Simple Doesn't Mean Easy

February 3, 2024

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It’s not an understatement to say that I have the best job in the world.

Just about every day I get to work with hard-working, dedicated, passionate educators all over the country. Educators who are focused on improving their own practice and results for students.

Four Critical Questions

The vast majority of that work with incredible educators revolves around the four Critical Questions that come from the Professional Learning Community at Work movement:

What do we want students to know and be able to do?
How will we know when students have learned or can do it?
What will we do when they don’t learn it or can’t do it?
What will we do when they do learn it or can do it?

These are the foundational questions of any learning team, and form the cycle of inquiry around which teams engage in order to improve their practice.

Simplicity

Part of the beauty of these four questions is that they are simple. They are also straight-forward. And they just make sense.

In the learning profession, we are interested in learning. We’re not just satisfied with teaching, but instead want to make sure that students actually learn what we’re teaching. In the vernacular of young people these days, that students are “picking up what I’m laying down.”

So these four questions are exquisitely simple in clearly laying out our purpose as educators. But it doesn’t mean that answering these questions is…

Easy?

I loved the transparency of a teacher I was working with last month. Though an educator for about 10 years, he was struggling with the first critical question. He thoughtfully and genuinely asked me, “Why is this so hard?”

We talked about how we have so much content to “cover,” units to “get through,” activities to “do,” things to “talk about.” And yet, we don’t often take the time and ask, as part of all the doing of units, getting through activities, covering stuff, and talking about all that we talk about, what is it we really, truly, in reality, expect every student to learn? To master?

Starting Small

He found it helpful to just take one unit and think through what students were to learn. He started with a unit he was most familiar with, and I loved this asset-based mentalilty.

He identified three sets of learning targets, and we moved through the other three questions.

Within less than an hour, we were able to think through and plan for all four of the critical questions. It wasn’t easy, but it was worthwhile. Not only is his clarity about the learning targets helpful to students, but now he can spend time thinking about how he is teaching those learning targets and ensure that kids are learning them.

He can reflect on his own practice.

He can improve what he’s doing.

And students can learn more.

Simple. Just not easy.

Questions for Reflection

If you are an educator, how might you use the Critical Questions to improve your practice?

If you are not an educator, how might you modify these questions to provide focus or clarity in your personal or professional life?

What other experiences in your life have you found were simple but not easy?

Rib Review

Give Taylor’s Smokehouse a whirl if you’re in Modesto, California. Without the sauce, the ribs weren’t anything amazing. But the sauce doctored them up, and the greens were magnificent.

Lincoln, Nebraska has a hole-in-the-wall gem that is definitely worth a repeat visit: Phat Jack’s. Not only were the portions generous, but the ribs may very well be some of the best I’ve ever had. (And readers of this blog know that I’ve had a few ribs over the years.) These ribs didn’t need any sauce whatsoever as the flavor was incredible.

Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy