Teachers' Attitudes before Beginning a Teacher Advisory Program

Abstract

This study explored the beliefs about TA programs from more than two h n red middle school teachers in three different states, before their schools began teacher advisory programs. The teacher is the key to a successful teacher advisory (TA) program. If teachers in a school do not embrace the program, it will fail. If an individual teacher does not carry out the program with her advisory group, the pro gram fails for that of and teacher. Administrators, counselors, parents, PTA's, superintendents, school boards, con sultants, and university professors may all believe TA is the best program for middle school students, to little avail if the teachers who will serve as advisors do not buy in. Teacher advisory, alias advisor-advisee (AA), classroom guidance, homeroom guid ance, Caring and Sharing, and other similar names, is ...an organizational structure in which one small of identifies with and belongs to one educator, who nur tures, advocates for, and shepherds through school the individuals in that group (Cole, 1992, p. 5). Turning Points, the widely quoted report on middle schools by the Carnegie Corporation (1989), recommends that Ev ery student should be well known by at least one adult. Small advisories, homerooms, or other arrangements enable teachers or other staff members to provide guidance and actively monitor the academic and social development of students (p. 40). Advisory programs are one of the most common features of middle schools (McEwin & Alexander, 1990), with schools serving disadvantaged and minority more likely to use advisory activities (Mac Iver, 1990). From the earliest days, leaders of the middle school movement (Alexander, 1968; Lounsbury & Vars, 1978) called for the kind of relationship and activities found in advi sory programs and two major professional organizations which support middle schools are strong advocates of advisory. In This We Believe, National Middle School Association endorses ...homebase or advisor-advisee programs which provide ... regular opportunities for interaction with a small of peers and a caring adult... (1982, p. 13). The National Association of Secondary School Principals included in its Agenda for Excellence at the Middle Level that ...schools must institute advisement pro grams that assure each student regular, com passionate, and supportive counsel from a concerned adult... (1985, p. 4).