Play Like a PIRATE: Engage Students with Toys, Games, and Comics

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by my guest, Quinn Rollins. Quinn is the author of Play Like a Pirate, Engage Students with Toys, Games, and Comics. And Quinn is also an award-winning social studies teacher and presenter in Salt Lake City, Utah.

[00:32] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:34] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thanks, Justin. So you've got to help us understand, Quinn, what role do toys, games, comics, what role does play have in K-12 education?

[00:47] SPEAKER_02:

You know, I think K-12 education has become something that is so focused on data, on outcomes. that sometimes we forget how to arrive at that data, that preparing kids for tests can be more than just drill and kill. It can be more than just, I'm going to lecture at these kids for 90 minutes and they're going to do better on the test. Really, I think student engagement is the key to student success. And with things like toys, games, and comics, I think you have sort of an entry point where the students already have a certain amount of literacy with toys and games and comics. They have experience in that world.

[01:27]

It's comfortable for them. And so for teachers, if we're willing to sort of meet them on that playing field, if we are trying to meet them in their world, it's kind of like when teachers are using technology that students are already familiar with. We've gained some common ground with them. They're more willing to buy into wherever we want to take them. And that can be in a science class, a math class, history, language arts, just about anything. you're able to take these tools and apply them to your curriculum and connect with kids.

[01:59] SPEAKER_01:

Well, let's take comic books as an example, because we know a lot of students are interested in graphic novels or comic books. We know comic book movies are huge in Hollywood. For the last several years, they've been blockbusters. So we know there's a ton of interest in comic books. And I know a lot of teachers have had students do comic books or do projects where there's some kind of similarity to a graphic novel. But there's always the fear in the back of our minds as educators that we're just kind of destroying something they love by turning it into an assignment and killing a lot of extra class time compared to just doing the more traditional activity.

[02:32]

So what are some of the benefits that you've seen and the ways that you've made that work to incorporate comic books and comic-related themes and ideas into your lessons?

[02:41] SPEAKER_02:

Well, with comic books and graphic novels in particular, if you're going to take the medium on the whole, we have a big group of students who can read, but they're reluctant readers. I have a son who's in sixth grade this year, and he is one of those kids. He's a good reader, but traditional texts don't necessarily engage him. And I have seen with him, if I can find a graphic novel that he likes, there's one called Cardboard from Doug Tenepel. And he loves that book. He's reread it four or five times.

[03:16]

And this is a kid who doesn't read. You don't walk into the room and see him sitting on the couch reading, but he'll read graphic novels. I think we have a lot of kids that are like that. And in the last 10 years or so, there's been this explosion in nonfiction graphic novels. And There are a lot of them that are mediocre, kind of. They're put out by textbook publishers and they just take a text and they slap pictures into it and they call it a graphic novel.

[03:43]

But there are a lot that are outstanding that are coming from Scholastic and Abrams and other publishers who are getting incredible artists and incredible authors, often the same people, to tell these stories. And suddenly kids are reading about history and science and biographies and they're really running with it. So as a teacher in the classroom, I really like using graphic novels alongside other texts. So text sets are a big thing right now. And I think if you have a graphic novel and it might just be, you know, 10 pages from a graphic novel, have 10 pages of that alongside a traditional nonfiction text, alongside a poem, alongside a song, alongside a contemporary article. you suddenly have this group of texts that students can engage in.

[04:35]

And not every kid is going to get grabbed by the graphic novel. But the novelty of it is going to grab some kids. And then for some kids, that will be the one out of those five texts they actually can engage in. And I've seen that happen both ways. And I love it. Which isn't to say I love all graphic novels and comics.

[04:54]

And some of them don't have a place in the classroom. But there are more now than ever before.

[04:58] SPEAKER_01:

That's great to hear because, you know, when I think of a graphic novel, I think of, you know, a story that's mostly about people punching each other and not necessarily about social studies, but that's great to hear that they're actually becoming straightforward curriculum materials that can actually be used in your class alongside, you know, leveled texts that you might already be using that they're actually ready to go graphic novels. I wonder if you could take us into an example from maybe the other end of the spectrum. My kids are pretty young. They love Plato. They like to make things with it. They put it on the floor.

[05:27]

And you've actually written a chapter in Play Like a Pirate about Plato. So obviously, if we have a graphic novel that is a text about a historical event that we're teaching, that makes sense to us. But how do we get into some substantive learning, starting with something as fun and basic as Plato?

