In this article the author asserts that learning is about personal growth and enrichment, and at its core it is not about career determinations. Good teachers nurture their students; they encourage them to pursue their dreams, and they find ways to stimulate curiosity and dedication to lifelong learning. They do not become teachers because of their love of grading and sorting students. Good educators question the value of grading for purposes such as sorting and winnowing and shattering students' dreams. At the same time, they assess their students' learning every day. They know when students make progress, and they know when they do not. External evaluation of student proficiency and knowledge is different. Clearly, nurturing teachers find themselves in the dilemma of both encouraging students and documenting the degree of their accomplishments on some external measure. They constantly navigate the conflicts between assessing student proficiency for learning, and grading or evaluating their abilities for degree of access to a wide array of opportunities. Brigid Burke's "Looking into a crystal ball" illustrates this dilemma. It brings to light the precise point where the discussion between well-meaning nurturing educators and hopeful teacher candidates on one hand and external evaluation decisions about the quality of world language teachers on the other becomes difficult. In this article, the author discusses a number of points related to this dilemma, concluding that higher expectations are necessary if we want to live up to the claim that our schools are offering world class world language education programs. If that is what we want, we need world class, nurturing teachers who are able to function in the target language at high proficiency levels in highly sophisticated ways. Anything less will cheat curious and motivated elementary, middle, and high school students out of meaningful and rewarding language learning opportunities.