Plan Like A PIRATE: Designing Extraordinary Learning Journeys for Every Student

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program, Don Harris. Dawn is the founder of Education Undone. She's a secondary English language arts educator, a gifted and talented teacher, and education speaker. She served as an associate professor of teacher education, and she continually strives to bring authentic and engaging learning experiences to students of all ages. And we're here today to talk about her new book, Plan Like a Pirate.

[00:40] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:42] SPEAKER_00:

Dawn, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:44] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much. I'm very honored to be here. I appreciate you having me on the show.

[00:47] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm excited to speak with you and talk about the book. First of all, what does it mean to plan like a pirate? I think many of our listeners will recognize the reference to Dave Burgess's book, Teach Like a Pirate. What does it mean to plan like a pirate?

[01:00] SPEAKER_01:

Planning like a pirate means, you know, we're doing all of those things that pirate teachers do, you know, being passionate about our content and immersing our students in it and developing... you know, rapport and just that kind of authentic, rich, and engaging learning that, you know, we all strive to bring our students to every day. And that means that we need to be very deliberate and intentional when it comes to planning those engaging learning experiences. I have my entire life, really adult life, called myself a planner.

[01:27]

And so when I became an educator 10 years ago, it just was a natural kind of fit that planning would be where my strengths And so, I've just made it a goal throughout my career as an educator to find ways to bring really individualized student-centered learning beyond what we would call day-to-day differentiation and putting together kinds of building blocks that we can use in the classroom every single day that not just make it easier for teachers to plan and students to be engaged, but also that work together

[02:01] SPEAKER_00:

I feel like for instructional leaders, planning is one of those areas that we know is crucial, right? We know it's absolutely critical for good learning to take place, good planning has to take place. But for anybody who is in the habit of getting into classrooms and seeing teachers at work... And I appreciate your point about...

[02:50]

Connecting with students and planning in the sense of differentiation, but beyond that, take us into that student-centered angle a little bit more. Why is it so important to have students at the center of our planning, and what does that look like?

[03:04] SPEAKER_01:

You're right. There is a lot that goes into planning, right, that whoever is observing, even students to a degree, don't see the work and the effort that educators put into designing learning that is really unique and offers kids the chance to showcase themselves, their knowledge, what they have mastered. A lot of, I don't even want to say struggle, but a lot of the challenges that lie with planning is really, what do we put together? What is it exactly that we're supposed to put together to help kids be able to come to the learning and engage on an individual level of learning? And I think that really takes the teacher time, the effort, the energy they need to know each of the individual students. Getting to know those students is first and foremost, so that when we take them to those real-world experiences related to maybe what they have planned for their future, the path they want to take, whether it's going straight into college or into a career that they've chosen for themselves, straight into the workforce, we need to make sure that we're taking steps, getting to know those students, finding the things that they enjoy in class,

[04:10]

utilizing their individual learning profiles, and I say profiles, not just learning styles, right, because it's more than just those multiple intelligences that we think of. What are their interests? Where do they enjoy spending their time most, and how can we find out what those things are about our students, bring those into the learning, or the opportunity to tap into those things in learning, so that we can take a lesson, or a series of lessons that we have planned, and allow the students to kind of go down their own path with that learning. Yes, we're all accessing the same kind of content, um, we're utilizing the same standards, but how the students go about engaging with and interacting with the learning that we design for them is really important, and that's why the subtitle plan, like a pirate, is Designing Extraordinary Learning Journeys for Every Student, and that's what it's about, this unique encounter with learning that we want to be able to bring students to every day.

[05:03] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Dawn, I certainly appreciate the importance of knowing our students and planning with our students' specific interests and goals in mind. As it says in the subtitle of the book, what does it mean to develop a learning journey for every student? I appreciate that metaphor, and you've got the compass on the cover. How does a learning journey differ from, you know, how we might normally just plan a unit or a lesson?

[05:26] SPEAKER_01:

What's really important here is that, again, just going back to developing those relationships with students and One of the things that I like to do is at the very beginning of the year is I spend the first few weeks, not just the first few days, but the first few weeks of the school year getting to know students on an individual basis, gathering as much information as I can about them and getting to know them, allowing them to get to know me, but also getting to know one another. We do a lot of really fun activities, not really team building, even though there's some team building and collaboration in those activities at the beginning of the year. But that engaging in activities that allow students to tell me, to tell their peers about who they are as individuals. One of the things that we work on at the beginning of the year is building out happiness T-charts.

