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

    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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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

  5. 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.

  6. May 19

    Truth Fears Nothing in Investigation: Dr. Anthony Sciubba on Classical Christian Education | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Dr. Anthony Sciubba leads one of the largest K–5 classical schools in the Southwest at Great Hearts in the Phoenix Valley. In this conversation, he traces a journey from a public school upbringing in Gilbert, Arizona—where Great Expectations bored him to tears in seventh grade—to a transformative encounter with the great books at Pepperdine, graduate studies at Yale, Oxford, and Emory, and ultimately a calling to bring classical Christian education to children at the elementary level. What's in This Episode: How a great books colloquium at Pepperdine first introduced Anthony to Augustine, the Church Fathers, and the intellectual richness of early ChristianityThe Clement of Alexandria vs. Tertullian debate—and why the question of what Athens has to do with Jerusalem is far more than an academic oneA deep dive into Gregory of Nazianzus—poet, bishop, theologian, and reluctant monk—and the two books Anthony recommends for entering his worldWhy classical Christian education may be the most historically significant and most ecumenical movement in modern American ChristianityHow Anthony's move from higher education to K–12 school leadership reflects the classical conviction that education forms the whole person—mind, heart, and soulChapters: 00:00: Introduction / Anthony's Childhood in Arizona02:22: First Encounter with Classical Literature09:19: Great Books Colloquium at Pepperdine14:03: Athens and Jerusalem—Clement of Alexandria vs. Tertullian21:08: Gregory of Nazianzus—Poet, Bishop, and Theologian28:07: C.S. Lewis at The Kilns37:46: Classical Christian Education and the Great Conversation54:17: From Pepperdine to Yale, Oxford, and Great Hearts1:03:33: Why K–12? The Practicality of Classical Education1:10:35: How This Transforms Others: The Classical School MovementResources Mentioned: St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography by John A. McGuckinGregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God by Christopher A. BeeleyClassical Learning TestArcadia EducationHosted by Ryan Klopack (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. May 5

    Formed by Beauty, Truth, and Goodness: Dr. Toyin Atolagbe on Classical Education | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail Dr. Toyin Atolagbe shares how her early education in Nigeria, marked by daily hymns, strict discipline, and a focus on shaping both heart and intellect, formed the habits and virtues that guide her work today. She discusses the power of classical education to instill excellence, the crucial role of parents as first educators, and her current work supporting families through Lighthouse Parenting Hub. What's in This Episode: How Dr. Atolagbe's elementary education in Nigeria shaped her character through daily assemblies, hymns, literature, and high moral standardsThe formation of lifelong habits of excellence, discipline, and virtue through classical-style educationThe importance of beauty, truth, and goodness in shaping young minds and heartsTechnology's impact on children and the need for parents to set clear boundariesSupporting parents through coaching, training, and resources at Lighthouse Parenting HubChapters: 00:00: Introduction and welcome01:15: Growing up in Nigerian schools—classical education in practice07:14: Formative experiences—songs of praise, cultural groups, and leadership14:32: The role of discipline and high standards in character formation28:45: Teaching in classical schools and forming student virtue42:18: Parenting philosophy: setting boundaries while supporting growth54:26: Technology use and building discipline in children01:03:02: Lighthouse Parenting Hub: coaching and resources for families01:08:19: Closing thoughtsResources Mentioned: Lighthouse Parenting HubArcadia 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

  8. Apr 21

    Philosophy as Preparation for Death w/ Jonathan Mueller (Part 2) | The Furrows

    Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of their conversation with Jonathan Mueller, Ryan and Alex pick up where they left off—tracing the circuitous path from Torrey Honors College through Boethius, Plato, and the Phaedo that eventually led Jonathan into classical education.  What's in This Episode: How Jonathan went from Biola/Torrey to dancing Greek waiter before finding his way into classical education through the Academy at HCU with John Mark ReynoldsThe encounter with Boethius and Plato at age 19 that harmonized philosophy and theology and set the course for everything sinceWhat Socrates means in the Phaedo when he says philosophy is the preparation for death — and why it's a deeply hopeful claim, not a morbid oneWhy "we don't teach them what to think, we teach them how to think" is a phrase that hasn't aged well, and what students actually need to believe firstMisology, intellectual ferocity, and the moment Jonathan ripped up his eighth graders' homework mid-discussion of The Man Who Was ThursdayChapters: 00:00: Introduction15:22: Philosophy as Preparation for Death30:52: Lao Tzu, Plato, and the Return to Christianity34:18: Teaching What to Think vs. How to Think38:08: Intellectual Ferocity and Misology51:43: Marriage and the C.S. Lewis Principle59:56: Great Books for Eighth Graders01:06:18: The Man Who Was Thursday in the ClassroomResources Mentioned: Aristoi Classical AcademyThe Consolation of Philosophy by BoethiusThe Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. ChestertonArcadia 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
    24
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Arcadia Education
  • Show Website
    Schooling America

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