Starbucks_scenario

Starbucks Scenario 

Imagine you are at Starbucks. It is 7:00 a.m. and you are standing in line behind several people awaiting your morning caffeine, when suddenly the manager steps out from behind the counter and announces, “I am sorry. We are all out of coffee.”

“What?” you ask in a daze of disbelief. “This can’t be right. This is Starbucks. The purpose of Starbucks is to serve coffee! What do you mean you are out of coffee? Make some more!”

The manager replies, “You don’t understand. We are out of coffee. There is no more under the counter. There is no more in the back. We are going to have to order more. There is no coffee for you.”

“This is impossible!” you reply. “Someone should have been counting the cases in the back and measuring the coffee levels in the front and intervening at the first sign of a problem. You can’t just run out of coffee at Starbucks! This is no way to run a business!”

By now, as you are reading this (retold based on a presentation by Rick DuFour), you’re probably thinking that this scenario is ridiculous. Of course Starbucks wouldn’t run out of coffee. Coffee is their business. They do count their cases in the back and monitor their coffee levels in the front. They order more coffee when they see they are running low, much in advance of totally running out. Without coffee, there is no Starbucks. Ridiculous? Or is it?

Replace “Starbucks” with “school.” Replace “coffee” with “learning.” After all, the purpose of school is learning. But do we have high quality learning for all? All? That is a lot; how about high quality learning for most? How about 80%? That’s “good,” right? Well, if you translate that back into “Starbucks” that means that every fifth person in line doesn’t get their coffee. Is that acceptable? Not if you are that “fifth” person! Hmmm…must be what is meant by, “Good is the enemy of great.” What do we want students to learn? How will we know when they have learned it?

//**Author's note: This story is retold based on a presentation by Rick DuFour. **//