After the Bell: Teaching Tips With a Twist

Teaching Like A Pirate With Dave Burgess

• The Stunt Brothers • Season 2 • Episode 39

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In Episode 69 of After the Bell, Martin and Roy explore the fascinating concept of perspective and it all begins with a mystery from their video podcasts. Why does Roy always seem shorter than Martin on camera? Martin suggests that Roy might be slouching, while Roy insists he's not. The debate soon leads to a discussion about camera angles and how Martin's wife strategically positions herself behind him in photos to make her head appear smaller. Sensing that they should change the subject, the Stunt Brothers take a trip down memory lane, sharing some of the wild, creative, and occasionally outrageous things they did in their classrooms to build relationships and connect with students. This discussion reminds Martin
that it’s time for their field trip a sit-down with one of education's most influential voices, Dave Burgess, an award-winning educator, professional development speaker, publisher, and New York Times bestselling author of the groundbreaking book Teach Like a PIRATE. Dave is renowned for designing highly engaging learning experiences that captured the attention of even the most reluctant learners. Join us as we discuss creativity, engagement, risk-taking, and the power of seeing teaching and life from a different perspective.

Learn More at stuntbrothers.ca

Key  Topics
The origin story of Teach Like a Pirate
The importance of questions in teaching creativity
Using creative themes to inspire teaching methods
Balancing entertainment and deep learning
The role of failure and risk-taking in teaching
Building rapport and enthusiasm with students

keywords
teaching, education, Teach Like a Pirate, classroom engagement, creativity, passion, risk-taking, professional development, teaching tips

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STS With The Stunt Brothers

Speaker 2

Good afternoon, podcast listeners everywhere. Welcome to After the Bell, a Stunt Brothers production. I'm Martin Stuible.

Speaker 4

And I'm Roy Hunt, and we share your pain, having taught a combined 70 years. Seventy years. I know. Wow. So get out your marking, organize your supplies, or just pour yourself a coffee. I think I need something stronger. That's okay. Okay. And listen, engage, and interact with After the Bell, a podcast for you, the hardworking, dedicated teacher who wants free lesson plans, free advice, and a free meal.

Speaker 2

Well, I always show up for a free meal. Hey, here we are, listeners. We're kind of the same height now. It's a perspective thing. It is. Right? Roy tells me he doesn't slouch. I don't slouch. He's no slouch. I'm no slouch. I'll vouch for him. But somehow often I don't know, I gotta bring myself down like this.

Speaker 4

You have a longer torso than me. Okay. Right? My family. In my family, it's the same thing. I walk for dinner uh my um with my wife and my daughters, and I look around the table, and I have to look up to see them. And I I look like I need a booster chair just to l meet my family in the eye. And uh it's perspective. I'm I'm taller than everybody in my family except for one daughter. Right. But when we sit down, their torsos are like this. It must be tough, man. It what it is. It is. It's a look at look at I can see someone walking in their door to the restaurant. Oh, look at those women taking that old man slouched down in and I'm not slouching, slouched down in the restaurant chair. Or, you know, the server comes up and says, Would you like a booster, sir?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think I think we'll get you a booster next time. You okay with that? It's like my big-headed wife. I'm gonna go there. We do these selfies, and she always wants to be behind me because she always figures her head looks too big in the picture. So she always has her head on my shoulder here so that her head isn't looked the same.

Speaker 4

And see, I thought that was just something that was really cute. Now I know why. So then all that cuteness is lost.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

There you go.

Speaker 2

You're like, oh, it's because, you know, she's got a lot Well, I'll know if she I'll know if she listened to this episode. Oh, yes. I'll hear about it. Oh yes.

Speaker 4

So we're looking for comments, but I think it's gonna be a comment that you're not looking for.

Speaker 2

Well, welcome listeners. Here we are. Episode 69. 69. Yeah. After the bell. You got the the season part worked out?

Speaker 4

Season two, episode 39. That's it. You got it. There you go. So stick with that now. You got it. Remember, it's nine episodes more than last year.

Speaker 2

Well done. Wow. And uh the weather's beautiful. I'm in the garden, you're working hard.

Speaker 4

I'm in the garden, you're working hard. Yes. Yes. I I'm I'm going into school regularly. Right.

Speaker 2

I'm enjoying the outside time that I have, you know, just cutting the grass and Do you find like I find when I'm in the garden, I I can't help but start to reflect and think back upon the 35-year teaching career and think about some of the stuff that I got up to and the things we did in the class and some of the you know, the the crazy fun stuff I did with the class. Yeah. Just really going outside the box and whether it's launching rockets or putting on plays or you know, pretending I was uh TOC for when I did this chemistry unit and mystery unit, right? And I came in dressed as someone else for the day just to get us going. I did. I got to be a different character. But do you f do you find your mind goes to some of those?

Speaker 4

Some of those crazy ideas that we had. Uh the ones that that worked. Uh ones that um They don't always work. Didn't work. Yeah. Uh I still I know I I I think I've talked about it before is the uh igloo that I built in the uh in my classroom. Yes. That took up North Van Legend. That took up one quarter plus of my room. Wow. Uh it was big enough, it was made out of over a thousand milk jugs that uh were were donated uh by Supoto.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 4

Uh and uh we the class glue-gunned them together and it was big enough to fit at least five students comfortably.

Speaker 2

Very cool. It became like a reading note, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No.

Speaker 4

And then uh a student asked if they could bring uh Christmas lights in because uh they needed to be able to have the aurora borealis. Yeah. And so they put the the light b lights all around the top of the igloo. Right. And then we would turn out the lights, especially in the warmer days towards uh the summer.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 4

And um it was pretty cool.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I I think we we've always gone outside the box, right? We've we've taught with passion, we've taught been creative, we've taken chances. Yes. Right? Lots of chances. And it it kind of I I came across a book recently. It's called Teach Like a Pirate. Oh kind of fun idea. And Pirate actually stands for something. And it's written by it was a New York Times bestseller book written by Dave Burgess, who's a teacher in California. He's got a really neat background. So he's coming on. He's coming on today. Oh, yeah. And I think I think from what I've read about him, I've listened to him on a few podcasts, I think his his sense of what it is to be a teacher in the performance part of it kind of matches maybe a little bit of what we've done. Yeah. Right. And I think he's a secondary teacher, high school teacher in history, and has a lot of great stories to tell. So let's go check him out. We're going on a field trip again, and we're gonna meet up with Dave coming from California, and he is here to talk like a pirate and teach like a pirate. He doesn't have to talk like pirate before. He does not have to talk the entire teach like a pirate. Yeah. Yes. But I'll have to throw in a few R's there. We'll see how it goes.

