Schooling America

Erik Twist

The Schooling America podcast covers issues and ideas relevant to leaders in American education. We bring in the brightest minds in administration, philosophy, culture, and beyond to reflect on topics that directly impact schools, organizations, and the children and families they serve. From cultural issues to operations to curriculum and pedagogy, Schooling America seeks to enrich the ideas, strategy, and execution of education institutions nationwide.

  1. 2d ago

    Your Students Can't Imitate a Teacher Who Won't Say What He Thinks w/ Joshua Gibbs | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Editor's note: the original recording was lost, so this is the backup. Please excuse the quality. Will be back to normal next episode. Thanks! Joshua Gibbs, director of the Classical Teaching Institute at the Ambrose School in Boise, Idaho, couldn't be paid to read books as a kid—and he started teaching classic literature at 28 with no natural interest in the texts in front of him. Then The Consolation of Philosophy became the first book he ever really understood. Ryan and Alex talk with him about how a storyteller's instincts became a way of teaching, and why your students need a teacher willing to say what he thinks. What's in This Episode: How Joshua's confession as a capable young student—that he lay awake each night planning what to draw once his schoolwork was done—convinced his mother to start looking for something elseWhy The Consolation of Philosophy made philosophy seem doable: its first four books observe how people actually behave instead of laying down abstract rulesWhy a lecture can be a single sentence—and what happens to students whose teachers never say what they thinkWhy a high school teacher has to take teenagers seriously and not seriously at the same timeWhy Joshua admits to his students that he's a mediocre Christian, and how that shakes them out of easy Sunday-school answersResources Mentioned: Arcadia EducationClassical Learning TestThe Consolation of Philosophy by BoethiusHow Much Lecture Is Necessary? by Joshua GibbsChapters: 00:00: Introduction01:32: Department of Defense schools and VHS homeschooling11:43: A good student who wouldn't read17:18: Teaching at 28 and The Consolation of Philosophy28:03: The burlap bag in the woods35:47: Teaching aphorisms through stories50:08: Good lecture versus bad lecture56:32: Stand-up comics and didactic professors01:11:04: Taking teenagers seriously and not seriously01:17:11: Christian schools and the cheap currency of languageHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.  Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

  2. Sep 15

    Your Students Are Terrified of Silence, and It's Worth Finding Out Why | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Jane Scharl read Crime and Punishment alone at eleven, and what it gave her was not a sense of being special but the opposite: a sense that everything she felt had been felt before, and that she owed it to those people to go find out how they'd handled it. She's now a verse playwright whose Rabelais plays get staged, and she talks here about the classical language she never got to learn, the student she was who could hold every idea and no due date, and why she thinks a base level of unhappiness is normal, but we've stopped tolerating it. What's in This Episode: What happened when a teacher ran a week-long screen fast with his ninth graders, which was not the relief he expected but existential dread, and the eighty percent who said afterward they would not do it againWhy Jane Scharl does not believe in "normal," and what that does to how you read the student in your class who cannot keep track of a schedule. The case that a base level of unhappiness is ordinary and that we have lost our tolerance for it, offered as one explanation for how freely diagnoses get handed out nowWhat reading Crime and Punishment alone as a child did to her, which was not a sense of being special but of being precedented and owing something to the people who went first. Worth sitting with if you teach students who think nobody has been where they areWhy she took a politics, philosophy, and economics degree rather than a writing one, and how wanting to know something before writing about it ended with her staging a verse play a mentor had told her would never be performedResources Mentioned: J.C. ScharlSonnez Les Matines, a verse play by J.C. ScharlThe Death of Rabelais, a play by Jane Clark ScharlClassical Learning TestArcadia EducationChapters: 00:00: Introduction02:00: How Ryan already knew Jane, but Jane didn't06:21: Crime and Punishment alone as a child13:27: Why Jane doesn't believe in normal18:07: Xenophon's ten thousand, and what silence does to a person22:27: The Walden challenge, and the dread it turned up27:49: Shaman initiation, and being buried in the cave32:04: The womb you outgrow, and purgatory as grace46:24: Studying philosophy so she would have something to write about58:48: The Rabelais trilogyHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.  Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

