Over the past few months, CACE has been running a blog series to honor the outsized impact Dan Beerens has had on Christian schools around the world. Tim Van Soelen stated it well when he wrote in “Standing on Shoulders,” “Dan’s life is a testament to the power of a calling faithfully pursued. Dan’s intentional, godly legacy is inclusive of a spiritual legacy that directs people to Jesus and God’s Word, a relational legacy that leads with love and respect, and a resourcing legacy that provides those of us who stand on his shoulders with frameworks and ideas to better fulfill our task.”
In her post “Big Footsteps to Follow,” Jenn Thompson brought to life the essence of Dan’s approach to enlivening our professional work when she stated, “Dan avoids prescribing solutions but prompts others to reflect, respond, and reset a course.”
My introduction to Dan Beerens was as a sixth-grade transfer to Timothy Christian Schools where Dan was a young fourth-grade teacher, a colleague of my mother. He moved on to pursue other professional opportunities, so it wasn’t until I became principal at Chicago Christian High School that I reconnected with Dan while he was working for CSI. However, it wasn’t until I became a CACE Fellow in 2015 that my relationship with him transformed into a deep friendship and professional discovery conduit for me.
Over the years Dan and I have had the opportunity to plan events, cohost the Innovation Retreat, celebrate 100 years of Reformed Christian Education in the US, and support the hard work of friends. As Dan enters retirement, I already miss him—the scheming, dreaming, planning, and hosting we have done together.
In 2019, Dan wrote about the joy and benefit of collaboration in the book 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.
Many around the world will recognize in this encouragement the person and professional Dan was and continues to be. As a companion in his work, I have learned key things from him that I will highlight below.
Gather the good workers.
Dan has an uncanny knack of finding like-hearted, smart professionals to do more good work together that they could ever do alone. He has an ability to not only gather talent and ambition but also challenge those people to dream beyond themselves. I am one of those who was invited in and am now energized to emulate this gathering and prodding of good workers.
See and elevate the good work.
I’ve always viewed myself as an innovator, so there were so many times I was initially dismissive of innovations or new ideas that Dan brought my way, whether that was Deeper Learning, Teaching for Transformation, curriculum mapping, or Core Clarity. However, I quickly learned that I was most often wrong, and that Dan sees the gold and transformative effect of good work well before me and the rest of his peers. Mostly, Dan just knew what good teaching and learning was and how it could be accelerated through innovative tools.
It is possible to be a high-quality educator and a faith-driven person.
Anyone who has been with Dan knows that he is a Jesus follower and exceptional educator. In Dan’s presence, there is the merging of these two things in a way that brings fullness to what a Christian educator can be. Dan lived out these passions as a Christian school teacher, public school administrator, organizational leader, and independent consultant, roles that allowed him to enter an array of professional and faith or secular communities. He pushed everyone he encountered toward better ways of working and living towards the ends of more fulfilling work and better outcomes for students.
Enjoy the journey.
If you’ve ever hosted, traveled, or hung out with Dan, you know he loves being with people on a journey. He will search for the best ice cream spots, wander into nature listening for bird calls and marveling at the trees, find a music performance in any town, and break out into song wherever we may be. Dan recognizes and amplifies beauty, wonder, and joy wherever he is.
I am thankful for my friend and his impact on Christian education. I am more of who God created me to be because of Dan’s impact and friendship. Muhammad Ali sums it up for me in his poem:
Friendship is a priceless gift that cannot be bought nor sold, but its value is far greater than a mountain made of gold; for gold is cold & lifeless—it can neither see nor hear, in time of trouble its powerless to cheer—it has no ears to listen, no heart to understand, it cannot bring you comfort or reach out a helping hand. So when you ask God for a gift, be thankful if sends not diamonds, pearls or riches but the love of real true friends.
Dan Beerens is my friend as he has been for so many others!