Speaker 4

I'm gonna make you walk the plank. Okay.

Dave Burgess and Teach Like A Parent

Speaker 2

Well, today on After the Bell, we welcome a teacher, speaker, author, and educational pirate who has inspired educators around the world to stop teaching safely and start teaching passionately. If you've ever wanted your classroom to feel more like an event than a staff meeting, today's guest is your guy.

Speaker 4

His book, Teach Like a Pirate, became a global phenomena by challenging educators to bring more passion, creativity, immersion, rapport, and enthusiasm into the classroom. Since then, he's helped launch countless educators into the spotlight through Dave Burgess Consulting, an educational publishing company. Dave Burgess Consulting delivers powerful, inspirational, and innovative books, keynotes, and professional development.

Speaker 2

Dave has taught U.S. history to hard-to-reach students, traveled the world inspiring teachers, and somehow convinced educators that hooks, storytelling, costumes, and standing on desks might actually belong in great teaching.

Speaker 4

So whether you're a first-year teacher trying to survive until June, or a veteran teacher looking to reignite the spark, grab your coffee. Can I have some rum? Yes, you can.

Speaker 2

Okay, good.

Speaker 4

Tighten the eye patch and prepare to board the ship with Dave Burgess. Aaron Powell Dave, welcome to After the Bell.

Speaker

Hey, thank you so much for having me on the show.

Speaker 2

I am honored and pumped up to be here. It's great. It's great to talk to an American cousin and have us on this Canadian podcast. We really appreciate going across the border and talking to you.

Speaker

Yeah, well, there's a whole bunch of us that want to go across across the border to our hearts go out to you.

Speaker 2

We totally appreciate it. We totally feel for what you have to put up with sometimes. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker

We're suffering down here. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yes, I know.

Speaker 2

So we're going to start with our icebreaker, ABC 123. It's a bit like the Colbert report questionnaire, where the first thing that pops in your head, no right or wrong. We'll just uh throw it out there just to get to know you a little bit before we get into the nitty-gritty.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker

You always gotta be suspicious. You always gotta be suspicious when someone starts off by saying there's no right or wrong answers. I don't know. I don't know. Yes.

Speaker 2

Worst things you want to hear, right? You you know right away there's a right or wrong.

Speaker 4

I'm gonna do the ABC. So here we go. A magic or stand-up comedy.

Speaker

Okay. Uh I'm gonna say magic.

Speaker 2

Okay. Okay. So I always say first thing and then I go, well, but I want to why? Why why magic? Martin always wants to know why. I do. So for it from the standpoint of like what I'm most interested in, or was it most of the No either one. No, I'm just curious. You've done both, right? You've done you've been a magician, I believe.

Speaker

So the the stand-up comedy has always been a part of the uh magic. It's like a stand-up comedy magic show.

Speaker 2

I see. Okay.

Speaker

And so I've never done stand-up comedy on its own.

Speaker 2

But you've blended the two. I see.

Speaker

Yeah, but but I've blended the two. And so that's a a much um a much more approachable way for to do it than to it's terrifying. If you just go up there with a microphone and everyone's looking at you and like saying, like, okay, be funny. Like that's terrifying.

Speaker 2

I can't imagine being a stand-up comic, right? You know right away.

Speaker

You do magic, maybe uh maybe the joke doesn't work, but at least they'll be a maze, right?

Speaker 2

Sounds good. Okay, continue.

Speaker 4

Okay. B a classroom mutiny usually starts because A, students feel bored, or B, students feel disconnected.

Speaker

Disconnected, I will say, because I'd say what with bored, what you get is apathy and you get disinterest and all that, but disconnected starts to lead to some more rebellious uh behaviors. And um, you know, you could be bored but still have a rapport and relationship with your teacher. Yeah. Um, but if you're disconnected, then there's no incentive for you to uh, you know, to behave.

Speaker 2

Even if someone doesn't like something, at least they're they're having an opinion about it. Disconnected. He just who cares? Yeah, disconnected is disconnected. That's why it's called disconnected. So there's no right or wrong, but I think that was right.

unknown

Yeah.

Speaker 4

C. Which pirate tool is more important? The compass for clear direction or the spy glass for big vision?

Speaker

Ooh, wow. So that's a tough one. I'm gonna I'm thinking I'm gonna have to go compass for direction because that spy glass, if uh you can look as far out as you want, but if it's in the wrong direction, then that's not gonna be very useful. So I I have this thing we could talk about later called the Teach Like a Pirate Five Word GPS.

Speaker 2

Okay, yeah.

Speaker

And uh it's very much a compass as opposed to a spy glass.

Speaker 2

So one, two, three. Pirates of the Caribbean with Johnny Depp or Captain Phillips with Tom Hanks?

Speaker

Uh Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp.

Speaker 2

Okay, okay. Two, what does a great captain of the classroom need more? A fearless crew or a solid treasure map?

Speaker

I'm going to go with a fearless crew, because even with a solid treasure map, if you don't have a fearless crew, you're not getting there.

Speaker 2

Okay, nice. And three, do you have a teacher from your own childhood who taught like a pirate and kind of inspired you who stood among stood out among all the other teachers?

Speaker

Uh okay, so I definitely have had some teachers that stood out amongst all the other teachers, but I don't know that I've had any that taught like a pirate. Anyone that's gone through the school system has had their share of uh great teachers and maybe some ones that uh could have used an improvement plan.

Speaker 2

But uh is there what is there one that comes to mind, just a teacher that really made a difference in your life?

Speaker

Uh okay, so my first job as a human being, I worked for John Wooden at the John Wooden basketball camps in Thousand Hills, California. John Wooden is considered by many to be maybe the greatest coach of all time, certainly maybe the greatest basketball coach of all time. Um and so at a formative time in my life, um, when I was uh you know, just so just a youngster, I worked three consecutive summers week after week for him at his basketball camp. I got to see him do his pyramid of success, uh, which is famous, and interact with the campers and the parents and all that kind of stuff. And so his kind of philosophy on life um is, you know, I think was super influential for me at that early age. Okay, great. Okay.

Speaker 2

Well, let's get into it.

Speaker 4

All right. For anyone new to your work, what's the origin story behind Teach Like a Pirate?

