SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. His department chair told him success could not be taught. That was just personality. So he built a system that's now been used by hundreds of thousands of educators worldwide, a New York Times bestseller, and built a company publishing from scratch, from classroom magician to educator disruptor. That's what we're breaking down today with Dave Burgess. Welcome back to Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian. Famlins often ask me how to navigate the maze of college emissions and prep without wasting thousands of dollars and tons of time. The answer usually involves finding the people who have figured it out, the rules of the game, and crack the code that the schools aren't telling you. But today we're going to actually go one level deeper. We're talking about what makes a classroom actually work, what great teaching looks like under the hood, and how a system for engagement can change everything. And yes, that is, including our high achiever students out there too. So I'm thrilled to welcome Dave Burgess here today. Welcome, Dave, again. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Joe. Yeah, thanks so much for having me on the show. I'm I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Absolutely. And you are the best-selling author uh and known in the education world of Teach Like a Pirate. Um, and you're a veteran educator, spent 17 years in the trenches teaching high school history in San Diego, but more importantly, you built a system for student engagement and has sparked a global education revolution. Dave, again, welcome to the show. What is Teach Like a Pirate? Let's just get right into it. How, where does that come from?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yeah, exactly. So, what I always tell people is uh it has nothing to do with wanting teachers to attack and rob ships at sea. It's got nothing. It's not the dictionary definition. And uh it's about this embracing the spirit of a pirate. So to me, the spirit of a pirate is someone who is unconventional, someone who's willing to reject the status quo, someone who's willing to sail into uncharted waters with no guarantee of success, a wrist taker, a rebel, a maverick in the classroom. So it's about embracing that spirit of being a pirate. In addition to that, pirates are known for having hooks. And this is all about how you can hook students and draw them almost like magically or magnetically into what you're doing in your rooms. And then it also serves as an acronym. So the P-I-R-A-T-E of the word pirate actually serves as an acronym for the first third of the book. It's uh structured like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Amazing. Amazing. Okay. So, but you know, something even more near and dear to my heart than piracy is social studies. You started off uh very we started off very similar backgrounds. Um, you were a history teacher in West Hills High School in San Diego. What was that like when you started?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Uh yeah, so when I first came to West Hills, I always tell people my gateway drug into teaching was as a basketball coach. I got hired at West Hills High School as a basketball coach before I even had a teaching credential. I loved working with the kids so much that I decided I wanted to do it all day. And so I went to night school and got a teaching credential and came back and got a job in the social studies department. And that department chair that he mentioned was the at the time the head basketball coach. He was also the chair of the social studies department and got hired by him to teach social studies. And I will say one thing about the on that that time when he told me about I think this your success is kind of personality. He was challenging me. He wasn't thinking that you couldn't teach success, he was just kind of challenging me, like, hey, like, do you think you could do this? Because, like, I don't know, maybe it's just your personality. And so I definitely took it as a challenge, not something that he actually believed.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

And you were, I read you were also a professional magician. And you brought that.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, so that's that's a uh part of my background as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

How does that help you be a better better educator?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Uh so I think it's giving me a keen sense of kind of uh showmanship and some of the drama behind good teaching and educating and drawing engagement and attention. Like if you think of, for example, a street magician, or sometimes referred to as a busker, is uh they they're they're busking and they go out and they perform on the street. If you think about it, they have no audience. Nobody is there to go see the street magician, right? They're just walking by. And so, what does the street magician have to do? They have to draw attention, they have to get the uh engagement of a small group of people, and then they have to be able to turn that small group of people, be so get that that group to react and to draw other people in to see what's going on there. And the crowd gets bigger and bigger and bigger. But not only do they have to draw that audience, if you're a street magician, you have to keep that audience too. So you have to learn how to eliminate your transition. Like if you take a long time in between tricks or do something where you lose engagement, well, people just walk away. They didn't pay a ticket to be there, they're just standing on the sidewalk walking by. So they just they can just walk away. And so your audience is solely in front of you based on your ability to engage them. So that is a very powerful skill. And then not only do you have to keep your audience, but then at the end, you have to be persuasive enough to get them to take action. And for a street magician, that might be putting money in the hat, but for a teacher, we want our kids not just to be able to recite a bunch of facts and trivia, but we want them to go out and take action and make a difference in the world, right? And so if you think about all the things that you have to do as a street magician, you have to be able to attract a crowd, you have to be able to keep a crowd, you have to be able to then get people to be persuasive enough to take action. All these kinds of skills are the same kind of skills that make an effective educator as well. And so working out on the streets is like the frontline. I mean, that's like it doesn't get any tougher than that. And so that's that background and some of that background and showmanship, I think was super uh powerful and effective for me when I became a classroom teacher.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

