Great Teachers Don't Just Copy—They Create

Welcome PE Nation!

Let's talk headline vs. cover bands today! Find your original teaching voice by drawing inspiration from mentors but creating something uniquely yours instead of just copying others' work. The difference between being a "cover band" teacher versus a headliner is developing personalized approaches from multiple influences.

• Working part-time at Hertz Arena exposed me to Brit Floyd, a Pink Floyd tribute band making millions without creating anything original
• Started teaching PE in 2011 without formal training, initially feeling like a fraud and relying entirely on others' materials
• Found mentors through PE Central, Twitter and Voxer communities who transformed my teaching approach
• Created my signature tchoukball tournament by combining influences from multiple mentors rather than copying any single approach
• Austin Kleon's book Steal Like an Artist provides a framework for taking inspiration while creating something original
• Challenge yourself to become an original rather than teaching the same borrowed curriculum for 30 years

Be original,

Dave

-my article, "Be a Headliner, not a Cover Band"

-Supersizedphysed.com serves as the hub for all resources, articles, and courses

• Free resources include Substack and Medium articles with PE tips, games, and strategies

• A free video course on the "PE-9": principles for improving your PE program

• Free ebook on setting up your PE program, especially helpful for newer teachers

• "High Fives and Empowering Lives" book available as an ebook ($2.99) or paperback ($9.99)

Paperback or download: HERE

Amazon Ebook: HERE

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Podcast Welcome
• 4:16 Working at Hertz Arena
• 8:04 Brit Floyd and Cover Band Reflections
• 10:47 Starting as a PE Teacher
• 14:46 Finding My Teaching Mentors
• 18:17 Making Teaching Your Own Original

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Super Science Biz Ed podcast. My name is Dave and today I want to talk about being a headliner rather than a cover band, and I'll explain that in just a moment. So, without further ado, here we go. All right, everybody, welcome in or welcome back. If you have been listening to me for a long time or you're a newer kind of listener, you know I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 0:49

I'm looking at my stats sometimes and I see people from all over the world listening to this, which is just crazy. I mean, I'm just a phys ed teacher, not just a phys ed teacher, but I'm a phys ed teacher and I live in Fort Myers, florida, and I do see a lot of people from like Naples, florida, and even like all over the place listening. You know Canada, there's places in Europe, and it just blows me away. So I again, I'm so thankful, and so sometimes I talk about things that might not pertain to you necessarily as far as like outside teaching. Or you know lightning everywhere. If you're in Florida, it's like the lightning capital of not the world but of the United States, and just things like that's where I talk about. You know specific, you know regional, specific things and you know I appreciate you tuning in regardless. So this is definitely not a regional thing, this is a you know anywhere in the world can hopefully resonate with what I'm about to talk about today. So, speaking of Fort Myers, florida, I work at it's called Hertz Arena and so, again, people nearby know what I'm talking about. Or, if you follow the Everblades the Florida Everblades ECHL hockey team, that is my home away from home almost as far as my part-time job.

Speaker 1: 2:19

After I teach, I sometimes go right to the arena or I go home for a little bit if there's's things going on. Now I'm recording this in the summer. There's not a lot going on at the arena in the summer or any summer, but it definitely ramps back up in like November, through the spring, a little bit in October as well, and so, anyways, I work there and I work all sorts of events, not just hockey. I work things like Cirque du Soleil or Disneyland Ice, or you know lots of concerts, lots of different events, comedians, you know all sorts of things that you know I enjoy because I get to see things I might not normally pay for, or you know things like that, or I'll see it and I'll be like, oh, my family would love this and then we go to it. Um, I guess a quick example was, uh, we don't have it anymore, I guess at the arena, but uh, pbr, professional bull riding Um, I worked it. Um, it was a couple of years ago. We haven't had in a few years and I my I showed my daughter at the time she was about well, she's 13 now.

Speaker 1: 3:26

So I mean, this is probably, this is maybe before COVID. So you're talking like she was, I don't know, seven or eight, so it's more than a few years ago, and she just really was like, wow, I want to go see that. So I brought her to the next event and she's like she loved it. It was kind of weird because we never watch it on TV. We've never seen anything like that before. But sorry, I'm just trying to give you the background of where I work and I know that I just realized the numbers probably don't work out on that. So, again, she's 13. I started working there in 2019. So maybe she was a little bit older than that, but right around that age, maybe eight or nine things like that. A little bit older than that, but right around that age, maybe eight or nine things like that. So and that, all that being said, I work a lot of different things, and this gets to me to the current topic today.

