As the country faces unprecedented political division, the Upper School’s (US) administration has aimed to include opportunities throughout the school day for difficult conversations between students and faculty. On the afternoon of Feb. 4, as part of paired advisory programming, US students and faculty gathered in cross-grade groups to discuss a series of prompts about current events.
During the activity, students moved to different parts of a classroom based on their view—“agree” or “disagree”—on topics presented by their advisors. Afterwards, advisees were encouraged to contribute their opinions to a conversation. The topics discussed ranged from the ethical development of artificial intelligence to whether standardized testing is an accurate measure of intelligence.
According to US Dean of Teaching and Learning Michael Chapman, the purpose of the paired advisory activity was to encourage discussion among US students. The activity was also an opportunity for the freshman class to connect with upperclassmen, he said. Collaborating with teachers to make the activity a success, Mr. Chapman planned all three paired advisories, beginning in April 2024, during the prior academic year.
Matthias Paulson ’26 emphasized the effectiveness of having an organized conversation in advisory.
“We had a pretty productive conversation over a lot of topics. There were people with opposing perspectives, and we did have disagreements, but it wasn’t just shouting at each other. It was actually pretty well organized.”
For Vartan Arakelian ’26, the advisory conversations could have been more useful if the topics were more devisive, he said.
“Since difficult and controversial topics inevitably come up in the real world, I think it is important for the school to teach us how to navigate those topics in a respectful manner,” he said. “The goal should be to create a community where opinions are heard with an open mind and disagreements are tolerated.”
Upper School Math Teacher Sarina Simon said her 10-12 grade advisory would not have connected with underclassmen without the activity.
“I think that my advisees would not have been inclined to talk to them if it wasn’t for this type of situation, and I think that it’s now allowed them to form closer connections.”
Some of the topics covered were more challenging to discuss than others, as students were divided on controversial issues, Ms. Simon said. During the first paired advisory activity
this academic year in November 2024, students discussed the Massachusetts ballot question to eliminate the MCAS as a graduation requirement.
Many students and faculty pointed out that their advisors did not have enough time to cover all the topics. Ms. Simon said there were some appropriately challenging “heavy hitters” that her advisory did not discuss, such as ethics surrounding the death penalty.
Seth Kim ’27 thought the activity could have been more useful if it centered around current political issues, he said.
Another goal of the paired advisory meetings was to create a comfortable environment for sharing opinions. Seth said his comfort level discussing politics at school varies.
“I think it would depend on the circumstance or scenario,” he said. “In some cases, yes, I definitely do feel comfortable. I would say especially within my close friends circle, but I feel like also some teachers could do better at accommodating discussions for political situations.”
Andreas Bai ’27 agreed with Seth about the atmosphere that teachers create for sharing opinions.
“At BB&N, we respect each other’s opinions,” Andreas said. “But then if something is a little too controversial, it might cause some trouble, so I think we need to improve on that aspect.”
Mr. Chapman said that while politics can be challenging to discuss, the paired advisory programming was intended to create a safe space. An integral part of the school’s values is that everyone “feels like they can be heard, even if they have perspectives that might differ from others,” he said.
Although there is still work to be done, Mr. Chapman said he looks forward to leading more paired advisory discussions in the coming months.
“I think it’s important that we have the skills and capacities to be able to listen to each other, to hear perspectives, to ask and answer questions, and those skills have to be applied outside of a classroom space, not just within a class or a graded environment,” he said. “I think we’ve made progress towards being able to do that, and I think we still have a ways to go.”
