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The Future of Education (with Don Sanders) · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you grew up in the nineteen eighties, you remember the age of the very special episode.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: You'd be sitting there on the couch watching sitcoms with your family, and all of a sudden there would be a TV promo that went something like this tonight.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: A very special Punky Brewster.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not confessing to having watched Punky Brewster back in the day, but if I had, the promo would have sounded something perhaps like that.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, on today's episode of the podcast, this is indeed something very special.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a conversation in store for you with my older brother Don, who is an educator, and I'm an educator as well.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we sit down and we talk about the future of education.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is a lot of fun, and you're going to hear some really interesting thoughts from him about education, and also you're going to learn some things that will impact you as a teacher, a learner, and as an educator yourself.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, if you do any kind of creative work or you're an artist of any kind, you are a teacher.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So stick around.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: This will be a very fun episode.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome to the Born to Create podcast.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Kent Sanders and I'm an author and professor.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is the show where we explore the mindset, habits, and principles to help you make a bigger impact in your life and creative work.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Today I'm thrilled to be talking with Don Sanders, who is the staff development pastor and director of the Merrill Institute for Ministry at Harvester Christian Church in St.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Charles, Missouri.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And as I mentioned in the intro, he also just happens to be my older brother.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Don is not only one of the best educators I know, he's also a master learner who is currently working on a Doctor of Education degree at the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: In our conversation, you're going to learn about creativity from an educator's perspective and how Don has infused a creative learning approach to the Merrill Institute for Ministry.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: You'll learn what the future holds for education as well as some very practical strategies for becoming a lifelong learner.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Don also shares some interesting thoughts about his doctoral program and how it's changing him as an educator.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to take a deeper dive after the episode is over, be sure to check out our show notes at Kent Sanders.net slash education.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I also want to mention that today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, The Artist Suitcase, 26 Essentials for the Creative Journey.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: This book is filled with practical tips to help you be more successful as an artist, a leader, and a creative person.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a short little book that you can read in less than two hours, but the lessons last a lifetime.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Check it out at Kent Sanders.net slash suitcase.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get to the conversation with Don in just a second, but first, here's a few quick words from today's podcast partners.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, my name is Eric Marshall, Worship and Arts professor at St.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Christian College, and you're listening to the Born to Create podcast.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_04: Hi, this is Faye from Dog LifeMade Better.com, and you're listening to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, my name is Yolanda Nelson, author of Singletude.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: There's no ecstasy like destiny.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: And you're listening to Born to Create podcast.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I've asked you on the show today, not just because you're my brother.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe there's a little bit of that, so.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: But also because I respect what you do, obviously.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mostly though, I want to explore how education is changing today.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: So as I mentioned, you're not only a good educator, you're a good educational thinker, which I think are two different things.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you're a good educator, but you also see the big picture of what's happening in education today and have thought a lot about this and are in a doctoral program now, so obviously this is something important in your life.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason that I wanted to have you on the show specifically on this podcast is because I wanted to explore this connection between education and creativity.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you've been able to see education from a variety of perspectives as a student yourself, as a parent with kids in college, as an adjunct professor at the school where I teach and at other schools as well, and also now as the director of an institute at our church, which is basically like its own college.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So if you could take a few minutes and talk about your journey in ministry and the thinking behind establishing the institute at church, I would uh just kind of love to hear that, and I think that would help our listeners get some context as well.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I appreciate it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's interesting when you talk about education.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think education gets a bum rap a lot of times as being a very non-creative field.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's very true.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And because you tend to do I think in in in context where you tend to do the same thing over and over again.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: So you teach the same class, you teach the same class every semester.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's like there's this very repetitive cycle in education.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's easy to fall into the trap of just, I've done this, this is my seventh time teaching this class, so therefore I just will just dust off the same notes I've had before.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: I felt that myself.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: But also not just from a not just from an individual course perspective, but also from a programmatic perspective of how do you how do you give how do you get people through a particular program?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: How do you deliver all the things that you need to?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because education really has been pretty firmly established in our culture for like probably almost a thousand years maybe since the medieval universities came about.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so there there really hasn't been a whole lot change over conceptually about what education is.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: You go and you get these degrees and you there's a certain types of curriculum that you have.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: You've got the general ed, you've got your your major stuff that you do, and then you've got electives.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: That stuff hasn't changed for a long time.