When I am doing Skypes or Google Hangouts with book study groups (Hey...you know I do those, right? They are free and fun! Contact me!), a common question during the Q & A is, “Why didn’t you put ____ in the book?” That blank changes depending on who is asking the question but my answer rarely does. 

Teach Like a PIRATE was not meant to be the encyclopedia of teaching or the teaching “bible.” It is my story. It is my manifesto. It is based on what I found to be successful over 17 years of teaching and the principles and strategies are drawn from a lifetime of experience and strongly influenced by many fields completely outside the world of traditional education.

 In fact, there is not ONE SINGLE education book referenced in TLAP!!! Not because I don’t like education books...we publish over NINETY!!! It’s because that’s not where it came from. It was from the outside drawn in. 

Teach Like a PIRATE was inspired by my background as a coach, magician, emcee, entrepreneur, marketer, street performer, chess player, reader of success literature, father, teacher,...and many more...all woven together with a degree in psychology and a strong curiosity about what influences, drives, motivates, and captivates the human mind. 

That’s one of the reasons it does NOT read like a typical education book. It’s not not meant to be a typical education book! And those “typical” books aren’t the ones we look to publish at DBC Inc. There are lots of places you can go to get those...we are quite intentionally publishing books written from a different perspective.

“Why is there not more edtech integration in TLAP?” (Or substitute project-based learning, genius hour, student-led classrooms, design thinking, etc in that “edtech” space of the sentence)

This one is simple. I wasn’t very good at it. 

I decided early on that I was going to write TLAP from a very authentic place and NOT write about anything I could not honestly tell you I did well with my students. We are all on a growth curve in education...or at least we should be!! I had colleagues who were NEXT-LEVEL amazing at edtech integration but I was not there yet on my educational path so did not feel like I could authentically write about it. Same with project-based learning, design thinking, student-led classrooms, and on and on. I’m just being honest with you! I was still learning about all of these wonderful things and certainly not expert enough to author a book on them. 

Student engagement? Passion? Enthusiasm? Creativity? Embracing the mightier purpose of being an educator? Yup! Those were, and are, in my wheelhouse and those are the cornerstones of the Teach Like a PIRATE message. 

But what to do about these other topics? That’s one of the reasons we decided to expand DBC Inc. and empower other PRACTITIONERS to share their messages in a fair & equitable way, with authors maintaining creative control, intellectual property rights, and an UNHEARD of percentage of the royalties. 

So no matter what topic in education you are interested in, we have you covered or are in the process of having you covered! Our book page RIGHT HERE is organized loosely around topics such as leadership & school culture, technology, inspiration, teaching strategies, etc.  

If you ever need help selecting a book that would be right for your needs, please contact us and we can help and offer suggestions. Also, many of our books have book study resources and activities available RIGHT HERE. Some of the authors have even created extensive and wonderful supplemental materials and further book study resources which we are happy to share with you. We want your experience with our books to be positive and successful! Our authors are wonderful and happy to interact with readers! 

Speaking of wonderful authors who have shared their unique stories and created whole movements around their messages, I wanted to share an article written by one these amazing educators, Sean Gaillard. Sean started the highly successful and influential #CelebrateMonday movement on Twitter and is the author of The Pepper Effect. In this book he took his love and passion for the Beatles and showed how principles that led to the creation of their Sgt. Pepper album could also inform how we build and create a wonderful school culture. It is a perfect example of how we look to find educators who are out there DOING this stuff, practitioners, and also have a unique perspective and then empower them to tell their story. The Pepper Effect was a bucket list book for Sean and we are honored to have helped him fulfill that dream. We are proud that he was recently featured on the PBS.org website with an article entitled, Why the Beatles’ Message of Love Never Fails Me. We would love it if you would give it a read... it will lift you up!! You can connect with Sean on Twitter by using @smgaillard and #ThePepperEffect hashtag. 

Thank you!

Dave

PSS: Are you a principal looking to improve your instructional coaching skills? Are you an instructional coach or TOSA?  Are you looking to get a great coaching book into the hands of anyone in your system in a coaching role? We have just released The Coach Adventure: Building Powerful Instructional Leadership Skills that Impact Learning by Amy Illingworth. Amy is a wonderful coach and teacher of coaches and has brought her message together with a highly creative “choose your own adventure” format. Learn more by clicking HERE. The hashtag is #CoachADV on social media.