Sessions for Success: Preparing Students for Life After School
By Bob Lenz
10/2/08
One of Envision Schools's four principles is about building relationships. Often, the difference between a student graduating and going to college and a student not finishing school or going on to college is the relationship that student has with just one adult at school who knows him or her well, believes in the student's ability to succeed, and will not let him or her fail.
This type of student-teacher relationship is especially important in the first years of high school. It's so important, in fact, that we've built it into our school design through our advisory system. Almost every teacher serves as an adviser to 16-18 students. Kids stay with the same adviser for two years (one advisor for grades 9-10 and another for grades 11-12). We have the following goals for our advisory system:
Students will
- know and demonstrate twenty-first-century leadership skills in critical thinking, project management, problem solving, collaboration, communication, and creative expression.
- create and maintain a safe, respectful learning community.
- investigate and experience the process of researching, preparing, and applying for college.
- know and demonstrate the practices and attitudes necessary to be successful in college and the workplace.
Being an adviser is often a new role for teachers. The teacher leaders at San Francisco's Metropolitan Arts and Technology High School created a job description to help teachers who are advisers for freshman and sophomore students understand this important role:
"Advisers meet at least once a week (at some Envision Schools, daily) with their advisees. Teachers receive support in the form of professional development and a curriculum. However, the key to being an adviser is "owning" one's students. That is, the adviser should know each student extremely well and be able to rally support, intervene, and acknowledge when needed. If the Envision advisory system is working well, no student will fall through the cracks."
Schools provide advisers with extensive guidelines and schedules (download a PDF) and distribute weekly schedules (download a PDF).
Finally, we have engaged in a new exciting partnership to support our students. Envision Schools and Oakland's Psychological Services Center (PSC) are partnering to provide a tiered set of interventions -- embedded in the advisory program -- based on a preventative, or wellness, approach to behavioral and mental health issues. (The PSC, affiliated with Alliant International University, is a community mental health center that serves the low-income population of the San Francisco Bay Area.)
So that there is no stigma about receiving PSC services, every student will have a wellness plan that includes goals around self-regard, self-regulation, relationships, and future orientation. This plan will be embedded within the first two years of our advisory system.
I will discuss this partnership in more depth in a future post, but please share your thoughts about what you've read so far.
Interesting advising program
The advising program described is very interesting to me. We attempted an advising program at our high school several years ago and I would say the success was limited. There was no curriculum for us to work with during our advising time which was to be once a week with our groups of about 15 students. I would site our limited success due to the lack of time and guidelines for the period. It was difficult for the teachers to develop a sense of ownership of the advisees during such a limited time frame.
I would agree that the relationships teachers develop with students is key in that student's success.
Valuable Program
Thanks for the post, it seems like a valuable program. As an instructional assistant in an elementary life skills class in Oregon, I have some questions for you.
1) Which students are part of this program? Are at-risk students targeted, or does every student participate?
2) Why switch advisers after the first two years? It seems like much stronger relationships would be built by staying together the entire 4 years.
3) Meeting once a week is a fairly big time commitment. What academic programs do the students miss out on as a result?
Thanks!
Great Idea
I think that is a wonderfull idea. Its good to see schools get involved more with their students to help them strive towards achievement and reach there goals. I wish my school would have done something like that for me when i was there, but hey that's the past and we are headed into the future and it seems to me that you're on the right track. However I do think that the students should have the same advisor for their entire high school career because after that 2 years, yeah you have notes and comments from their previous advisor, but those new advisors would have to get to know those students for themselves as to where the advisor they already have, has built a strong relationship with them and the student probably feels more comfortable with them. But I do like that approach and would love to know how everything turns out.
What a great program. Although I graduated over 20 years ago, I had the benefit of having a great advisor/mentor through my 4 years of high school. I went to a Catholic high school where I played sports for my entire time at the school. Both my Baseball and Basketball coaches from the time I was on there teams mentored me. It was kind of weired at first especially never having experienced anything like this. Coaches were normally there to teach you sports, not to get involved with grades and everyday issues. Once I got use to them being as involved in my life as my parents it was actually the best thing offered to me during my high school career. I think this would be beneficial to all high school students although some might argue at first.
Great Program
This sounds like a great program. I wonder what would happen if it was started at the middle school level. Would the success rate be higher? As a middle school teacher, I feel that many students fall through the cracks because they have not had the support of parents, teachers or peers. This support does not seem to be much to make a difference. I believe that most students just want to be recognized as a person. They want to be known, not for their reputation or behavior, be a a human being. They want someone to take an interest in them. The school I teach at is trying to implement a character building program for students. I am hoping that this program will be a success.
Great idea
I have always been a believer in establishing a positive relationship with students. Every were I have taught I have made a point in getting to know my students on a personal level. Most of the schools I taught have been private Special Education facilities. I currently work in a public high school and one of their mantra's is to establish a positive relationship with students. It is great to know that another school is making it a reality. I wish more schools and teachers would follow.
Important Program
Thank you for sharing about this important program. I am currently teaching in the lower grades, but I love the idea behind your program! I think that it is so important for students to know that there are teachers who care for them, not only academically, but also personally. I believe that building rapport with students can make all the difference when working to communicate effectively with them. I wish you great success with this program.