  3. Sep 1

    Patrick Whalen Made 10th Graders Wrestle to Learn about the Iliad | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Patrick Whalen spent a decade in the Marine Corps, founded a boys' boarding school on a Kansas farm, and now builds physical education curriculum for classical schools through Iliad Athletics.  He tells Ryan Klopak and Alex Julian how a candlelit reading of Ecclesiastes, a wagon crash into a chain-link fence post, and The Song of Roland read over cigars all point at one conviction: that formation runs through the body, and abstraction is what happens when it doesn't. What's in This Episode: Why Patrick credits the dinner table over any classroom he sat in, and what his educator parents told him about report cardsSaint Gregory's Academy: sixty boys, no electronics, and a folk-music culture that turned a self-declared non-singer into a musicianBusking through Rome as a juggling troupe, and the old puppeteer who kept twelve boarding-school boys from getting jumped in an alleyReading The Song of Roland with Marines before a deployment, and why "do you blow the horn" was the only question worth pressingThe chess-and-burpees day camp where the least athletic kid on the team won the game in three movesResources: Iliad AthleticsAdam's CurseSt. Martin's AcademyClassical Learning TestArcadia EducationChapters: 00:00: Why this episode drops you mid-conversation01:59: The dinner table did more than any classroom08:09: Educator parents who said the grade is the grade16:22: The wagon, the hill, and the chain-link post21:53: Saint Gregory's Academy—no electronics, so you made the music yourself25:30: Busking Rome with bagpipes, juggling clubs, and knives42:41: Dropping out of Hillsdale to enlist as an infantryman49:41: The Song of Roland, whiskey, and cigars before a deployment56:18: Naming Iliad Athletics after a boy who understood the joy of battle01:00:34: Practical ways to put the body back in your classroomHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.  Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

  4. Jul 21

    How to Draw the Cynical Middle Schooler Into the Great Ideas w/ Elizabeth Williams

    Send us Fan Mail Elizabeth Williams knew she wanted to teach from the time she lined up her stuffed animals for class as a small child, but it was a homeschool high school built on classical literature—and a self-led reading of The Grapes of Wrath—that showed her what her early Catholic schooling had left out. After studying literature, history, and theater at Franciscan University of Steubenville and starting her career in the classroom at Great Hearts, she now teaches middle school and is building a theater program from the ground up. She joins Ryan and Alex to talk about awakening wonder in the most self-conscious students in the building, turning a classroom into a mead hall, and why anything worth doing is worth doing badly. What's in This Episode: Awakening wonder in middle schoolers—the age where "it becomes cool not to care"—and why that window shapes lifelong beliefs about what a student can and can't doTransforming the classroom into the world of the text: candlelit mead halls for Beowulf, a conch shell for Lord of the Flies, a projected balcony and foam swords for Cyrano de BergeracUsing whatever's on hand as a prop—a rolling chair as a horse, a talent-show flyer as a love letter—because the symbol matters more than the objectSelling students on a book by exaggerating your own enthusiasm, since middle schoolers see through a single glimmer of discontentTrading an overwhelmed, perfectionist first year for a "firm but kind" classroom by asking for help and putting yourself on the hot seatResources Mentioned: Great Hearts AcademiesClassical Learning TestArcadia EducationChapters: 00:00: Introduction and Elizabeth's path into classical education05:00: A self-led study of The Grapes of Wrath10:07: Awakening wonder in the self-conscious middle school years21:03: Why drama forces students into the great ideas27:20: Cutting through cynicism at each student's pace31:14: Turning the classroom into the text36:22: Keeping your own imagination alive47:39: Teaching Shakespeare to eighth graders55:40: Pointing students toward God in a charter classroom59:30: Perfectionism and the "firm but kind" classroomHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.  Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