Speaker 1: 4:16

It was something I was thinking about when I was watching Brit Floyd. It wasn't that long ago, it was probably about a month or two ago. They come every year or about every year. I've seen them three times.

Speaker 1: 4:31

If you don't know who Brit Floyd is, I want to call them a cover band, but I guess they're considered a tribute band, quote, unquote of Pink Floyd. It doesn't even matter if you like Pink Floyd or not. That's not the point of the story. I'm kind of in between on Pink Floyd, like I love Led Zeppelin, like they're one of my favorite groups of all time. U2's actually my favorite of all time. I'd say those are my top two and Pink Floyd's kind of in that gray area. For me, I like Pink Floyd but I don't love them. Kind of like I don't know. I like the Stones and the who and them a little above Pink Floyd. Again, that's not even the point of it. I'm just trying to give you context. So what I noticed was you know, I just don't get these tribute bands, these cover bands.

Speaker 1: 5:19

I'll probably keep saying cover, but it really struck me when I saw them the last time and I actually talked to my supervisor there. When I say supervisor, he's like you know, half my age, but he's a really good guy. I'm just saying, you know. I said well, cause I was kind of Googling Brit Floyd, as far as you know, how does that work with the money and stuff like that? And do they have to pay Pink Floyd Cause Pink Floyd hasn't toured in like I don't even know, 30 years or something like that in 20 years? I don't know. And you know, do they owe them money? You know, do they get commission or whatever? Uh, whatever you call it? And he's like no, and I looked it up too. I'm like, is that true? He's like yeah, cause they're a tribute band, they don't actually have to pay them any kind of like fees or anything like that. I'm like you've got to be kidding me. And they actually got endorsed. I think they're endorsed by Pink Floyd as well, so they can sell their merchandise and and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 1: 6:13

And I'm like, well, what's the point of this? They, their whole career is copying another band and yes, by the way, they make millions of dollars. They're rich, but they're, and their whole thing is they're going to be doing this for well. They have been doing this for years and you know, let's say they do this for 30 years, let's just say 30, like as a teaching career or as a. In this case, we'll call it a band career, a career. They're going to be doing this for 30 years and they're not original, they're just copying somebody else.

Speaker 1: 6:50

And it just really struck me, I don't know, the whole time I was watching them, I'm like, and I was doing my job as well, but the whole time I was listening to them and they sounded good. They actually sound great. I mean, they sound just like them. But again, they're just copying the original band, even the things on the screen or the graphics. It's like Dark Side of the Moon and all that stuff. And it's like, well, yeah, that's awesome, but it's not yours. And I'm sure they can do different things, Maybe their set designs or maybe some of the merchandise, I don't know. They can show creativity in that aspect. But I just can't get back past the fact that they're just putting nothing new or amazing into the universe. I mean, how can you do this for decades and call it a career? I mean, I would feel like a fraud. I don't know, that's just me.

Speaker 1: 7:40

And that brings me to teaching, and I have an article on this. Lately I've been trying to tie my articles into my podcast or vice versa, so I will link the article in the show notes and I'm not going to probably mention everybody on here. That's been so amazing to me in my career, but I do want to shout out some people as we go along here. So a brief history of me. I'm not going to go into everything, but I started teaching PE in 2011.

Speaker 1: 8:10

I was a classroom teacher and caught a lucky break, which I've talked about before and maybe I'll go into some other time. But you know, I honestly I took the test and I got it and I made it my own and I felt like a fraud for a long time because I'm like, well, I'm not. You know, I don't go to school for this. I didn't get a degree in kinesiology or physical education, my degree is in elementary education and I, you know, took a test and I became a PE teacher and so I felt like a fraud for a while and I didn't know what I was doing. I was thrown to the wolves. I was literally told I remember this by my principal. I said, well, you know what's the curriculum. He's like it's yours, make it whatever you want. And I was like, okay, not sure what to do, but I will, you know, research this.

Speaker 1: 9:04

And you know, I had at a time this was my former school three paras and about 130 students and I was like I've never done this before. So what do I do? And it's like teaching on an island. Pe, at least for me, has always been. It's like there's nobody in my school I can go to. I mean for like technological help and other things I can go to like other teachers or you know, the music, art and STEM teachers are kind of in the same boat, but not really. So I just had to create my own curriculum and you know I don't know what I was doing.

Speaker 1: 9:37

So I went through the former PE teachers like stuff she left behind and look for games and activities, and I talked to my paras at the time and you know they helped me a little bit and you know I the big thing back then. It's still as great as PE Central, so I want to shout them out. I've actually given Mark, the creator of that, some a lot of credit. It helped me through my first year or two, and still does, but you know, just getting ideas for different games, different everything, just activities, team building things, all that stuff was awesome, especially my first couple of years, and I'd say around 2012,. 2013 is when I really got. You know, I won't say got lucky, but I found my way, I found my tribe, or at least found my footing, if nothing else.

