How do we promote and assess learning in the 21st Century? While everyone believes in standards, the path from intention to implementation is paved with problems. Problems of trust among learners, parents, teachers, administrators, governments and an endless number of stakeholders abound while citizens from the previous generation plan quality education for children of the next. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;As we establish standards, “teaching” and assessment methods further complicate the process. Applying "one-size-fits-all" standards to all children assumes ignores their unique talents and needs as they move through the system. "Standards" are reduced to daily goals and objectives so that metrics may be applied, and we sacrifice the larger goal of education to a mass production model. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Sandra Sermos is a teacher at Wydown Middle School in Clayton, MO. She has taught all subjects at each grade of middle school for more than 40 years, 25 of them as a science teacher. She has received numerous awards and was the 2009 Missouri Middle School Science Teacher of the Year. Her primary focus is on the Expeditionary Learning Program, an experiential science program, facilitating "hands-on" interaction between students and the natural world.