[05:44] SPEAKER_02:

First of all, as an adult, I challenge just about anybody to open a can of Play-Doh and smell that smell and not instantly have waves of nostalgia just almost overwhelm you. Play-Doh is the best for that. I think for things like Play-Doh, its real value is that it is so easy to use. And I think we think of that with younger kids, with younger grades, but I've used it with kids up through high school. I use it in professional development. And it's very easy to use.

[06:13]

And also you're able to do a lot of different things with it. Meaning I can give you a prompt and say, make something that you ate for breakfast today. And kids can do that within one or two minutes. And then you can say, okay, now let's crumple that up and start all over again. What's your favorite thing that we talked about yesterday? And they can make something that's school-based that they learned about yesterday.

[06:39]

They learned about the water cycle. So they make something based on that. But I really like to use it for more abstract things like, you know, how would you use Play-Doh to make something about freedom? What would that look like to a kid? What does bullying look like when you make it out of Play-Doh? I think you can take some sort of challenging topics like that and make it a little less scary, but also open kids up to seeing what they really think about it.

[07:06]

With things like Play-Doh, I like doing things in small groups. If you have four kids at a table all doing something around the same theme, they can see how they see it differently. They can also kind of have fun with it. Sometimes they mix up the colors and I don't like that. I like to keep my Play-Doh. separate and clean, but, you know, you can mix it up.

[07:27] SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I think about getting boys to talk, especially that, you know, just having something that you're also doing, not necessarily just doodling or doing something that's unrelated, but, you know, just having something to do other than just kind of sit there and stare at each other and talk, I think it can be a big help, especially in getting boys to engage in discussion.

[07:46] SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. Yeah. And if you have seen a group of adult guy teachers or just guys, it's like it's easier to talk when you're sitting around a table and there's like chips and salsa, or there's, you know, drinks, there's something else to be doing, you're going to open up a lot more than if you're just gazing into each other's eyes, because that gets awkward fast.

[08:05] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Quinn, I wonder if you could tell us kind of kind of your origin story in terms of getting to the point where you were regularly using different types of toys and games and things in the classroom, because I know as a new teacher, you want to do everything right. And You don't want to do anything that's going to be too strange to your administrators, but somewhere along the way you realize that, you know, maybe some of the toys that you had played with as a kid really were relevant to the work that you were doing with your students in the classroom. How did that come about and what did you do first to get into that practice?

[08:35] SPEAKER_02:

So first of all, I have a love of toys that goes way back. I mean, I grew up in the golden age of like star Wars and GI Joe action figures and Legos were becoming a big deal. Um, things like that. So I had a very good childhood. There were a lot of toys around and I really value those memories. When I was in college, I had the chance to work with a company named Palisades Toys and they made action figures for the Muppets and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the X-Files and some of these other great shows.

[09:10]

And I got to work with them a little bit on how action figure process goes, how the design process goes, and how they decide which characters go in which line and which accessories would come with each character, things like that. So that was always kind of in the back of my head.

[09:27] SPEAKER_01:

And we should throw in a spoiler here that you became a social studies teacher.

[09:30] SPEAKER_02:

I did become a social studies teacher. Yeah, I grew up and became a history teacher. So that was part of my college experience. And so at the same time I was learning about how to be a teacher, I was also learning about the toy design process. And so that was always kind of in the back of my head. I had some chances to maybe do that full time, but I said, no, I want to be rich and famous.

[09:51]

So I'll be a history teacher and went down that path. So, yeah, my first few years in the classroom, you're right. You're just sort of keeping your head down. You want to do exactly the same thing as the teacher next door to you. At some point, though, you start to have these flashes of insight into your students and maybe the worksheet isn't engaging them that much and something else might be better. That's why I started finding different kinds of texts.

[10:16]

It's also how I started looking at projects differently. Like maybe instead of just making a brochure about a historic character, they can make an action figure of that historic character. And once they work in the setting, there would be a play set for them and some accessories, some biography into it. They've kind of done all the same research components as that brochure, but they've done something different and something that they want to share with their fellow students, something they want to show their parents, some things that they want to. post online because it's something different, something a little more makerspace-y, maybe.