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what we've seen now in the last maybe 10-15 years, especially with the advent of the internet, that we've seen a lot of change come to education.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so it should be a place where it can be very creative.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Everything from an individual class session to how you structure a course, to how you structure a program, to how you run a college, there's just an unlimited amount of creativity you can put into that.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you how do you define creativity?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe defining isn't really the right word, but when you think of the word creativity from an educator's point of view, what does that mean to you?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: To me, being creative is I think really is the idea of how you how you do something, and it's not just saying, hey, I'm gonna do it differently than it's done before, because there are a lot of instances where something has been done this way for a long time because it actually has been effective.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: It has been effective.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean that it is still effective, or at least it has been effective.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you do things the same way just because it's the path of least resistance.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you do it the same way because you don't you literally don't know there's another way.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or like a lot of times I think in education, you do things a certain way because it's based on faulty assumptions.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: That you think, oh, well, this is a this is an intuitive thing, or this is the way we do this.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: But yet when you actually look at the research and when you actually look at how things result because of that, those things maybe not aren't as true as we thought.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like, for example, the way that the way that students study, you know, the idea of cramming, cramming, cramming, cramming.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: That studies have shown that that's just not the best way to study.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: I've never done that myself.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: No, of course.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody who's ever gone to education has ever.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So uh even in a doctoral program, I still do that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: But when you look at it over the long term, what's the best way to get something into the memory that that lasts and integrate it into your life?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there are other ways to do that besides cramming.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that the idea of creativity comes from comes from a standpoint of how do you do something sometimes in a new way, because a new way is fresh, it's different, it draws excitement, it creates momentum.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how many colleges now will say we've got this new program when in reality that new program is something that they've been doing for the past 20 years, they just have a new name on it, or they've changed 10% of the program.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's repackaged.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's a repackaged thing.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: And there's part of that that's marketing, you know, you you go through any supermarket aisle, and how how often do you see the words new and improved or extra strength or different things like that?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: So there's part of it that we as a culture crave new things, that we like to know that something is improving, that something is going on, that our civilization is going forward, so therefore we've got new ways to do it.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: But from a creativity standpoint in education, I think it's not just about doing the same things the same way, but I think it is responding to challenges and changes in our culture that literally did not exist a generation ago.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And if we're still basing our education system on those things, then then it's probably not going to be as effective.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: So with the Institute at Church, and I'll and I want you to talk about this for a bit because this is not going to be familiar to most of our listeners probably.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something where you try to bring some fresh perspectives, a fresh way of doing things to what is what has traditionally been relegated to standalone Christian colleges.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair way of saying that?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: For our for our particular confessional context or our denomination we're not really denomination, but that will people hear that.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: So for most established religious groups, if you will, they they tend to have a a way that someone gets into being a pastor or gets into church work.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Typically that involves some sort of formal education.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: There are a few groups that probably don't do that, but most groups look at that and say, hey, there's some sort of formal education process that we want our church leaders to have gone through.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's a stamp of approval in some way.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: In many ways, it's a stamp of approval.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's usually an ordination for pastors or something that goes along with that as well.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: But typically you're going to look at somebody and say, the base qualifications that you have are educational based.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Now, many, many of those groups do that at the graduate level.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the idea is you'll go get an undergraduate degree in something like communications or business or who knows what that is.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then you actually do your ministry training at the graduate level.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: You'll get an MA or in most cases a Master of Divinity.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so you've got one of those.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: So the idea is you hit the idea is you you hit all the major topics, but you don't really major in one of them.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very well-rounded the concept.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Here's all these different areas that we have to have, and we're going to look at those.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: So for well one of the big changes that we've seen in ministerial training, in two ways, I think is important.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: One is that we're seeing a lot of people that are doing what I would call a mid-career change.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very true.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so you've got people that are saying, hey, you know, I'm in my late 30s, early 40s, maybe in early 50s, somewhere in that range where they say, Hey, I've done this and now I feel calling on my life that I want to pursue ministry in some way, shape, or form.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Now the traditional route has been, hey, that's awesome.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Now you've got to go back to school and get another degree when you're Nobody wants to hear that at 45.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: 45.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Now there are a lot of people that do that.