Seattle Public Schools

Biography

"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -Samuel Beckett

Personal Message

Two core values that guide my teaching:

• Failure is normal and to be expected. How can I use my failures to improve for next time?
• The goal of any communication is to be understood by others. How can I improve my speaking and writing so that my ideas consistently come across clearly?

Personal Message

Mr. Patt lives in Belltown with his wife, Kate. They moved to Seattle from Maine (he was born and raised in Ohio) in 1992. He has a B.A. from Lesley College (where he met Kate) and finished his Masters in Teaching at Seattle University in 1996. He did his student teacher at Foster High School in Tukwila where he was then hired to teach. He taught all grades of high school language arts and served as department chair and “School Reform Coordinator” for five years. He was a co-writer of a 2000 Gates Foundation Grant that allowed Foster to revision what a comprehensive high school could look like. He left Foster in 2002 and went to work for the Small Schools Project assisting comprehensive high schools in the Puget Sound area in their own redesign work.
He worked as an instructional coach and curriculum specialist at the district office from 2008-2017 before transitioning back to the classroom in the Fall of 2017.
Teaching at Madison continues to be a joy. Although he swore he’d never be a middle-school teacher he can’t imagine being anywhere else. There is so much personal and professional pleasure being part of a community that values and supports their schools. I look forward to coming to school every day.