Speaker

Okay. So I apologize when I if I start to rant, it's a thing that happens sometimes. Go for it. It's okay. Um, so here's why I tell the origin story. So I had been teaching in my classroom for several years. And then one day my department chair, this is exactly what happened. My department chair came and met me for lunch. He walked in and he said, You know what? I just got put on the professional development committee. And I thought to myself, how cool would it be if you put together a workshop based on some of that crazy stuff you do down in your room that nobody understands? And uh, but then he paused and he said something that it turned out to change my life. He said, You know what? Actually, the more I think about it, I don't think you can. I think that your success in the classroom is kind of you. I think it's personality driven. I'm not sure it's something that like you could teach other people. And he just kind of moved on. And like I got upset by that. I kind of took it as a challenge. Like the whole rest of the lunch, I was trying to like bring it back to that topic, right? And uh, so I took it as a challenge. I signed up to do a full day workshop for the peers in my district. I was not smart. A smart person would choose like an hour session. Like I chose a full day workshop for my peers in my district, right? And I walked away from that meeting going like, oh my God, what have I just done? Like, I don't have a workshop. I don't have any of this stuff organized. I don't and so then I got relentless about writing down everything I did in my classroom that I thought was successful. But that's not good enough because that's what I do. I had to take it to step back further and try to come up with where do these ideas come to from to begin with, right? Why does this one work and why doesn't this one work? And it forced me in the process of developing my workshop that summer to become much more intentional about my teaching. I always tell people, like, if uh uh present, go do a workshop, whether it's in your district, your state, uh your uh national, whatever it might be, go present a workshop, do some professional development because you're gonna be forced to come face to face with what is it about what I do that's unique, different, maybe special, that I and that how can I impart that to other people? And in the process of teaching, uh it's gonna just make you so much more intentional about what you do every day in your classroom. And that's what happened to me. And so uh uh I did that. And then I realized that when I traced back to the origin of where these ideas came from, a lot of time it came back to a question. It was a kind of question that I was asking about my lessons that maybe other people weren't asking about their lessons. So I began to compile those questions, like one after another. Until eventually I had like 170 different questions, which I put into 30 different categories, which eventually became the hooks. And that became the centerpiece of the workshop that I did that summer in my own district. And it became the centerpiece of the book and the workshop and the keynotes and all the stuff that I that I do now. Um and hit me, questions are the key to creativity. Like if you want to change your teacher's classroom, change the questions. If you change the questions they ask when they're designing their lessons, you could change their whole uh their whole style, their whole everything, right? It's sort of like a um like the modern day example of that would be a prompt with AI, right? Some people get horrible results with AI. Some people get incredible results with AI. What's the difference? It's the prompt, right? It's the prompt they use. Yeah. It's the same thing with teachers and brainstorming and all that. It's the prompts that you use, the questions that you ask when you're looking at something, and that's what the key is. But I wanted to have a theme.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker

I wanted to be able to model and demonstrate what I do in my classroom in my workshop. Like I didn't want to just tell them, like, here's a bunch of cool stuff. I wanted to do it, I wanted them to feel what it was like to be drawn in to these ideas. Like my students are, right? And so I wanted to have a theme. Right. Yeah. Like pirates appeal to me because pirates are unconventional. They're willing to reject the status quo. They're willing to sail into uncharted waters with no guarantee of success. They're risk takers battles, mavericks. And so I wanted to embrace that spirit of being a pirate, right? And so, like I always tell people, it has nothing to do with wanting teachers to attack and rob ships at sea. It has to do with embracing that spirit of being a pirate. And then in addition to that, uh, like I'm abnormally obsessed with acronyms, as many educators are. So the first thing I did is I turn the page sideways. I wrote P-I-R-A-T-E down the page. I try to generate an acronym.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker

I knew I want to talk about passion and enthusiasm. They're the P and E. We're sitting at the beginning and the ends of the word, like the cornerstones of it. Yeah. And I knew I wanted to talk about building rapport with kids as sort of being like the heart of teaching. They're the art we're sitting in the center. I never look back. And by the way, what are pirates known for? Pirates are known for having hooks. And this was all about how you could hook students and draw them almost magically or magnetically into what you're doing in your classroom. And so all those things kind of came together to create this teach like a pirate kind of idea workshop. I did it that summer in my own district, and then I went anywhere where anyone would listen to me to talk about it from there on out.

Speaker 2

Wow. Brilliant, Dave. Amazing. Was that like how how long were you into your career when this came along? How did you continue?

Speaker

Oh man. So let's see. I probably started doing the workshop a good eight or nine years into my career. I'd been teaching in the classroom. And when you I came up with the first workshop. And by the way, uh I started speaking on it. So the first workshop I did, I still have the program. Um I just put it out to my email list the other day. I showed a picture of the program in the description and the write-up of it, uh, was in the summer of 2005, was the first Teach Like a Pirate presentation. At that point, it was called Outrageous Teaching, Teaching Like a Pirate as a subtitle, which eventually became just Teaching Like Teach Like a Pirate. But um, and then the book didn't come out until 2012. And so for like six or seven years, I worked the circuit, traveled, spoke, honed the message, developed it uh before the book came out. And so, you know, like a lot of times people think like the book went out, it went viral, it was like this overnight success. They don't see the fact that I spoke for seven years on this thing before I even wrote a book about it.

Speaker 2

People don't realize the hard work behind things sometimes, right? It takes a long time, a lot of perseverance. When you started teaching, was that kind of your way anyway, or did you have to were you more traditional at the beginning and then you kind of gravitated towards this? Or is it was it just speaking to who you were as opposed to?

Speaker

I think it was a little bit of speaking to uh to who I was, but it was also speaking to my audience. And I was working with a very tough group, and it became uh clear very early on for me that I was either gonna find a way to engage these kids or I was gonna burn out and leave the profession. And so a lot of this was kind of uh invention via necessity, right? Right and um, which a lot of some of the best things are, right? Yeah, yeah. And so it was I I'm gonna need to figure out a way to win these kids over and be able to deliver this content in a way which draws them in. And if I can't do that, then this is gonna be a place that's not gonna be a fun place to teach. And I think a lot of a lot of teachers feel that same way, right? Like they realize, like, oh, when the when everything's clicking, uh, this is a wonderful and fantastic profession. And when it's not, it can be one of the hardest places to be of all time. Yes.

Speaker 2

And you and your students were about grade nine, grade nine, 10?

Speaker

Uh so yeah, so the majority of my time I spent teaching 11th grade US history. I taught a few other subjects along the way, but the majority of my uh teaching experience was 11th grade US history.

Speaker 4

So the acronym uh that for Pirate, uh, you have P Passion, I, immersion, R rapport, A, Ask and Analyze, T, transformation, and E enthusiasm. Of those, which uh element do you think teachers find the biggest struggle with?