And you taught and you specialized in hard-to-reach, hard to motivate students, sometimes the hardest population to engage and motivate. What did you figure out about those students that most teachers miss?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Okay, so there's a few things on this one. One, I have this quote in the book where I said this provide an uncommon experience for your students, and they will reward you with an uncommon effort and attitude. Meaning that, like I know I have students in my classroom that are a living nightmare for many teachers on their schedule. And then uh when I hear these stories about things that they did in other classes or around the school, and I think to myself, I don't I don't know what you're talking about. Like that kid's amazing in my class. Well, what I think is going on there is that I am providing something that's very uncommon for them, and the way that I'm teaching them, the way that I'm seeing them, the way that I'm validating their presence in the classroom, and the kind of experiences I'm creating for them that they find engaging. And so, in return, I provided them that uncommon experience. They are rewarding me with a kind of effort and attitude that they maybe don't give to other authority figures in their life who don't uh provide this same thing. So that's one super important thing. The other thing is relevancy. A lot of kids who are behavior problems in school, it's because they don't see the relevancy of it. And so it's really diving in and trying to figure out how can I make this seem and appear and be relevant for my students and for them to see that relevancy to their life. And then the final thing I would say on this is that for a lot of kids that struggle in school, behavior management is almost like a defense mechanism, behavior management problems or defense mechanism, a lack of engagement, it's a defense mechanism. It is way more cool to not try than to fail. And kids care a lot about how people perceive them. And so it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. Like I think about when I start class, beginning of a school year, I think to myself that there's a group of kids that are out in front of me, they're asking me this question. They're saying, like, why am I gonna be successful in your class, even though I've never been successful before? Like maybe they haven't, school hasn't been a place that they felt validated, school hasn't been a place that they've been successful, they haven't felt smart or believed that they're smart, right? And they're saying, like, this is not this whole educational experience has not worked for me in the past. Why are you any different? They're not gonna actually say that. But I go into my new school year thinking that that's there's at least some of them that are saying that in their head, and I go out of my way to try to convince them that this is gonna be a uh a different experience for them. And this class has been specially designed for them to succeed. And so that's some of the things I would say about those hard to engage kids.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

So when did you make the decision to leave the classroom and go kind of full-time on this?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Uh so it was yeah, what was it? So 17, 17 years in, something it's like it was like really um yeah, like it was hard. It was it was, but I was getting to this point where um the message, the book had come out. Um, the book kind of I had the good fortune to have it go viral and went crazy. Um and then the speaking engagements were pouring in, and I was really on fire about spreading this message and trying to make a larger impact by getting this message in front of many, as many teachers as possible. And I felt like I was kind of sabotaging my ability to spread this message because, for example, I just couldn't miss any more days. I was like, all right, I had already I already tapped out all the days that I could take off. So I was having to turn down speaking engagements, things that I wanted to go to, things that I was excited about going to. And so I had to make a very tough decision. I love teaching, and but I'd made the decision that I I needed to kind of just step into and lean into this message, and it was already kind of starting to go take off and go viral. I thought, like, if I if I let go of this day job and just really lean into this, this could possibly go crazy. And so that's what happened.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I'm pretty sure. So, like my at the early part of my career, I had like three schools in three years. I my first teaching experience was North Carolina, and then I went to a DC charter school, and then I was teaching in Fairfax County. But I'm pretty sure you spoke at one of those. I can't remember where it was, but I know you were one of the featured speakers at like our convocation or like our kickoff as well. Um so, but you do, you know, you're now making an impact in education at a different level of motivating teachers, of teaching teachers engagement strategies and engagement. And so obviously, you know, working with students who are apathetic, that don't think school works for them, you're you're reaching out and getting kids to actually care, which is amazing. What on the other end of the spectrum for teachers out there that have, you know, the highly affluent kids that have the kids that are the that school just works for them? They are really good at school, they're compliant and they they come and they get great grades. And you know, to a novice administrator, to a not to a parent that doesn't know better, that's engagement. They're sitting and getting instruction, everything's well behaved, the teacher's up there. Why is that a problem? And what would you say to a parent who said, Well, that's that's a well-structured class, and there's tons of engagement there. What do you look for? How do you coach that?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah, so I think what's happening a lot of times in those classes is that you have a group of students who are incredible hoop jumpers. They are very good at playing the game. They've learned to play the game, they know how to play the game, they know uh where all the hoops are and they know how to jump through them. But that doesn't not necessarily mean that they're being challenged uh and that they're like uh they're taking it to that next level of not just again, we're not trying to put better trivial pursuit players in the world. We want kids that can go actually go out and do stuff. And so are they are they creating? Are they collaborating? Are they speaking? Are they designing things? Are they making, right? And so we want makers, not memorizers, creators, not consumers. And so I think that some of those top classes, the kids are so compliant and so willing to give the answer that they know is what the teacher wants, and they're so good at that that they're that they actually are sliding by in some of the same ways that the kids that maybe aren't in those classes are sliding by on the other end of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

