This is a more complicated concept than what the words are trying to say.
Diane Tavenner, the founder of the Summit Public Schools, didn’t focus on the high school graduation percentage or the college graduation percentage (even though her schools proved the remarkable results on the both)but students’ fulfilled lives. She and her team defined the means and ends in their schools: grades and graduation are good, but they are means, not an end to students. Instead, they help students see their dreams and that everything students do in school is to fulfill them in this life time.
There is a difference between understanding what people have wanted all long versus asking what they want. When service providers understand our audiences and internalize our work enough, it’s possible to know and offer what people have wanted all along.
An important part of our work is learning to see what other people might not be able to see or articulate their wants yet.