Speaker

Uh I believe that it's possibly a um Okay, so one of the things I talk about is the deep the in the P, the passion piece, I talk about the deep dark secret that we have as educators. And this might be one of the things that that people struggle with. And the deep dark secret is this everywhere we go, people say you have to be passionate. Like you have to bring passion, you have to have passion. Like you know, you'll see uh um a speaker will come out and say, like, if you can't find passion for your work, then by God, find new work, right? And then then they say, then they say, Thank you, and they're walking, they leave. Yeah, and you could be like sitting there in the audience, go like, yeah, but this guy never told me how. Like, like, like what's the and so uh here's the deep dark secret. We all know we're supposed to be passionate about our work, but and with apologies to Sir Mixelot, this is a big but. But we are not passionate about everything that we teach. Yes, no, no, like I just usually there, and I'll pause like in front of an audience, I'll say, let the freedom wash over you. And so, yeah, like this idea that um there's gonna be days where that content standard, that part of your unit, that part of your curriculum, it's just not your thing. There might be lots of stuff that you love to teach, but you know there are those days. Well, so what do you do on those days? Yeah. That's one of the toughest things for a teacher to deal with because it's you know, it's easy to go in and teach your favorite topics and subjects and things that you're fired up about, but that curriculum is not gonna be all things that you're fired up about. Yeah, right. It's not. It's not. And so um, what do you do on those days? And that's why in that section of the book, I kind of broke passion into three categories.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker

And one of those categories is your content passion, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh, but that's just one of the categories. There's two other categories. The second category is your professional passion. Like, what is it about just being an educator that gets you fired up and excited, completely outside of your subject matter and your curriculum? What is it about just being an educator and how can you draw more of your attention towards that part of teaching? And then your third thing is your personal passions. What are you passionate about completely outside of education? Are the ways that you can bring some of that in to be more fulfilled and more personalized for your kids and building rapport and relationships with them? Because you're sharing some of yourself as a part of what you're uh teaching in your classroom. And I always tell people, like, I want my students to graduate, not just knowing my curriculum, I want them to graduate knowing me as well. That's part of building rapport and relationships with kids. And so it's when you can combine all three of those layers. Yes, your content passion, but then some of your professional passions and some of your personal passions into like one thing. And that's when you can kind of find them that more that consistency of uh getting excited about coming to school in the morning.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I I like the idea of giving people freedom not to be passionate about everything too, right? Sometimes it's just gonna be something you have to do.

Speaker

It's a ridiculous expectation. It took it to you're gonna like everything in your curriculum.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Well, you know, it's interesting because when I when I read that in your book, uh it made me uh think about uh when I was, you know, as as a dad of a uh a young child, the number of times I read this one book that my daughter loved over and over and over and over again. And it was I go, oh, not this again. But she was so excited about hearing that book. And so I was able to find the passion because it was she is of value to me, just like our students are of value to us and they're the connection we make with them. And so I would put on the show and I would read it with the voice that she loved. And that is one of those elements from being a dad that actually I brought it in in my toolkit as a teacher. You know, and that is literally that passion.

Speaker

I love that. So it became not about the book anymore, it was about your daughter. Yes, yeah, yeah, and that's the way it is. Like it's um uh Carlos Santana has this line that I love in speaking about enthusiasm. He said, Enthusiasm is the most contagious thing in the world. The songs become incidental. What people receive is your joy. Yeah, and for a teacher, the lessons become incidental. What people receive is your joy, and that sense that they, your students have that like you love being there with them, you care about them, uh, you want to um empower them and have them go on and live successful lives. And you know, the lessons are just the path to that, but they get a sense of that joy that you have as being an educator. And kids can feel the opposite as well. They know the teacher that loves teaching, and they know the teacher that's punching the clock and can't wait to their BS detector is pretty strong, right?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Unbelievably strong. But speaking of that enthusiasm though, let let's say like teachers everyone has a bad day. Do you think teachers can fake it on those days? Or did kids see through that despite their you know, BS detectors? Is it something teachers should have to do? Like we all have personal things that sometimes we walk in the class and we're still remembering that you know fight you had with your teenage son or whatever it is you're bringing in. Yeah. Can we can we move forward on that? Or do you or is it better just to acknowledge, no, I'm not gonna be quite there today?

Speaker

Okay, so I I have a couple of different answers on this one. Okay. So first of all, I think there's no problem with acknowledging um that you are uh struggling on any particular day as an educator, and that's part of, again, that authenticity that kids can feel. Yeah. And um modeling some vulnerability as well that is good for students to see that um, you know, you don't have to be a superhero for your kids every day. Like they can sense that, okay, this is a real human being who has struggles just like I have, but yet here's how I'm going to model moving through that's those struggles. And, you know, you can you can kind of be that role model for them and how you do that. So I think that there's nothing wrong with that. But I also feel that uh there is that time to unplug um and immerse into your less. And I appired immersion, right? To immerse yourself into what you're doing. And this that there's this cool thing about enthusiasm I talked about in the book. And I actually I believe this to be true. You can't fake like a relationship, you can't fake um maybe caring. These are lots of things that they have that BS to check about. But the the way, if you are not enthusiastic, there's a secret shortcut to become enthusiastic. Act enthusiastic. Yeah. Yeah. And when and when you act enthusiastic, yeah, it actually works. It actually, like if you you're if you move your body, if you want to be more enthusiastic, move your body in a more enthusiastic way. Talk in a more enthusiastic way, gesture in a more enthusiastic way. And then actually like the it completes the loop, and then you actually get more fired up and enthusiastic. And so, like if you were to see me walk across the campus um at break, uh, I always tell like you might think that like I'm a three-toed sloth or something, right? And uh like they someone would say, That's the most, that's the most dynamic teacher we have on our campus. And someone will be like, that guy who's like slouching his way to the bathroom over there? Like, what do you what are you talking about, right? But then when class starts and the bell rings, I have like little way, little tricks and rituals that I use to get into the proper state. I have the ability to change my state in a very quick fashion. You change your state by two things change your physiology or change what you focus on. I use both of those as shortcuts to um change my state. And so I think that's something that can be that teachers can learn. They can learn how to do that.

Speaker 2

No, I'm a real adherent to that kind of idea of if you even if you start to fake it, it starts to consume you and make you feel enthusiastic. Just on a very personal level, about 15 years ago, I was going through a a challenging divorce and I was very depressed inside. And you know, we how as one does when you go through that terrible moment in your life. And I would enter the classroom and think, I don't know if I can get through this day. But the moment I would get into it, and honestly, teaching actually helped me. It helped me because I suddenly wore the students and we're involved, and I'm getting enthusiastic and that I I lived for those days of getting back in the class. Like it really helps for sure.