[06:19]

And students spend time creating visual representations of things that make them happy. things that they enjoy in life, the things they like to do to make other people happy, and the kids love just being able to spend time and pour themselves into that. We complete together an activity called Hearts Before Heads, which comes from the work of Dr. Lindsay Portnoy, who is just phenomenal, and students get to spend time looking at all of the different parts and pieces of their own lives, you know, what it's like at home for them, what educational experiences they like, just the different activities and things that they are involved at school, but even outside of school. And so, what happens when we spend time with kids on those kinds of activities is, yes, we do get to know about them, and that's really important, and they get to know about one another.

[07:11]

But what it also does is, as the educator, it gives us loads of information about our children, the students that we can tap into all year long. So, we think about the journey. It's like, when we're setting out on this journey, what are all the things that we need? You know, yes, we know we have a curriculum that we have to follow. We know there are standards that we have to kind of adhere to, and there are learning targets that we need to design based on the assessments that we give. All of that is still part of pirate planning.

[07:37]

But when we spend time at the outset of our school year or our time together with students getting to know and learn about them, then that means we've gathered all of these materials and resources and just wonderful pieces of information about our students that we can integrate into the learning we design for them Or allow them, they keep this information, to tap back into, hey, get out your hearts before head sheet. We're going to use this activity. Let's focus on some things from home for this activity that we can build into either our writing or the project that we're engaging with. And so it's not this, you know, when I think about planning like a pirate, so to speak, this is not the directing, right, of the ship as the teacher, but just kind of allowing the kids themselves on the ship to kind of guide where we go with things and individually with their jobs and all of that. that journey are, and so it's really exciting to see them be so engaged and confident and enjoying what's going on in the classroom on a day-to-day basis because they know that whatever it is that we're doing in class, they're going to have the opportunity to include something about themselves or their lives into the learning that we're doing.

[08:43] SPEAKER_00:

I remember realizing as a middle school teacher, I taught sixth and seventh grade science, that some of my colleagues were doing just an extraordinary job of that, of really connecting with their students, allowing them to, you know, kind of share who they were. And especially, I'm thinking of one particular newer language arts and social studies teacher who's just fabulous at connecting with students, you know, and getting them to really include a lot about themselves in their work. And I think one of the objections that immediately comes to mind for a lot of us is, well, that's fine if you're writing an essay about your family, but, like, how do I do that and still teach about rocks? You know, like, if I'm teaching earth science or if I'm teaching math, it seems like some subject areas are just naturally less suited to...

[09:29]

really caring anything at all about the students, you know, if it's some kind of hard content that doesn't really fit. You know, I certainly remember my teachers going to great lengths to motivate us to care about whatever the subject was, but it would be hard to envision how to, you know, see myself or my family in these math problems or this unit about, you know, stinking rocks. What do you say when people come to you with that objection or that concern that some content is just difficult to connect to students?

[09:55] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I would absolutely agree. To a degree, that that's true. There are just some skills, right, that need to be taught. And skills-based learning is different than concept-based teaching and learning. And I think for educators, it's important, though, that we still try to find ways, even if we're teaching science, right, how are we engaging students in thinking conceptually about the content that we teach and integrating the skills they're in? Yes, hard facts in math and science.

[10:24]

are very important, but if we're talking about rocks, for example, in science, how can we get kids out into the classroom or engaging in some way online, where they're exploring different kinds of rocks and telling stories about it, rocks they've found. Maybe they went on a trip somewhere to the Grand Canyon, perhaps, and they remember something about the rocks they saw, or just walking down the street in their neighborhood, or how we picked up rocks when we were a kid and drew hopscotch on the sidewalk, and What was the kind of rock that we were using then? Do we remember what those look like? The shapes and the colors and, you know, how did it feel? Were they smooth and were they jagged and rough? Those kinds of conversations that we can relate back to individual experiences as much as possible in any content area are really important.

