Advisory

The Advisory Program at the King Abdullah Academy supports and compliments the school’s mission to provide all of our students with a nurturing learning environment. During weekly group dialogues and impromptu individual conversations our advisors help students identify and cultivate their personal strengths and affinities. Advisory group dialogues provide students with opportunities to discuss and reflect upon the skills, values, and experiences they will need for academic and personal success locally and globally. During these dialogues our students and their advisors strive to strengthen relationships, build community, and foster personal autonomy. In support of our school’s commitment to global civic responsibility the advisory curriculum culminates in an annual community service project designed, developed, and implemented by each advisory group.

Each weekly dialogue begins and ends with a brief heart-reflection, a critical self-evaluation. In Arabic this practice is known as muhasabah, keeping an account, the pious consideration of the impact of our actions on ourselves, our families, our communities, and even on the greater universe.

Although it has its origins in an Islamic practice, as an examination of the relationship between our values, our intentions, and our actions, we believe heart-reflections can be practiced in a way that is inclusive and relevant for all members of our community. It can potentially provide all practitioners with opportunities to discover the best and most moral courses of action. A moment of heart-reflection may include a critical meditation on intentions or impact after the act or it may be a thoughtful imagining of the outcomes of our future actions.

The goal of a heart-reflection is to foster the moral autonomy of our students. Advisors rarely provide explicit instruction or directly prescribe a course of action when facilitating dialogues. Rather, they challenge our students to critically examine the potential outcomes of their intended actions so they can make autonomous moral decisions. During a dialogue advisors ask our students critical questions about their ambitions, their actions, and their intentions. By engaging in this process our students strengthen the bonds of our school community and develop into morally strong, autonomous learners.