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's not saying that's wrong, but there are a lot of people that look at that and say, Yeah, I'm not really interested in that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got a lot of people that have mid-career changes, and there are a lot of different ways that people are taking advantage of that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Almost every college I know has some sort of, you know, finish your degree, come back, an adult degree completion.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we do as well, which is I direct our online program at our college for that exact reason.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a very valuable thing.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: You've got some people that will say, hey, I've got a little bit of college, I want to get it finished.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Or you can take, hey, I've got a bachelor's degree, I can port in, you know, X number of hours or different things like that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that so that's one of the big things that we're seeing is mid-career.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing that we're seeing is that, especially in our movement, I will say this, with the the restoration movement of the Christian churches, is that there is becoming a that traditional education is becoming less valued.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is that a lot of, especially bigger churches, are hiring the person for their their skill set and their personality and their drive rather than their education.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so a church will say, hey, you've got you're the type of person we want to hire, and and we value that over your education, and now once we hire you, you we can we can do the training on the job and we can also find a different way to give you educate the education that you need.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really where the institute came from.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I I know I mentioned this in your bio at the beginning, but we're talking about uh what's called the Merrill Institute for Ministry, named after how how would you I'm it's not the founding pastor of Harvester Christian Church, but certainly a very influential pastor, Ben Merrill.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're training people who I would say normally probably would not go through a traditional route of education.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so for us it was, and I think this is important, is is you'll see a lot of of big churches, what we call megachurch, that are developing these institutes.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in my mind, it is not in any way, shape, or form a replacement for a traditional education.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: So we're not saying, hey, if somebody is is still wants to do that, I don't I I think there will always be a value of a traditional education, a traditional residential education.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of character formation that goes with that, there's a lot of experience that you get in that, so that's not saying that's unimportant.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: However, I look at it from the standpoint of there are a lot of people that would would highly value at least a minimal theological education, and they're not going to go back and get a degree at a traditional place.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's expensive for one thing.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's expensive, it's time consuming, and honestly, for adults, I and I think this is one of the things that we found when you do adult education, is that adults, two things.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: One is they bring a whole lot of life experience to the educational process.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you want to maximize that.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So you take somebody who's 40, 45 years old, they've been around the block several times.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: They know what's important, they know what is a waste of time, they know, they can differentiate between work that is good and work that is busy work just to fill out an assignment.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they're just simply not going to go, they're not going to take classes that they don't feel are useful for them at this point in their life.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's the advantage of doing an institute or something like this, is that we can focus that in a very, very direct way and basically leave out the things that you might get in a traditional education that that doesn't fit this context, and we can maximize the things that do fit that context.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and one of the nice things about you know the institute sort of a model is that you don't have to deal with all the accreditation stuff, you know, because like in our case, you know, for our college, the state of Missouri requires so many Gen Ed credits, and you have to deal with uh federal agencies and all those things that those are so many of the things that make higher education so complicated nowadays from a like institutional point of view, and you can bypass all that stuff and just offer to adults, you know, hey, here's our Bible or ministry courses that will help prepare you for you know leadership ministry here in our setting or maybe somewhere else or as a dedicated volunteer or or whatever it is.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of nice.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now the key to that is you have to have you have to have two things.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: One is that you have to have the person that is okay saying, This this particular program that I'm going to is not an accredited program.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the vast majority of people that we have coming through our program, that's not a problem for them.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're not going to transfer those credits anywhere necessarily.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're not going to transfer them.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: They're looking at, they are looking at it from the most pragmatic standpoint in a sense of, I want this experience.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now, is it nice to have a diploma on the wall that says this?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody likes to have that achievement, but that's not why they're they're not doing this to get an accredited degree.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: They're getting it to basically say, I've gone through this.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: The other part that you have to have with that is you have to have an organization in our in our context, our church, that will say, we will count this as being good.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: You've met the minimum requirements we want from somebody in this position.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: So, in a sense, we are self-accrediting our own degree.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now, we would look at that and and never say, hey, this equals an accreditation from you know an outside agency.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: However, we do try to mirror accreditation standards in most of the things we do, because those are just good standards to adhere to.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: We do have some arrangements set up with some outside other colleges where you can transfer, sort of batch transfer these credits out.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: Including ours.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Including yours, absolutely.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we do that, and for some students, that's a good thing.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: They get into it and realize, oh, I would really like to continue this, but the vast majority of people don't.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And this this is where I think this program really hits.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Is again, I don't see it as replacing anything.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: I look at it as saying, hey, here's an untapped market, here's a void in our educational process that we can fill that just was before going unfilled.