P o i n t t o t h e De s t i n a t i o n
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bigger, smarter, and cooler. You know the feeling you get when you're admiring the grace and power of an Olympic athlete? That's the feeling first graders get about third graders. Jones chose the goal carefully. She knew exactly what the third-grade standards in Georgia required, and she knew where her kids wert' starting. She genuinely thought she could close the gap. One of her first efforts was to cultivate a culture of learning in her classroom, calling her students "scholars" and asking them to address one another that way. When people visited her class足 room, she introduced her class as a group of scholars and asked them to define the term for the guest. They would shout, "A scholar is someone who lives to learn and is good at it." The scholars were encouraged to go home and share what they learned with their families. One day, a scholar was called out of the classroom for ad足 ministrative reasons, and some of the others in the room started groaning. In most classrooms it would have been a groan of jealousy-Get me out a/here, too. Jones realized, to her surprise, that it was a groan of pity- That kid is going to miss some "scholar
work. " At that moment, Jones said, "I knew I had them." By springtime, the kids' test scores had reached second-grade level. So Jones threw a graduation ceremony right before spring break. For the rest of the year, the kids took great pleasure in re足 ferring to themselves as "second graders." And by the end of the year, over 90 percent of the kids were reading at or above a third足 grade level. These were some of the same kids who, nine months earlier, didn't know the alphabet. Crystal Jones's challenge is reminiscent of what Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, in Built to Last, their great study of long-lived business organizations, memorably called a BHAG: a Big, Hairy,