Speaker

Yeah. It's like when you it's like almost uh therapeutic to be immersed in something. It is you can be so immersed in something that it can release the anxiety and tension around other things.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker

And by the way, I've been through one of those divorces. But yeah, okay, there you go. And so uh, but that's true. That's why, you know, I I'm a runner, and sometimes people say that we're like, oh my God, running, that sounds absolutely miserable. Um, but it's like a period of time during the day where I can unplug and just be outside and have my breath and my step and look around and see things and watch and like everything else, the rest of the world kind of shrinks and goes away.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker

And um, so it's kind of like a almost a practice of meditation for me.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker

Uh and teaching can can serve the same functions.

Speaker 2

It can. It's not a it's not a desk job where you're sitting there filling out forms and then your your mind's just going through all the stuff that's in your head. You're on to so many things in that day. It's it's a it's therapeutic, you're right.

Speaker 4

Yeah. So how do you balance entertaining with actually uh delivering deep learning?

Speaker

Yeah. Okay, so this is this thing. Um Quinn Rollins, who he wrote a book for me called Play Like a Pirate, which is about using like action figures, Legos, graphic novels, things like this in the classroom. Um, fantastic early book in our line. He has a quote that I love. It said, serious learning can be seriously fun. And so I always try to convince people don't fall for that false dichotomy that people try to set up on you. People will do this to you. They'll try to make, they'll try to make you say that your class is either about learning or your class is about fun. Not only can those things go together, they go better together. Yes I call it the Reese's effect. They go better together, right? And so um it's you you do not have to choose between learning and fun. In fact, the best path forward is to meld the two.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I agree. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there I mean, I I always in grade five, we teach uh Canadian government. We'd the British parliamentary system we have in Canada. And uh, you know, some people would just be opening up the textbook and answering the questions. We created our own parties, we had a parliamentary system, I was the speaker of the house, and it just those kids remembered it, right? So it was it was real serious learning. It w they were creating their own issues, they were becoming public speakers. It was serious, but it was a lot of fun at the same time.

Speaker 1

You know, I love that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's fantastic. And I guess uh a part of your your it's the hooks you talk about, right? That pirate idea of hooks. Can you think of some favorite hooks that you've had to that have transformed the lessons for you?

Speaker

Yeah, so it's it's a little bit like asking um a parent who their favorite child is. They have one though.

unknown

Yeah.

Speaker

Oh, we won't we won't go there, we won't go there, right? No. But so the uh but what I will say first is that um there's this thing that happens with people who maybe read Teach Like a Pirate and start to try to teach like a pirate. And uh there's this quote, I don't know who to give credit for, but the quote is something like he who has a hammer tends to see every problem as a nail. Okay. Yeah. And so you will have a couple of hooks which you naturally gravitate towards. And you will want to pull that out over and over and over and over again. But the more you use that hook, the less effective it will be. And so it's always best to come from the standpoint of that I'm gonna try to use a variety of these things because these hooks are gonna hit different people and different days and different learning styles, different like uh personality types are gonna be drawn into different ones. And so I'm always trying to not only use a different variety, but understand that there's not a lesson where I want to have just one hook, but I want to layer them. I have this like a steak, like cooking steak analogy in the book about how, like, you know, it's like uh you don't just serve raw steak on a plate, right? Yeah, there's marinade seasoning, put some rub on it. Um you're going to serve when you serve it to them, you're gonna be side dishes, beverages, a dessert after when it's all done. And that's what we call a meal, right? Yeah. And the same thing is true in the classroom where we don't just have our raw content. We have all this richness that we're adding to it and these hooks and these things, you know, that's the side dishes, beverages, and dessert. And that's what it makes just like it makes someone enjoy a meal and want to come back and dine with you again, it makes them enjoy the lesson, want to come back and learn with you again. And so uh I'll give you just like here's an example of a hook which people wouldn't think of as a hook, but I think of as a hook. I call it the teaser hook. And so the teaser hook is like this. Um, when you go to the movies these days, you don't even see the movie for like 20 minutes. What do you see?

unknown

Yeah.

Speaker 2

The trailers, trailers and commercials.

Speaker

Previous trailers. Yeah. Why? Because it makes you want to see what's coming out. Well, I work hard to make kids want to see my class. I'm building up my class way ahead of time. So the teaser hook is asking, like, what are you gonna say today that makes them excited about coming tomorrow?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker

Like, what are you gonna what are you gonna say that at the beginning of the semester that makes them desperate to see that unit that's come that lesson that's coming at the end of the semester that you keep building up, building up, building up. When it gets there, they're like they're like ready to come out of their skin, right? Yeah. What do they, what when the kids walk into the room, what do they see that makes them immediately have some buzz curiosity and some about what's going on, right? What's written on the board, what's shining on the screen, what's the what props do they see? What have you done to the classroom that all of a sudden makes them go like, whoa, like that makes them feel like they're walking into a different space? And so it's always kind of building up this sense of mystery, curiosity, buzz, and anticipation, where we can put kids on the edge of their seats to see stuff that we want to show them all along anyway. And so that's not something that's gonna take necessarily a lot of time, but it's just thinking about, oh, like what is it about tomorrow's lesson that I can kind of like promote, tease, give them a little trailer for like that that makes them want to come tomorrow. And that's like uh, so a lot of these things aren't about spending a lot of uh new time. It's about just kind of rethinking how we do what we do in order to build use some of these human nature kind of ideas. A trailer makes us want to go see that movie. Well, I want kids to come see my lesson tomorrow. So what can I, what, what kind of trailer like thing can I do for my lesson for tomorrow? Yeah.

Speaker 4

I love that idea. Yeah. Because it's almost like uh I've done it where for uh we were gonna do a science experiment, but I didn't say what the experiment was gonna be. But I would write a list of things you need to bring tomorrow. Like bring bring gloves, bring a toque. Right? Yeah. And I and I said, and if you want, bring boots. And I love it. And I said, just write it down. And and and so and we use dry ice that day. Yeah.

Speaker

Oh, yeah, I love it. And by the way, I have enough Canadian friends that I know that a toque is what we would call a beanie. There we go. Yes. Well done. Yeah. So now I I prefer actually to call out a took the the beanie. So to me, and I've heard Canadians say this, a beanie is like a little hat you wear on that has a propeller on the top.

Speaker 2

Like, yeah, yes. Good. There you go.

Speaker 4

Okay. Uh what's the biggest mistake teachers make when they're trying to make their lessons more engaging? So I know that you talked about hooks, but you know, some someone says, okay, I'm gonna do this, but what would you see as like that's the biggest mistake? Because I mean we've all been there where uh we've had lessons that so I don't know, oh, this is what I'm gonna do, and this went like down. Yeah.