[11:06]

Think about story problems in math and learning to calculate and to kind of think about math in a different way through the use of words. You know, how are we allowing students to tell their own stories through story problems? Can we ask them to write story problems instead of solving someone else's, right? And so it's really in the approach. And it's one of those things I find, you know, sometimes it takes a little more time to build that learning in, but the outcomes are really worth it when the students are more willing to kind of invest themselves in it because they feel like they're a part of it. There's something about themselves in the learning that they can tap into

[11:43] SPEAKER_00:

So, Dawn, one thing that, uh, that strikes me about this approach to planning with our students in mind is that, you know, obviously, we know elementary teachers can do that, you know, spend a lot of time with their students, spend a lot of time getting to know their students and planning for their, you know, specific interests and needs and, and working in connections. But for secondary teachers who may have over 100 students, who may have multiple different subjects to prepare for, multiple sections of the same subject, so, you know, even if I've built a student's name into the word problem, that student's not going to be in every period. What are some of the adaptations or the special considerations that you recommend for secondary teachers who just have a lot more students to think about?

[12:30] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And being a secondary educator myself, I certainly understand that challenge. One of the things I think that's really important for educators to do, because I do not feel like that we can afford to miss out on that relationship building at the beginning of the year. And while I do spend a couple of weeks getting to know students, we're building in, you know, working on some skills and building in some learning into that time. But that piece is really critical for me moving forward through the rest of the year. What I feel is important is, and you kind of touched on this with the elementary kiddos and having those kids smaller group of kids all year long, we still can't afford to rush through the learning and rush through that, not even just the opening piece, but any piece of the year.

[13:14]

And so one of the things that I like to do is pick out, you know, what are the power standards that I want to focus on through the year? We don't have to hit on every standard, right? Data is our friend. We've got to use data. I'm a firm believer in all types of data, big data from those standardized assessments and small data. From just our everyday classroom assessments, what are they telling us about our learners?

[13:36]

And using that to kind of formulate how we move forward with the learning in the classroom. And so if we think about... Many of us do have a standard set of curricula that we have to use and introduce our students to throughout the year. But as we plan the assessments for our students that are going to help us to determine what direction we go with that curriculum, that's going to open up opportunities for us to build in some of these activities where we can spend some additional time getting to know kids, where we can allow students some more autonomy with their own learning, and then building in larger projects that allow them to utilize the skills that they have developed in class into some of these projects that they are able to immerse themselves in and show more of themselves and who they are as learners.

[14:24]

Passion projects, for example, can be done in any class. If we have a passion project as an enrichment piece in class, we can work on some math problems and math skills or science facts and data, but at the same time, spend a period a week using that information that we have gained, that knowledge that we've gained, into some kind of passion project that's really related to something that I enjoy, then that still gives the teacher time to work on, okay, this is what we need to focus on in class, these are the standards and the learning targets, Now let's take what we've learned and how can we apply this to something else in class that we're passionate about? And I just think it's really important, not even just for the educators in the classroom, but how are building administrators ensuring that teachers have time to allow students to engage in these things in school? How are we building that into scheduling that gives kids and teachers the opportunity to step not completely outside the content, but take what we've learned in the content and apply it to our personal lives in a real-world way, I guess a lot of people would say.

[15:25] SPEAKER_00:

it seems to me that often we are, as administrators, kind of pressuring teachers to do the opposite, you know, cover more, stick to the pacing guide, hit all the standards, hit the important standards really hard because they're going to be on the test, you know. You're saying, you know, you need to hear from instructional leaders that it's important to set aside time for this type of work that connects with students, you know, to actually spend instructional time more on connecting with students.

[15:50] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I think it's very, very important. As administrators, you know, we know also that Relationships are important, right, in leadership. And so, if they're important in leadership and building connections with the people that are in our buildings, then, you know, why wouldn't we want to do the same thing in our classrooms with kids? We want to make sure that kids know that they're supported and that we're thinking about who they are as learners and not just individuals that we're pouring information into and expecting them to take this information and this content that we've presented to them and here it is and take it in and learn it. That's just not the way we can teach.

[16:22]

It's about, even beyond differentiation. Differentiation is really important, but more so, how are we taking what we know about students and giving them the chance to apply who they are to that learning and that differentiated learning segment?

[16:37] SPEAKER_00:

Thinking about the individual teacher who's going through your work and learning to plan like a pirate, obviously there's a degree of motivation and self-direction that makes that successful. When it comes to shared expectations for planning... It strikes me that often our expectations at the school level get translated for teachers as, please fill out this template for me every week with your lesson plans. You know, we see requirements like that that often teachers find very time-consuming, not especially helpful.