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say you're a pastor or an elder or a leader at a larger church, we're defining larger as let's say over a thousand or something like that.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you hear this conversation or you've seen things online about churches that have an institute established, what does it take to actually set up something like this in the context of a local church?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's a great question.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: I would say one is it it takes you've got to really have an understanding of what you want it to be.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: What what need is this going to fit within your organization?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because one of the things that you've that I I think is very strongly is that people, if they see that it's a quality program, they will they'll be in it, they will tell the people about it, it will grow, it'll be a great experience.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: If it's just a glorified Sunday school class, or if it's just a a glorified small group or something like that, and I think small group Sunday school, that's all great.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: But an under a true undergrad experience is very different than that.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I think you have to you have to very be very mindful of what exactly you're trying what need are you trying to fill with this program.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that's from uh the highest leadership of your church.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: The other part of it I would say is you're gonna have to invest a lot to really get this going.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're gonna most more likely you're creating a program from scratch.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now the good thing is you're creating it to fit the needs that you want.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you can tailor it, you can twist it, you can bend it, you can do it however you want, build it like you want, but there is a lot of work that goes into it from a behind-the-scenes standpoint.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just sort of make an announcement, hey, we're gonna start these courses next year.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: You can have a course, but you may not have a second course or a third course.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a you know, for those who who are listening who have never taught a college course, it's a lot of work to teach a college course.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of even just one college course.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of work to teach a college course well.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, to teach it well.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's it's a lot of work just to teach somebody else's material, which I have never taught anybody else's material, it's always my own.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: But to do that, and then in your case, how many courses do you have?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Ten courses?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: We have ten courses.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you wrote all the material for all those ten courses, so I mean that's what, like a year out of your life.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you were to add it all up.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: When we launched, we we had a whole year of prep before we so when we decided we were going to do this, that was my job for one whole year was preparing for the institute.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Not just from a curricular standpoint, but developing the program, developing all the objectives we wanted to accomplish, and then of course promoting it, getting all the systems in place, all of the all the things you need to do to run an academic institution.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which are substantial.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot more than you would ever think of.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: You have to have you have to figure out what your platform you're gonna do to deliver the classes, you know, a student information system, all of all the things that any any college would use now.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So before we move on to a couple of other topics related to education, what do you see as far as the future of larger churches, and we'll just use the term megachurches, megachurches and institutes they're establishing, what do you see like in the next ten years as far as this type of formal education and the local church?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see more churches establishing these type of institutes?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I think we'll see that because basically a a larger church is gonna look at a traditional college and say, in in some ways, uh a little bit of an arrogance and say, we think we can do what you do better.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And and that that's there's part of that, and and I would say probably not better, I would say we can be more effective at it, in the sense of we can get what we're gonna take the part out of it that we want and we're gonna discard the parts of it that we don't think are quite as useful for us.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: So an example of that would be Gen Ed courses.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: In any sort of accredited program, you're gonna have to have gen eds.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's just part of what you do.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: But for us, we look at that and say, that's not important for us.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, that's not gonna be part of our program.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: So you can run it much leaner, much more effective for what you want.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think online education is not going to go away anytime soon.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I would say online education is going to be much more ubiquitous and you're gonna find it everywhere.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know of any college of any size that does not have some sort of online program at this point.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: So So you're always going to be looking for those online students.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think honestly, I think that i in some ways it's going to be sort of a cycle of technology in the sense of, you know, we went from handwritten to digital.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well now there's a resurgence in the handwritten handwritten things.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, definitely.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because it we realize that we lost a lot of experience in that.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things that that are meaningful in that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: I would say the same thing is probably going to happen with education, that online education is never going to go away.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's always going to be there.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully it will continue to improve and be better.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I think for many people, they're going to come back and say, I I actually would prefer a face-to-face interaction.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: I would prefer actually live teaching as opposed to online instruction.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot of my college students do.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they really prefer face-to-face interaction.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I do all of my college courses as hybrids now, and there are some students who don't like the online stuff.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think because so much of the rest of their lives is online, you know, in apps and technology and all that stuff.