Abstract
This article highlights the practices of administrators and master teachers who are trying to balance the needs for accountability, prescribed curriculum, and learning standards with a broader view of education that gives equal importance to skills not so easily quantified by standardized tests. The author makes a case for the use of careful observation of children, and documentation and analysis of project-based activities as a way to create a more complete picture of a child's skills while at the same time, supporting the innate desire to learn with which all children start life.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the following: Maggie Mattson, teacher Hosmer Elementary School, Watertown, MA; Chris Whitbeck, principal, Douglas Elementary School, Acton, MA; Carole Cammarata, Lead Teacher, The Infant Toddler Children's Center, Acton, MA.