Speaker

Yeah. Okay. So if I could uh so there's a whole list of them, but I'm gonna choose one.

Speaker 1

Okay, okay.

Speaker

Designing a lesson, and it it's the the engage, the engaging pieces around it around what you find engaging as opposed to what a uh whatever the H for me, a 16 or 17-year-old kid would find engaging, right? And so I talk to teachers about this all the time, where like a history teacher will come up to me and you know, they'll say, I just don't understand what's happening. Like they didn't even seem like they cared about the Spanish-American War. I mean, are you kidding me? Like the Rough Riders and Teddy Roosevelt, like Dewey's Navy, and like all the like and they're they're just they're they're so they're so into history and into the things that they know about history, they just can't even fathom that someone else wouldn't be, right? Yeah. And and so it's always saying, like, okay, I'm excited about this topic. That's great, but that's not good enough.

unknown

Yeah.

Speaker

What about uh this fourth grade kid? What are they gonna find about what this seventh grade kid or kindergarten kid, whatever age you teach, what's engaging for them, not what's engaging for you.

unknown

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Would you be willing to share a moment where you did a lesson and it flopped so that people can see you don't always have to be perfect, and sometimes you should let things flop. It's part of a growth.

Speaker

Yeah, absolutely. So I I mean, I have so many to choose from. I don't so uh oh yeah, so that this is, I mean, I don't hide the fact that I have uh just this incredible range of failures to choose from. Yeah. Um, and this by the way, that's one of the things I say in my breakout session. I say, like, I can guarantee you I've had more disasters in my classroom than anyone sitting here. I'm not talking about lessons that weren't engaging, I'm talking disasters. Like I have been injured during lessons before. I've had students injured in lessons before. I've had to sit in my principal's office and explain why I thought it was a good idea to have an open propane tank flame raging in the classroom. Now, to me, it made perfect sense that when we were telling those mountain man tall tales that we'd written collaboratively using mountain man slang, it was gonna be way more engaging if we told them we're on a campfire roasting marshmallows. Not everybody on my campus saw it that way. Like I probably should have known it was a problem in the first period when I had to have a kid up with a folder by the smoke alarm going like this. Right. So um, yeah, but so uh here is an example. I'll try not to go too long on this one. Um, and especially if you have a Canadian audience. I don't know if the if you're Canadian's familiar with this moment in history, but uh there's this Orson Wells was a radio broadcaster. And in the 1930s, invasion, yeah, yeah. Yep, yeah. He did the War of the World, the War of the Worlds broadcast. It was uh live on the radio, yeah. And now looking back on it, of course, we just can't understand this, but at that point, it's like a a person broke into a show with updates about a Martian invasion, and it stunned people. Like it, like the the the list of things that happen as a result of people panicking over that broadcast is it's it's insane, right? Yeah, and um I wanted to talk about the impact of the radio in the 30s and eventually talk about fireside chats with FDR and all these kind of things like this. And so like the but and so like I'm like, what better way to like hook these students then than a Martian invasion story, like the war of the worlds? Not only that, but the idea that it was a scam and everybody fell for it. Like kids are gonna love this, right? And so I designed this whole lesson where the centerpiece of my lesson was gonna be putting all turning all the lights off, and we were gonna listen to the original broadcast, just how it went down, right? Absolute disaster, behavior problems, kids throwing things in the dark, people scream, like people like it was uh next period, same that I was so angry because I had put so much time in designing this lesson. Yeah, but without realizing, of course, that like you know, all these things about steak seasoning, marinade, side dishes, beverages, and desserts, you can't have spoiled steak. You still have to have good content, right? And the very centerpiece of my content, that original 1930s broadcast for today's audience, these kids, it's the most unbelievably boring, slow-moving thing in the in the history of the world. Yeah, they can't. Absolutely hated. They absolutely hated it, right? And it was a total disaster. The next year, tried to do it again. Yeah, was not smart, but this time accessorized, had decorations, came like, you know, had like Martian stuff out and outer space things, and like, oh my God, with these with these teach like a pirate accessories, this is gonna really hit this time. Same thing, behavior management problems. And I realized then um slow, slowly, but I realized, hey, the whole centerpiece of my lesson is horrible. So what I had to do to fix this, by the way, is I had um this, had them get into groups and create radio broadcasts, which then they would go back into the back office group at a time. And though I told them the whole idea about these radio broadcasts is all the sound effects were done in studio live. Like if somebody walked up the steps, you literally had to be in the studio going like you know, making the steps, the sounds of the going up the steps. If someone's like the like these actors and actresses literally were doing it live in the in the radio, and people sat around the living room and watched the radio. Like we would watch the television, like they would gather at night and listen to these like serial shows, right? So now all of a sudden, what do we have? Now we have creativity. Now we have collaboration. Now we have kids working together. Now they have we have them performing, not just listening to some static podcast, like well, they're like lying in the dark, like they're actually performing things, they're creating things, they're collaborating with each other, having fun. And then we can also talk about the impact of the radio and the FDR and all that kind of stuff like that. But so it was taking me and my ideas off stage and empowering kids to be collaborators and creators and to own the learning and create that experience for them of hearing these broadcasts and these things that and enjoying what their fellow classmates came up with and that totally transformed the lesson. Yeah.

Speaker 4

And I I love that because you you're taking away what our our students are connected to right now as that visual component. You take that away. So how do you use the the radio as a way to convey without the without pictures, without the visual component, how do you do that in an effective way? So that in itself is some really deep thinking about how can we really get our ideas out there so when you're listening, you can visually in your mind see what what we're talking about. Yeah.

Speaker

Yeah. And some of these performances were so outrageous that it was hilarious. You know, they're having a fun time doing it, like without their this, we're just hearing their audio, but they're in the back room, like doing it, creating it. And like, I mean, they're having a blast. And in in the classroom itself, we are dying. We're like, you know, like it's like we're just having a great time because of the creativity and the outlandish things that are happening in order to try to entertain us with these things. And it was it was so fun. And I mean, it took me two years to figure that out, though. I'm I'm not always the I you know, I might be the teacher like a power guy, but sometimes I'm a little slow.

Speaker 2

But that but but when you talked about that and the importance of failures, it made me think of the old observation about Babe Ruth, right? How many times he struck out a bat, right? Yeah, but he also hit a lot of home runs. But you got to strike out sometimes. And you learn from that and you hold the bat a little differently, whatever it is. But I think it's important. But because of that, do you think sometimes administrators don't support teachers in their failures? And that makes people kind of go, Oh, I don't want to take a chance because I might get in trouble or get disciplined or whatever it is.