Speaker 1: 10:30

So I stumbled upon this book. It's called it's Now Possible Emerging Technologies and Physical Education by Jared Robinson, and he's from Australia. Now a lot of the I don't want to say old school teachers know who he is. He's now in a different field. He's not really he's doing technology, but he's the one who originally, I think, is the OG of technology and PE. Now there's other people that did it before him as far as heart rate monitors and things like that, but he really took it to a new level and that was a turning point for me. I started actually emailed him. I'll never forget this. I emailed him like a question and he emailed me back. I'm like wow, from Australia, he emailed me back. He actually you know, it was like to me it was like emailing Bono and he responded. I really was blown away, I'm serious.

Speaker 1: 11:23

And from there there were some teachers on there that started getting into Voxer. Actually, I'm sorry, I got on Twitter then and then on Twitter I started following some PE teachers because I thought Twitter was just like following the Kardashians and whatnot. So I had no idea. But I started following PE teachers and that led me to Voxer, and Voxer like completely changed my life. I mean, I started connecting with people from all over the world and we would just not randomly, but if you had a question like I had a lesson on volleyball I could reach out to somebody on there and say, hey, can you give me a quick? I got this lesson planned, but is there anything extra you can add to this or whatever. And within like 30 seconds I'd get somebody from around the world saying here's what you can do, and like friendly, awesome and you know, great. And in the article I give lots of shout outs to different people and I owe even more some not just some a lot of credit.

Speaker 1: 12:23

But I'm going to, for this podcast, talk about three people that I learned a ton from, besides Jared, which he's been amazing and amazing a virtual mentor, I did meet him and these next three people that I'm going to talk about, and this this comes back to Brit Floyd. I promise it does. It comes full circle. So Andy Vasily he's from Canada, but he's been in a few countries around the world teaching To me. He's the OG of standards. He's been in a few countries around the world teaching To me. He's the OG of standards, lesson planning, student-centered learning. You know, he was just again.

Speaker 1: 12:56

These are like to me were the Mount Rushmore at the time, especially of PE teachers, and I met all three of them at the 2015 National PE Institute in Asheville, north Carolina. So, along with Andy, joey Feith from Canada as well. He taught me and not just me, but this is what I learned from him layering games and lessons. I still have. I can think of at least three games that are my go-to games that are from him, that I learned from him. And then Nathan Horn, from New Zealand, along with Joey Fyfe. They did a lot of TGFU Teaching Games for Understanding, I believe he's not even he's not teaching PE anymore. He's doing something even like higher level as far as administration or something like that. I don't mean higher level, you know better than PE. I just mean a different field. So I've just learned a ton from them. And there are way many others as well, which again, I talked about in the article.

Speaker 1: 13:54

But the point is I took what I learned from them and you know a quote unquote stole not really stole, but things from them and then kind of tweak them and then made them, made them my own, and then that made me more original. I know it sounds crazy, because I copied a lot, but after a while you become your own person, your own teacher, and that's what I did. For instance, well, one of my favorite books is called Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, and if you've never read that, it's a short book, it's more of a visual thing. I guess Definitely don't get it as audio. I mean, I love audiobooks, but this is more of a visual kind of thing, like on an ebook or whatever. So again, steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon he's got three books like this or two other books, got three books like this or two other books.

Speaker 1: 14:48

The premise is to steal ideas from all sorts of people and then you kind of make them your own. Take all these ideas, combine them and then you slowly create your own magic and then you become original. Now, if you just stole from somebody, this goes back to the Brett Floyd thing to me. If you just stole from somebody, this goes back to the Brett Floyd thing to me. If you just stole from somebody, I mean they do it out in the open but they're not, again, not original, it's not theirs. There's nothing new, nothing creative, it's just them stealing. And when I say stealing, again, it's not illegal what they're doing, but I don't think it's great. So it goes back to teaching. If I just stole from Jared Robinson everything I just stole from him and I taught like him and that was it that wouldn't be original, that'd be like a cover band. If I stole from any of those three or three other people, it's just not original.