What are you seeing in the schools that you're going into and working with today? Genuinely like across the board? Like it's you, do you see it improving? Do you see it deep? Like, what is the state of schools that you're coming across that you work with and where our teachers are? Because you're a path, we're gonna get into your passion. You're a passionate guy. Just like, what are you seeing from the outside?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, oh, I see a lot of overwhelm from educators, a lot of teachers who feel like their plates are full and more get more gets piled on and nothing gets ever taken, never ever gets taken off the plate, and there's a new initiative every year. They get kind of this initiative fatigue. They get initiative we're weary, right? Like it's like this year, you know, then here's the thing that's gonna change education. And then they go, Well, what about that thing that we were talking about at the beginning of last year? Like, whatever happened to that thing, or the five years before that, or the five years before that. And I can remember sitting in some of those meetings where a new teacher is sitting around and they're like all concerned about something that's happened, and like an experienced teacher will be like, Don't worry, you won't even hear about this by March. Like this, like you're now they're gonna hear about this when it comes to March. Like, and so I think teachers are a little disillusioned at that, and I think they're finding that kids are an increasingly challenging to compete with some of the wildly engaging things that uh students are into that maybe require not as much attention span as in the past. The tick tokification of the culture, maybe you would say something like that. So that tick tock talkification of the culture, I think I see a lot of teachers complaining about. And um, yeah, and for sure those are the those are those are tough battles and things to be concerned about.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

So you said something that's like really, really brave for someone in your position to do that teachers are not passionate about everything they teach. Unpack that for us.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah, and so this is the deep dark secret of of teaching, is the way I position it. We know that we're supposed to be passionate about all the everyone says that passion is so important, right? We're not supposed to be about but and with apologies to Sir Mitzilot, this is the big but we are not passionate about everything that we teach. And so I think it is unrealistic to expect that educators, if you go down, list all of their content standards, all the different things that are a part of their curriculum, that they're gonna be passionate about all of that. But yet we can agree that passion is important. So, where can you find that passion even on days where it's not in your curriculum? And that's why in the P part of the pirate acronym, passion part, I broke passion into three categories. Category one is your content, your curriculum, your grade level curriculum. That's just the first category, though. So we we can agree that that that's important. When it's not there, you can find it in categories two and three. Category two is the most important category of all. Category two is the life-changing category. So within your profession, but not specific to your subject, what are you passionate about? And so if you think about it, for a lot of people, that's the reason they got into teaching to begin with. So, what is it about this? Like it's about embracing the mightier purpose of being an educator and seeing your role as a life changer for students. And so those are the areas of passion that you can always tap into, even when it's not in what it was not found in the curriculum. And then the third layer of passion is your personal passions. What is it completely outside of the profession that you're passionate about? And how how can you layer some of those things into the way that you teach? Because what is unique about you, your particular strengths and talents, that's what's gonna what's gonna make you most powerful and effective in the classroom with kids. And so, for me, for example, that's my you know, my very diverse background has come together to create the best me. There's this weird thing about the book Teach Like a Pirate. There's not one single education book reference inside of it, not a single one. Not because I don't like education books. I published over 200 of them. Just that's not where it came from. It was my background as a coach. It influenced my the way I break down instruction, the way I develop a motivational component to my class, the way I give feedback to students for my coaching background, my background as a magician. Again, it creates this sense of showmanship and all that. My background as a marketer and entrepreneur. How a marketer and entrepreneur is crafting persuasive messages in order to get customers to take action. I'm trying to craft persuasive messages for my students and using sales and marketing kind of style techniques in order to do that. And all these things from my background have come together to create the best me. But T Shark Empire is not about you teaching like me. T Shark Empire is about you taking your strengths, your talents, and your voice, and then weaving it together with some of these human nature ideas from the hooks of T Shark Empire to create the best you. And so, like, I'm not trying to create clones of Dave Burgess as I travel and do these uh workshops and keynotes and speeches and all that kind of stuff. I'm trying to get teachers to lean into their strengths and talents and their voice that they can offer uh that is unique in the classroom.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

So you don't have to be passionate about everything as a teacher, you have to be passionate about some lanes, though.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yes. You have to find some way to bring passion into what you do, but it's not always going to be for the Spanish-American War.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

It's a good war, though. Splendid little war right here.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah. Well, I see what you did there.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

