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Matt Huot: If your students had the choice to come back to your classroom or not, would they?
Matt Huot: If your students had the choice to come back to your classroom or not, would they?
By Audrey Thornborrow
By Audrey Thornborrow
Teach Like a Pirate
Teach Like a Pirate
If you’ve ever read Dave Burgess’s amazing book, Teach Like a Pirate, you know that his whole premise is that pirates, “ are daring, adventurous, and sail into uncharted waters without any guarantee of success,” and he encourages teachers to do the same with their teaching. He asks the poignant question that Matt lives by in his classroom: “If your students had the choice to come back to your classroom or not, would they?”
Matt’s students would 100% come back to his classroom every day. Why? Because he works very hard to make sure the learning his kids do is important to them, it’s relevant to them, and it’s enjoyable to them. Matt says if he’s bored, his kids are bored. So he makes sure he infuses his lessons and units with topics he’s passionate about, and he has a fabulous way of making his passion contagious. Dave Burgess, in his book Teach Like a Pirate, asks teachers, "Could you sell tickets to your classroom?” That question has always stuck with Matt; therefore, he uses the passions of his students as well as his own to excite students about learning. So much so, that they would buy a ticket to learn more. For example, one of Matt’s passions is outer space. He infuses outer space into areas of his teaching and his kids eat it up. They too find themselves interested in outer space and request to get telescopes for birthday and Christmas gifts, so they can explore the night sky just like their teacher, Mr. Huot.
High levels of commitment
High levels of commitment
“OK,” you may be thinking, “This all sounds great, but what about….”. Teaching like a pirate sounds like a very scary thing to attempt. Afterall, we have curriculum maps, we have standards, we have the dreaded MCAs, we do not want our classrooms to get out of control, we don’t like things to get messy. What if the principal walks in and thinks we are wasting time? What if the students score badly on the MCAs? What if the students just talk the whole time and things get chaotic? A lot of “what ifs” or “but what abouts” pop up in our head when we think about what teachers like Matt do in their classrooms. John Spencer and AJ Juliani write about a lot of these fears in their book Empower: What happens when students own their learning? They address how these fears, while real, often turn out to be only that: fears. When reality hits, the kids are invested, they participate, they are excited, they remember what they learned, they do great on tests, and when the principal walks in they see a classroom of curious learners who are digging deeper, using their resources, collaborating, communicating, and thinking critically to find the answers they seek. Students fall into the highest level of engagement according to Philip Schlecty’s Levels of Engagement. They have high attention and high commitment. And when students have that level of committment, great learning happens.
The How
The How
Once we get past our fears, the next questions seem to be about “how”. As we teachers know, you cannot just say, “Ok kids, learn what you want.” There has to be plans and structures in place. I asked Matt about this and the following principles are what allow him to teach the way he does.
- Know your students.
Matt takes a lot of time all year to get to know his students. He learns about their passions, the things they enjoy doing outside of school, and even things they don’t enjoy. He keeps track of this and pulls those passions and excitements into his lessons. Here is what he suggests:
Take time during snack time or down time to have kids turn off iPads/computers and chat with their peers. Walk around. Listen. Join in the conversations.
Allow students time to share about their weekends, big events, things they are excited about. You’ll learn a lot from what they share.
- Show them the learning they are doing has value to them NOW, not 10 years down the road.
Kids like to know that what they do matters. That is why Matt finds hands on activities and ideas that you can’t find in a worksheet. A worksheet does not emulate real life. Hands on activities, simulations, experiments, etc. do.
A. Incorporate real world connections into your lessons.
How can you incorporate the hobbies and outside interests of my students into this material?
What type of life-changing lessons can be incorporated into the content?
What current events are related to this lesson?
EXAMPLE: Recently a student looked out Matt’s window and noticed a bird. The student asked a question about the bird. Instead of chastising the student for not paying attention or dismissing the question. Matt stopped the lesson, took time to allow the students time to do an investigation about what type of bird they just saw. Then during their ELA block, he gave them time to continue their research by looking at multiple sources. They then summarized and synthesized what they had learned and shared that learning with their peers and took some time to write about their learning.
- Know your standards.
Matt knows his standards really well. So well, in fact, he can often take something that is happening around the school, and he will relate it back to a lesson he just taught, or a standard he knows he needs to address. He understands that curriculum helps to meet standards, but also that standards aren’t the curriculum. You can learn the standards in many ways from many different sources. He follows our curriculum maps, but doesn’t hesitate to jump at an opportunity to teach a standard when it pops up outside the map.
- Don’t worry about perfection.
Matt knows that if he takes too much time trying to make everything look Pinterest worthy, he’ll never get his ideas to come to fruition. He knows that even though he may at the last minute decide to create newspaper asteroids for his students Mars rover coding projects, they may not look perfect. It doesn’t matter. They get the job done, and kids remember the experience. That is exactly what Matt wants. He wants his kids to remember and solidify their learning. He states, “A quickly put together projects is always better than a well-designed worksheet.”
- You don’t have to be in the front of the room for kids to learn.
That’s it. That’s the point. You can be mixed in with the students, sitting with them on the floor, working with small groups at your desk/teacher table. In this way you can address all sorts of learning styles and students can get a more 1:1 approach from you. In turn, you'll know much more about your students abilities and skills.
- Avoid chaos, but give purposeful, guided freedom.
Set up classroom expectations together with your students
Keep those expectations consistent
Noise is ok, as long as students understand what they are supposed to accomplish and know what the expectations are.
If kids don’t do what you thought they would do, you cannot blame them. It’s not their fault. They need to know the steps, the goals, and the expectations.
Chatting with Matt about his teaching philosophy was insightful and a lot of fun, and I know he is happy to talk to anyone who wants to chat about it. He has a lot of awesome ideas and advice, and would be a great starting point if you are wanting to ask about project-based learning, genius hours, empowering students, and keeping the love of learning alive in our students. Thank you, Matt, for your time.
Connect with Matt
Connect with Matt
Email: matt.huot@isd47.org
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