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So they really crave that face-to-face interaction, which I think is is so interesting.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I would love to see, I've not I've not seen studies about this, but I would love to see uh how students there there may be, I just haven't seen it, how students value education.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: So do they value an online education more as opposed to a traditional or online experience?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: What do they perceive that there's as much value in that?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, just thinking through you know the online students that I advise in our online program at our school, um, I think they value it pretty heavily, but I think they there is a difference between the on-campus student and the online student.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, many of our uh of our online courses I think are harder in some ways because you can do the assignments whenever you want.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it just kind of requires a different type of discipline, I think.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So let me move on to uh the topic of pursuing your doctorate degree, and I'm kind of curious as to how doing that has unlocked a different part of your creative life and really just kind of your experience in doing a doctorate and why you decided to do it in the first place.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: When we think about the the doctoral program, you know, it was it was part of it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm kind of a school nerd anyway, so I I love to go to school.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: I love everything related to that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, it was always something I thought of that I wanted to do.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: And when when we launched our institute, that was one of the things that we saw a need for was uh part of it was if you want to to really sort of, and this is a is an odd way to say it, if you want to to swim in the pool with the big boys, you need to have the same level of of acceptance that they do.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: And part of that is gonna be having your the leaders of your institution have a doctorate degree.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Every you know, that's just part of it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's standard.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's just standard.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we felt that it was important for me as a director of the institute to sort of be on a level playing field when we when I talk with other institutes, when I talk with other colleges.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: For them, that gives that that gives a level of at least perceived credibility for our institution, have a somebody with an earned doctorate leading that.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we thought that that was an important part of what we wanted to do.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so as we as we started looking at this, I also realized that there would actually be a lot of a lot of practical things that would be very good for it as well.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so there were there were a lot of practical things as well that we thought would be good.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: So a doctor of education program, obviously leading an educational institution, that's what I do, that's what the the program is designed to do.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we we found a lot of value in that as well.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I think when one of the reasons I I wanted to do it well was part of it, I I didn't intend it to be this way, but it has been very helpful to me.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: To actually go back and be a student has helped me understand students a lot more, our own students.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so you I think a lot of times as professors or as educators, we forget what it's really like to be a student.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we forget, especially I think especially for adult students.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: We forget, you know, we give assignments and we give this work and we just assume that it's gonna get done, and we assume that people don't have anything else to do.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then we kind of forget about it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we forget about it, but w going back and doing it now, I've realized, man, you've got to carve out a lot of time to be a student.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not always easy, and life happens.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so in many ways, that has made me I I always told my my students in the institute, me going back to school has been one of the best things for them and one of the worst things for them, because the best things is that I'm I I understand where they're at a lot more, and in many ways I'm much more sympathetic to them as being adult learners.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: On the other hand, I'm a lot less sympathetic because I go, hey, I got my own stuff done, and so your excuse doesn't really hold water with me.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: So uh it's a good thing and a bad thing, I think, as well.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk a little bit about what your doctorate is is in, uh where you're going to school, the kind of things that you're studying?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm enrolled in the Doctorate of Education program at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're big on the emphasis on the.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, in Louisville.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: And this is a hybrid, uh, what they call a research degree.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: They divide their their doctorate degrees into two different ones.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: They would call professional ones, which would be a doctorate of ministry.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: So for somebody who leads a church, this would be what your your pastor would get, things like that.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little more practical oriented.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then they have research doctorates, which are very much, well, as you would say, research degrees.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so that would be your PhD, EDD, doctorate of education.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I I looked at this, one of the things that drew me to it was uh that it's a non-residential program in the sense of you didn't have to pick up and m move to Louisville where their their seminary is.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we go down two weeks a year, uh, one in January and then one in July.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: But the other part that I love about it, and when I read it, it didn't wasn't as meaningful, but in retrospect, it's been I would say the best thing about the program is that it is cohort-based, which means that we entered the program with a group.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: I entered the program with a group of people, and we go through the entire program together.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we have the same classes, the same courses.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: We do everything together.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: And there are there are ten of us now.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: We started off with about 16, but there are 10 of us at this point still in the program.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it has absolutely been one of the best things about the program.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've grown very close to these people.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of like when you go through a really, really intense experience with people, you develop a bond with them that I'm sure will last a lifetime.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been fantastic.