Glacier View School adds Buddy Groups

MAT-SU — Walking into a classroom around lunchtime at Glacier View School, you will often see tables in each classroom dressed with school-themed tablecloths and flowers.

Students of all ages are getting along and thinking positively about what their buddy group names should be. They are eating their lunches with each other and making quaint conversation about what they learned in school earlier in the day. The students are talking about their academic achievements for the school year and don’t notice that you have even entered the room.

You may think that you are in an imaginary realm, but you are visiting Glacier View School.

This year, Glacier View School has a new program called Buddy Groups. The Buddy Group program consists of high school and middle school students paired with elementary students in teams of two. These Buddy Groups make goals throughout the school year and meet for monthly activities. The student pairs are also grouped to a certain teacher, so at Glacier View there are six groups total.

With three to four pairs of students and one teacher per group, the opportunities for mind growth expand past the level of responsibility and on toward becoming close friends with schoolmates. Along with looking up to a specific teacher as a mentor, students have fun with intermixed grade levels. With only a few weeks of using the program, the students are happier in the mornings and more approachable than ever before.

The objective of the system is to give older students the responsibility of being a role model. For example, if a student is often reckless and misbehaved, the knowledge a younger child looking up to him or her could have a positive effect upon the older student’s behavior. If goals set by the individual students are to achieve higher grades, then the fact that someone looks up to him or her might assist in reaching that goal, too.

Elementary students also benefit from this approach. It gives them upperclassmen to look up to and model their behaviors after. The student will start to, per se, “follow the leader” and start to mature under the idea of becoming the older student and to excel as they do.

The teachers are another example of people who benefit from the Buddy Group program. They form bonds with the students of their groups and begin a mentor-like relationship with the older and younger students as they work throughout the school year to achieve their goals and excel as a team. The meetings are also fun. High school English teacher Dorothy Hrncir projects videos of crackling fires onto the Promethean board in her classroom. She also serves homemade kettle corn to her group members.

An example of a group meeting would be a Buddy Lunch, where the students eat lunch with their buddies and talk about recent happenings. The meetings include activities such as poster making, discussion of goals, eating and other bonding experiences. Other activities such as relay races and group competitions will be used later in the school year.

Lately, the groups have thought of names for themselves such as The Purple Pandas, Team Z, Glacier Bears and The Avengers. Compared to past programs that were designed to project a positive effect on the students, the Buddy Group program is an overall improvement. It has already made huge progress with improving the mood of the students and, if kept, can make an enormous difference in the academic prosperity of the classes.

Freshman Talitha Lucia said she thinks the program is good for the school because she gets to interact with the elementary students and create bonds that will last until she graduates in 2016. Elementary students also enjoy the system because they make new friends and get to hang out with the “big kids” during the meetings. They also send notes to their older buddies.

The Avengers team leader Joel Moorman also said he thinks that the Buddy Group program is great. The Buddy Group is going to have a positive effect on the school and is a great idea for the long-term benefit of the students.

Sidney Feige is a 12-year-old student at Glacier View School.