Educational Pluralism for the Common Good: Deani Van Pelt

In this podcast episode, Jon Eckert interviews Deani Van Pelt, who leads an association of independent Christian schools in Ontario, Canada. They discuss trends in education, including increased parental engagement and the growth of alternative forms of education. They also touch on the work of Cardus, a think tank focused on education for the common good, and the importance of using industry best practices in education. Van Pelt highlights the ideas of Charlotte Mason, an educator from the early 20th century, who emphasized the importance of relationships and the development of the whole person in education. They also discuss the role of empathy and narration in learning, and the challenges and opportunities facing education today.


To learn more, order Jon's book, Just Teaching: Feedback, Engagement, and Well-Being for Each Student.

 

The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.

 

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Connect with us:

Baylor MA in School Leadership

Jon Eckert: @eckertjon

Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl

 

Mentioned:

Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook by Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins

From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by Arthur Brooks

The Whalebone Theatre: A Read with Jenna Pick by Joanna Quinn

 

Jon Eckert:

Welcome back to The Just Schools Podcast. Today we're here with good friend Deani Van Pelt, another friend from Canada. We've had some great insights from educators in Canada. So first of all, welcome, Deani. It's great to have you. And just tell us a little bit about what you do now and how you got to what you do right now. And then we'll jump into some trends that we're seeing and some cool ideas and how to better engage students.

Deani Van Pelt:

Great to be here, Jon. Always good to be in conversation with you. And greetings from Canada. I'm sitting here in a nice icy weather just outside of Toronto. Currently, I lead an association of independent Christian schools here in Ontario. We've got almost 100 private Christian schools that are part of our association. So many dynamic committed leaders and educators within the network, within there's about 20,000 students whose lives we're privileged to be part of through the work that we do in our association. We do some on learning, some on leadership, some on government advocacy and a lot of work on school support. Just helping schools to be the absolute best they can be, most professional, most effective in our times. So it's fantastic to be able to serve the independent school sector here in Canada in that way. We do lots of work as you know John, that's how you and I met, with leaders in Christian education across Canada but also across North America and across the pond with the UK and other countries.

And we've just learned so much from each other as we network and connect with one another. We're soon going to be bringing a whole cohort of Christian school leaders from Canada over to the UK. And just find that our optimism, our focus, our leadership abilities really increased through these engagements and just so privileged to be part of that.

Jon Eckert:

That's great. No, I was going to say I love what you do through Advance. And then we also get to overlap through Cardus as senior fellows because they're all looking at education for the common good. And what does that mean? To educate in ways that serve the public because sometimes, at least in the US, we think of public schools as obviously being for the public good. We want to do that. I spent 12 years teaching in public schools, but then how do other schools contribute to that public good? And so, Cardus is a think tank that does a lot of good work in one section is education, that's where we overlap. So just talk a little bit about your work there, how that ties into Advance and some of the cool things that you get to do, where you see some of that work going.

Deani Van Pelt:

One of my favorite short statements about education comes from Cardus and they say all education is public education. It doesn't matter where it's happening, it's all for the common good. It's all the education of the public for the common good. And for some it's government schools, for others it's in an independent school. And now we're seeing all of these out of system types or forms of education that are starting up. It's all education is public education. So along those lines, Cardus does a lot of work as looking at the independent school sector. They're really interested in the good that can come out of non-government schooling. So you and I we're both so privileged to be part of these research teams, looking at so many different aspects of the independent school sector. There's quite a few senior fellows at Cardus on the education file. And together with each one of us with our different areas of expertise, the whole school of thought out of Cardus is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

And if your listeners haven't taken a look lately at Cardus' education research, I highly recommend it. I scrolled through again yesterday. It's fantastic the number of studies that are coming out of Cardus through the collaboration across quite a few researchers.

Jon Eckert:

Well, and Cardus was great. They were able to publish a collective leadership paper that looks at what collective leadership looks like in independent schools that I had worked on. And I really appreciated them putting that white paper out. But they do have a number of amazing white papers. And then we survey educational outcomes for people 24 to 39. And I guess Cardus has been doing that for 13 years. I've been a part of it now for the last few. And we have that data. We just did another data collection that will be coming out with results from that relatively soon where we can just take an open-minded, even-handed look at what the data is showing for what kinds of outcomes we're getting from all of these kinds of education that contribute to the common good, which I think is important. And I think those are really useful conversations to have.

So with that said, what are some of the trends you're seeing in education in Canada they get you excited, and maybe some of the trends that you're a little more concerned about as you look ahead at what's coming? Since you get to work with so many different school leaders, you obviously have that and you place some in the policy space. So what are some trends you're excited about and maybe some you're concerned about?

