This article highlights the practices of administrators and master teachers who are trying to balance the needs for accountability, prescribed curriculum, and learning standards with a broader view of education that gives equal importance to skills not so easily quantified by standardized tests. The author makes a case for the use of careful observation of children, and documentation and analysis of project-based activities as a way to create a more complete picture of a child's skills while at the same time, supporting the innate desire to learn with which all children start life.