  5. Jul 7

    How Classical Education Made a Convert Without Preaching a Word w/ Nikhil Jandhyala | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Nikhil Jandhyala came to classical education as a public-school kid raised on two faiths—Hinduism American capitalism—and left it a Catholic teacher who now hands the same gift to his own students. Ryan Klopak and Alex Julian trace that transformation with him: the sixth-grade natural-philosophy class where "nature acts for an end" first cracked his world open, the ninth-grade Euclid teacher who convinced him that truth is worth pursuing for its own sake, and the long, winding road to conversion. What's in This Episode: How a single truth from a sixth-grade natural-philosophy class—"nature acts for an end and it does nothing in vain"—became the first crack in a materialist worldview, and what it means to teach students to observe nature rather than memorize textbooks about itThe ninth-grade Euclid teacher who ran geometry like "an intellectual street fight," and why Euclid may be the only real natural science a student gets in high schoolWhy middle school is where American anti-intellectualism hits hardest, and what classical schools can (and can't) do about the drift toward treating learning as mere utilityReading Lord of the Flies and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as maps of the human soulThe conversion at the center of it all: idolizing Hitchens and Maher, a barefoot pilgrimage in India, church bells with no church in sight, and the friend whose argument finally pointed him toward the ChurchResources: Euclid's ElementsThe Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. LewisLord of the Flies by William GoldingClassical Learning Test (CLT)Arcadia EducationChapters: 00:00: Welcome and meeting Nikhil Jandhyala01:47: Before classical education—India, Hinduism, and the dollar bill05:02: Sixth grade and the first truth: "nature acts for an end"15:42: The dividing line between faith and reason21:41: Middle school, deans, and the anti-intellectual pull31:15: The books that stick with you33:21: Lord of the Flies as a map of the soul36:55: Eustace, the dragon, and the mercy of Aslan42:03: High school and the Euclid teacher who changed everything55:38: Atheism, a pilgrimage, and church bells with no churchHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.  Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

  6. Jun 23

    The One Aristotle Argument Professor Owen Anderson Uses to Break Open Freshman Philosophy | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Professor Owen Anderson teaches philosophy and religious studies at Arizona State University, where starts every intro philosophy class with "where did your life go so wrong?"  In this conversation, Ryan and Alex trace his journey from a curious teenager in Arizona public schools to a philosophy professor working to recover what education has lost. What's in This Episode: How discovering the Great Books in a school library set Owen on the path to philosophy and why students today still hunger for that kind of intellectual engagementThe farming analogy for education: why cultivating students requires patience, and what teacher narcissism costs a classroom over timeAristotle's proof for the highest good and the eternal—and how Owen uses these arguments in introductory philosophy at ASUJohn Dewey's vision for democratizing education, how it went wrong, and why Mortimer Adler's answer offers a better wayOwen's book The Twelve Arguments and how natural theology connects to the American founding and the Declaration of IndependenceChapters: 00:00: Welcome and a Note on Audio Quality00:47: Introducing Professor Owen Anderson02:30: Discovering the Great Books in High School08:49: Early Questions About Faith, Truth, and Certainty13:22: The Farming Analogy: Why Education Takes Time17:00: What Students Lose in the Industrial University26:14: Aristotle on the Good and the Eternal41:09: John Dewey, Mortimer Adler, and the Democratization of Education51:29: Charlie Kirk as the Campus Socrates58:56: The Twelve Arguments, Natural Law, and the American Founding Resources Mentioned: The Twelve Arguments by Owen AndersonAfter Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyreClassical Learning TestArcadia EducationHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.  Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