[10:53] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, I love the reframing in terms of things that seem natural and familiar to kids as a fun thing to do. I remember putting together a diorama as a kid and trying to make a covered wagon, and it never occurred to me that that would be a fun activity. But at the same time, I had a lot of, in my mind, unrelated experience making things and playing with toys from that era and things that if maybe my teacher had made that connection for me, if I had made that connection, I would have probably invested a lot more effort and found a lot more success in that. I wonder if you could give us some of your guiding principles for introducing some play and some toys into the classroom, because I think especially for those of us who...

[11:38]

you know, were inducted into the teaching profession in a fairly traditional way that, you know, the textbook, the curriculum is what you teach and the toys are something that you leave at home or it will be taken away and put in a drawer by someone who will not give it back to you for a very long time. What are some of the guiding principles that keep you on track and focused as you're deciding what to incorporate?

[11:57] SPEAKER_02:

Well, in my book, I list a few of them. One of them is that you really do need to make sure that it applies to your content. Let's say your admin walks into the room in the middle of everybody playing with Legos or something, and you have a bunch of seventh graders that are doing this, you have to be able to say, this is what we're doing. And they're working on these building prompts, kind of like writing prompts. And this is how they connect to the curriculum. This is the literacy component that comes with it.

[12:27]

This is the teamwork activity that they're working on. You have to make sure that it connects to your curriculum. I am 100% a supporter of fun in the classroom. And I think it's okay to be the fun teacher. But I also think that you're there for a reason. And you eventually have to get that water to the end of the road.

[12:47]

So that's part of it. You have to make sure it applies to the content. But you can't go so far that you kill the fun. You don't want to say, okay, we're going to be designing action figures today. And it's going to be horrible. It's going to be just like that five paragraph essay you wrote in class yesterday.

[13:01]

But we're going to say it's an action figure. You know, so you want to keep the fun in that project. So there's sort of this sweet spot in the middle there where you've figured out how to engage the kids, why you want to engage the kids and lead them towards your content.

[13:16] SPEAKER_01:

A lot of what you're saying is kind of ringing some bells for me in terms of design thinking and going back to your experience working at a toy company. I imagine there was a lot of prototyping, a lot of user testing, a lot of trying, you know, getting real people to try out toys before they were mass produced. I noticed one of your principles for figuring out how to make sure something's going to work is actually testing things out. How do you test out the use of particular activities or particular toys before you deploy them to, you know, 100 plus students and risk $80 worth of Play-Doh ending up mixed together and on the floor?

[13:48] SPEAKER_02:

So my first big idea was the action figure idea. the kids were going to design an action figure and play set and accessories that like you would see on a store shelf. And I had no idea if it was actually going to work or not. And so We had a family dinner at some point and my parents were there and my younger niece and nephew, my own kids. There were a bunch of people here. And I thought, OK, you ate a meal at my house.

[14:14]

Now you're going to pay for it. And so I gave them these templates and I sort of explained what I was looking for. You know, OK, you're thinking of a historic figure. What would that look like? Who who would it be? What kind of clothes would they be wearing?

[14:26]

You know, what kind of place that would it be? And so I had them try it out and it worked. And so I was able to use that with students. I've done it with other groups of friends. We'll be hanging out at somebody's house and I'll say, okay, well, let's play this game. And then as we're playing the game, I'll be thinking, okay, is there something that I can take out of this game that I can apply to my classroom, whether it's the class itself or just a single element of the gameplay?

[14:57]

Could I implement this in a class with 30 kids? Sometimes the answer is no, but I'd rather find out with my group of friends who aren't going to remember that anyway, then with some kids in first period, and I still have seven periods to go.

[15:11] SPEAKER_01:

I wonder if you have a particularly interesting but not cautionary tale for us. Anything that bombed that you felt like, okay, this is going to be great. I tried it out with my own kids or my friends or whatever. And then you get to the classroom and you encounter some sort of problem. Anything like that come to mind?

[15:26] SPEAKER_02:

So the whole idea of using toys is something that I know could be problematic. And so I had little green army men. And I thought, okay, we can do this activity with them. And it's sort of a center's activity with different stations. One of them had the little green army men and the others did not. And within about five minutes of starting that center's activity, there were like little army men flying across the room.

[15:53]

They were invading other stations. And that's not unique to the little green army men. I mean, there's a certain amount of chaos that comes with it. But that was a day that it was like I should have found another way maybe to to do that. And I did use the little green army men later. I've used plastic dinosaurs in a similar kind of way.

