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| My son Blain driving the boat with my cowboy hero uncle. |
This summer I am taking part in a Summer Learning Series (#SummerLS) put on by Todd Nesloney (@TechNinjaTodd). Mr. Nesloney is entering his first year as a principal in Texas. The learning series was intended to be a voluntary challenge for Mr. Nesloney's new staff. However, it has transformed to a learning challenge with over 1700 teachers from 13 different countries participating! Each week throughout the summer, Mr. Nesloney sends out a challenge, and participants work during the week to complete the challenge and report back their results. A few weeks back, one of the challenges was to read Teach Like A Pirate by Dave Burgess (@burgessdave). By a stroke of luck, some leaders in my district were doing a book study on the Teach Like A Pirate book, and my Assistant Superintendent gave me a copy of the book to borrow. How lucky am I to work for a district who strives to be on the cutting edge of education, and a district who is always willing to help teachers?!?!
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| Now here's a treasure worthy of a pirate's quest! |
From the opening page of Teach Like A Pirate, I was hooked! I learned so much from the book, and was re-inspired by Dave Burgess's energy! I can hardly wait for students to come back to my classroom! Here are my three take-aways from Teach Like A Pirate.
The first thing that I learned from Teach Like A Pirate is that I am lacking in passion and enthusiasm. Now, don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of passion for math and learning! However, I've been holding back. I haven't been very enthusiastic, and I haven't let that passion shine. I've been too shameful. I've thought, "What if my students think I'm a weirdo? What would my colleagues think if I let all my enthusiasm loose?" Dave has helped me realize that my students' futures are too important to hold back my passion and enthusiasm! I think Garth Brooks said it best when he said, "I'M SHAMELESS!" Who cares if my students think I'm crazy? I am crazy! Who cares if my colleagues hold up their nose? When it comes down to it, I think they would want their own children in my Algebra class! I need to be shameless when it comes to using my passion and enthusiasm in my classroom.
The second thing I took from Dave's book is the idea of immersion. Dave's idea of immersion is to completely give yourself up to the moment and fully be with your students. I would love to say that I am fully immersed in my classroom everyday, but I would be lying. Too often I get caught up in checking my e-mail, grading papers, or letting my mind wander. How can I expect to keep my students' full attention in class when there are times I can't even keep my own full attention on class! My students deserve my full immersion in class, and I appreciate Dave calling me out on that point.
My final take-away from Teach Like A Pirate is to not be ashamed of thinking of my classroom as a place of edutainment. I have heard teachers say, "I am paid to educate these children, and not to entertain our students." I have also heard teachers in my department say, "Math class is not supposed to be fun." I have always disagreed with those statements, but hearing those comments put a seed of doubt in my head. In his book, Dave helped me realize that I don't have to apologize for making math class fun or finding creative ways to entertain my students. In fact, separating education and fun is dangerous! When I observe my son learning, it is always while he is having fun. He learns through play; he learns through games; he learns while doing things he enjoys. Although my students are a bit older, they learn though the same processes. Along with helping me come to terms with being an edutainer, I loved the way Dave wrote about creativity. He talked about how creativity is developed through hard work (I love the growth mindset undertones). I really appreciated the advice about how to create a system to capture ideas. I am going to use my iPhone and iPad to help me capture ideas as they come to me!
I am very grateful for the opportunity to step away from the every day hustle and bustle of the classroom, and re-calibrate my classroom GPS over the summer. The summer is a great time time to examine the desired destination of your classroom and program your GPS to get you to that desired location. Teach Like A Pirate has helped me set my GPS, and I believe the payoff will be less time stopping to ask for directions once we hit the road this fall!
