Telling a student to pay attention to your lesson because it is on an upcoming test is, in Dave Burgess’ words, “piss poor motivation.”
Hmmmm….guilty.
Guilty as charged.
I probably have said something similar, the “take your medicine approach” as Dave calls it, multiple times in the past month. What really sticks out to me is that this approach usually comes up during my math block.
“Okay guys- you really need to understand this stuff for 6th grade- Chris quit looking out the window. Katie put the book away.”
I try to make light of it. I know I sound like a nagging buffoon at times.
“Guys, please. I am very needy today. You don’t want to make Mr. Neilson cry do you? Okay all eyes on me. Seriously Katie? Put the book away.”
I even go with this approach- I don’t have a name for it, but it goes something like this:
“Guys, I am a paid professional. I am a professional 5th grader. I literally get paid to be here and perform 5th grade things for you guys. If Buster Posey were in front of the class telling you awesome baseball stuff you wouldn’t dream of reading a book while he was talking. Seriously you guys, you should be asking me for my autograph.”
Does this work? Well, I say something similar to this multiple times a month. I try to switch it up to be interesting…but common sense is telling me no. I annoy myself at times. Look at me!
I honestly didn’t know what the premise of Teach like a PIRATE was before I read it. I saw it on a Twitter post and added it to my Christmas wish-list and Santa obliged. I like being surprised like that. What I got was something that I have not put a lot of intentional thought into: “The Third Circle” is what Dave Burgess calls it. It’s the idea that once you have the content mastered, and have some basic teaching methods under your belt, you need to work on presentation and salesmanship in the classroom. There is also a whole different dimension to this book that talks about creativity and personal-success, probably my biggest passion, but that is for a different blog post.
Passion and Enthusiasm are huge components—if you have that you are well on your way to becoming a more effective educator. He also has a list of various “hooks” you can use to ramp-up the engagement in the classroom like games, music, and even mood lighting. I have known this to be true in my class, I think most educators have, but thinking of it as an essential piece to being a complete teacher was a new idea for me.
I sprinkle these ideas throughout the year in my classroom. We have Jeopardy! review games where I play the theme music throughout. I like doing a human number-line in math. When we read Holes, I send my students to Camp Green Lake with a real shovel and we attempt to dig a hole as deep and wide as a shovel just like the inmates do. We have some awesome interactive social studies units which incorporate role-playing and costumes. I like to play music during independent practice time. But Dave Burgess takes this to a whole other level—where I sprinkle, he avalanches.
Yesterday I intentionally attempted to incorporate some salesmanship into an otherwise banal word parts activity. An activity that we have done 13 times prior. I started with a story. They were going to help me solve a mystery. Immediately the kids were listening. We needed to look for clues and use the help of others to unravel this puzzle at hand. I had the Law and Order theme playing on the classroom speakers. I intentionally kept the activity a mystery until students were blurting out, “What is it?!” Then I showed them the same word parts activity we have done 13 times prior and I got laughs mixed with groans. LOL! The content needs work, but I had them hooked. I kept the fun up by interjecting some police sirens throughout the work and called them all detectives.
“Yes, question Detective Chris?”
The energy and enthusiasm was definitely up in the class. In math, we were doing a great Robert Kaplinsky activity called “Freeway Exits”. I started the lesson with some truck honking sound effects, and then had low-level traffic sounds playing on loop while they were working in teams. Plenty of smiles happened and it took little to no effort incorporating these ideas—just some intentional thought.
Like anything, I need to be intentional with the implementation. From my anecdotal evidence whenever I incorporate elements that he speaks about, the energy is always better in the classroom. I need to make the “Third Circle” a habit in my classroom teaching.
Am I going to get 100% student attention and standing-ovations from my students after each afternoon math lesson? No, definitely not. Am I going to try and eliminate “piss poor motivation” techniques from my classroom? Yes, immediately. This a great, quick read. Definitely recommend it. Wouldn’t mind him coming to my school district and seeing his presentation in person as well, seems like one cool dude. Thank you Dave!
Caleb Neilson 