Conventional curricula don’t only tell students where to start; they tell students where to stop. A series of lessons ends; that subject is over. Why aren’t students encouraged to go farther and deeper—to learn twice as much? Probably for the same reason we consider 70 percent a passing grade. Our standards are too low. We’re so squeamish and embarrassed about the very notion of “failure” that we end up diluting and devaluing the idea of success. We limit what students believe they can do by selling short what we expect them to do.