Speaker

Yeah. So two sides of this. So the first side, when I'm talking to teachers who are concerned about this, I always tell them listen, if you think about what an administrator has on their plate to worry about, right? The running a school system, the idea that you, as a passionate Creative, innovative teacher who's going out of their way to try new things and to try to really engage these kids. Probably has fewer behavior problems reaching the front office because kids actually enjoy being in your class. The idea that you're going to show up on this principal's radar as a problem as opposed to a blessing does not ring true for me. And it has generally, of course, there's some bad actors, right? But in general, I've seen unbelievable administrative support for uh these kind of creative and innovative teaching ideas. And principals are usually absolutely ecstatic to see someone on their campus putting in a little extra time, energy, heart, soul to make uh classrooms amazing for kids. And so I don't buy, and the same thing is true of parents, people that teachers that are worried about parents, uh, with some of the wild and crazy things that uh I do or encourage people to do. When a student comes home who quite often has hated school or maybe at the very most has been apathetic about it, and all of a sudden they're excited about school and they're talking about it at the dinner table and they want to go to class the next day and they're telling you what's happened, what's happening every day when they come home, you won't believe what happened in US history today, like this kind of stuff. Uh the idea that our parents will give you a lot of leeway for what you're doing in your classroom when they see their student, maybe for the first time, excited about school. So that's one side of it. From the administrator side of it, when I'm talking to an administrative audience, I always say this to them I say, listen, it's it's very popular to say that you are pro-innovation and risk taking. And we want innovators on our campus and risk takers and all this kind of stuff like that. But we don't really know if you are serious about that until we find out how you react when someone fails. Like it's really easy to be pro-risk taking and innovation when you're talking about maybe you're a superstar teacher and things are going well. But what happens when someone tries something that's uh that's new, innovative, creative, and they fall on their face?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker

How you respond will determine what happens in your school system. If you respond in an evaluative and judgmental way, you will see less risk-taking and innovation on your campus. But if you respond in a way that celebrates the courage that it took to try something new and in a supportive way and as a resource, then you will see more creativity, innovation, risk taking on your campus. The very idea of a risk means that there's a chance it doesn't go right. Right. If there's not that chance, then it's not a risk. Right. And so uh the how how administrators react to these things um goes a long way towards determining what the culture is going to be in that school system.

Speaker 2

That reminds me of Google that always I think they always allowed employees 20% of their time to work on their own projects. And that's how Gmail was invented, right? So they had that freedom to take a risk. You just use 20% of your time, and it created this innovation, right? Yeah.

Speaker

Yeah. And that was kind of the whole backdrop to what was um at one point a very super popular movement uh in our schools. I don't know, maybe Canada too, but were went by names of like Genius Hour. Genius Hour, yeah.

Speaker 2

I've done it, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker

Yeah. And so Genius Hour, you know, came straight out of that idea that some of the best innovations, most creative thought came from this time where people just got to go down rabbit holes of their own passion and pursuit, the things that they wanted to pursue.

unknown

Yeah.

Speaker

Yeah.

Speaker 4

What advice do you have for new teachers that are starting out trying to find their style, their way of being a pirate?

Speaker

Yeah. And so for a new teacher, I would say, like, what is unique about you? Your particular strengths and talents and your voice that you add to your classroom is always what's going to be the most powerful, most effective, and also help you build rapport and relationships with uh with your students. And um I would also tell them though, that like this is something that happened to me, and I think happens a lot. A teacher came to me and said that they were going to quit the profession. And I asked them, whoa, whoa, hold on. Like, what happened? And they described a situation to me where they had, you know, like 29 of their 30 students was were while were engaged and the lesson was going fine. But what I one kid popped off. One kid was a behavior problem and derailed the lesson, right? And this was happening to them over and over again. And they're walking away from that experience, feeling like a failure. And so um, I said, hold on. Now I'm gonna tell you right now. If as an educator, you create a rubric for your success that you have to have 100% engagement from 100% of the kids on 100% of the days. You have now created a rubric that's gonna guarantee you a career and lifetime of disappointment. It's not about perfection, it's about getting better. Like these ideas will help you improve your student engagement, but don't ever walk away from a lesson where the majority of kids were engaged, but you had a couple of problems feeling like a failure. And what happens is experienced teachers know that that's just an example that teaching is really hard and that that happens and we have bad days, things fail, goes. But a new teacher walks away from that experience feeling like it's them, like they're not good at this, right? You know, the one that's been doing it for 20 years, it rolls off their back a little bit, and it's kind of like, yeah, like that some sometimes it's like that, right? But a new teacher, a new teacher will walk away beating themselves up and saying, like, I guess I'm not cut out for this, you know. And so you kind of have to inoculate them early with this idea that failure and disruptions and behavior problems, all like that, that's that's not something that's gonna ever completely go away. That's gonna be something that you battle from the to the day that you lock the door for the last day and walk away. You're gonna have something happen.

Speaker 3

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2

If you could give our listeners one challenge they could start this week that would start them on the path to teaching like a pirate, what would that challenge be?

Speaker

Uh, so I have this one of the essential questions of teach like a pirate is asking is kind of this little mindset shift of saying, like, if they didn't have to be there, would you be teaching to an empty room? Or is there something about you and the way you make kids feel when they're in your class and the kind of experiences you create for them and what you're offering them that maybe they're not getting in anywhere else in their life, that they'd be drawn to you in your room anyway. Like those are the teachers that we want to be. And it goes to this idea again, which is very essential to the whole idea of teaching like a pirate, is like I say, don't just teach a lesson, create an experience. Lessons are easily forgotten, but experiences live forever, right? And so they may forget that prohibition lecture, but they'll never forget going to the speakeasy, right? And so it's always about taking like taking our content and saying, like, all right, here's my content. Not good enough. How do I make it come alive? How do I make it, how do I, how do I create an experience around this? How do I create something that's memorable around this? Right. And so turning lessons into experiences is the what I think is one of the primary ways to teach like a pirate. Yeah.

Speaker 4

If I remember from uh from your book, I think one of the questions you asked is, uh, could you sell tickets? Could you sell tickets to your lesson? Yeah. Yeah. Is it that engaging?

