Advisory / Hawk Time is the perfect opportunity to build authentic relationships with and among students and build a sense of community in your room. “A homeroom or advisory… when properly structured to meet adolescent needs, can promote social development, assist students in their academic programs, facilitate positive involvement among teachers, administrators, and students, and provide adult advocacy and a positive climate in the school community. It all happens through safe, engaging, guided peer-to-peer activities that build social emotional skills and connections across differences. Students greet each other respectfully and then share interesting, meaningful activities that draw them together. They become more open to diverse people and cultures, ready to take a stand for equity." You can find the advisory lessons here: FACE TO FACE ADVISORY LESSONS There are two types of advisory lessons you'll find in this "Face to Face Advisories" article:
CPR ADVISORY FORMAT The Circle of Power and Respect (CPR) format for advisories is ideal for creating inclusive communities. Each activity contains four key components: Daily News—Previews the advisory activity’s focus and helps students shift into thinking gear as they transition from home to school. Greeting—Teaches students to respectfully greet someone they hardly know or don’t particularly like. Share—Provides time to talk about daily issues as well as challenging topics like bias, discrimination, justice and acceptance. Activity—Connects students through play and activities that allow them to voice their opinions and discover commonalities. ACTIVITY PLUS (A+) ADVISORY FORMAT The A+ format allows more time for the final activity, which allows students to reflect on the implications of what they have learned or thought or heard—for them personally, for the school community and/or for society. *Hope you find all or some of these worthwhile. Remember to share with your PLC or in an email if you've tried any of these lessons. Let us all know how they went for you and your students!
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Hey everyone! Here's the first post of the year, so it's a little lengthier than I anticipate my others will be in the future! It is crucial to create a connection with a group of educators in all aspects of teaching and learning (I’m so happy I’m already making some of those new connections here at Hoyt. THANK YOU for welcoming me!) but with “doing equity work” we should also recognize that this can’t be done in isolation. I’ve had some of you already approach me to tell me how much your value equity work in this school and you’re ready to dive in to continue learning and growing! We must all have a community of educators, myself included, who can support one another in our search for understanding. I wanted to share a few things that might help you out as you get to know your students. For some of you these things might be, "Duh, Cindy! I know this stuff." but for others, these might be things you hadn't considered before. As I send out information on this site, keep in mind, we all have had different experiences and we are all on different places on the cultural proficiency continuum. When getting to know your students, be mindful of 'microaggressions'. A common microaggression when teachers are trying to identify their students' race/ethnicity is to say, "So...what are you?". Instead, simply try, "What ethnicity do you identify with?" Another thing to consider is not making assumptions about languages spoken at home. You could hand out a short "Get to Know You" survey and include a space for your students to put the language they speak at home with their families. While we are talking about families and assumptions, always keep in mind not all kiddos live with their mom & dad. A classroom example might be, "I need everyone to take this paper home tonite. Be sure to have your mom, dad, grandma, aunty, guardian, whomever you live with, sign this, and then return it to me." Saying things like this honors that you recognize all families don't "look" the same. Also, as you are learning students' names, it is a good idea to put next to names on your roster and seating chart the phonetic pronunciation--this will be helpful to both you and your substitute teachers. Your students will be thrilled that you say their names correctly! .Finally, think about having kids answer the prompt, "What is something you want your teachers to know about you?" I did this for the first time last year in my classroom and I laughed at some and I cried at others as I read them, but I gained a wealth of knowledge about my students. Finally, below this link you'll see a preview of this short article I'm attaching here: www.tolerance.org/magazine/how-can-we-build-antiracist-white-educators “In addition to examining our own racial identities, white educators should follow people of color in this work. Their voices and experiences should always be centered. But we must also push back against the notion that people of color should be burdened with the responsibility of guiding white people through this work...” This article has some key guidelines to shape our approach to this work. The author goes into detail about each one. I encourage you to click the link to read the article and to find out more about each guideline.
Thanks again for being such a welcoming staff <3 I'm looking forward to working alongside each of you this year. ~Cindy
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