Summer Reading: Teach Like A PIRATE

Teach Like A PIRATE by Dave Burgess is an excellent book for any educator. In fact, I believe it's the reason that I no longer feel I need to write a book. In other words, it says just about everything that my book probably would have said, and he says it better.

If you haven't read it, I recommend you do (a coworker of mine suggested it to me). The author reveals his PIRATE system (Passion, Immersion, Rapport, Ask and Analyze, Transformation, and Enthusiasm. I will try to be brief in my summarizing and opinions below in the hopes that you will still read the book:

PASSION- Burgess breaks passion into three categories: Content, Professional, and Personal. He says when we aren't passionate about the content we teach, we should rely on our professional and personal passions. He defines professional passions as the stuff about teaching that got us into the profession in the first place (i.e. creating lifelong learners, turning student apathy into excitement when it comes to school, developing engaging lessons). He also says that we should infuse our personal passions (i.e. baseball) into our lessons, particularly when the content is dry (i.e. Colonial America-thanks, SOLs). In the past, I have played baseball as a review game during the Colonial America unit in order to rely on this personal passion.  So whether your passion is art, food, or chasing cougars*, somehow we should try to find a way to blend them into our lessons.

*A shout out to a fellow teacher and friend of mine.

IMMERSION- I love this one. It's the idea of completely giving ourselves up to the moment and fully "being" with our students. It's about leaving our email alone while students are with us, always moving around the room and avoiding the use of the "stool of drool", and simply being "in the moment."

RAPPORT- Relationships! Relationships! Relationships! Start building them on DAY 1.

ASK AND ANALYZE- How can I become more creative when I am creating my lessons?  How can I get my class outside my four walls for this lesson?  Can I use a game that incorporates movement and action to enhance this lesson?  Can students design word pictures in which the way the word is written reveals its definition? How will they possibly apply this in their life? Can I use music to make my transitions smoother and more engaging?  Many of these questions are questions that I have thought about in the past. I intend to use these and many more of the questions posed in the book as I create engaging lessons for my students. His book offers a plethora of excellent questions to help when planning lessons that may be geared more toward your passion and teaching style than the ones I chose to write here.

TRANSFORMATION- It's about committing to raising the bar by enhancing our lessons so that our rooms would be full of students even if they didn't have to come to school.

ENTHUSIASM- It's having what one of my professors referred to as "Withitness" but to a much higher degree. It's about being "on" all the time, yes, even the last period of the day. No sense in cheating them by not sharing your high energy later in the day.

Other thoughts that I took away from the book: 

On collaboration, Burgess says, "I strongly believe in the power of collaboration but I don't believe the final goal of such work should be to come to a single 'right' way of teaching." AGREED! I've appreciated hearing from other teachers (both in my content and outside of it), learning from them, and sharing ideas with them, and I appreciate that I have never been pressured to teach a lesson in a particular way. But I know that other teachers have been told they must use particular programs, they must teach a particular lesson, or they must spend a specific amount of time on particular subjects. This stifles creativity and does not permit the most student engagement possible. Unfortunately, this tends to happen to the teachers in the two contents that seem to matter most these days--reading and math.

On creative potential, he says, "We all have unbelievable creative potential. It lies dormant just waiting-no begging-to be tapped...Don't doubt for a minute that you are a creative wellspring that will soon be releasing a flood of awesome ideas into the world." This applies to teachers, sure, but we should also keep in mind that this applies to our students and others in the world too.

On rigor, he says, "...let's be careful with this word 'rigor'. Here's how Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the word:

• 'harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgement
• severity
• the quality of being unyielding or inflexible
• strictness, severity of life, austerity
• an act of strictness, severity, or cruelty
• a tremor caused by a chill
• a condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable'"

Burgess continues, "I don't want any of these definitions to describe my class. The only good thing in the whole definition is the word challenging." How true is this? While I don't think educators intend to use the word rigor in this way, I do think that rigorous standardized tests do cause life to be uncomfortable and lead to a tremor with many of our students. Do kids need to be challenged? ABSOLUTELY!  I think challenge is one of their main needs, along with purpose, power, a sense of belonging, and affirmation.  But how are we meeting a child's need to belong or contribute if the tests make them feel uncomfortable? How are we meeting a child's need to feel like their work is purposeful if we make tests hard for the sake of making tests hard while ignoring their own passions and interests along the way? How are we meeting a child's need for affirmation when rigor implies harsh inflexibility in opinion and judgement?

Educators, if you are looking for something to read this summer, I suggest Teach Like a PIRATE. 

I think you might enjoy it. And, to my colleague that suggested I read it, and even jokingly suggested I might have written it, thank you :)



UPDATE: Recently, I was given the opportunity (with the teacher who recommended the book to me) to share a bit about the PIRATE method with other teachers in our division. We will actually be doing a book study as well. But, as my intro to PIRATE teaching, I created this video that was inspired by the words in Dave Burgess' introduction in Teach Like a Pirate.