Fernando M. Reimers et 3].

Within the framework of universal human rights, and to make real and
meaningful progress in solving pressing world problems, we created a com—
plete curriculum that (1) is deep and rigorous, meaning that it is co/aerent and
sustained from kindergarten through graduation, develops dept/7 of compe—
tence as well as breadth, and increases in complexity as students progress; (2)
unifies disciplinary and interdisciplinary competence as well as cross—cultural
competence; and (3) supports lifelong transformative action by graduates who
will pursue many different occupations and paths in life.

We designed the World Course to be deep and rigorous and to those ends.
It is coherent vertically and horizontally. It is vertically coherent in that the
content of each grade level is unified along a particular theme and horizon—
tally coherent in that particular content and topics are sustained throughout
the entire sequence. For example, the theme of the fifth grade is freedom
and the rights of individuals, and students engage in the study of social
change around the rights of individuals. This theme builds from the cre—
ation of a classroom community and then moves to historical explorations
through research in various independence movements (e.g., those of the
United States, France, and Haiti and the South African resistance to oppres—
sion). As a one~year course, it is underpinned by the idea of universal human
rights, yet it addresses the students’ local contexts and lived experience as
well as their shared national and international history. The World Course
is also horizontally coherent along strands that are traced from year to year.
For example, we determined that understanding identity is fundamental
to intercultural competence, and thus we threaded the theme of identity
throughout the curriculum in every grade and at increasingly complex lev—
els. For example, in kindergarten, the students examine their own cultures
and customs as well as those around them in their class and their neighbor-
hoods. Later, in sixth grade, students begin looking at the way that values
and identity shape people and institutions, including governments. In high
school, in the Global Conflict and Solutions course, students examine eth—
nic identities that separate groups as one way (out of several) to approach
the Palestinian—Israeli conflict.

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