I used to give dozens of talks about teaching every year. It was my main source of income. But talking about teaching doesn’t move the needle. Even if you LOVE a talk, the chance that the talk changes your classroom three months later is pretty low. Talks leave too many details unexplained. You’re left with your notes and maybe a PDF slides. That’s not enough to successfully implement a new idea. You need to see it.
So, instead of giving talks that people like but don’t implement, I write fully-functioning lessons now. No, not mere “lesson plans” (because lesson plans make people go cross-eyed). I make videos. But not videos for teachers to watch. They’re videos that teachers can play directly for their students.
Nowadays, Byrdseed.TV has more members than I would ever have dreamed of. It’s way way way larger than any conference I ever spoke at. It’s membership is bigger than any gifted association I’m aware of. *But it’s not just about the size of the audience.
To Proof Is In The Feedback
My favorite metric isn’t number of members. It’s the type of feedback I now receive.
Back in my “talking about teaching” days, people would say to me:
I loved your talk! It was so engaging. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
Now, with Byrdseed.TV, I get emails like:
My students just finished your lesson about the hundreds place and wanted me to show you what they came up withβ¦
Do you see the massive difference? Sure, teachers liked my talks, but they actually use the lessons from Byrdseed.TV.
I Hope I’m Retired!
Every year people reach out and ask me to keynote an upcoming conference. But now you know why I’ve seriously given that up. My time and energy are limited! I want to be as useful as I can. And talking about teaching just doesn’t cut it.
So, if you haven’t tried it yet, explore Byrdseed.TV a bit. It’s about as useful as I can be without actually visiting all of your classrooms!