"The
student is the one who must accomplish the mission of
the school, not the teacher." - G. Wiggins and J. McTighe
in Understanding by Design

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe have created an essential "container"
for their seminal work Understanding by Design in their
new book, Schooling by Design. In their original work,
the authors explained the rationale of backward design and
explored such key ideas as essential questions and transfer
tasks to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design
of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Their new book,
Schooling by Design, is also organized around the concept
of backwards design, and it also includes curriculum, assessment
and instruction, but places these firmly within a plan for
systematic school reform. In the authors' words: "(G)iven
a clear and robust mission and guiding principles of learning,
the particulars of schooling — curriculum, assessment,
instruction, roles of staff, policies, structures use of resources
— are derived from the results desired." In sum, what
does the school's mission obligate the people teaching and
learning in it to do?

Consider this: If you were to stop a student or colleague (or
yourself) in your school, in the midst of a lesson, and
ask the following four questions, what would his/her answers
be?

What are you doing right now?

Why are you doing it?

How does it relate to what you have been doing in the
last few days and weeks?

What does doing it help you do in terms of your long-term goals
and priorities for your learning?

Would any of the answers to these questions be reflective of significant
and enduring understandings outlined in your school's mission
and reform efforts?

In Schooling by Design, Wiggins and McTighe set out
to help us answer why, despite years of trying, efforts
to achieve lasting, effective school reform have fallen
short. The authors provide a rich template for each of us
working on school reform to "plan backwards" by using the
following if/then line of questions:

If this is our school's mission, then what would it look
like in practice?

What would day-to-day teaching and learning look like if we
were to truly honor the goals of transfer, responsible
citizenship, or lifelong learning?

What content would we teach?

And how would that content be taught and assessed if these
goals (or goals like them) were the goals to which we
were all committed?

The book itself, divided into two distinct sections, is well
designed for practical use. Part one (chapters 1 through
7) focuses on the vision of schooling and its implications
for curriculum and staff roles. Part Two (chapters 8-11)
proposes a plan for achieving such schooling, by design.
Each chapter, built around a question essential to systemic
school reform, provides a rich rationale and a research
base, poses challenging questions, offers useful templates
and examples, and ends with an "Ideas for Action" section.

In Chapter 1 the authors focus on mission and assert that there
are three basic components found in nearly all school missions.
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on curriculum and the required elements
for achieving a mission by design with many concrete examples.
Chapters 4 through 7 get at the heart of learning principles,
general roles, and job descriptions for teachers and school
leaders who are "mission–centric." Chapters 8-11 provides
a practical approach complete with tactics and processes
for reform planning. Chapter 12 looks at the reality of
school reform with an emphasis on changing habits as the
key to success.

For me, the book was very thought provoking. I found the questions
posed and critiques of public schooling both provocative
and personally unsettling at times. There were times that
I found myself justifying my practices, providing rationales
for my decisions, and making excuses for the outcomes I
observed. The research and examples provided by the authors
challenged my assumptions and beliefs. The book helped me
give serious consideration to my blind spots, my unconscious
bad habits, and my resistance to openly looking at the gap
between my intentions and my actions and outcomes.

Why did I keep reading this unsettling book? Because the authors'
critiques were not personal, they were structural. Many
times, the point was made that good teachers are working
at undoable tasks, expending super-human amounts of energy
and seeing very small rewards via student outcomes. What
is missing for most teachers and learners to be successful
is a structure that has a shared and clearly understood
mission, a curriculum and assessment system that flows from
that mission, provides support and resources for appropriate
and necessary practices, and is a collaboratively designed
learning organization.

Whether you are a classroom teacher, curriculum developer, or a
building/district leader, this book is well worth your precious
time. You will find this to be a valuable resource for doing
the hard, thinking work that school systems really are capable
of doing. It will provide the direction in an environment
bound by paperwork and directives that have entire school
systems running in circles.