Ben’s request
Lao Tzu of the 6th Century BC is credited with saying, “The good traveler is not intent on arriving.” This quotation has been a favorite of mine for more than thirty years, not because I live it out well, but because it serves as a reminder for me, someone who has been destination-oriented, that I have often missed the joys of the discipleship journey with Christ and others.
So, when Ben Dirksen raised the idea of gathering a group of emerging leaders to reimagine our schools and work in the United States, I was skeptical. I had been down this road before.
In 2003 I started my innovation journey when I became a union leader in the New Unionism movement. I was also part of a school startup beginning in 2005 that had ambitious goals and asked serious questions about the entirety of our public and private schooling system. In 2010 I co-founded the global network Innovators in Education, which culminated in the 2017 global Innovation Retreat. More recently I collaborated on the MindShift project. I couldn’t help but think of all the amazing educators I’ve encountered on this journey, who were some of the most hungry, humble, and thoughtful educators you could ever know.
But over the past six years of educational turmoil in the entirety of the US and the recent Cardus research on graduate outcomes and belonging in schools, my hope was waning for Christian schools in the United States. Do Christian schools have the capacity to become life-giving communities focused on student outcomes, abundance, and growth rather than incubators of culture wars, anti-intellectualism, and isolation?
In other words, Ben invited me to embrace unrealized hopes, counter any cynicism growing in my heart and mind, and perhaps share the lessons of a seasoned educator. His vision led us to gather a group of Christian educators, researchers, and emerging leaders from around the United States whom we thought could embrace this conversation with intent, imagination, and joy.
Three lessons that grounded us
Ben encouraged me to push this group on three lessons learned from 25 years of innovation and building new systems and structures:
- Lesson One: Honor the work of the past.
One thing I have done poorly in my life is to honor the elders, leaders, and innovators of the past. Therefore, Ben and I went on a journey to curate some of the writings of past generations to honor their work, notice the challenges they foresaw, delve deeper into their hopes, and recognize we were not the first ones to walk this journey of change. In a sense, we wanted to invite the educators of the past into this conversation as best as we could. - Lesson Two: We know so much more.
In my early days with the global innovation network, we were part of a global cohort of schools that introduced 1-to-1 iPad usage into the classroom—an initiative we eventually walked back when research revealed dubious student outcomes. Today we know what was unleashed and need to recognize the lessons we learned. We must commit to a deeper understanding of educational research and the impact our decisions have on student learning and wellbeing.
With the onset of AI, a push against justice and reconciliation in schools, ever-decreasing access to learning data, and ever-increasing social isolation and mental health data, we must not just imagine and hope for good work; we must know what the good work is. We do know more about how students learn to read and do math, the essential nature of belonging to outcomes, and the impact of smartphones, social media, and screens in the learning environment. Like my friend Jon Eckert says, “We know more than ever, and there is no better time to be an educator than right now.” - Lesson Three: Embrace a Beloved Community.
One of the points of sadness from my first 25 years in education is that I made amazing friends, but few stayed in the work for the long haul. Life moved people on in different ways—some retired, others changed careers, and many redirected their energy inward once they stepped into senior roles. And a few, worn down by the uncertainty this work requires, drifted toward packaged solutions and the promise of quick fixes for education’s oldest problems.
Through this process, Ben and our group of writers desired to commit ourselves to a beloved community of educators who care about each other first and together strive for better outcomes for each student at all schools. We acknowledge that there are no fast fixes to long-term problems and massive disruption in our profession. Our desire was that this group would open the door to an invitational community of friends and colleagues who care about travelling and learning together, enjoying and celebrating each other, and welcoming other hungry, humble, and thoughtful educators into leadership for the next ten years and beyond.
Your invitation: Come with
In the blog post that opened this series, Ben stated—
Whoever you are, we’re glad you’re here. We invite you into this series of writings, not because we have all the answers, but because we believe the answers emerge when we wrestle with the questions together. This is an invitation to join the work, to contribute to this beautiful story God is writing, to steward the unfolding chapter before us. Together.
Therefore, we invite you to read or reread each of the posts highlighting the six themes and send me feedback via email, LinkedIn, text message, or an old-fashioned face-to-face conversation! Please give us your best, not just that you like it or disagree with it, but your well-considered thoughts. We cherish feedback from everyone to better hone our thinking as we prepare for Round 2 of this journey.
- Theme I: Communities of Courageous Hospitality
- Theme II: Radical Accessibility and Deep Belonging
- Theme III: Human Flourishing in the Digital Age
- Theme IV: Collaborative Christian Education Ecosystems
- Theme V: Unity, Partnership, and Shared Mission
- Theme VI: Strategic Excellence for the Sake of Formation
Next, if you are interested in jumping in to do work with us, I invite you to connect with Ben Dirksen.
And to all of you, come with! As a Midwesterner and a Chicagoan, I am accustomed to saying “come with” (to the annoyance of my California friends). I have been told that it isn’t appropriate to end a sentence with a preposition because language wants us to define the who, where, or what at the end of that sentence. However, in the spirit of travelling an invitational journey with a beloved community, we still invite you to come with and find out!
Like my long-time friend, Dan Beerens wrote in Mindshift:
It is better to walk the journey together with great companions, and that community is needed in order to challenge old assumptions, to ask difficult and sometimes uncomfortable questions, to urge each other on to better thinking, believing, and doing, and to pick each other up when inevitable discouragement sets in.
