More Human Advisory
I’ve worked at a few different schools, and at each one, I’ve been an advisor. Every one of those schools said the teacher-student relationships are the “secret sauce” that make them special. Few of them spent very much time on what advisory should look like.
When I was a new teacher, I only had my own experience as an independent school advisee to guide me. The topic was not addressed in faculty orientation. I sought out counsel from the veteran teachers, who passed along this nugget of information: bring doughnuts. (To their credit, Presti’s, the all-night donut shop in Cleveland’s Little Italy, was a gem. I still miss those sour cream old fashioneds.)
Some years, I was a good advisor. Some years, I was not: it got lost in the shuffle. There are many well-intentioned reasons this can happen. The year I had three new preps. The year my oldest child was born. The year I was adjusting to a new city. But I always knew intellectually that advisory was important. After all, teacher-student relationships are the “secret sauce” that make our schools special.
So I often asked for something I thought would make it easier: a curriculum. But when I got that script, I usually resisted it. And my experience is that, even when all of the advisors have the same plan for the week, what it looks like on the ground – and what it feels like for students – is really different from room to room.
That’s because advisory is both a program and a relationship. And we’re not all equally skilled in building relationships. We’re not even equally committed to using those skills. Ultimately, my success (or failure) as an advisor was usually about my choices and my mindset.
Reflecting on my own experience as an advisor, I have failed when:
I have gone into each advisory without a plan, and also when I have not taken the time to notice that the group is experiencing something that requires me to move away from the plan.
I haven’t been a real, messy, vulnerable human being, and also when I have confused vulnerability with poor boundaries.
These both/and tensions may offer a way to think about how we should show up with young people in an advisory setting.
It can be good to have a script to check in with kids on academic progress, talk about heartbreaking events in the news, or frame a discussion about what’s happening at the school. But the real superpower is our ability to be more human as an advisor. We need to arrive with intention, but be attuned to the group. We need to be real with students, but also show up in a way that puts their own needs first.
At Leadership+Design, we are deeply invested in developing leaders who tap into their humanity and form authentic connections to other human beings. We believe that really is the secret sauce for positive school change.
With that framing, I’d like to offer some thoughts about how individual educators might approach advisory in ways that are more human.
1) Acknowledge what is happening in the world. Learning is most powerful when it’s relevant to kids. They’re smart and they see and hear what is happening around them. When we deny what’s relevant to focus on the prescribed, adult agenda, we appear (and are) out of touch. Advisory should be a place where conversations about current events happen in thoughtful ways that acknowledge multiple perspectives. (L+D’s Design for Election Week curriculum offers some transferable ways to do so. During this pause between election cycles, it is available free, though we may create new paid content as we approach the election.)
2) Have simple rituals that people can use as a container for whatever is happening. A practice of closing every advisory with a gratitude, of rotating one person who selects the topic of conversation, of acknowledging special days in a certain way can add predictability to the year while also creating openings to meet the needs of the group in the moment. Creating those rituals early can avoid the panic of “how do I address x?” Joy, stress, milestone events, and tragedy will eventually be a part of the group’s life. Create routines where they can be addressed before you’re surprised by them.
3) Carry through over time, recognizing that we build relationships over time. It takes time for students to trust adults, and it takes time to notice their beautiful idiosyncrasies. Repeatedly showing up for young people builds trust, and advisory should be a way for young people to find another trusted adult. Over time, you become a better advocate for student needs, and you can more authentically challenge them when challenge is called for. Advisory is a little elusive. At its best, it can still feel like unstructured time. (Is that a bad thing?)
4) Slow down the experience of time during the day. Advisory is a little bit elusive. At its best, it can still feel like unstructured time, and in schools with strong cultures of achievement, unstructured time is often devalued. With that mindset, unstructured time can easily become unintentional time. Let’s set an intention for presence rather than productivity. One of the most human experiences we can offer students is the time to pause, reflect, and experience being in their own body. Allowing the conversation to emerge from the needs of the moment, rather than from a script, is one way to help us reclaim our own humanity in a society that values busyness and false productivity.
Over the last three years, teenagers have suffered quietly. Anxiety, depression, substance abuse, suicide, self-harm and severe mental illness are all on the rise. Advisory programs and advisors are a critical systemic opportunity to support young people in distress.
If you are bad at this, uncomfortable with unstructured time, untrained to connect, it is a great time to learn to be better, and if you are good at this, it is a great time to teach others how to be better. Yes, literature and math and science and college are critically important, but we need to make sure that our orientation towards academic content does not come at the expense of being more human with young people. They need us to show up.
