This training was quite valuable, and more information about the AVID way of teaching can be found at www.avid.org. AVID stands for “Advancement Via Individual Determination.” Most of the team from my school flew both ways, but my wife (also a teacher) and I drove there and back from central Arkansas. Thanks are owed to Elton John, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Amanda Palmer, NPR, and the Beatles for providing most of the soundtrack for the trip, which was around nine hours each way.

Logically, schools are in one of two situations: they either have started AVID training (which I just completed, in San Antonio, Texas) for the faculty, or they haven’t. I’ve received local training in it for about four years, and have heard a lot about it, but it didn’t congeal in my mind as a coherent approach to teaching until we attended this regional-level training event in San Antonio. Now that I’ve fully bought into it, I next need to work on, in my head, a thoughtful examination of the five elements of the WICOR strategies for implementing instruction which are at the core of AVID. This will provide me with a firm foundation from which to navigate being part of an AVID school in the year that starts next month. The letters in WICOR correspond to the foundational skills of Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading. I’ll be adding to this foundation with a lot of mathematics and science, of course . . . because that’s what I do.

I’m looking forward to the next school year, which starts in just under one month.

If you haven’t heard of AVID and WICOR, and you’re involved in education, I recommend that your school becomes an AVID school as well. How? Just follow the link above to get started. You won’t regret it.