It seems at first glance that the new book is for administrators.  Was this your target audience?

Well, Schooling by Design started out as a book for principals and assistant superintendents– for academic leaders, in the narrow sense of the term. Hence, the original title – Leading by Design. But we ditched that idea and threw away the early manuscript.  It seemed to us as it unfolded that the book was really about what school would be if it were organized in a coherent, logical fashion to achieve its purpose.  And so, in that regard, it applies to everyone.  So anyone from an assistant superintendent to a principal to an assistant principal to a teacher can say, "Oh, if that's the long-term goal, if that’s what I am in business to accomplish, then what follows? That question works for everyone – from classroom teachers to entire staffs. If that’s the program goal, then what follows for lessons? For grade-level or departmental assessment? For grading? For job descriptions?"

It’s all about the logic of IF/THEN. We think a smart school traffics in these if/then statements so that everyone, up and down the ladder, can question: if we value this, why are we doing that?   For example, we say all the time that we value critical thinking, but when we look at units based on textbooks, and at the assessments that we use most frequently, we don't see much critical thinking being demanded.  This logical approach then gives, I think, a voice to the average teacher to be able to say in a kind of Emperor's New Clothes way, "Wait a minute, why do we do this, if that’s the purpose?"  Because I think that's the real bottom line of the book: a lot of what we do is on automatic pilot from a hundred years ago, and it just doesn't get the level of scrutiny it deserves.

So what would be an if/then statement a teacher might look at?

Well, let's take the grading issue.  Here we are living in a world of standards.  But how many teachers or entire schools give a standards-based report each semester? Here we are living in a world where we know that there are things like critical and creative and collaborative thinking that are essential; who assesses and reports it? That makes no sense.  If we value it, we should assess and report it, period. And you can start as an individual teacher to do something about it even if your school is dysfunctional and doesn't want to take it on.

Instead of sticking to an assessment or grading system we know is less effective because it's there and has always been.

Right.  Or my favorite bone of contention is the curriculum pacing guide.  A pacing guide focused on content is the exact worst response to a very real problem.  To make sure that certain things are accomplished and to have a guide for doing it, is very important.  It's easy to lose sight of long-term goals and priorities. But to turn that into a pacing guide where all that matters is if you're on page 214 of the text book by March 3rd is crazy.  The pace to be controlled reflects current results vs. sought-after results, not content covered. So, we are hopefully, giving a teacher who is living in such a system a voice to say, "Wait a minute, if this is the mission, and those are the goals, and that's what the syllabus demands, and this is what a curriculum is, then a pacing guide focused on textbook pages as opposed to formative assessment results makes no sense at all.  It's just about turning pages as opposed to causing learning against goals.” 

It's no different than running a marathon; you've got to have a pace.  But you do it in terms of the desired result, not the content that's covered.  That's what's backwards, and it's a revealing mistake because it shows that we still don't understand the difference between teaching for results vs. teaching and praying that it works out.

You can submit topic and/or question suggestions for future conversations with Grant Wiggins by e-mailing meg@bigideas.org.