You know, like that. It's a um, you know, that is a structural gap that we talk about constantly. Schools expect teachers to be passionate about everything, and that can be unrealistic. And it's completely unrealistic. Right. And when passion drops, so does the engagement. And I think what you said is an important point that there is it's not I don't think there's ill malice in education, it's just the system is producing this apathy and burnout, like it's just do more with less, and that is just consistent. And so, like, you could have the best teachers, but they could be in a system that doesn't support them or that piles on, or just for whatever reason, there's so much, but it is forcing a lot of good educators out of the system. Um, and so, in that whatever your personal opinions are about schooling and public education, kids end up suffering in the long run because the more good educators that leave, that's not gonna be a net positive for kids. So, you know, you you've said about you know, parents seeing parents come into their their home, disengage, and assume you know it's the kids' problem. Sometimes it's the system problem, but you can kind of give a diagnostic for that in terms of if there's a way to reach every kid in your in your classroom, you truly believe that.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm trying, and and so, however, uh what with this cautionary note is that um like I once had a teacher come to me and say uh that they were gonna quit the profession, they weren't cut out for, they weren't cut out for it. And I said, Oh, wait, hold on. Like, what happened? And they described a situation where, you know, like 28 of the 30 kids in their class were wildly engaged, and like two kids were a behavior problem and popped off and like created a disruption right that and they walk away from that experience feeling like a failure. And I told them, I said, Whoa, well, listen, 28 of your 30 kids were engaged. Like, if you create a rubric for success, that you have to have 100% engagement from 100% of your kids on 100% of the days, you have now created a rubric which is gonna guarantee you a career and lifetime of failure and disappointment. Like, it's not about perfection, it's about all these ideas and these strategies are gonna give you better engagement. They're gonna give you a better opportunity to connect and build relationships with kids and to get them to be interested and care about school. You're never teaching is messy, and it's there's gonna be stuff that happens in the classroom. Even to my my last year in the classroom, when the book was exploding and taking off, and I was traveling around the world speaking on this message, I had behavior management issues in my class. I had disengaged kids on certain days. Like it's uh it's it's not about lead, it's not about some nirvana level of perfection. It's about trying to get better.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

This episode is brought to you by supported tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focused on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. Well, I think that's an important point too, because I don't I think there's a part of unrealistic expectations that teachers have of like, oh, like these kids are out of control. What do you mean of these kids like, oh, well, like I saw bad behavior by two kids in the hallway. Therefore the school is out of control. Or there, yeah, this is it's my it's like it's never as bad as it seems, it's also not always as good. As it seems, either there's always room for improvement, but it's kind of like um catastrophizing it and really losing sense of the purpose and not I also I do think it comes down to structurally, like we don't we don't do enough in terms of measuring those things. Like we, you know, if we're just up there giving a lecture with no quantifiable means of seeing did learning take place, and then some behavior happens and you didn't get to finish your speech or whatever, like then it kind of goes like, oh, it's it was terrible. Like, or the kids are so bad or whatever, behave. And it's like, well, you talked for 90 minutes. Like, do you want to know why kids weren't engaged in that, right? So you asked two questions that I think should be tattooed on every teacher's wall. If your students didn't have to be there, would you be teaching to an empty room? And do you have any lessons you could sell tickets for? Those are brutal, like gut check questions. What happens when teachers honestly answer those questions?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Uh well, I think it's hopefully it results in some self-reflection and a raising at the bar of what we're trying to do. We're not trying to just create lessons that are so so engaging that they eliminate the behavior management issues. We want to create lessons that have kids knocking down the walls to get in, right? We want to create schools where kids are running to get into class rather than running to get out. And so it's kind of putting like uh it's just kind of like saying, like, hey, here's here here's my content. Not good enough. How do I make it come alive? How do I make it memorable? How do I create an experience around this, right? And so, like, that's one of the key components of Teach Like a Power. There's the line, like, don't just teach a lesson, create an experience. Lessons are easily forgotten, experiences live forever. So, yes, you know your content, presumably, but now, but that's not enough. How how can you make it come alive for kids? And so that's in the TLAP or Teach Like a Power community, we call it a ticket lesson. You know, like, do you have any ticket lessons in this unit? And are all all of my lessons in every single unit that I teach a ticket lesson? Absolutely not, right? And but do you have any? You have a culminating lesson, an opening lesson, or something that is so engaging that you know, kids would buy a ticket at the door. It's a tough one, intentionally so.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

So you had a system, you had the philosophy, and you started speaking. Then obviously came the book, and you made the decision that blew up the playbook here. You wrote Teach Like a Pirate, you had publishing contracts on the table, traditional deals, and you said no to all of them. Wow. Yes, that's exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah, so I can still remember it was in a coffee shop in Washington, DC, that I got offered my first publishing contract.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