Deani Van Pelt:

Yeah, so I would say the biggest trend is that parents are really dialed into their kids' education. COVID gave people a glimpse as to what was going on, and I think more and more parents started being involved, started asking questions. Some were pretty satisfied with what they saw and they were really contributing, some not so satisfied and started asking some other questions. But the point is, parents are probably more engaged in their kids' education than we've seen in quite a few decades. So that's a key trend and a number are making different choices for their children schooling. But it isn't just on that we call the demand side of choosing something different. It's also the provision, John, so many new independent or other sorts of out of system forms of education are starting up. And that is a significant trend, particularly here in the province of Ontario where I am.

A couple of 100 independent schools have opened just in the last two years in this province. That kind of growth it hasn't been seen before. So also growth in homeschooling, but homeschooling isn't what it used to be. It now takes this kind of hybrid form where there's a few days where you might be at home and then a few days of the week where you're out in a more group setting. Perhaps you're registered as part of a school, maybe it's delivered through hybrid means so you're part of a school but it's a virtual school. So just the diversity, the categories, I would say the trend in the categories no longer being so distinct, public school, independent school, homeschool, that's changing. And that's really fun. I love entrepreneurs. I love an entrepreneurial spirit. And you've heard the new word, entrepreneur, and I think that's exactly these are the days of entrepreneurship. And it's really exciting to see people with very high capacity individuals but also communities coming together and saying, "I think we can do this differently. We can do this better." And giving it a try, that's a fantastic trend and that's global.

Jon Eckert:

Yeah, I would agree that that is definitely pervasive. And as you see that, do you see any challenges or headwinds for education that give you pause, or that you feel like we really need to be focusing on to overcome?

Deani Van Pelt:

Yeah, exactly. There are a lot of industry standards as you and I know. There are best practices, there are some fantastic insights that we know about how children learn, about what optimal teaching and learning environments can be, that these entrepreneurs really should be considering. So at Advance, for example, we help schools with their operations. It's basic. You need these certain types of policies, all right, here they are. Take a look at all of these. Make sure you're at very minimum doing all of these things. You want to operate a safe, healthy school that follows whatever the requirements are, the legislative requirements are for the jurisdiction in which you find yourself. So get up to speed, find the organizations that can help you to operate safely and well. So don't try to do it all on your own, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And good entrepreneurs know that as well to use industry best standards, best practices. So that would be a challenge but the solution's available. There are fantastic associations like ours and other supports across every educational jurisdiction, and I think folks just want to seek those out.

Jon Eckert:

That's good. I like that your challenges even offer some hope and some ways forward. Well, one of the things that I think is interesting is you talk about these shifts that have been happening fairly rapidly since COVID. One of your deep passions is based on Charlotte Mason who was born in 1842. So has some timeless truths in some of the ways that she approached education and a liberal education, and what that means to really educate whole people. She is well known in some circles. And then many people that are listening may not have heard of Charlotte Mason. So tell us a little bit about where you find hope in Charlotte Mason for where we're at now as we have these, as you use the term entrepreneurs. As we think about that, well, how do we stick to these timeless truths with all these different delivery mechanisms and ways we can deliver education? Where do you see those things overlapping?

Deani Van Pelt:

Yeah, great question. And indeed, she died just over 100 years ago, so what on earth are we doing talking about a person... How on earth? The turn of the 20th century but indeed there are some timeless principles. And I love Charlotte Mason's idea about education being about relations, relationships or education being the science of relations. If you think of that as a metaphor for what it is we're actually trying to do as educators, it's a fruitful notion. So if you think about the purpose of education is to build relationships as Charlotte Mason would say, in four different areas. So relationship with self, relationship with others, so others being people who lived in the past, people who live now in other places maybe than your own context, but also your own context and thinking about people who'll live in the future. You say, "Oh yeah, this makes sense."

Well, and then the third type of relationship, relationship with the universe. Well, what's that? Nature, all of the aspects of the universe, science around us. And then fourthly, relationships with God, relationship with the divine. Understanding that the child has the whole person, does include the spiritual, the emotional, the intellectual aspects. So if you think about all of what we do under this umbrella of relationship building and that all of education is about, it has this relational feeling, that makes sense. But then on top of it, Mason says, "Students, people, children are born persons." And she doesn't say they're born individuals, she says they're born persons. So her anthropology talks about personhood. And I did some digging a little while ago because that just started bothering me, what does she mean by this? Why is this so revolutionary? In Canada women were declared persons in 1929. Okay, so legally we became persons less than 100 years ago. Is that-

Jon Eckert:

That's good to know, major jump.

