For years, Vista has aimed to enrich the advisory experience with supplementary lessons. Such lessons range in a variety of topics: stress management, mental health, and civic action are all subjects of recent focus. Although advisory lessons are intended to serve students, poor student reception raises questions about how valuable the lessons are to Vista’s student body.
Advisory lessons attempt to center topical student concerns. Despite this, some students find the topics to be random or inopportune. “We don’t get a lot of information [about the lessons] before, and so when we’re in advisory everything is kind of sprung on us,” said sophomore Ahana Raghavan, “it leaves me wondering, why are we discussing this right now?”
Feelings of randomness undermine impact, while the more timely lessons have further value to students. Raghavan later said that the preliminary lesson to midterms was most helpful “because those were my very first finals. [The lesson] helped by talking about how it actually goes down and what the schedule looks like. It was all really helpful.”
With advisory lessons, timeliness underlines impact. This trend continues among upperclassmen— Senior Gabriella Trinidad notes her appreciation for a recent lesson encouraging eligible students to pre-register for voting. “That was a cool opportunity that most kids wouldn’t get to have,” Trinidad said.
Like the pre-registration notice, all advisory lessons are a student-led and collaborative effort. This effort is led by the Student-Advisory Senate to inform students about relevant topics. Within the senate exists several committees, each with students looking to create a lesson on a topic of their choice. Committees meet regularly to work alongside like-minded senate leaders and prepare an advisory lesson for the whole student body.
Even with the effort that goes into advisory lessons, some struggle to find meaning in them. “It feels like kids aren’t engaged or interested in the slides,” said Trinidad.
The student advisory senate at Vista are aware of poor student engagement and are brainstorming methods to improve their impact. “I do believe that there is a preconceived idea that advisory is not helpful,” said Bethlehem Nebiyu, a member of the advisory senate, “I agree that it can be boring at times, but something that we’re trying to do is change that perception with students and give them these relevant and hopefully useful lessons.”
Things are changing within the advisory-senate; this is the first year their work was entirely student led. “Before now, the lessons were produced by adults. For example, the Base lessons. It ended up feeling kind of preachy or it didn’t seem very personal,” said Nebiyu, “but, what we’re doing now is different from what we’ve done before.”
In light of recent changes within the senate, the students involved are hopeful that their effort will become more impactful around Vista. “What we’re looking for is that [the lessons] help [students] self-reflect and consider things in a new light,” said Nebiyu.