They came to see me speak, met me in the coffee shop afterwards, they offered me a publishing contract. Went straight up into my hotel room, Googled publishing contracts. Because when I read it, I thought they were trying to cheat me. Okay. And when that and then when I Googled publishing contracts, I came to find out they weren't trying to cheat me at all. That's exactly what they look like. And to me, the only thing missing was a ski mask and a gun. And so did it. I couldn't believe that people signed these things. What did you do? And you looked at the royalty structure, loss of creative control, loss of intellectual property rights, the royalty structures were horrible. Like, I'm gonna write this book. It's my intellectual property. I'm gonna travel around and speak about it. I'm gonna build a social media platform. And and you make how much money? And I make how it just didn't make any sense to me at all. And they wanted to like do things to my book, which I didn't want to have done, you know. And and I could give you all kinds of examples of different things that publishers told me about the book. But uh, so I did a ton of research, realized the the publishing industry at that point, and this point, even more so, it's based on an outdated model. And whenever you see something that's based on an outdated model, that means it's ripe for disruption. Like that's how some people feel about education right now. It's ripe for disruption because it's based on an outdated model. Well, the publishing industry is absolutely based on an outdated model, and so it needed to be disrupted. And so that's what happened with Dave Burger's consulting.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

So you self-published then?

SPEAKER_01 25:57

The first one, I guess you would call the first one self-published. Yeah, because there was I started the company in order to put that book out, and then when it took off, other people started to come to me and say, like, we don't understand how you're doing this. Like, you don't have a big company. Like, how's like what how come I see this pirate thing everywhere? What's happening? I would tell them everything I had done, but there was still stuff that was holding people back. So finally we decided, like, hey, you know what? We know how to do this. We did it with Teach Like a Pirate. Let's do it with their messages too. And so we started to sign them. And then some of those books started to take off, and then the whole thing flipped for us. And now um it's still a home, it's still a home-based business. I still read it right here from the house. And uh, but published over 200 education books, and many of those have taken off, like The Innovator's Mindset by George Kuros and Kids Deserve It, Adam Welcome, and um Todd Nestalone, who I published The Wildcard by Hope and Wade King, all the Matt Miller books from all the way back from Ditch That Textbook all the way up to the current one, AI Literacy in Any Class, and uh Ron Clark, B1% Better. Uh Kim Beardon, co-founder of the Ron Clark Academy, published three books by her. Yeah, so it's uh over 200 titles strong there.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, I mean, it's very similar to how we supported supported tutoring because the traditional tutoring model is broken. You're literally incentivizing more hours for like, well, depend and dependency, and you're just incentivizing lectures. Like, I can't I can tell you I've been on thousands of sales calls now with with prospective parents, and it's just like, how many, how much time? How many? I'm like, it's and then for test prep, I'm like, it's a process, it's not a time dependent thing. Like, I gotten a kid ready in eight days, right? So it's not, yeah, it's it's really, it's like we're we're we're we're having outcome. And so, and I think it's just in general, I mean, you're obviously an entrepreneur too, and so I saw a really good entrepreneurial coach kind of break it down of where we value time and money. He's like, So if I can, if if I said it's 20 hours, you have no problem paying me this. But if I said I could do it in one hour, all of a sudden you have a prop because you're you're not you're time-based and not outcome-based, right? So now you're changing the model with that. So I assume probably a better deal for educators to publish with you than the traditional model, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:15

The royalty structures aren't any anywhere even close.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

And I mean, the outdated model of publishing, this there's several things that were outdated, but I'll just give you one example. It used to be that you had to have a big house publisher in order to get your book on the shelf at the bookstore where all but everybody bought books. Well, that's not where people buy books anymore. Right. Uh, the vast majority of books are bought places like Amazon. And anybody can be on Amazon. So they don't have that same gatekeeping leverage that they used to have. But if you look at their contracts, their contracts are still the same as if they are that that gatekeeper that everybody needs. And it's just not the truth. And then if you there's other disruptions that have like print-on-demand publishing, made it so you don't have to print out thousands and thousands of books and have warehouses of books and all that kind of stuff. There's all sorts of uh different things that were happening in the industry, but the big house publishers weren't reacting to it and they're and they're not also not very fast. You sign with them and a book comes out in 18 months or something like that. Like, try to put out an A bit an AI book right now that's not going to hit the market for 18 months. Like, good luck to you, right? No, like it's gotta, you gotta be able to move these products and turn them around fast and get them in the hands, or they'll or they'll be obsolete. So that's one of the things, like that's one of the things with if you listen, like David and Goliath, Malcolm Glot Gladwell's book, where he talks about sometimes the very thing that the fact that you are small is your advantage because it makes you your ability to adapt and to move and be more at your your agility to be an advantage for you as opposed to some big giant system that has to change, right? Like I'm I make every decision for day consultant. So if I want to change course, I'll I'll change course tomorrow. I don't have to go through a board or anything like that in order to change. I can change course tomorrow. And so that that that ability to be a small business sometimes is a strength as opposed to a weakness.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