Deani Van Pelt:

But it wasn't just that legal definition, it was more than that. What is personhood? If you hold that view of the human being that they are persons, it means that you hold to the fact that they are born into and born for relationship. So the idea is that the child as a person isn't an individual, lonely, isolated, autonomous, even just self-centered and sort of almost free floating. We can start getting pretty negative if we use the sense of the child as an individual. But if we think about the child as a person, they're born into something already preexisting. They're in a certain time and place, born into certain relationships, and then born for relationship. That's what I love about Mason. If you say your education philosophy is for a certain thing and then it's rooted in your anthropology or understanding of the human person, it's a pretty coherent philosophy. I like that. I love as well that it's got that whole theological side and well-rounded side. So obviously it has some practical implications. What does a relational education look like?

Jon Eckert:

Well, and I love that piece about it being relational. And when we think about the highest form of understanding in the US, Wiggins and McTighe wrote the book Understanding by Design. And they put at the top level of understanding empathy. And it makes a lot of sense because in order to understand anything, you have to understand yourself and your place in it. But to be able to understand the perspective of someone else, you understand the concept well enough that you can actually understand it from the perspective of another person, that feels like a timeless truth about what it is to truly understand and very much grounded in Charlotte Mason. One other thing that came to mind when you shared that is Arthur Brooks' book From Strength to Strength. He ends his book with this, basically this is his life motto, and it is to use things, love others and worship the divine. That's it. He's like, we don't use people, we use things. We don't love things, we love others. And ultimately our goal is to worship the divine. That feels like that would fit pretty nicely with Charlotte Mason, would you agree?

Deani Van Pelt:

Oh, absolutely. And then to go back to the first point that you made about empathy, Charlotte Mason would say, especially when you're introducing a subject to a child, teach it through literature, teach it through what she called living books. Textbooks are great. You want to drill down and learn more about a certain topic, but don't introduce it. Use living books, use a story, beautiful language to pull a child into a setting, a time, a place, build that empathy. And we've learned that if the amygdala is stimulated, learning's going to be more solid. So stimulate the emotions, draw the child into a topic area. And I just love that sense like that and many good educators use that practice. Of course, as you say, it's a timeless idea. Use the story, use great books, living books to bring a child into caring about ideas and things.

So the other aspect to build the full person, because you did talk about Arthur Brooks saying use things, is that education will happen by books and things. The child does have that intellectual, the emotional but they also have the physical. And if we include in our education, a lot of use of our hands, building, creating, making, that helps build another aspect of the personhood and creates obviously a certain kind of confidence and an engagement with the world that has many levels to it. So books and things as a full education in Charlotte Mason's approach. And I was looking at what some of your definitions are for engaged learning. I love your book, Just Teaching, and just so happy to be able to refer back to it. But you talk about the consolidation and creation as being part of being engaged. And Mason has this notion called narration.

So let's say think of a child early in their education, we read a living book, we read the story and then the child tells back. So verbally telling back what they just heard, retelling. And we've learned that narration it's not a test to see if you caught what was in the story, but it's by that very act of giving back you are consolidating the ideas, you're making them your own, you're verbalizing. So now we're developing oracy. And so the thoughts become the child's own, that is the process of learning. It's not the test but narration is the way of consolidating. Then the creation side is, okay, how do we verbally explain later on a child's education? Their narration will take written forms, but it can also take other forms. They create items that are ways of narrating their learning. So love your definition of engagement. And I think it does draw on timeless principles that Mason brought up

Jon Eckert:

Well, and so I would totally agree with that. And I say it's the four Cs. You got to have content. Kids have to be able to consolidate. They need to be able to collaborate with peers, with teachers. And then the creation piece, what I love about the narration piece and how it relates to creation is when you're narrating you're bringing yourself to it. And you're understanding fully the concepts that you're narrating. It's like a kid who reads Shakespeare and doesn't understand it. It's just reading words and phonemes and putting them together with no sense making. But that narration, they're creating meaning in the way they do the narration. So it's not summarization, it's not just a regurgitation, it's actual the way you just described it according to Mason, it is creation. And I always say in the book, it's feedback, engagement and wellbeing. To get to interesting feedback where you're giving purpose-driven wisdom for growth, that's how I define feedback, you've got to have that deep engagement.

