A Good Little School

4. The Power of the Personal

They need to trust the world enough to reach beyond themselves. The advising piece is very sacred. Knowing your students, who they are, what they like, what they don’t like, what they are going through outside of school—it all helps you know what to teach, how to teach, but mostly how to support your students . We are fortunate that we have advisors and such a close community, because when a student is having a problem, a parent can call and talk to someone who really knows their child. —An Open School Teacher In the world that is, we hear and read about child advocacy that assumes that someone is advocating for the child. What the Open School community believes is the real expectation in the personal dimension is “self-advocacy” or “self-empowerment”; students learn how to advocate for themselves. They feel this is the most humane gift we can give their students. They do this primarily through advising. Advising that empowers students to be who they are and not what someone else wants them to be, helps students make healthy choices, and promotes independent and self-directed learning and thinking—in other words, focuses on the power of the personal dimension. The Open School addresses the personal dimension in several ways:            The Power of the Personal 25 advising, classroom management strategies that personally empower students, providing opportunities for choice and self-direction, and paying attention to students’ interests. ADVISING Building relationships with each and every student is the thread that flows through the entire program. Every teacher in the building is an advisor. The advising system builds the one-to-one bond between the advisor and the advisee from the moment a child enters the school, no matter how old or how young. Even the youngest students will refer to a teacher as “my advisor.” Personal advising provides a unique and rich opportunity for advisors and students to spend time with one another and discuss challenges and possible solutions. Advising has three dimensions, one-on-one, whole group, and selected group. At the elementary level, teachers are the advisors for their group of students, usually a 20–25 to 1 ratio. Students stay with the same teacher/advisor until they move to the next level. Therefore, one student may have the same advisor for three or four years. At this level most advising is done as a whole group. Whole group advising is a part of every day’s schedule usually at the beginning and end of each day. Topics range from getting along on the playground and bullying to the death of a student and world events. In the IA, meetings are typically led by a student with the support of the teacher/advisor. There are ground rules for meetings that are reviewed continuously and students often monitor other students’ behavior. One-on-one advising happens whenever it is needed, any time, any place, as issues arise. These are personal meetings between student and teacher to discuss problems the student may be having with other kids, or express how they feel, or talk about a problem at home. Selected group advising occurs less frequently, but teachers are sensitive to the fact that sometimes just girls or boys or a small group has special needs that need attention. An elementary teacher explained advising this way: Becoming an advisor is a dream come true for anyone in the education field, especially in today’s society. As an advisor you grow with the students while focusing on the social, personal, and intellectual development of each and every child. Everyone works together to build trust and communication while sharing knowledge and growing 26 A Good Little School to understand individual fears and differences. An advisor’s success is based on the overall well-being of all students in the classroom, not a school’s test scores and district or state status. Advisors acknowledge the voice of students in the classroom. Voice is an important factor in building trust and confidence in young citizens. Through this experience, students learn how to discuss problems and concerns in an appropriate manner. Everyone’s opinions, feelings and concerns are taken into consideration before a decision is made. Watching students in action, making their own decisions and drawing their own conclusions, provides a sense of ful- fillment that simply teaching would never accomplish. Acting as a facilitator, building on what advisees already...