A pottery class offers a promise – students will create four pieces with glaze at the end of their 6-week wheel throwing class and make friends along the way. When students participated in both class and additional practice time, they finish the class with 3 times more but more importantly not through competition but by connecting and supporting each other. We can say the quality of the class is high because it has met the specs students care about the most.
When it comes to schools, the most common specs are meeting grade level requirements on literature, math, and other studying subjects. When nearly half of the students didn’t pass the passing rate (50% of the test) for literature, the quality of the school is questionable. Instead of being stuck with the low quality like this, changing the specs is possible. Instead of measuring the passing rate ONLY, the specs can be the number of weeks schools commit to helping students explore projects they choose to learn and the number of learning projects to choose from. Meeting the specs like this marks the quality of the school and the program.
Being professionals instead of amateurs means we have learned to observe and offer assertions on what kids will be interested in learning instead of asking them what they want.
