”

According to McCoy, students’ and teachers’ willingness to participate directly relates to the effectiveness of Advisory.

“It’s been a challenge with freshmen to get them to participate,” McCoy said. “But with the help of the mentors and me being engaged, when we have an activity, generally speaking, the students will jump in and participate.”

Bolla added that lessons that promote engagement get a positive reaction, and allow mentors to interact with students and get more out of the designated time.

“On the days that we have lessons where we are actually able to teach them and they go as planned, it’s rewarding in a way,” Bolla said. “There’s some personal satisfaction in making sure they don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

Bolla said Advisory lessons prepare students for the future by teaching them to use Naviance, understand job interviews, create resumes and explore careers.

“We’re able to talk about what we’ve done in the past, what worked and what didn’t and how they can be prepared for the future,” Bolla said. “With some [lessons], we were actually able to tell the kids, ‘You have all the resources you need to be successful.’”

According to Wang, some of the Advisory lessons could be improved or replaced with more relevant topics.

“We’ve done lessons about online presence and cyberbullying, but I think those are pretty self-explanatory, so they are kind of a waste of time,” Wang said. Regarding the preparedness of mentors, Bolla believes there is room for improvement and wishes there was more collaboration among upperclassmen from different classes.

“[Mentors] are complaining internally about a class that’s not responsive, but they don’t know how to get a response out of the kids,” Bolla said. “I wish there was a chance for mentors from other classes [to] get together and talk about ways to get their classes to engage more.”

McCoy agreed that there are opportunities to get more out of each lesson.

“I feel like the upperclassmen could do a really nice job with the lessons, however,

I feel like the amount of time that they’re given to prep the lessons and the time spent preparing and planning a semesterlong curriculum is not there yet,” McCoy said.

According to McCoy, a class for mentors would be useful in improving the productivity and depth of lessons.

“I came from a school that had a really strong mentor program where there was a leadership class connected to mentors,” McCoy said. “Students would have a class in their day where they were practicing leadership and how to teach each lesson.”

Bolla mentioned that having upperclassmen whom students can look to for advice is one of the biggest benefits of Advisory. She said seniority is found in places all around BVN, which directly translates to Advisory classrooms.

“A lot of seniors have the mindset of ‘this is my domain,’ but being in mentoring and Advisory and being able to connect with these underclassmen allows us to see that this is the next group of kids that are going to make BVN their home,” Bolla said. “You get to help them create a culture at BVN.”