You know, it's funny that mention AI books. So I think I bought the AI-driven leader for education. I forget what it's called. Uh it's literally, I haven't cracked it open yet. I bought it maybe two weeks ago. I think I'm still within the 30-day window to return it to Amazon. I'm pretty sure the book is going to be outdated by the time I read it. Like it is, because like I'm watching YouTube and everyone was all over OpenClaw in terms of buy a Mac mini, open claw, and and AI changed so fast that like Claude has now made OpenClaw kind of almost obsolete. They have it's way more safer to do it on Claude than OpenClaw and agentic AI. It's it's unbelievable how fast it's changing. So let's talk about another broken model or outdated model, the system of education. How do we disrupt that? How do we change that? Can we change it? It's ripe for disruption. I think people are trying to dismantle it and not disrupt it in a lot of the political wins. But is it are we too are we too big? Are we too big to fail, too fat to diet, right? Are we too insulated to change, or can it is there a possibility you can change from within?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Uh, I think we can. I think the so the perfect example of this to me is COVID-19. And so everybody said educate education moves slow. Things can't change. We have to like it's a big ship, you have to turn, like it's gonna take a long time for the ship to turn. This is no, we're talking about a five-year plan. Like, don't this is not something that can happen next year, things like that, right? Well, education shifted in over a weekend, and like all of a sudden, when educator when when we had to change, all of a sudden you saw unbelievable innovation, collaboration, connection, people reaching out, helping each other, supporting each other, and you saw an unbelievable fast transformation happen of the educational system. Now, was it all great? No, of course not. But it was a necessity, and it happened. So I know that education can change. I know it can change fast. So I always kind of push back on this idea that things have to happen slow. I don't think they have to happen slow at all.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

So you have kids like I do going through the education system. So you're both an educator and a parent. And um, what do you see parents getting wrong when they evaluate their schools, kids' school and educators and teachers?

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Uh well, if you talk to any administrator, one of the things that you'll hear and they get parent requests for teachers and things like that. One of the things that I think parents get wrong is that maybe it's not always the most popular teacher that is the teacher that you necessarily want to have your kid in the class. So the one that gets the most requests sometimes is not the teacher that is really the one that the administrator will put their kid in the class. Right. So that's that's one thing. And then I think the other thing that gets, and this might be a little bit of a politically driven thing too, but anyone that tries to sell you the idea that administrators have or excuse me, teachers have some sort of agenda outside of what's best for your kid, uh, is they're just delusional. They're they're they're insane. I mean, the idea, I mean, teachers are busting their butts trying to teach their curriculum and deal with all these problems and issues, the idea that they're also trying to have some sort of like uh agenda about what your kid's life is just absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Well, it's it's because we were heroes when we started COVID, then we became the villains. Because but yeah, schools, Dave, are failing, but they're also so good that they're indoctrinating children. It's amazing how they're both the so you can't listen, you can't have both. Yeah, they are either the worst things on the planet, or obviously I don't believe this, but or they're like literally brainwashing the kids, like in Brave New World. So, like what you got, you know, pick a lane.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

And you hear teachers all the time like like if if I had the power to indoctrinate kids, the first thing I would do is like have them turn in their homework on time. Really? No, because it's it's not I'm not gonna try to change their political beliefs, I'm gonna make sure they bring paper and a pencil. So, like that's the idea that there's some sort of wild agenda happening in public education when really you just have people that are at the heart of it out for nothing but the success and what's best for your kid. So, whenever you see that kind of narrative, I think it's always good to push back on it.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

But, you know, there is parents listening out there that, you know, it's not obviously some parents can recognize that some teachers might be going through the motions out there. Some teachers maybe should have left the field or are still in it for the wrong reasons and maybe just going through the motions, not excited about learning. For a parent out there that knows their kid has that teacher, what should they do? What kind of questions should they be asking?

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Yeah, I don't I'm I don't have any problems with parents advocating for their kids. And I think that it's kind of if you if you think about what you we say to teachers about interacting with parents, we talk about opening the lines of communication. We talk about delivering good news, not just bad news. And like, don't let the time, the first time you contact that parent be when you have a problem with their child to connect with them about. Like connect with them about the good stuff first. And like all that, all those kind of that advice that we give to teachers, I would give to parents too, where I would say, open the line of communications. Don't let the first time you talk to that teacher be when you have a problem with something that happened in class. Talk to the teacher about the good stuff that happens and the thing that the the assignment that did get the kid excited about learning and like um be willing to be a part of the school community. Like when I think about when my kids went through school, my Shelly, who was wife, ex-wife now, but Shelly was she was on the board of the PTA. I was coming to school and reading in the kids' classes. Uh, I was getting out in a time where I could get to the end of the school day and get and read in the classes. She was a part of the PTA organization. Like, get involved, get be a be a part of the conversation and be a part of the school community in a positive way, and then that's gonna go a long way.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