[16:12]

But they were doing things like signing the Constitution instead of waging war. And that's another thing I found, actually, is like when I have kids design superheroes, they aren't designing superheroes that are already out there. So they're not designing another Batman. They're doing something that represents something abstract. So I wouldn't even have them do a superhero of George Washington or Benjamin Franklin. I'd have them design a superhero that represents patriotism, that represents diversity, that represents equality, these other big themes in social studies.

[16:43] SPEAKER_01:

So they're taking maybe an abstract idea and making a representation of it and kind of getting a chance to think through some of their own kind of themes and metaphor. And then do they present those to the class or do they do kind of a write-up or how do they share their work?

[16:56] SPEAKER_02:

So they present them usually in small groups. I do have a display on the wall. I'm a big fan of displaying student work. And, you know, within the first two weeks of school, I make sure they know whatever they're putting on paper, I'm probably going to put it up at some point. And in a middle school classroom, that's kind of unusual. It seems like we display a lot of student work with younger elementary kids.

[17:17]

And then once they're into middle school, you sort of put all that aside. But kids love seeing their work and they love making fun of their friends work. You know, it works great. It also elevates what they're trying to do.

[17:28] SPEAKER_01:

And it seems like a lot of what determines our success with students in any given activity is how well we set the stage. And if we have students shooting each other with army men and throwing them, that could be discouraging. But at the same time, we know kids can throw paper. We know kids can turn a grilled cheese into a gun, and it's not the object itself necessarily that kind of takes kids off track. You know, it's figuring out, you know, what do I need to do to prepare my students to actually engage productively in this activity, still keep the fun in it, but really help it achieve the outcomes that I have in mind. And I know that was certainly, you know, thinking not in terms of toys, but in terms of lab supplies as a science teacher.

[18:04]

I would often have a disastrous first period the first time I would teach a new lesson and think, you know, I didn't give them clear enough directions about which size scoop to use. So now we're totally out of materials after first period because they used it all. We didn't save enough for the next five classes, you know, and just kind of trying new things, not being afraid to do those labs. You know, I know a lot of science teachers get kind of burned toward the beginning of the year and say, all right, well, we're just going to do textbook for a while. We're going to do one lab a week or we're going to kind of pare back on the labs because we have those failures. But, you know, it seems to me that that openness to experiencing failure, to learning from it, to really experimenting and figuring out what resonates with kids is really critical to success.

[18:42]

Absolutely.

[18:43] SPEAKER_02:

And there have been times that I've had games that are more chaotic than I thought they would be, even though it's something where I have like 30 kids out of their seat doing a relay race or something. I should have anticipated that that could get out of control. And so, you know, first period is a mess. Second period, I'm frustrated, but figuring it out. And then the rest of the day, I kind of know where they're going to be middle school students. And I sort of put the guidelines in place and we still have fun, but I'm doing it better and reaching that objective better.

[19:17]

And sometimes I'll even go back the next day to first and second period and say, You know, we didn't quite get there. So we're going to run through this one more time. You know, take the first five to 10 minutes of class and make sure they get it. because there are things that I have to reteach just like any good teacher would.

[19:35] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I imagine you learn a lot from seeing how kids engage with that activity. You know, it's a legitimate formative assessment to see kids doing that. You know, you don't have to have a quiz to kind of gather that information.

[19:45] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I also think that the variety of activities is important. Like you wouldn't do a worksheet every day to kids, although teachers do. But I also like I wouldn't do a relay race every unit I do action figures two times a year. You know, I don't do that with every unit. But I think having these other strategies, using toys, using games, using comics, just adds more to your toolkit. And that's really what we want is that variety approach.

[20:14]

that diversity of ways to reach kids because kids aren't all the same.

[20:17] SPEAKER_01:

Well, if someone wants to get started, they pick up your book, Play Like a Pirate, and they want to try some new things. They want to incorporate some fun into their lessons where maybe there hasn't been that degree of fun. What do you recommend in order to create a sense of safety so that an administrator walking by is not immediately alarmed, but kind of knows what's going on? What can that conversation look like between teacher and administrator?

[20:38] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I was fortunate to have supportive administrators who knew me well before I had started going off in these different directions. They already knew that I loved the students, that I loved my curriculum, and that I was ready to share my ideas with other teachers. I think having that collaborative spirit going in. really helps because they know that if it works in your class, you're going to share those ideas with other teachers. So I would start with that. I would also start with a really solid literacy component with whatever you're doing.