Speaker 1: 15:46

But let me give you an example of what I did and I don't know if I know. A lot of you have heard about my fifth grade annual Chukbal tournament, sport ed tournament that I do every year I and I talk about that a lot. So I'm sorry some of you are like I got to hear about this again, but I don't know if I've mentioned the story of how I came up with it, maybe once or twice a long time ago and here's how it all went down. So I noticed not noticed but I seen what Jared Robinson did with his volleyball units and he did some like when I went to the PE Institute he did some different things where they were kind of self-learning and they were just a different kind of unit that I've never seen before.

Speaker 1: 16:34

And the sport ed aspect came into it as well and something I saw on his website and I'm like, oh, how do we do that? And I've talked to people at the time through Voxer and I didn't know what sport education is and that's a whole other podcast. But basically, students have different jobs, different roles, and I know Jared did that with I believe it was volleyball. So I was like, oh, that's cool. And then I saw what Nathan Horn did. He's again from New Zealand. He had online his whole hockey tournament. It was a sport ed hockey tournament and it was amazing. I mean the kids were the announcers and everybody had a role and I mean it was a big deal.

Speaker 1: 17:16

So I'm like, well, maybe I could do that with a different sport and I was trying to come up with a sport that not everybody or at least you know we didn't have any all-stars playing. Like I have some really good hockey players at my school because the hockey arena is right, like I said, down the road, and I have some really amazing I mean every sport football players, baseball players, basketball, whatever and I was like, well, what can I do? That's like that that nobody's ever played before. You know what I mean. And I think, again, through Voxer, people were mentioning Chuk Ball and again, if you don't know what Chuk Ball is, that's okay, that's a whole other podcast, but it's.

Speaker 1: 18:00

You know. Basically, these rebounders and you got to throw it off the rebounder and the other team's got to catch it. That's the real simple version of it. There's a lot of rules and you know I just wanted something that, yeah, yes, if you're a good athlete, you'll probably shine in, but there's other aspects to it and so you know, the main point is I took what I learned from and again I'm going to throw Joey Feith back in here you know layering these games and lessons with Nathan Horn's hockey, jared Robinson's volleyball, you know Andy Vasily's student-centered learning. You know I take these four.

Speaker 1: 18:34

You know, again, Mount Rushmore PE teachers. To me I mean that was like meeting. It's like I felt like I'm at the Beatles. I mean seriously. You know, I took what, or I took what I learned from them and I combined it and made it my own.

Speaker 1: 18:50

And that's one of the best examples I can give is that, you know, I became an original, although now you're like, well, wait a minute, no, you're not. But that's how you find your stride. You find your purpose is by taking what's great, what you learn from other people, other places, other things, documentaries, books, whatever and then integrating them into your teaching and making them your own. And I feel like I'm talking like Simon Cowell, like hey, you made that song your own. But that's what I feel like I did and I want to keep doing by not by stealing from other people, because now I don't steal as many things. I'm more myself my own now, and I do still follow people online, I still engage with people online, I still take some really great ideas from people online. But I found my stride and I became an original. I think and you know, that to me is the most important thing, so I'm going to challenge you to and that to me is the most important thing, so I'm going to challenge you to again steal like an artist. Again.

Speaker 1: 19:51

I didn't say this before, but the main quote of the book is a loosely quoted I'll probably get it wrong from Picasso. Like a quote from Picasso that good artists copy, great artists steal, or something like that. So that's uh, you know, be like Picasso, steal ideas. But don't teach the same thing for 30 years, copying off of somebody else or other things, and call it a career. Like it's great that you go to like uh, pe central or uh, open games and things like that and get ideas.

Speaker 1: 20:28

But don't just teach from that curriculum. Like, do other things, learn from other people and be great on your own. Don't just look back and be like wow, I taught the Spark curriculum for 85 years and I was an awesome teacher, I mean maybe, but create and put something new into the world. Don't teach like Brit Floyd plays the hits, plays other people's hits for 30 years. Be an original and be great, and that's my challenge to you. I won't even do a Cobalt Tip of the Day, because that's it. Be great, be original. Don't be a cover band, be a headliner, be an original and that's it. So take care, pe nation, you guys and girls are awesome.

Speaker 1: 21:10

Go to supersizefizedcom for more information. Go to the show notes for the article that I wrote with even more people on there and a little bit more kind of stuff on there, and check out all the stuff in the show notes. I'd love it if you bought the book that I put out I don't know a year, year and a half ago. Again, it's cheap and it's something I want you to just get your hands on because it involves things like this. I talk about this book, or the Austin Kleon book in my book. It's called High Fives and Empowering Lives A Physical Educator's Quest for Excellence, and I'd love for you to get a copy of it. It's a great and easy summer read for you. So, with that PE Nation, have a great day, week, weekend, whenever you listen to this, and let's keep pushing our profession forward. Thank you.