Summary: It is possible to estimate potential using testing procedures. By determining absolute degree of mastery of , say, communication skills, we can learn what portion of the cultural knowledge bank is known by an individual. If we combine this measure of absolute mastery with a determination of an individual’s relative mastery (a comparison of one individual’s results with those results achieved by people who are similar, e.g., same age, gender, economic status, family make-up) we can get one measure of “potential”. If we do this in each of multiple areas we should get a profile of that individual’s various potentials (See my previous entry for details.).

If we have done what I said we should do (i.e., we have made it a matter of course that we establish what our four year olds are capable of, in both absolute and relative sense in each of multiple areas of human achievement) we will have a profile of potential for each individual.

Take , for example, Andrea. We have reported the absolute percent of all known skills, values and knowledges in each of our fields of the human knowledge base. Those skills are profiled below.

You can see by the vertical placement of the boxes that, for example, Andrea knows 3.0% of what there is of ethical understanding, 1.50% of what there is to know of general cultural knowledge, 1.00% of listening skills, 2.0% of expressive skills, 1.75% of introspective skills, 0.5% of what there is considered to be known of natural history, ecologies, and etc. The placement of AndreaÕs score boxes represents the percent of knowable human skill, understanding, initiative,intutition, etc. that Andrea has mastered. Naturally, since since this is AndreaÕs first assessment, near the beginning learning career, her absolute mastery is small. But, even with this small amount of knowledge she shows herself, her potential, to us. She gives us strong inklings of her potential via the patterns of her actual mastery of that material.

There is more that we can learn about A’s potential. One way to her potential is by comparing her her mastery of some subject with mastery of that same subject by other students of the same age. These comparisons are quite revealing, particulary if made with students who are the same age and otherwise have much in common with each other.

The numbers within the boxes indicate how Andrea compares to girls like her. Scanning these numbers we note that amongst these girls Andrea is in the top 5% in Musical, Ethical and Mathematical skills, in the high middle in most other things except Natural History (understanding about natural systems, plants, animals, weather etc.) for which she is in the bottom 40% of 4 year old girls like her.

Whatever you think of this profile ,it says a “real” thing about what she can do. It probably says something quite real about what she will be very able, and not able, to do in the coming years.I believe that if you use it to plan teaching and learning for Andrea you will be a more effective teacher or parent.

I will have more to say, in one or more future entries, about the use of this information. I’ll finish this entry by saying that I think all students will be served far better, in terms of personally significant new knowledge acquired in school, if

• their profiles are central to planning of their instruction and to the degree that
• the school and parents hold themselves accountable to help each student make real movement, supported by portfolio- and test-based evidence, each area, each year

In bold strokes this a potential-oriented schooling plan. If we do this, I argue, we will serve Andrea and all other students better. Far better, I would say, than providing a one size fits all education in an environment that only infrequently holds itself accountable for provable, useful learning — even in, ironically, these days of No child left behind!! The standard school approach is to assign material and strategy by age group. If one is in the fourth grade one gets a certain number of hours of a prescribed fourth grade curriculum, provided by text and workbook publishers. At the secondary level,in, for example, American History, one gets the textbook which is (a) assigned because of university entrance requirements (not because of present skills and the unique potential each is seeking to develop) and (b) taught in a standard manner that has been organized by the publisher. A potential-targeted curriculum would be different. The major targets of learning would be different from student to student.