Advisory

posted Apr 4, 2016, 12:01 PM by Amy Wix   [ updated 23 hours ago ]

Mission: Kasson Mantorville Middle School inspires excellence through  meaningful relationships. Belief: Because no significant learning happens without significant relationships. Meaningful relationships.  This is huge for teachers in a middle school.   Middle schoolers are a very unique bunch of young adults.  There is  an extreme range between ability, maturity and confidence with the  students we see each day.  I think our Advisory program is the best  way to develop significant relationships with our students.  I absolutely  love starting my days with this group each morning.  The past few weeks  our counselors have been offering stress relief activities for the students.   We had a presentation on using laughter, a chance to utilize coloring and a morning of yoga.  I’m proud of the participation from the Wildfire,  especially with the yoga.  In fact, our Honor Code is B+(Be positive, not B plus),  Participate and Persevere.       The Wildfire LOVE treats.  Valentine's day we made our strawberry shortcake (Twinkies) hearts. Finally, the group likes crafts (okay, honestly, only part of the group really  likes crafts, but they are all good about doing their part).  We regularly  make cards for the local senior residence. This time we made 3-d spring  cards that they used as part of the decorations for Easter weekend.   How is this develop meaningful relationships?  When the students are working together on projects- whether coloring, crafting, or making and eating treats- they are talking.  They are sharing stories about their families,  their friends and the activities they are involved in.   We have our Tuesday  Mindset lessons which sometimes is too structured and repetitive to get  quality conversations going.  I actually had a sub leave a note one time  that said my advisory lacked leadership because they wouldn’t discuss  the day’s topic.  What I actually interpreted was that a sub doesn’t have  enough of a relationship with the students to get them share their ideas.    Our different activities provide times to highlight individual student strengths,  and engage in conversations that seem secondary to the activity but are  really developing relationships.  Relationships between myself and the students, but more importantly, relationships between my 20 advisees, from across the  grade bands, who have been thrown together by a computer scheduling  program and somehow, become friends over the course of the year.