COMMUNITY
THE BOILING POINT
OCTOBER 2013
4
In newest Advisory program, each grade is unique By Rose Lipner, Staff Writer What will happen when Shalhevet trades in the traditional cooking, chatting and art project advisory for an hour-long class of study skills or learning?
an entirely new program for the every-otherTuesday 1:55 p.m. time slot. “The biggest improvement will be a noticeable focus on addressing the particular
spearheaded the advisory changes. This fall in advisory, freshmen and sophomores will be working on organization, academic, and time management skills, while juniors will have casual seminars where groups of three teachers will sessions about rhetoric and the arts. Seniors will explore gap years
BP P HO T O B Y S ARA H E LPA S
RHETORIC: Science teacher and Debate coach Mr. Chris Buckley gives juniors a taste of the new Advisory, which for 11th graders will include seminars on rhetoric and the arts. Freshmen and sophomores are learning study skills, and seniors about college and gap year.
application process. A big change is that the focus of advisory will be different for each grade, and will vary as the year progresses. The goal is to personalize advisory by tailoring it to the sory of the past did not help students who were stressed and anxious. The new program, he said, will enable teach-
Every program, Advisory–Ma’agal included, needs a recalibration, so long as core principles remain: developing happy, healthy students. The spirit and practice of Ma’agal will remain, but it will not form the crux of the advisory meeting. -- Mr. Danovitch, General Studies Principal
ers to “help students balance life in a social and academic manner,” especially freshmen and sophomores who are still adjusting to high school.
wide range of topics, ranging from current events to sleep habits, and sometimes showed movies or took their groups to Starbuck’s. Some students said they would miss that.
Advisory until this year and also contributed to the new -
type of class,” said sophomore Samantha Bernstein. “We can talk about anything that’s on our mind, and adding a
recalibration, so long as core principles remain: developing
class.” But others looked forward to the change.
crux of the advisory meeting.” Advisory is scheduled during the sixth period of the day
more productive now that we are learning essential skills and tips.”
at Shalhevet.
responsible for their overall well-being and who also acted as a liaison between the school and parents. For many years, program met weekly, but last year it switched to every other week, alternating with SWAP
seemed to have in mind. So will the changes to advisory be permanent? “Few things in life are and this is certainly not one of
New tech classes draw 27 students to after-school classes and Thursdays for an hour each, with a third hour rotating
Continued from Page 1 Stein said. That’s because the goal of the course is for students to collaborate and develop complex technology, mainly in electronics, with minimal guidance from teachers. Projects will be the major component of students’ grades. Participants will be expected to work outside of school as well during class, Rabbi Stein said in an interview, and in groups of three, they will learn the importance
whatever the project is. “There are so many different project possibilities,” Rabbi Stein said. “As a team, you must identify how to solve the problem using circuits, robotics and programming.”
But 15 sophomores and 14 freshmen were interested, so of donations from anonymous Shalhevet donors to fund a
minutes each, and the other class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Students could decide which days were more conve-
email through Schoology, “we not only get to involve more including YULA, Valley Torah and New
in other co-curriculars.” class, but students had to be committed and prepared to be
varied from why they wanted to join to if they had any acronym used by scientists for Science, ematics. “We have known about this program for a while now and are very excited to wood said.
BP P HO T O B Y D ORELLE N A HMA NY
CREATING: Students Kian Marghzar, Mark Miller and Eliana Litov get hands-on experience in electronics and teamwork during CIJE class.
students were already given a taste of teamwork, as they were assigned to groups to both build and actually The original plan was for the class
put it, “any nerdy things,” like computer programming or building things. “The interview wasn’t too stressful and was pretty easy
The program is designed to be a two-year course, and is still considered to be a co-curricular as well because it meets after school. educational opportunity.