Last week my youngest, Ryder, brought home a story he had written and illustrated. On it, a gold star and a “Very Nice” written at the top.

Looking more closely at the story, I noticed a few of misspellings and backwards letters. Later, my husband (an IT consultant), asked me, “Why didn’t she correct that?” I could tell he was annoyed. In his world, I guess, spelling matters. I tried to explain to him that the teacher gave the gold star likely because she was proud of two things: 1) Ryder had written an original story and 2) Ryder was able to string words into a sentence. “But what about the misspellings,” he asked. I explained that those two skills I mentioned were likely higher on the teacher’s priority list than spelling. For a variety of reasons, he still didn’t like it.

This morning, I opened up one of my RSS subscriptions and came across this article about the 40/40/40 rule (one that I had never heard of before). I plan on showing this to my husband tonight.

http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/applying-the-404040-rule-in-your-classroom/

As you read through this article, think about this rule within the context for your programs (learning objectives). Think about this rule within the context of our entire office (mission and goals).

In doing so, I think we’ll have a clearer, stronger purpose for how we see ourselves impacting students now… for how we see ourselves impacting students in the future.