In the increasingly byzantine world of American educational reform, two methodologies have emerged as the supposed saviors of our beleaguered system: AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and Kagan Cooperative Learning. The former, with its quintessentially American mythology of bootstrap-pulling and rugged individualism, stands in stark contrast to the latter's emphasis on structured interdependence. Having observed this pedagogical cage match from a safe distance, I find myself compelled to point out the emperor's rather obvious state of undress.
The AVID system, beloved by administrators who undoubtedly succeeded through their own "individual determination," perpetuates what might charitably be called a convenient fiction: that success in modern society springs fully formed from the head of the lone genius, laboring in splendid isolation. This is, to put it mildly, absolute balderdash. One need only glance at any significant human achievement – from the Manhattan Project to the iPhone – to see that genuine progress emerges from collective endeavor, not solitary confinement.
Kagan's approach, while hardly perfect (and bearing its own hefty price tag), at least has the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that humans are, as Aristotle noted, social animals. Its structured cooperative learning methods mirror the actual functioning of the real world, where success depends not on mythical bootstraps but on the ability to work effectively within complex networks of interdependent relationships.
The American educational establishment's fondness for AVID reveals our persistent national delusion about individualism, a delusion that would have Thomas Jefferson spinning in his grave. Jefferson, that paragon of American independence, maintained one of the most extensive correspondence networks in history and freely admitted his intellectual debts to others. Yet here we are, two centuries later, peddling the fantasy that students should somehow transform themselves into academic übermensch through sheer force of will.
What's particularly galling about AVID is its proliferation of educational jargon – that peculiar dialect of bureaucratese that serves primarily to obscure rather than illuminate. It's as if the mere act of creating acronyms somehow constitutes progress. Kagan, refreshingly, manages to avoid this linguistic quagmire, focusing instead on practical structures that support actual learning.
The superiority of Kagan becomes most apparent when considering our most vulnerable students – those struggling with language acquisition, learning disabilities, or the myriad challenges that come with disadvantaged backgrounds. While AVID essentially tells these students to pull harder on those nonexistent bootstraps, Kagan provides concrete frameworks for engagement and support. Its emphasis on total physical response and structured interaction offers genuine scaffolding for learning, rather than mere motivational platitudes.
The pricing structure of these programs – roughly $1,000 for three days of AVID training versus $700 for four days of Kagan – provides a fitting metaphor for their relative value propositions. AVID charges a premium for what amounts to a philosophical pep talk, while Kagan offers an additional day of practical methodology for a lower fee. One might say that AVID has mastered the American art of selling snake oil at boutique prices.
After a quarter-century of observing these competing systems in action, the verdict becomes inescapable: Kagan's structured cooperative approach simply works better. It works better because it acknowledges reality rather than myth, because it provides practical tools rather than ideological bromides, and because it recognizes that human learning is inherently social rather than solitary.
The ultimate irony is that by embracing Kagan's cooperative model, we might actually achieve what AVID promises: genuine individual advancement. But we would do so by acknowledging a fundamental truth that Americans seem pathologically resistant to accepting – that the path to individual success runs directly through the territory of collective endeavor.
In the end, the choice between AVID and Kagan is a choice between comfortable fiction and uncomfortable reality. While AVID sells us the educational equivalent of a Horatio Alger novel, Kagan offers something far more valuable: a practical methodology for navigating the actual complexities of modern learning and life. It's high time we abandoned our romantic notions of educational bootstrapping and embraced the collaborative future that has, in fact, always been our present.
Kagan vs. AVID: The False Promise of Educational Bootstrapping: A Tale of Two Pedagogies
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of AVID's bootstrapping mythology is its unholy alliance with the twin gospels of "growth mindset" and "grit" – those fashionable psychological panaceas that have spread through American education like kudzu through a Southern garden. Here we find the perfect storm of educational malpractice: the combination of systemic neglect with psychological victim-blaming dressed up in the language of empowerment.
The peddlers of these concepts – these merchants of mental fortitude – would have us believe that the primary barrier between a child and academic success is simply their failure to believe sufficiently in their own capacity for growth, or perhaps their unfortunate deficit of psychological stamina. This convenient fiction allows cash-strapped districts to replace smaller class sizes with motivational posters, and to substitute actual resources with cheerful bromides about the power of positive thinking.
"If only you had more grit," we tell the child attempting to complete homework in an overcrowded shelter. "Just embrace a growth mindset," we advise the student trying to concentrate in a classroom bursting with forty others. This is not education; it is gaslighting on an institutional scale.
The true genius of this approach – if one can call it genius – is how it shifts the burden of systemic failure onto the shoulders of children themselves. Unable or unwilling to provide the basic infrastructure of education – reasonable class sizes, adequate resources, qualified support staff – we instead offer a psychological shell game. Your failure to thrive in our inadequate system, dear student, is simply evidence of your inadequate mindset.
AVID, with its emphasis on individual determination, serves as the perfect delivery system for this peculiar form of psychological snake oil. It transforms the very real barriers of systemic inequality into personal challenges to be overcome through sheer force of will. This is not merely wrong; it is actively pernicious. It's the educational equivalent of telling a man without legs that he could climb Mount Everest if only he believed in himself more fervently.
Meanwhile, Kagan's structures – with their emphasis on practical, implementable systems of support – offer something far more valuable than psychological exhortations: actual tools for learning. They acknowledge that education is not a mere act of will but a complex social process requiring proper scaffolding and support.
The tragic irony is that while we trumpet these platitudes about growth mindset and grit, we systematically deny students the very conditions that might allow such qualities to flourish. We pack them into overcrowded classrooms, slash funding for support services, and then wonder why they don't bootstrap themselves to success. This is not innovation; it is abdication masquerading as empowerment.
One is reminded of Marie Antoinette's apocryphal suggestion that the breadless masses simply eat cake. In our modern educational system, we've updated this to suggest that students lacking basic educational resources simply develop more grit. The cake, at least, would have provided actual sustenance.
