Simple, But Not Easy

I usually avoid reading the plethora of blogs that I subscribe to on the day that I plan to post my latest writing.  I do this to avoid straying from the original idea for my own post that usually comes earlier in the week.  I like to let ideas “marinate” before adding more to the mix.

I can’t be more thankful that I ignored this habit today.  I’ve known since earlier in the week that today’s writing would be around the concept of “simple, but not easy,” after reading Chad Dumas’s blogpost “Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy“.  However, I’ve been grappling with how to ensure that Chad gets full credit for the idea.  George Couros, as always, has saved the day with his weekly email.

Couros‘ Saturday email talked about the importance of crediting (and perhaps over-crediting) original sources when writing and/or presenting.  In addition, he writes about the probability that finding the true origin of an idea might be more elusive than we think.  Couros includes the following quote, then adds his thoughts below.  Thank you, George, for once again, stretching my thinking:

There’s a great exchange involving the philosopher Epictetus that encapsulates my approach to thinking about marketing. “Tell me what to do!” the student says. Epictetus corrects him, “It would be better to say, ‘Make my mind adaptable to any circumstances.’

To which Couros follows up with:  “I am starting to believe that everything I have ever said that has been quoted or considered “smart” has been said by someone else. Here I am, sharing the same thoughts from someone who died in 135 AD (as old as I am, I didn’t know him).  Who knows who Epictetus stole it from!?!?!”

In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, Chad Dumas planted a seed in my head this week, and my mind has been running with it ever since.  Thank you, Chad, for helping further my learning, and for sharing such astute thoughts with others.  The credit for this post, and especially for this idea, goes to you.

Four Critical Questions

The Fort Madison Community School District has been driven by the work of Solution Tree for six to seven years.  Among other central ideas, Solution Tree focuses on four (simple) critical questions.  In the words of Chad Dumas from his post:

“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:

1. What do we want students to know and be able to do?
2. How will we know when students have learned or can do it?
3. What will we do when they don’t learn it or can’t do it?
4. 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.

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

Absolutely.  They really are simple and straight-forward.  Six (or seven?) years later, however, I can tell you that they are not easy to fully employ.  Our collaborative teacher teams continue to visit and revisit these questions as they identify and modify priority standards.  We continue to recognize, over and over again, that we are not truly ensuring proficiency, despite the “simple” guidance that these four questions provide.  Each of the four questions provide their own level of difficulty.

I can’t help but mention (what I think is) a contradicting thought to identifying priority standards.  In addition to reading Couros’ writing and  breaking my rule about not reading “new” blogs on the day that I post my own writing, I also read Timothy Shanahan’s literacy blog, a repost from 2019, titled, Should We Grade Students on the Individual Reading Standards?

An Opposing Thought?

In his post, Shanahan argues that grading students on reading standards will not do anything to support improvement on standardized tests… and if you live in the world of education, you know that this time of year has a heavy focus on such tests.

Shanahan posits that “…this kind of standards-based grading makes no sense at all.”  My interpretation?  If standards-based grading doesn’t make sense, then identifying and ensuring proficiency on priority standards doesn’t make sense.  *Please note, I’m not sure that this is Shanahan’s point.  It is simply my interpretation… and an enforcement of one of the purpose’s of my blog:  to learn through (reading) and writing.

I reference Shanahan’s blog to point out that I sooooooo appreciate the folks out there who are so much wiser than I, and who put their thinking out into to world for others to learn from.  If I am correct in my interpretation, Solution Tree and Shanahan are at odds.  And that’s OK.  Both challenge and stretch thinking.  Both probably sit in the camp of “trying to get it right, rather than trying to be right.”  I think Brené Brown gets credit for this idea.  I don’t know if it originates with her, but I know that I first heard it on her Unlocking Us podcast.

I can’t leave Shanahan’s post alone without pointing out (what I believe to be) his main point.  Instead of focusing on standards or skills with our students, “Test kids’ ability to comprehend a text of a target readability level… In other words, it’s the passages and text levels that should be your focus, not the question types or individual standards.”  It’s a simple concept; it’s not easy to convince teachers that teaching kids to read complex text is where it’s at.

FMCSD’s 5 District Expectations

I have referenced our district’s five expectations in several posts.  The “5 E’s” identify the expectations around instruction and behavior for our teaching staff:

#1 – Teachers use total participation techniques to engage a variety of learners.

#2 – Students do the majority of thinking or questioning to clarify or build on each others’ thinking.

#3 – Teachers use frequent checks for understanding to assess student learning.  

FMCSD Behavioral Expectations

#1 – Staff provide positive greetings to each student each day.

#2 – Behavior expectations are established, modeled, taught and posted in all classrooms.

These are five simple expectations, that are not so easy to employ, especially if our teaching habits have rarely or never employed such practices.  In addition, it’s simple for the administrative staff to identify a method for monitoring implementation of the expectations (conduct classroom walk-through’s), but it’s not easy to carve out the time for those walk-through’s with all of the other demands on their time.

For me, it’s simple to teach (our teaching staff) about these expectations, but it’s not easy to intentionally plan for teaching the expectations, as our instructional coaching staff experienced the past two weeks as we prepared to provide professional development for our teachers.

We had difficulty finding common planning time, and we had difficulty meshing our ideas (there are seven of us)… which leads me to yet another blog reference.  In Eric Barker’s latest post, 4 Secrets of High-Performing Teams, one of the points he makes is that a successful team shouldn’t consist of more than five people.  Yikes!

EL Education’s Curriculum

Our district utilizes EL Education’s literacy curriculum in grades K – 8.  I have written much about this curriculum in past posts:  it is both high quality, and tough to implement, as is the case for most (all?) high quality curriculums.

The structure of the curriculum is simple:  in all grades, K-8, there are four knowledge-building modules across a school year.  It’s a beautiful staircase of complexity from grade to grade!  In each module, there are three units, each of which has a specific focus.  In grades K-2, there is an additional Foundational Skills component, also structured with four modules across the school year.  In grades K-3, there is an Additional Language and Literacy Block that complements and aligns with the modules.  In addition, each lesson is designed in the same format:  Opening, Work Times, and a Closing.  Simple.

But, again, this curriculum is not easy to implement.  It comes with a need for a vast understanding of the importance of knowledge building.  Natalie Wexler is, hands down, my first go-to in learning about this critical understanding.  It comes with a need to unpack each module, each unit, and each lesson.  It comes with a need to test drive assessments.  It comes with coverage of all reading standards.

This is not a curriculum in which teachers can open the manual and teach without any preparation.  It requires intentional planning.  It requires deep understandings of best practice in reading instruction.  It is most successfully implemented with heavy coaching support and with accountability measures.  Not easy, but oh-so-important for high levels of learning.

Still Finding My Footing

Last week, I wrote about my “finding my footing” after the loss of my Mom in January.    In that post, I wrote about the task that my siblings and I now face:  the pending loss of the Corner Tap (as we know it).  We are facing the sale of the building which houses both the Corner Tap and Mom and Dad’s home above.  It’s a simple task:  sell the business, sell the building.

It is proving to be anything but easy.  There is much cleaning to be done, there is organization to ensue, there is a whirlwind of opinions to navigate, there is the letting go of things that we are not yet ready to let go of.

That building, and everything in it, houses lifetimes of memories.  When it sells, it will be the end of an era, to be sure.  When it sells, there will be a hole left in the hearts of many.  Not easy.  However, when we remember the following, it does become (somewhat) simple again:

 

 

 

 

Cleaning Mom and Dad’s house