Blog Post by Todd Nesloney

Do you ever notice that those last few days of school tend to be, for lack of a better word, “wasted educational time”? The end of the year is always a little chaotic. But there’s something extra special about those final few days.

We saw the idea of a “Teach Like a Pirate” Day (aka TLAP Day) shared by fellow educator Ryan McLane and immediately fell in love with the idea. It's based off of work by Dave Burgess and his book, Teach Like a Pirate.

You can see Todd and Dave at this year’s 2022 National Conference in Orlando, FL. Click here to learn more.

The end of the year is always a little chaotic. But there’s something extra special about those final few days. In all my years of education I have so often noticed those last few days of school tend to be, for lack of a better word, “wasted educational time”. We find ourselves just playing games, or watching movies, or just trying to keep everyone in line!

But what if those final days could look different? What if we could use those last days to teach something AND not feel like we’re just holding it all together until the end? I still remember when I saw the idea of a “Teach Like a Pirate” Day (aka TLAP Day) shared by fellow educator Ryan McLane. I immediately fell in love with the idea and knew that our campus had to do it.

And you know what? We DID do it! And it was AMAZING. Not only did the teachers absolutely have a blast, but the kids were obsessed with all they got to do. So what is TLAP Day you might ask?

Well it’s a day, during the final week of school, where the teachers all plan to teach a 45 minute “session” over something they’re passionate about. Topics like

• Yoga

• Makeup

• Gardening

• Shark teeth

• Scrapbooking

• Knitting

(yes, those were all sessions my team presented on). 

So leading up to the final week of school, I got with my entire school team (teachers, instructional aides, nurse, everyone!) and they all shared a session they would love to teach. From that information I created a session schedule just like any conference you’ve attended!

After those schedules were created, on the day of TLAP Day, we’d pass them out to all the students. The students would then look over the schedule and plan out their day. Every hour, I would come on the announcements, let everyone know it was time to switch to the next session, and the kids would all head to their next stop!

Sound like chaos? Yeah, I was afraid too the first time we did this. But the students were incredible with the way they behaved. Why? Because they did NOT want to miss learning something they truly cared about and were interested in on a personal level. Trust me when I say that this was our favorite way ever that we ended our school year. It reminded us as educators why we do this work and it gave the students a fantastic send off!

Here are a few extra tips to keep in mind….

1. Have each staff member determine the maximum group size they can handle and create “Session Full” signs to hang on the door when that group fills to capacity.

2. Yes, staff can present more than one time but make sure you give them a session time “off” so they can attend a session too! This was the biggest request of my team after our first year doing this!

3. Work with PTO to have a budget for this event if you don’t have school funds. If you can’t make a budget work, there are ways for every session to just use what’s at your disposal. You DO NOT have to buy new stuff!

4. Have fun!

Photos from Todd Nesloney: