Channel Your Inner Pirate! Arrgh!

Today, my assistant principal and I channeled our inner pirates as we led our staff through what they thought was going to be a session on critiquing instruction.  We began the session by telling the staff that as we have been doing our walk-throughs, we have been assessing their instruction.  We thought it would be a good idea to give them some practice in doing the same.  We had three short video clips for them to watch.  They were asked to look at what each teacher was doing, what the students were doing, the level of engagement, etc. and be ready to critique it.

Click below to watch on Teacher Tube

Watch Seinfeld Video

After all three video clips were shown, we instructed them to have a conversation with those around them about what they observed.  As they began their discussion, we escaped and ran to our offices to put on our costumes!  We transformed into pirates and rejoined the group.

Arrgh!  We shared our treasure with the staff!

We entered the cafeteria and spoke in our best "pirate-ese" as we told the staff that we hoped we wouldn't see any of that type of teaching happening here. If so, they may have to "walk the plank." We then decided to share our treasure with them--a copy of  Teach Like a Pirate by @burgessdave.  Inside each book, we had placed a paper with one letter of the word PIRATE on it.  We did a jigsaw activity in which we had the staff move to sit with others who had the same letter.  Their task was to read the part about their letter in the first section of the book and design a skit/performance that will teach the rest of the staff what their assigned letter stands for.

A Must Read for Teachers!

Passion
Immersion
Rapport
Ask and Analyze
Transformation
Enthsiasm
                                         


Two weeks from today, each group will have the opportunity to present their information in an engaging way.  

And, one more thing.... It will be Teach Like a Pirate Day at our school! Teachers and staff are encouraged to dress up like pirates for the day.  The response in the crowd when this was announced was great!  Everyone seemed very excited about this opportunity.  We are keeping it a secret so that we can surprise our students.  I look forward to sharing how our staff teaches what each letter represents.  Here's to channeling our inner pirates!  Arrgh!