[21:10]

So you are having kids design a monument out of Lego. Well, you're also going to have those kids write the plaque, the inscription that's going to be on there. You're going to have them back up their research. You're going to have them cite everything. So you have the fun, the Lego part, as one part of a bigger literacy component. I think as a social studies teacher, it's my job to teach literacy just as much as the English teacher next door.

[21:37]

And I think tweaking it a little bit helps, but I also think it adds that level of legitimacy that the administrator is looking for. that me working with Legos isn't going to take those kids down on their standardized tests that they are taking for the whole month of May.

[21:54] SPEAKER_01:

Right, and I think that puts it in the context of making the lesson better, not substituting rigorous activities for less rigorous activities. So the book is Play Like a Pirate, Engage Students with Toys, Games, and Comics by Quinn Rollins. Quinn, if people want to connect with you online, where is the best place to find you?

[22:12] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I have a website. QuinnRollins.com. That's Q-U-I-N-N-R-O-L-L-I-N-S. And there are templates, there are updated lists of recommended graphic novels. If they're looking for Lego and a way to get started, I have a sort of recommended list there.

[22:30]

You can also find me on Twitter. My handle there is JediKermit because I picked it a long time ago and I'm sticking with it. So that's a J-E-D-I-K-E-R-M-I-T. And I participate in a lot of the education chats. I think it's a great way to do professional development and I've learned a lot. So I like it.

[22:52] SPEAKER_01:

Fabulous. Well, we will see you online. Thanks so much for joining us.

[22:55] SPEAKER_00:

All right.

[22:55] SPEAKER_02:

Thanks, Justin.

[22:57] SPEAKER_00:

And now, Justin Bader on high performance instructional leadership.

[23:01] SPEAKER_01:

So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Quinn Rollins about play like a pirate? One thing that stands out to me is the importance of risk taking and permission. And I think as administrators, we've got to make sure that teachers feel safe in taking some modest risks, that they can step away from the prescribed activities in the curriculum, try something new, the world is not going to end, even if the classroom is a little more chaotic temporarily, than we would like it to be i think it's an important message to send that we trust our teachers to try new things we trust them to be professionals and to regroup if things fail to try again and develop a plan b if things don't go the way we intend but i think we've got to send that message that it's okay to try new things it's okay to fail and one of the key ways that i believe we need to do that is to zoom out from the individual lesson or the individual walkthrough.

[23:54]

When we go into the classroom and we see what's happening, I think we've placed so much judgment and so much weight on that particular moment when the administrator walks in the room that we've given it more power than it should have. And teachers are fearful that if we happen to walk in the room during the 10 seconds when it's a little chaotic during the lesson and we get a negative impression, that that's going to impact their evaluation for the rest of the year. I want to suggest to you that rather than evaluating the five minutes you're in the classroom or the 50 minutes in the period that you observe for a formal observation, the way we evaluate teachers and their success in reaching their students is not what happens in five minutes or 10 minutes or 60 minutes. It's what happens over the course of the year. And as Quinn said, we may have a first period class that doesn't get as far as we want to or doesn't get the main idea of the activity and we have to go back and revisit that.

[24:45]

And that is totally fine. I think we need to get away from the lens of how did this particular period of time go and zoom back to the big picture. So I want to challenge you as you visit classrooms, as you do your formal observations, to take a step back from the period of time that you're in the room and figuring out how effective that is, how highly it can be rated, how many points it gets, and look at the big picture. Is this an environment for learning? Are the students in this class engaged? And is the teacher accomplishing meaningful goals over time?

[25:16]

Not just in the time that I'm in the room, but big picture. And I wanna challenge you to develop a track record of getting into classrooms every single day so that you have that perspective over time. I think far too many teachers only get observed once or twice a year, and the rest of the time, their administrators have no idea what's taking place in the classroom. So I think one of the biggest gifts you can give your staff is to get into classrooms every day. If you get into three classrooms a day, you can make it around to every teacher 15, 16, 18 times a year, depending on how many teachers you supervise. and you will know so much more about their typical practice, about the success that they're finding with their students, about their experiments, their risk-taking, their failures, and what they're learning from them and how they're improving.

[26:00]

So get out there, get into classrooms. If I can help you out, check out the 21-Day Instructional Leadership Challenge at instructionalleadershipchallenge.com. And over the course of 21 days, you can develop the habit of getting into classrooms and having great conversations with teachers.

[26:15] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.