[17:08]

And if you were to ask most people, hey, would you like to read a book on lesson planning and then learn to lesson plan, a lot of people would say, well, no, and I know how to lesson plan, leave me alone. Tell us a little bit about how this book is set up and kind of what you take people through Given that lesson planning is something that, you know, like, everybody thinks they know how to do it, and please don't give us any more forms to fill out and turn in. Absolutely. Yeah, take us through the structure of the book a little bit, if you would.

[17:31] SPEAKER_01:

You know, there are no forms in Plan Like a Pirate. You can write no forms. I do have some resources, things that I use in my classroom regularly on the Education Undone website. Those are there for anybody that would want to access those about, you know, embedding anti-racist teaching and learning into our practice, and The Essential Eight, which I'll share a little bit about with you, but just in general, the overall book, it opens with this idea of the relationship between the teacher and the student and the impact that that relationship can have on learning as a whole and the student's experience in the class. And that's, for me, first and foremost. Above all, I want to know that my kiddos know that they're supported.

[18:10]

Moving, then, into this idea that our job is to really help students kind of chart the course to their future and chart the course to the better world. Like, we've got to help students to become curious learners and develop a sense of hope and, you know, advocacy and responsibility and tolerance, even, for other people. They're going to go out into the big world and work or learn next to someone who may not be like them, and how do they adjust to that? Into the essential eight, which is just a grouping of strategies, and these I call non-negotiables, that I utilize every day in the classroom that include things like focus on academic and content-related vocabulary, purposeful use of technology, making sure kids are writing constructive responses every day, that relationship piece is in there, whether we're working bell to bell, and I call those kind of the Lego bricks of my book. They're parts and pieces, strategies, and methods that you can put together in any number of ways that are going to allow our students to do exactly that, go out and chart this course to a better world for themselves, for other people, so they become productive parts of society, and

[19:16]

Those non-negotiables in the Essential 8 section of the book, for me, are the things that, over the years, I have gathered up from different people, different resources, and actually stem from a list that one of my very first principals ever gave me, that has just kind of been modified over the years, are the things that I know every single day when I go in my classroom, I do. Now, I could dig in deep to concepts and big ideas or critical thinking in a particular lesson or even a unit, But every day, those eight things are going to be present in some way, shape, or form. That doesn't require a lesson plan for me. I can jot those down, right? I can make a list and say, okay, I need to make sure I'm using tech in this way, that the kids are writing in this way, that we're working bell to bell, like, you know, this, this is how I have the day structured, that I'm taking this time for either me to build a relationship with a student or students to build relationships with one another.

[20:07]

Whatever those things are, I have kind of put those together so that every day there's a new creation in the classroom without me having to sit down and say, this is my standard, and this is my ICANN statement, and this is how I'm going to open the lesson, right? Veteran teachers know how to do these things. And I think one of the biggest problems with having teachers, you know, take the time Daily or weekly, whatever it is, to sit down and write out the lessons, many of which they've been doing for years, if they've been in the same position, can seem a little undermining, maybe sometimes, because we have this knowledge or this ability, right? Or we've just done this so many times, we could just do it in our sleep. But I think it is very important to have a structure. And that's just something that I don't go into my day without, is...

[20:56]

Having something there for me to look at and say, this is how I anticipate the day is going to go. Does it go that way every day? No, it doesn't. Because kids ask questions, or kids have needs, or things happen in the building, right? But at least if we have some idea going into each day, this is what it's going to look like. For me, that's a good thing.

[21:15]

And, you know, I think it's a good thing for everyone, because you never know what can happen in the class. Somebody might have to jump in and step in for you, and you've got to have something there, right? at the last minute. But those non-negotiables, I think, are really important. And, you know, the last few pieces of the book really focus on educator professional growth and how are we taking accountability for our own growth and stepping up and saying, you know what, I want to be the best version of myself so that when I come into the classroom and kids see me being the best version of myself, they're going to want to do the same. They're going to say, wow, I have to be in this class.

[21:46]

I can't afford not to be here. They can't miss school because of your class, right? They want to come in there and they want to get all of that great stuff that you have planned for them. And that comes with work and time and energy and, you know, a lot of effort. And so, it's just kind of a bit of encouragement to teachers to say that you have this amazing power as a teacher to control how successful you are as an educator and how far you go as an educator. How much your children enjoy coming into the classroom every day is really up to you.

[22:17]

And there aren't a lot of professions where people are able to do that. And so, I think it's really great that We have that kind of control. What do we want to learn ourselves and bring back to our students? And the evaluation piece is critical. And so, for the last part of the book, I really outline how I approach the evaluation piece and game day, right, as we might call it. But every day should look like game day.

[22:44]

It might not be in that somebody's not in the room evaluating us, but there's nothing worse for kids than when it's evaluation season, and someone comes in, and the learning, and the kids are like, why didn't we, why don't we learn like this all year? Like, why is it like this today? Whoa! Oh, yeah, you know, the evaluator is in the room, right? That's what's going on. So I think it's just important through this process, just to be true to yourself, who you are as an educator, and how you plan.

[23:17]

This isn't about really planning, like, I believe you should plan. It's about these are some things that I do in my classroom that work for me. What works for you? How can you use some of these strategies and build these experiences for students so that they're coming into class every day and you're enjoying it as much as they are? We have to both enjoy it or else it's really no fun. That's a great point.

[24:01] SPEAKER_00:

If you're a doctor, you know, your patients come in with, you know, whatever they're coming in with. Doctors don't get to do lesson planning and decide, you know, symptoms are people going to walk in with today. But we get to decide what experiences students are going to have. And that is a tremendous source of, I think, professional satisfaction for...

[24:18]

A lot of people. And one that, if we're not careful as leaders, we can squeeze out of it with some of our more unreasonable expectations for, you know, turning in lesson plans in a particular format or a particular template. So I'm glad to see this coming from the perspective of, you know, what do you envision as the teacher and how can you help your students chart a course to a better world? I wonder if we could talk just briefly about the work that you do to help schools in this area. What do you love to do when you're working with the school staff to help them plan like a pirate?

[24:48] SPEAKER_01:

Lots! Book studies, right? I'm gonna be working with a district here pretty soon, visiting after a book study of Plan Like a Pirate. I do quite a lot of diversity, equity, and inclusion work with school districts and anti-racism education, which is another piece of my book that is embedded throughout. So in each chapter of the book, there are some subsections that are related to how do we allow students to experience anti-racist teaching and learning and create learning experiences that allow them to understand how we work together to break down structures and systems that are inherently racist, right, that have been in place for a long time, being able to recognize those, develop awareness of ourselves.

[25:40]

So that has been a big part of my work, and a lot of that lies just in the curriculum piece. and weaving in these threads and being very intentional about bringing students to opportunities for understanding. And this is really what it's about, is helping students to see more clearly the things that maybe they didn't recognize before. And we talk about, as adults sometimes, coming to these understandings and kind of moving out of this perceived bubble that we live in and we aren't always aware of the lived experiences of others. It's that same thing with anti-racist teaching and learning. And it's not something that is you know, when working with districts and helping them to kind of build out this change in their curriculum is this isn't one of those experiences for students where we say, okay, you know, we're going to talk about anti-racism and this is, you know, racist and this is not, it's nothing like that.

[26:29]

It's very integrated and interwoven and just giving kids just a brief moment, the chance to explore something different or something that may be wrong and how do we make that right? And it's about problem solving as much as anything else. And so also helping districts, Tracy Browder and I, she is the founder of Intelligogy, the podcast and consulting services. We work together with districts to help them just establish their diversity, equity, and inclusion committees, getting them up and running. Who are the stakeholders? You know, what data are we going to use to determine where we need to focus our efforts?

[27:10]

How are we going to involve students in the process? What needs to be embedded in the curriculum in terms of systems of support for everyone in the building? And just helping them through that initial process to get them on their feet so that they can become operational on their own. And it's been really exciting to see some of the different schools that we've worked with go through that process and just grow from it and just

[27:37]

So the book is Plan Like a Pirate, Designing Extraordinary Learning Journeys for Every Student.

[27:52] SPEAKER_00:

And Dawn, if people would like to learn more about your work or more about the book or connect with you about maybe doing some work in their school, where's the best place for them to go and reach you online?

[28:01] SPEAKER_01:

So there are a few places. You mentioned Education Undone Limited, that's my educational consulting company, and that is at www.educationundone.com, and I can also be reached, I'm on Twitter, all over Twitter, at dharris, E-D-S, and I'm on Facebook, Dawn Harris, and I also have a Facebook group, Education Undone Educator Network, that folks can join there and get some resources and make connections there as well, so...

[28:31]

Um, but I'm pretty active on social media, and, yeah. Email me, dawn at educationundawn, of course. You can reach me there, too.

[28:37] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Dawn Harris, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[28:40] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[28:43] Announcer:

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