Do I Teach Like Mikel Arteta? – by Tom Lynch

Do I teach like Mikel Arteta? I certainly think Gary Neville might call me boring.

The Early Days

I was fortunate to train in a school with some genuinely exceptional teachers. My first Head of Science was none other than Shaun Donnelly - the FreeScienceLesson guy -who I hope won't mind the name-drop. Beyond gifting me my brief career as a YouTube sensation (billed, memorably, as 'Person 1'), Shaun and the wider department gave me something more lasting: the chance to sit in on numerous lessons that were creative, charismatic, and masterclasses in the art of Chalk and Talk.

Perhaps guided by childhood dreams of becoming a TV presenter (still dreaming, by the way) those early observations meant my formative years of teaching were shaped by a singular ambition: to hold my class in the palm of my hand like a captive audience, and deliver gems of knowledge, wit and wisdom with such breezy, off-the-cuff confidence that anyone watching couldn’t help but think: "Blimey. What a natural."

What I hadn’t quite appreciated was that the experienced teachers I was observing were doing a whole load of other, not-so-flashy things that weren’t so apparent to the untrained eye. But more about that later. 

2026 

Fast forward to the present, and a number of my once (self-declared) finest attributes have been quietly retired.

• No more tangents - fresh out of a Physics degree, my knowledge of quantum weirdness, relativity and the Large Hadron Collider just seemed too damn interesting to keep to myself.
• No more jokes - a staple of my lessons of old. I was hilarious, genuinely. I could barely make it through a starter without enriching the class with my outrageous wit. I was every kid’s favourite teacher - what’s not to like?
• No more writing on the whiteboard. I once took great pride in my ability to conjure up questions, examples and scientific diagrams from nothing but a half working Berol and a slab of polyester coated steel on the wall.

Now I find myself, rather robotically, ensuring that every starter activity contains (roughly) the same number of questions, overlaid on the same pastel peach background as I count down from three whilst reminding students of the expectation to complete the starter in silence.

I stand in the same place for the countdown every time and show a raised hand counting down from three fingers, to two, to one - keeping my hand in the air whilst I deliver the instruction.

I perch, I circulate, I offer a near-silent ‘shh’ the pupils who are unsettled before rattling through the register. Another countdown, ‘pens down, turning your chair to face the front, eyes on me and ready to contribute some answers’.

During explanations I make sure to punctuate the moments in both time and space that are most essential for pupils’ attention. The explanation requires input from students who hear the question before their name and are (almost) always cold-called. The class see examples and non-examples and then have some quick mini-whiteboard hinge questions perfectly delivered from my meticulous, yet cognitively underloaded powerpoint slides. 

I model how to carry out a task by hand, front-load the instructions and then they complete the work in silence.

Boring, boring, Arsenal…

The football bit

As an Arsenal fan, I’ve been through a lot. If winning the league this season meant nothing but 1-0, Gabriel-header wins then so be it. But it hasn’t been an easy watch.

At first, it was refreshing to see Arteta transform the club out of mid-table mediocrity. Whether it be a well-drilled set-piece, a Ben White pass rolled perfectly into the stride of Bukayo Saka or a cutback finished off so effectively by Martin Odegaard, Arteta had installed a system so legible that you could almost hear the logic clicking into place as the ball moved through the thirds.

Every player was expected to understand their position not only in terms of where they stood, but in terms of their function in build-up, defense, and transition. The repetition of these roles in training was designed to create what the staff called “cognitive automatisms;” actions performed instinctively, without hesitation. (Source: youaremyarsenal)

At first - many were taken aback, full of praise. For other clubs, this became the blueprint; stick with a manager, instil a philosophy, develop patterns of play.

Recently though, the critics have been more scathing.

Without wanting to devote too much airtime to Gary Neville's punditry, I couldn't help but notice that his recent comments about Arsenal landed uncomfortably close to home:

Arsenal have become quite rigid, they've become quite turgid at times to watch.

It's like... no. The freedom's gone a little bit from them.

I've never really seen that fluidity, the movement, the excitement about their play (This last one was actually Jamie Redknapp) 

The critique of robotic, rigid systems taking precedence over individual flair and creativity is one which has also been directed towards Pep Guardiola - Arteta’s former mentor. 

The stifled progress of Jack Grealish at Man City is often accredited to Guardiola’s obsession for his players to perform these systematic, routine actions - platforming practiced patterns above off the cuff, individualism.

For Man City, it undeniably worked. For Arsenal, it seems to be working - but at some cost. After the Brighton vs Arsenal game, Brighton manager Hürzeler asked: "Everyone here in the room — did you really enjoy this football game?”

The teaching bit

When it comes to teaching and learning, I’m very much a systems guy. There are patterns and routines in classrooms that just work. 

When managing a Science Department, my philosophy does not differ. I firmly believe that unless routines around homework, assessment and feedback are habitualised and deeply entrenched in teachers’ day-to-day school experiences then they just won’t work at-scale. Meeting a policy must feel reflexive and automatic. Easier to do,than to not do. A cognitive automatism.

That said, I am quietly conscious that a number of the criticisms thrown Arteta’s way could easily be applied to me. Perhaps I should be asking my class “Everyone here in the room — did you really enjoy this football game Science lesson?”

There is no doubt that I probably undervalue the spectacular. There could be more ‘wow-moments’ in my lessons. There should probably be more school trips. It’s likely that a joke or two would leave everyone in a better mood! 

The charismatic teacher archetype is real and it works, up to a point. Passion is contagious. Curiosity is generative. Students learn from teachers they feel connected to.

So where should the balance lie? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. The best teachers probably do both - but crucially, the moments of inspiration are only possible because of the relentless, unglamorous upholding of routines beneath them. 

And this, I think, is exactly what twenty-one-year-old me failed to appreciate as those brilliant, experienced teachers opened their classroom doors during my training. What looked like improvisation was anything but. The wit, the tangents, the effortless command of the room - none of it was accidental. It was the visible tip of a far more deliberate iceberg. 

Feel free to use that last line the next time you forget to plan your lesson.

Weeks after originally writing this, Arsenal were crowned Premier League champions. As I edit this gleefully, I can assure you that boring systems and processes are definitely worth the glorious outcomes!

Hive guest writer Tom Lynch is Head of Science at Elthorne Park High School in Ealing. A Physics graduate from Manchester University, Tom is well-known among his peers for his wise, accessible and pithy articles about Teaching & Learning and the opportunities / challenges that AI presents for education. Tom's writing can also be found on his 'Teacher Vibes' Substack page here.