SUSTAINED RELATIONSHIPS | CLIPBOARD

Sources:
[1] “Forty-Three Valedictorians: Graduates of The Met Talk about Their Learning” by Adria Steinberg (Brown Lab, 2000)
[2] Learning Journeys and The Learning Cycle (Met videos, 2000)
[3] One Kid at a Time by Eliot Levine (Teachers College Press, 2002).

      On advisors and teachers

Student: I like The Met, because you have a close relationship with your teachers. It’s not like a regular school where I’m confused but I don’t say nothing ’cause I don’t like my teacher. I procrastinate a lot, and when I had to write this essay for an Outward Bound scholarship, my teacher was like “You’re not putting this one off. It’s too important. You’re coming over my house, and you’re writing it.” And I stayed at her house until eight o’clock that night and got it done. Then when I got the scholarship, she took me shopping and paid for my boots, because my mother didn’t have the money. My mother paid her back later. Stuff like that. Like I used to have a big, big attitude about adults trying to have authority over me. I’m getting better, but last year she was the only one who could calm me down and get me to apologize. She knows how I am, and if she knows that I’m too upset, then she’ll just leave me alone and let me work by myself. [3]

Maya: Usually other high schools, they don’t really bother with you. Since it’s so big, they don’t care... These teachers, they get personal with you—not too personal—but they know how you are, they get down to it.

After describing how often she was suspended for fighting in her middle school, Maya explained how and why she changed:

Here, I haven’t been into a fight yet. I was going to get into a lot of fights, but Doc [the students’ nickname for co-director Dennis Littky] sits you down and talks to you. He makes you laugh, makes you understand your problems. At other schools, it’s just, “you ’re suspended, goodbye!” I’m changing the way I do my work, the way I act towards people... Now, I just breathe first, think about it, and go talk to someone here. When you want to fight, you don’t think about why, you just want to fight the person. When they sit you down and you talk about it, you understand that you shouldn’t go into that kind of stuff.[1]

Priscilla: Staying with the same advisor for four years is the highlight of The Met. You learn to trust that person. [2]

       On mentors

Freddie: Manny is like another advisor, someone who coaches me to do what I need to do, shows me the ropes, how to present myself to people. He shows me the grown-up world, the business world. I can tell he’s not a teacher, but I learn a lot from him. He has very good advice, so I take that and that helps me out.[1]

Maya: This year, every year, I go through this low point, but that’s also related to out of school issues and that’s what kind of affects you at school. And I talked to my mentor about it. I don’t want it to affect my school things, because I know it can happen, and I’ll probably give up, and I don’t want that to happen. My mentor is there for me a lot. If I didn’t have him, I don’t know. My mentor, my advisor, and me. The team... keeps the dream together. [1]

       On advisories

Nadia: [My advisory] was essential to my success here, how I’ve done well. It’s essential to have these people who are like your family. To go back to whenever things are not going well in your internships or whatever. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve argued. It’s just been so great, because we’re able to understand each other so well that it’s just amazing.

It’s funny, because now we are all talking about the advisory. Now it’s like, “wow, it’s been a great thing.” It was there, and we didn’t realize what a great thing it was that we had 13 people we were so close to—other people who could help us with our work and could understand what we were going through and always be there to talk about anything. We’ve had our fun times and our fights [but] we always seemed to find the time where we could relate and talk about stuff.

I think that being in my advisory has changed some of my perspectives as a person, because now I think I’m more open to different people, different views, different perspectives on stuff... We’ve come together and understood each other, but it hasn’t been easy. It wasn’t impossible, because we all made it, and we were all able to relate to one another in many different areas, not just schoolwork. [1]

       On talking to parents

Freddie: Now I find it easier to speak to my parents. Before, I never talked to them... I hated to talk to them, especially anything about school. It was like the worst thing you could do, to say something back. When I’d get mad, my mouth starts to go, I don’t even realize what I say—bad things. Since I was always holding it in, now it feels good to release all that. So now I ’m like, wow, I can talk. I can take a stand now, especially at my house. I have voice now. It’s real good. [1]

Leah: My conferences in my old school, those were always bad. “Well, Leah’s not doing this and this.” I used to never tell my parents anything about school... They ’d say, “How ’s school?” and I’d say, “fine,” because I really didn’t want to talk about it, because I hated it. Now I talk about school a lot. [1]

Priscilla: My family’s more involved in the school. At the same time, that could be bad, because they always, always know where you’re at and what you’re doing. But, you know, my family feels very—they can trust my teachers, they can come in anytime and speak to the principal, you know, something that you don’t see very often. [2]

>>Return to the Introduction to The MET