  7. Jun 9

    Classical Schools Don't Just Form Students | Andrew Ellison Pt. 2 | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of his conversation with Ryan and Alex, Andrew Ellison—veteran classical educator and former headmaster—opens with something he couldn't wait to share: a bucket-list Tallis Scholars concert in Dallas that arrived at exactly the right moment. The story becomes a lens for exploring how classical education transforms not just students, but every person in a school building—teachers, administrators, and ultimately the families and communities around them.  What's in This Episode: How a Tallis Scholars concert sparked a reflection on classical education's power to form everyone in a school building—including the headmasterWhere graduates and non-educators can find real communities of lifelong learning once they've left the classroomWhat makes faculty common reading programs genuinely formative and what quietly kills themWhy the shared faculty office is a non-negotiable architectural feature of a classical schoolHow classical education's influence ripples outward from teachers to students to families and how it opened one educator's path to faithChapters: 00:00: Catching Up with Andrew—Health Update and a Bucket List Concert05:30: The Tallis Scholars and the Revival of Renaissance Sacred Music14:41: The Veritas Music Teacher Who Changed a Headmaster's Ear22:00: Mortimer Adler on Leisure and the Purpose of Liberal Education28:00: Well-Read Mom and the Quest for Lifelong Learning Communities31:12: Faculty Common Reading—Power, Pitfalls, and What Actually Works42:13: The Shared Faculty Office as a Non-Negotiable47:20: How Classical Culture Ripples to Students and Families53:20: Church Communities and Classical Schools as Cultural Seedbeds55:55: The Way of Beauty—How Classical Education Deepened Andrew's FaithResources Mentioned: The Tallis ScholarsWell-Read Mom"Labor, Leisure, and Liberal Education" by Mortimer J. Adler — The Imaginative ConservativeClassical Learning TestArcadia EducationHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education. Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

  8. Jun 2

    Andrew Ellison on What Classical Teaching Actually Requires (Part 1) | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Andrew Ellison grew up in the suburbs of Indianapolis with a public school teacher mother who read the Chronicles of Narnia at bedtime and ran summer learning programs at home—and had no idea any of it was "classical." In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, host Alex Julian traces Andrew's path from that curiosity-rich childhood through a soul-killing public junior high, into Trinity School at Greenlawn in South Bend, Indiana, and through his early teaching years at Tempe Prep Academy in Phoenix. Andrew now serves as Vice President of Enrollment Management at the University of Dallas. What's in This Episode: How Andrew's mother—a certified public school teacher—cultivated an educationally rich home that planted the seeds of classical formation long before anyone called it thatThe founding story of Trinity School at Greenlawn and why Andrew's parents sent him there without knowing anything about classical educationWhy Andrew's transition into classical schooling felt like continuity rather than rupture and what that reveals about the difference between a school that panders and one that leadsTwo pages in Wheelock's Latin on the Indo-European language family that "blew his mind" and opened the vertical dimension of knowledge for the first timeHow the classical education movement grew from living room conversations in Tempe, Arizona to the President's cabinet and the internal "30 years war" Andrew fears it must avoidChapters: 00:00: Introduction01:49: Andrew's Mother as First Teacher16:14: Middle School and the Pandering Culture20:55: Trinity School at Greenlawn23:45: Latin Tutoring with Bill Walker35:42: Lead and They Will Follow49:06: Wheelock's Latin and the Language Revelation57:48: The Path to Teaching and Great Hearts01:04:38: Good Books and Cultural Inputs01:09:09: The Classical Ed Movement: Past and FutureResources Mentioned: University of DallasGreat Hearts AmericaThe Paideia Proposal by Mortimer J. AdlerArcadia EducationClassical Learning TestHosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.  Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

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About

The Schooling America podcast covers issues and ideas relevant to leaders in American education. We bring in the brightest minds in administration, philosophy, culture, and beyond to reflect on topics that directly impact schools, organizations, and the children and families they serve. From cultural issues to operations to curriculum and pedagogy, Schooling America seeks to enrich the ideas, strategy, and execution of education institutions nationwide.

Information

  • Creator
    Erik Twist
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Arcadia Education
  • Show Website
    Schooling America

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