Week 4: Think Aloud #1

To publish or to present? That is the question. I would feel more comfortable presenting. I have such a passion for what I learned and experienced this year. I would love to share that out loud, yet I don't think this option will work for this project. I recently found out that this program will not continue next year. This has been an up and down experience as far as making this program work. This idea started as an out of the box idea to reach more children in the area of reading. Next, I began to tie this idea into what I wanted to do for my AR project. It was a perfect fit. Next came the logistics of this program. It didn't work with the enforcement of the Class Size Reduction Amendment. So the thought was we were going to have to quickly stop the idea in its tracks, let down 29 struggling children, and assign me a regular 2nd grade class quickly. A creative solution was put into place, but one that came with some risk. We made it work and the success was phenomenal, not only for the 29 struggling children but for all of 2nd grade. Teachers were able to push their average and high students even further. These children got the education they deserved based on the help teachers were given, by me, with the struggling children.

But this is where the story takes an ugly and sad turn. It doesn't matter what we do or how hard we work for our children, if it doesn't follow the rules or the quest for mediocracy, it isn't allowed. So a program which consisted of 50 minutes of intensive remediation for 5 groups of children with a focus on Multiple Intelligence strategies with the integration of technology, research-based reading instruction, team effort, and an emphasis on metacognitive thinking that clearly led to increased success for 100% of the students who participated will not be continued. So sad.

Having said all of that, I realize that if I presented this action research, I would have to explain how we made it work. It can't be explained without sharing the risks and the creative solutions. So publishing with an emphasis on MI and technology will be the only way for me to share how well this works with children.

So to publish is the direction I am taking. Next, thought is... Where?