Speaker

It's like a bar raising thing. It's not about like, have I created a lesson which is going to eliminate my behavior management issues? Like that's a low bar, right? Like, but it's like, like, do you have any lessons you can sell tickets to? Like, yeah, that's a high bar. Now, and we call that in the TLAP community, we call them ticket lessons. Like, do you have any? Well, this is this is one of my ticket lessons, right? Uh, and like it's not gonna be every day. I do not have 180 ticket lessons, right? Uh no, but I have some. I have some culminating lessons, like like to culminate a unit to open a unit or to call like the culminating lesson of a unit and things like that. I have some ticket lessons. And so, um, and that that's an important point to kind of to to tell people too, especially if they've experienced me through seeing me speak first at like a keynote or a workshop, right? And at the end, often the uh some people times they'll just walk away with this day's look on their face and they'll be like, I'm just tired watching that guy. And so, and I always tell them, like, listen, you have to you have to understand, when you see me speak, you're seeing a highlight reel of my class. Right. Right? I have like years of teaching experience, and then I am creating a highlight reel to do for you during a keynote, yeah, and then talk to you about these ideas and how you can add some of these ideas, but like you're not seeing my everyday classroom experience. Yeah, you're not seeing the group project where I'm not I'm just walking around the classroom and the kids are working independently. You're not seeing them using some study time or the watching a uh you know, some sort of clip on a video, or like all there's all sorts of things that go in my classroom. You're not gonna walk in on any particular day and I'm gonna necessarily be doing like somersaults down the aisle and like you know, jumping up and landing in the splits while I'm singing a song or something like that, you know. And so uh that you have to understand that when you see a keynote speaker, you are literally probably seeing a highlight reel of their teaching experience. And that's not gonna be like the the minute by minute day-to-day um experience of being in their classroom.

Speaker 2

No, no. No. Um, Dave, we've both read your book and we we really enjoyed it. We're gonna put a link on our website so people can find and purchase a copy because we think it's a great book to share. We people can learn a lot from it. Yeah. How else can people learn about Dave Burgess? Where they can where else can they find information about you?

Speaker

Yeah, thank you so much for recommending the book. I appreciate that. I'm honored by it. Um, and so I am uh if you if they are on Instagram, I am DBC underscore INC on Instagram. Um on X, uh, boy, do I miss Twitter. Um on X, they are at Burgess, I am at Burgess Dave. My name just flipped around to Burgess Dave.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker

Um and I have a I have a podcast called the Dave Burgess Show.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker

And they can go there. And I'm at Dave Burgess.com and all the books are at Dave Burgess Consulting.com.

Speaker 2

We will put links for all those things on there. So we really appreciate you coming on after the bell and taking up your time to meet with us. And we know our listeners are going to get a lot out of this. So much appreciated.

Speaker

Hey, it was a fun conversation, and thanks so much for having me on.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and our fingers are crossed for the midterms, Dave.

Speaker

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Wrap Up With Roy and Martin

Speaker 2

Well, there you go, maides. I'm glad I didn't try anything like that in the middle of the uh interview. He teaches like a pirate. He teaches like a pirate. Having Dave Burchis on was fantastic.

Speaker 4

It was. And you know, I uh I feel like we taught like pirate. Yeah. Maybe not to the extreme uh uh as as David, but that that's because we were in elementary school and it wasn't necessarily we weren't able to kind of break it up like in in a high school kind of curriculum. Right. But there were times when I was a mad scientist, yeah. And so I taught like a mad scientist. Uh there were times when when I you know I I I taught like I was the the leader of the country when we were doing uh looking at politics.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 4

I remember uh uh uh talking like I was the king. Yes. And and so we when we were talking about different forms of government.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Um Yeah, well, and when I look at his pirate acronym, right? I feel this is us, right? And I encourage people to try to find their way of of presenting this. You don't have to be like Dave, you don't have to be like us, right? Everyone finds their style, but like the P passion. Teach with visible enthusiasm, eye for immersion, be fully present and mentally engaged. Ours rapport.

Speaker 4

And we w I I know uh having taught with you, we worked really uh long and hard in those first few weeks to build that rapport with our students and then continually maintain it.

Speaker 2

Aaron Ross Powell We had an episode season one, making connections, right? Yes. It's it's vital. That is more than anything else done at the beginning of your term or your school year. Do it at the beginning, make a connection. Absolutely. And then A was ask and analyze. Constantly reflect, how can I make this lesson better? And sometimes that's exhausting because I you know because you can always make every lesson you can make better, right? And often I would just beat myself up too much. Oh, I know. Is it just going, that was pretty darn good. Be happy with it.

Speaker 4

No. I in fact, I've had some uh I remember having some amazing lessons. And for some reason, I just started recreating a new lesson uh in the next year because one, I couldn't remember what I did because I didn't write it down. Yeah. Or or two, I said, oh no, I can be better than that. And so when you're recreating, recreating the wheel all the time, it does get exhausting. But I mean, that's part of that passion, right? Finding the hook that gets your kids, uh your students really involved.

Speaker 2

And it's never boring, right? It's never boring that way. You recreate the wheel. So it's not boring. It's time consuming. Yeah. And then T is for transformation. Turn standard lessons into unique experiences, right? Trying to, you know, that just for that moment, how do you make that moment stand out? Yeah. And E, of course, is enthusiasm. As he says, it's contagious. Students mirror your excitement. And I like like I uttered for myself when when I wasn't feeling so hot, you start it, you are faking it a bit at the beginning, but then you get into the day and go, God, I feel better.

Speaker 4

I really feel like it's all about, I mean, when you when you start doing something, and and if it is, you're you're acting in a different way, um, you're raising your vibration, right? You're feeling good. And all of a sudden, you just get as you bring yourself higher and higher, those things that draw you down because what had has maybe started out first thing in the morning, it lifts you up. And and when you're when you're, you know, someone who's up there um feeling really good and is really passionate and excited, they're up high, you you can't help but bring other people up to you. It's true. Because when you're down, the opposite happens too. You you bring them down.

Speaker 2

Who do you want to be around in life, right? People that bring you up and feel make you feel good, or that person that just you're with and the person who fills your bucket. Yeah, well, you fill my bucket, my friend. And I'm glad we have this podcast. And I was really happy to have Dave on, and we will share all his information on stuntbrothers.ca. Stay healthy, stay happy, stay fit, and we'll see you next time on After the Bell.

Speaker 4

Make sure you read the book. It's a great uh Teach Like a Pirate. Teach Like a Pirate. Read it uh as as a very readable, yeah. Read it as uh a master teacher or an experienced teacher. It can actually help you to bring your A game.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So see you everyone. Bye. This podcast is organic, taking shape with each episode. Building resiliency for teachers everywhere.

Speaker 3

That sounds great.

Speaker 2

And our website is stuntbrothers.ca.

Speaker 3

That's stuntbrothers.ca.

Speaker 2

We will chat again after the bell.

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