A teacher recently said of her own education, "When I went to school, we knew a lot and understand nearly nothing. We had no idea how what we learned related to the world beyond the classroom. What a waste!" This teacher is right. Knowing, which is important, is not the same as understanding. Simply cultivating knowledge is, as the teacher said, a waste of valuable and limited instructional time. By contrast, administrators and teachers can deliberately choose to cultivate understanding. Teaching for understanding begins by building on what learners know and encourages them to actively search for opportunities to apply and continually extend what they understand. In this article, the authors describe how The Teaching for Understanding Framework can help educators develop their students' understanding, rather than superficial knowledge. The framework, which was developed by the researchers at Harvard Graduate School of Education in the late 1990s, puts understanding as the primary goal of leading, teaching, and learning. It involves four elements that foster a shared vision of teaching for understanding throughout a school or district: generative topics, understanding goals, performances of understanding, and ongoing assessment.