After the hustle and bustle of class trips, high-school students pick their advisers. When I was a freshman last year, this posed quite a problem.
Sure, the list was comprised of a large number of names, but I didn’t really have a choice.
I was told to mark five teachers that I wanted as an adviser but, as a freshman, I had been taught by only five teachers.
Even if I didn’t actually want a teacher, I felt obligated to put a check next to his or her name.
I did have one other option, but it was not very appealing—opting for a teacher whose class I had never been in.
But both of these seemed to defeat the purpose of the advisory: to give students a chance to talk to a trusted teacher who can advise them.
And the benefit of an advisory vanishes if we end up with a teacher we dislike or never had.
Instead of having to check five teachers, why not have only three?
This would allow for all students, especially freshmen or new students, to clearly specify which teachers they wanted.
Or if we must put five names, can we at least prioritize?
Prioritizing would speak volumes as to which teacher the student really wanted, especially when compared to a simple check.
Perhaps if we prioritized, there is a chance that some teachers would not get picked. A result of this could be rather large advisories.
However, either of these options would still ensure that we actually have a say in who our adviser is in comparison with the current system, which does not.
It may be that with an adviser of our choice, advisory could be more productive.
While some advisories enthusiastically plan fundraisers for various organizations, others are just there to pass on information to the students.
What I hope to take away from advisory is guidance for issues that I might be having.
“Your adviser is someone you can talk to about everything that’s going on, whether it’s personal or academic,” Sue Nellis, head of the high school, said.
How is this to be achieved if students scarcely know their advisers?
In the end, a student who is in an advisory with a teacher of his or her choice will take more away from the weekly advisory meetings.
Since this is not the case, many of us do not get much from our advisories.
For all of those students, advisory is just a place to get snack on Thursday.
If someone remembers to bring it, that is.