You know, and with AI, I think we're moving away from where the teacher has to be the content deliverer. Because like right now, AI can teach you anything. But if kids don't know how to critically think about what they're getting taught, then how to actually analyze stuff, because AI, funny enough, can hallucinate and can have bias, different confirmation biases and things. What is the role of the educator? And that it seems like that's the human connection that you're talking about of where we need to be as educators of actually giving a shit of kids. Like that's making those connections and and really reaching every kid. Because I see the dangers still being in the system. Apathy is really bad for kids who are completely disengaged. School does not work for them. They don't they don't recognize that they get any value from being in school. They're they are going through the motions and they're and they don't there's nothing you can you can't sell them on content. You need this class because of this. And they they it that that I think is growing more and more, and they're losing the they're losing that why should you care if they don't work look for it?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah, I think that's true. I think um, like for the well, I also anytime you see something about put like about uh hey, we should have robots instead of teachers, or anything like that, like it's time to uh we won't mention any names, but that recently came up. Um, that uh there should be unbelievable pushback against that as well. Because the what you'll never get without a human in the classroom is that sense of like, hey, you know what? This is the lesson, this is the curriculum. But what that kid said right there is more important than my lesson today. This is a teachable moment. Like that, this we can go down the rabbit hole of what's just that that kid just asked a question right there that is gonna take us in a whole different direction and it's gonna take us away from the curriculum, but it's way more important than the curriculum today. Let's go there. Moments like that, it's the art of teaching, not always the science, that is entirely human.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Wait, did someone really say we're robots are gonna replace educators? Did someone politically say that? Was that yeah? It was it was the wife of somebody like the White House with the robot walking her down? Yeah. Okay. Well, interesting. Um it's gonna be uh yeah, I it's funny because I I watched uh a podcast with Andrew Yang on it, and he was like, I think teaching is gonna be the last field that AI replace. Like, there's just not like when a robot's not gonna, they're not a robot's not gonna behaviorally manage a classroom.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

It's just not anyone who's been in a classroom for any amount of time understands that the human element in teaching and that relationship building and that rapport building is the key component to what happens there. And it's not that we can't use AI.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

I'm actually Becky Keene wrote a book for me called AI Optimism. I'm an AI optimist. And Matt Miller, I love Matt's thoughts on AI as well, as well. Right. And I've done a couple books with Matt on AI. So I'm I'm pro-AI, but the idea that AI is replacing teachers is is a fantasy.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

No, I think it can make I think it can take the initiative overreach, and we can actually reach kids better with AI with more precision diagnostics, with more personalized learning opportunities. You can close gaps a lot faster with AI because there's better ways to reach it, but it you still need that human connection as well. So absolutely. I like that. All right. Well, let's shift gears here as we kind of come to a close to lightning round if you're open to that. Let's go. You don't need to explain your answers. If you want to, you can. But it's just is lightning round. Okay. So one book besides your own that changed how you think about education.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Purple Cow by Seth Godin. It's a marketing book. I'll sum it up in a couple sentences. Basically, it said, like, in today's world, there's so much competition and noise in the marketplace. You can't be good anymore. You have to be remarkable. Like if you have a product or a service and it's good, there's 30 other products on the shelf next to you that are good. You have to be remarkable. Same thing is true of education. We can't just there's our kids are hit with so much noise. There's so much competition for their engagement in the world today. We can't be good anymore. We have to be remarkable.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

If you can go back and tell first year teacher Dave one thing, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 41:01

All of this messy messiness and chaos and banter that's happening in your classroom is gonna eventually might seem problematic now, but eventually it's gonna become part of your your trademark and your secret weapon and how to design engaging classes, and so lean into it.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

What's the worst advice you hear people giving educators right now?

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Okay. So this is gonna be a controversial, this is gonna be a controversial one. I apologize. Um so I see a lot of people say that two things are just absolutely horrible and bad, and uh you're just uh outdated teacher if you do them. Uh worksheets and the lecture. Those are the two things that people talk about. And in my mind, what people are saying is uh they're saying that bad lecture is bad, boring lecture is bad, disengaging lecture is bad, but there's still a place for a powerful teacher to stand in front of a class and deliver a message which is influential and mesmerizing and draws kids in and can be engaging. And the same thing is true of worksheets. Just because something is printed on paper doesn't make it bad. And so just because we have all this technology at our disposal, the idea that anything that comes on an 8.51 by sheet of paper is bad and outdated, I think is ridiculous. Bad worksheets are bad, busy work worksheets are bad, boring worksheets are bad, disengaging worksheets are bad, but I do not reject things just because they're on paper.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

One uh tool or resource you can't live without a tough one.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