Otherwise, what are you giving feedback on? If it's just surface level learning, it's not very interesting to give feedback on. You can't give very much. And so ultimately that kind of narration and creation of meaning as we pursue truth together becomes this powerful interchange between teacher and student. And I think is why most of us that love teaching keep coming back to it because that's the meaningful part. So yeah, I don't know if you'd add anything there because if you want to have a final thought on that, go ahead and then we'll jump into our lightning round to wrap things up.

Deani Van Pelt:

Well, that's fantastic. But Charlotte Mason did say, in the end, it's not how much a child knows it is how much they care. And building these relationships, building this care for many orders of things opens a full life for the child. And you talked about that. Charlotte Mason recommends a liberal education, a full liberal arts education. Some young children are having up to 20 subjects a day, just small amounts, beautiful poetry, some beautiful music, engagement with a variety of literature that touches a whole bunch of subjects, history, art, geography. So you keep the feast, the banquet is full, you engage a lot of ideas in really rich ways and that does open doors of not only knowledge but also care. And I just think that is a full education along the lines of what exactly what you talk about.

Jon Eckert:

Well, that's a perfect transition to the lightning round because I think in our TikTok generation, we may need to rethink how do we give kids bits and pieces in small amounts so that they can be drawn in and then they can develop the cognitive endurance. So for the lightning round, we're just going to give bits and pieces of what would be big answers, but we keep these to a word phrase or a sentence or so. We'll test your ability to do that and I'm terrible at this one. But first question, maybe an easy one, I know you read a lot. What's been your favorite book? It could be education related, doesn't have to be, but favorite book you've read in the last year?

Deani Van Pelt:

I have spent the last six months reading a lot of novels. And a girlfriend and I sat on a dock this past summer, and she was just sharing, "Deani, you don't read enough literature." So I made a decision to read a lot of contemporary literature that come recommended. So in the last few weeks I have read, it's not necessarily my favorite book but it's caught my attention. It's called the Whalebone Theater. And recently published, I'm blanking on the author, children raised in sort of unusual circumstances in an English manor house, but they love Shakespeare. And it's these children, there are all three half siblings. And how Shakespeare and their own navigation of the world leads to some really courageous acts during World War 11.

Jon Eckert:

All right. Well, that's Joanna Quinn is the author. Does that sound right to you?

Deani Van Pelt:

Yeah.

Jon Eckert:

Typically, I spend 95% of my time reading nonfiction, but I've been increasingly convicted that fiction and reading novels really builds empathy because it allows you to get in the heads of different characters. And so I have been encouraged to read more literature. My problem with that is I get so sucked into the story that I become a bad father, I become a bad husband, I become a bad employee. All I want to do is read the book. So I read nonfiction somewhat protectively because I can set that down. A good story, oh, it is rough. All right, well, that's good. Good recommendation. I'll file that one away. So if you were to say in a word, phrase, or sentence, what you see is the biggest challenge facing education right now, what would it be?

Deani Van Pelt:

Jon, I wish you would've asked me what the biggest hope is for education.

Jon Eckert:

Well, that's next. We can start with hope if you want, we can end with challenge. I usually like to start with the challenge first, but you can go with hope first and then we can talk about a challenge.

Deani Van Pelt:

The biggest hope that we have for education is that so many actors are caring about it right now. So many new providers, teachers, community members, thinking about... They're asking the question, could this be different? And if so, can we do it? And their answer is yes.

Jon Eckert:

Okay. So if you're struggling with the challenge, if that is the biggest opportunity, I would say the potential biggest challenge with that is how do you find coherence and how do you have any type of connectivity? Or is it just 1000 flowers blooming and you just see what it is. But I could see there being challenges. It's great to have that many people interested, that many people with ideas of what could work. But how do you try to make sure that there is quality in that and what would that look like? Do you see that as a challenge or are you just kind of like, let's just see what happens?

Deani Van Pelt:

So I love the let's see what happens, but we need to quickly get a balance. As our friend from Boston University, Charlie Glenn would say, "We've got to balance freedom, autonomy, and accountability in education." So I love pluralism in education. It is not a one size fits all. Thank you world for finally realizing we've got a wide diversity of needs and challenges, but let's balance the freedom, the autonomy with accountability. Are we going to get the accountability right? What does that look like state by state, jurisdiction by jurisdiction? That could be our biggest challenge.

Jon Eckert:

Yeah. No, I like that. And that's a great place to wrap up in that tension. So Deani, thank you for spending time with us today. Love the work you're doing. Really appreciate you taking the time and I'll let you contribute.

Deani Van Pelt:

Thanks for having me, Jon. It's great to be here.