Of what value is mission and vision as a foundation for framing curriculum in a district?

Based on my understanding of this week's resources, mission and vision are absolutely
essential as the foundations for framing curriculum in a district. ​Simon Sinek's TED talk​ shared
his view of why certain companies succeed and others fail, regardless of their
resources/people/market conditions. In his perspective, sharing your beliefs/vision/mission is
integral to success. It is the difference between people following you because they have to, and
people following you because they want to. There is a clear bridge between this concept of
business and how school leaders can impact their teachers and school community by "starting
with why". A school leader who starts with communicating why, then how, and then what, is
most likely to inspire others.

Of all the resources on curriculum this week, the most inspiring and thought-provoking to
me was ​Marc Prensky's "The World Needs a New Curriculum."​ When I first started reading it, I
started feeling a little frustrated because as a teacher, I don't feel like I get a ton of voice in my
school's curriculum. In our traditional high school, we do still have the typical core classes and I
can't see that going away anytime soon. I believe that kind of overhaul would need to be a
mandate from the state level due to graduation requirements and state testing.

Although I agreed with a lot of what Prensky was arguing, I felt at first that I was the
wrong audience for this article. However, I grew to understand that as a teacher, I will, at times,
be able to make decisions in what I teach in my classroom, and there will be times when I am
asked about my ideas about curriculum, whether that is coming from a student, parent, colleague,
the school board, or a community member. While I may not currently have the power to make
dramatic changes to our school's curriculum, such as Prensky is suggesting, I can be ready to
share my views about it. Furthermore, if I am a school building leader in the future, I may have
even more decision-making power regarding curriculum. Therefore, I will keep Prensky's ideas
in mind, and particularly his argument for a core curriculum based on effective thinking,
effective action, effective relationships, and effective accomplishment. After all, keeping in mind
my district's mission statement, "To ensure that all students attain their maximum potential in the
future," it is likely that we will need to change the way we are currently designing our
curriculum if we are repeatedly seeing that our graduates are not prepared for the world of 2020
and beyond. This would be a huge shift to the world of traditional school, and any school leader
who attempted this shift would be more likely to succeed by starting with sharing his or her why.

Other resources from this week:

Center for School Change article: “Without a vision, the people perish.”

Sample Mission and Vision from Ballston Spa Central School District

ASCD article: “Effective Communication Needs Common Language and Goals”

McRel International article: “Why we love to hear a common instructional language”