I'm gonna say, broadly speaking, social media. And so social media gets a bad rap these days, and it can be an incredibly toxic place. If you allow, if you allow it to be, but if you can curate your feed and if you can use it as a source of connecting with like-minded people, it can be an unbelievable community-building place where uh maybe educators who don't have the kind of people on their campus that are supportive and like-minded of the kind of innovative and creative strategies they want to use. If you can't find it on your campus, you can't find it on your system, keep seeking for go further and further out and find people and build community with people. Um, and it can be an incredibly uplifting place. It's the same thing with worksheets and the lecture. Yes, social media has bad aspects, but just because it's on social media doesn't mean it's bad. It can be used as an incredibly empowering place.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

How about the most overrated thing in education right now?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Done for you lessons in curriculum on various newly founded AI platforms.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Okay. One Sentence you wish every parent of an eighth grader would hear.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Your student is valued, seen, and is a as a full and complete human, irregardless of their grade point average or their test scores, and we are going to be on the same team as you with you to try to help them reach their full potential.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

What's one question you wished I asked you, but I didn't?

SPEAKER_01 44:28

How does it feel to be inducted into the International Pirate Hall of Fame?

SPEAKER_00 44:34

You're inducted into the International Pirate Hall of Fame.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

I'm a 2023 inductee into the International Pirate Hall of Fame.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Like, okay, first off, I didn't know there was a Hall of Fame. First off, so who's in there? Is like Zachbeard in there?

SPEAKER_01 44:48

That's a great question. That's a great question. So uh, first of all, when I got nominated, I also did not know there was an International Pirate Hall of Fame then. But uh turned out there is, and so I got in. So who's in there? Blackbeard is in there. So real pirates are in the International Power Hall of Fame, but also um Johnny Depp is in the International Power Hall of Fame. Should be. Robert Lewis Stevenson is in there for writing Treasure Island. I'm in there for although the whole like pirate connect the teacher pirate, no, the whole line of pirate books and all that, and the branding around that. And then there's also people that like sing pirate shanties and pirate reenactors and people that famous like pirate tour boats, and like the anyone who's involved in pirate culture is a possibility. And so uh yeah, I'm honored to be in the International Pirate Hall of Fame.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Well, congratulations. I that's thank you. I'm glad I'm glad you did not have to murder, pillage, or otherwise do any other pirate activist.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, I got in the I got in the easy way.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Yeah, absolutely. Uh any any Pittsburgh pirates in there? Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Uh I don't think so. That's a good question, but I don't think there's any Pittsburgh pirates in there.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Yeah, well no.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Maybe like Starjoel should be in there.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Roberto Clemente. I mean, he did die like try to like bring supplies to Nicaragua to really Star Joel, Roberto Clemente.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Like those all those would be those would be good pirates.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Was it Dave Parker?

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Dave Parker.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Dave Parker, yeah, but he controversial past, like, but he's a great, great, great, great. I got his autograph. The uh yeah, biggest miss from Pittsburgh is we have three rivers, and we have uh uh boats that bring fans from one side of the river to the other, and none of them are pirate ships. It's like that is a miss. Biggest marketing miss in the history of entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

I'm like how could that be the case when that you're the Pittsburgh Pirates?

SPEAKER_00 46:43

And we have water, like Tampa Bay has a boat that fires off every time they score a threat. Why do we not have a pirate ship? I don't understand it. I I'm like I grew up watching well, it was like this movie. I don't know if it was made for TV movies, Treasure Island. It was literally about them blowing up the Dunes Hotel and like the characters of um like Longjong Silver and they they came back to life and they like like it was I just distinctly remember the pirate ship reenactments in front of Las Vegas Hotel Treasure Island. Yeah, it's like why are we not doing that? It's just so it's so good. Piracy, it's it's it is a fascinating culture when you start getting into it. Did you get into black sales at all?

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Black sales was a showtime series. No, you know what? I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't as a the most embarrassing part of me being in the International Power Hall of Fame and making my whole entrepreneurial career as a pirate is that I get seasick. Really? It's like the worst pirate ever. I can't go on a boat. I'm a land pirate.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

I gotcha. Well, Dave, this has been incredible. I really appreciate your time. For people who want to go deeper with you, learn more about the book, the podcast, DBC University, all of it, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Okay, so uh you can find me on Instagram at DBC underscore in C. You can find me on X at Burgess Dave. My name just flipped around to Burgess Dave. I have a podcast called the Dave Burgess Show on all your platforms. And Dave Burgess Consulting.com and Dave Burgess.com. You can find all of our books and uh all the information about Booking Me to Speak and all that kind of stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

And before we wrap, what's one thing you want every parent and educator listening to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Provide an uncommon experience for your students and they will reward you with an uncommon effort and attitude.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Awesome. Dave, thank you again for being here. And to everyone listening, if you got value from this, make sure to subscribe and share this with someone who needs to hear it. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.