Abandoning Advisory

Photo by Katherine McGinness

Once the clunky laptop cases have been shut and Airplay has finally loaded, I slump into the back of my chair and prepare to ignore the explanation of today’s advisory topic.

Other students seem to follow suit as phones slide out of pockets. Students desperately try to avoid all participation in the “icebreaker” question assigned for the class. I can’t stop my eyes from flickering to the clock every minute, wanting to pull my hair out, because of the Sr2qr I know I could be doing.

The 25 minute period, also known as advisory, is crammed between first and third hour block periods.  Unlike the 50-minute seminars on Thursday—”dedicated to make-up work, test- taking, and seeking help from teachers, and working on homework”—advisory is devoted to “forming relationships” with peers and teachers, meeting with counselors and getting information about events around the school. And apparently it’s devoted to wasting my time.

Between chemistry and economics, I need all the homework time and teacher help I can get. According to the Harbinger Twitter poll of 71 students, 89 percent of students say they’d rather have seminar in place of advisory.

I am all for finding new friends to chat within the hall, and I agree in high school you could use a shove out of your small bubble, but I don’t think that learning my classmates’ nicknames will make me feel comfortable enough to go strike a conversation with one of them in the hall.

The “are you a mountain or beach person” questions that seem to take the whole class period, don’t engage students in class. Psychologist Anton Villado says one of the ways to find success in icebreakers is modeling the behavior you want to portray. If the icebreaker you use is silly, you are setting up the following information to not being taken seriously.

That being said, the goal is not to ask hard-hitting questions. You have to find the happy medium between simple and serious. Nobody likes to talk in front of the whole class by themselves. If you make the topic too serious, that shuts students down, but if you make it too humorous students will tune out the minute you begin.

When we talk about whether our classmates would prefer dipping their fries in ketchup or milkshakes it doesn’t set the correct tone for the class. Finding that balanced topic such as when we talked about East’s community and how to improve it made students glance up from their lap where they were “definitely not” opening Snapchats.

In these lingering 25 minutes, I would find it more useful to finish my algebra two worksheet or try to make a dent in my chemistry homework, opposed to answering questions with my fellow sophomore peers who have a last name “w” through “z.”

Less homework is what I’m aiming for. The more time dedicated to school at school means more sleep. According to www.nationwidechildrens.org, high school students should be getting between nine and nine and a half hours of sleep, but the average teenager gets about seven hours of sleep. In my eyes, 25 extra minutes of sleep makes the difference. Class time shouldn’t be wasted on a room full of unengaged students trying to find trust in their classmates through a five-minute activity.

The Pomodoro technique, a renowned time-management tool, involves setting a timer for 25 minutes with no distractions— just work.

I am a procrastinator. The Pomodoro technique would bring success to students for completing the challenge and being productive. With our teenage attention span lasting only 10-15 minutes according to www.nationwidechildrens.org, Working for 25 minutes is a doable task. This couldn’t happen during 50-minute seminar sessions. The Pomodoro technique would allow me to zoom in and focus on one subject, that way I can feel like I actually know what I’m talking about when I answer review questions in Economics.

Not only is this beneficial for students, but I’m sure teachers aren’t above procrastination and would appreciate time to scramble to the copy room to get worksheets for their next class. Even though I live for watching Mr. Barkimo crack jokes in front of a green screen, it only holds my attention for seconds.

For the remainder of high school, we will stay in advisory class with the same 20 something classmates. My apologies to any of you if by the time we graduate I don’t remember if you are team ketchup or team milkshake.