Teaching Tip #5

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #5

Teach Like a Pirate!

I can hear your eye rolls now!

While I happen to be a fan of the book, what I took away from it that impacts my teaching most is this concept

This is a diagram Burgess constantly preaches about.   The middle of the three spheres on the Venn Diagram is where you want to be.

Practice is vital.  We all know the theories and effective strategies to teach.  But if that’s all we can do, we are just babysitters.

Content is vital.  We all know that we have to teach standards and skills.  But if that is all we can do, it’s play time all day long.

What Burgess espouses – and he says no one else ever talks about this – is what is vital about bringing these two spheres together to be truly effective: presentation.

Presentation is not nearly as vital as the other two areas . . . but it is.  If you don’t present the information in an engaging or entertaining way, you’re losing out.  Period.

Call it whatever you want: Edutainment, Engage me or Enrage me, whatever you want.  But it’s vital.

If kids aren’t engaged by you and the lesson, you’re wasting your time.  The practice and content isn’t being delivered nearly as effectively as it is if you work on your presentation skills.

And don’t gripe about always having to entertain the kids.  Who doesn’t like to be entertained?

If you sit down to watch a TV show or a film, do you pick the most boring one possible?

If you go to a sporting event, do you hope it’s all defense and ends in a 0-0 tie?

If you go to a training session, do you want it to be all content and stats?

Think about our horrific safety training slideshows none of us watch.  Why is that so boring, yet why was Barb’s safety keynote during in-service so engaging?  It’s all about presentation.