Fernando M. Reimers et 31.

called this subject the “World Course” and developed it to be taught ini—
tially at Avenues: The World School, an innovative global network of elite
independent schools, none of which were in operation when we developed
the course. The first Avenues campus was then being established in New
York City. We agreed with the leadership of Avenues that we would de-
velop this course with their financial support because they intended to use
the course. We also agreed that we would subsequently publish the cur—
riculum such that it could be used by other schools and teachers outside
of the Avenues network in the United States and abroad,

As we developed the curriculum, we benefited from periodic presentations
of our work in progress to the coheads of the Avenues campus in New York;
the division heads of the early learning center, lower school, middle school,
and upper school; and the director of educational design. We also benefited
from conversations with the coheads at the start of this collaboration and
upon conclusion of the curriculum. The feedback we received in these ex—
changes from these seasoned educators helped us to ground our curriculum
design in the practicalities and challenges of implementing the curriculum
and to balance it with other demands in a new school, such as the demands
to teach other subjects and to prepare students for college admission. These
conversations helped us appreciate the challenges of negotiating the inno—
vative dimensions of the new subject we were proposing with the demands,
expectations, and capacities of students, teachers, and parents. They further
helped us to anticipate the ways in which Avenues would integrate our
curriculum into theirs, which would have to be responsive to the unique
context that emerged as the school evolved in ways that would require
modifications to our initial designs. The same is likely to happen in any
school that attempts to implement the curriculum presented in this book.

These adaptations or deviations from initial designs are known in the special—
ized literature as the distinction between fidelity of implementation and in—
tegrity of implementation. Proponents of integrity of implementation recognize
that local actors will give priority to what matters most in their specific school,

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