Panthers Offer Opinions on Advisory
by Andrew Kwan
December 15, 2006
This is the first year that Edna Brewer Middle School has started an Advisory program. Advisory starts after the 1st Period, and before the 2nd Period. It is from Monday – Friday, except for Wednesday because it’s a minimum day.
The Advisory period is a semi-class where students build character. In it, students talk about different types of characteristics every month. For example, in the month of September, students talked about courtesy; in October, it was honesty, and so on. It was only started this year by the school because the teachers noticed that it might be a good way to know others better, see how others are doing academically so they can help them out, and they can help build social skills, which will be very important in their future lives. This shows that the administrators of this school truly care about you.
I decided to interview 7th graders only because I think that it’d be better: since the 6th graders didn’t attend Edna Brewer last year, we can see the improvements of the 7th graders instead. I asked a couple of people about what they think of the Advisory Period. Of the people I interviewed, I didn’t only ask the students. I asked a teacher as well.
When I interviewed people, I had 3 questions I wanted to ask. One of the questions was whether they thought Advisory is necessary or not. Warren H. said, “Yes, I think that the Advisory Period is necessary because it gives us some time to be free and talk to our teachers about things. Also, we have time to make up our homework.” Another student, Feng H. stated, “Yes because it takes up time.” I was literally laughing at what he had to say! While another student, Theresa H., was eating, I asked her for her opinion too. “I guess, so the teachers and students can get closer and they can talk to their favorite teacher since they’ll be able to communicate better in class.” During class, I asked a student named Albert N. He replied, “Yes, because it lets you see how much you’ve improved and allows you to do your homework because they gave us progress reports, which showed me what I need help on.” I asked the 7th grade Science teacher of the S.A.F.E. family, Mr. Jenkins. He returned with a marvelous answer. “I think it’s really helpful for a lot of students because it helps us keep track of how they’re doing academically. And if they have some kind of problem, we can catch it early enough to help them.”
Another question I had was whether it helped the students or not. Warren replied with a “Yes, it has,” sounding very positive about it. Feng said something that caught my eye. “No, because I don’t do anything. We just look at your progress reports, and talk about boring stuff.” Theresa also stated something that was very unusual. “Not really because there hasn’t been too many problems for me.” Albert said something rather more positive than what the others had to say. “Yes, because it showed me that I needed to improve.” Mr. Jenkins was very thoughtful about his answers, and he said, “I believe it has been helpful, because the number of students who have a GPA below 2.0 has fallen by half compared to last year.”
For my last question, I had a question that might change next year, whether Advisory should stay for next year. All of the replies were rather positive this time. Warren pointed out, “Yes because it’s ‘cool’ since we can do homework when we don’t have time to finish it and it gives us a little more freedom to talk to teachers and we also get to sit wherever we want.” Theresa replied, “I think, yeah, just in case there’s drama next year since people are moving on to the next grade, especially 7th graders.” Albert was so positive about it, he stated, “I think that Advisory should stay for next year AND all the other schools should have it!” The best quote of all that I’ve heard during this wonderful interview was Mr. Jenkins’. “Absolutely. And the other part of Advisory is to know our students, so hopefully we can keep the same students and see how they develop next year.”
In conclusion, most of the students think that Advisory is highly necessary for it’s ability to raise others’ grades and self-esteem. With the progress reports going around and all, the students are able to find out what they need to work on. Apparently, Advisory has helped the students a lot. Therefore, it should stay for next year.
What do you think of Advisory?
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