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Along with that, this is a cooperative program rather than a competitive program.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's been really good as well because the thing that they really emphasize to us a lot is you you succeed and fail as a cohort.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is not, we're not competing with one another to get the highest grade, the highest rank in the class.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're not competing with one another to get hired at the school or something like that.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is a program that's designed for people that are that are going to go out and lead educational institutions.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's been really good to have people that when you're struggling, you can you we can talk with them and go, help me with this.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone in our cohort has different strengths, everyone has different things that they're really good at, and so we help one another.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: We and of course, being in a in a Christian institution, we pray for one another, we uh we have really, really bonded, and that to me that's been the strength of the program.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, also with the um with the the courses that we've taken, which has been fantastic as well.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I and I have yet to determine whether or not I'll pursue a doctorate someday, but you've through your experience that's definitely made me consider it more.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe that's in the future.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is I I it is far more intense than I ever thought it would be.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that in a way that's that's okay.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: It is, you know, you're just gonna have to carve out a definitely a big chunk of your life.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: A few years of your life.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: A few years of your this life, and you're gonna have to carve out time every week and almost on a daily basis to get it done.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: But it's one of those things that after you're done, you're thinking, man, I'm really glad I did that.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to do it again.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm really glad I did it that time.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say somebody's listening to this uh interview and you know they don't have the opportunity to go back to school right now.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they don't, that's not a goal that they have, but they want to grow in their learning, their education, their faith.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: What are some practical steps that you would recommend to somebody who just wants to grow in their own personal development?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know you read a lot, we talk about books a lot, we've loaned books to each other quite a bit.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um would that be a key part of it that you would say this is a huge way to grow in your creative life and your personal development is reading?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: That would I that's what I would put down number one, and that's the biggest part of this doctoral program for us, is the amount of reading you do.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I would encourage people, you know, that that's the that's the best thing about the program in my mind, is that you're going through a structured program that somebody who's ahead of you has designed for you to do.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you're gonna go through these courses and it's gonna have all X, Y, and Z that you need to do.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: But probably the one of the greatest things is the book lists that you read in your textbooks, because they're they're gonna be the ones that they've sifted through all the ones that are just okay, and they've picked the ones that are the best for you to read.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that there's nothing that will can replace that.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now reading it on its own isn't is good, there's not bad, but I think that what always should go along with reading is discussion.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so finding a group that you can get into, whether it's one or two other people, where you're gonna read similar texts, you're gonna read similar things, and get together and talk about them and discuss them, I think makes, you know, you can read all the things and you you get to the end, you kind of go, maybe so what, or maybe there's parts I agreed with, or maybe you just didn't agree with, whatever that is.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: But having a discussion time, whether that's through a discussion board online or whether that is getting together with friends, that takes the amount of time that you've read and really multiplies the impact of what that can have in your life.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that that's a really key part of the value of doing something with a group, whether you know, in in my life, I am a part of a couple of just what are called masterminds, and we've talked about that before, where you're you're a group that is going through something together, you're sharing ideas, resources, whether that's educationally based, whether that's business-based, whether it's church or spiritual based or whatever it is, it's just that value of swapping ideas and you know, like when you're accessing somebody's mind and their network and relationships, it's it's almost like you're downloading all of their experience into your mind and heart as well.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're multiplying that impact, you know, through several other people.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, going through that experience as a group can be really powerful, I think.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I agree.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the good things for me too is to just being involved in a in a group of people that I had not previously been with, in this case from a different denomination.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: So being involved in the Son of Baptist Convention has been good for me to really it's there's this whole circle of people and a whole circle of experience that I had never been part of before, and now I I've got access to that as well, all the things that I can draw from that.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's good as well.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: So as we kind of wind this down, can you share a little bit uh really two final questions?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: The second to last question is aside from reading, what are some of the other things that you do in your life that are hobbies that are relaxing for you that you sort of use to unlock your own creative potential?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: I like, you know, I like to read and I don't read as much for fun right now.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I don't read anything for fun right now in the midst of doing this.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think certainly reading other genres of literature helps, whether that be fiction or biographies or different things like that.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think an important thing for me as far as being creative is getting out, and one of the things I've done lately that's been really helpful is physical exercise is a big one.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: I totally agree.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: To get out where it's whether it's riding your bike or it's running or hiking.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for me, honestly, one of the one of the probably the most single creative thing that I do is gonna sound crazy, but it is mowing the grass because I'm out there without my phone, I'm out there without anything else to distract me, and the hour that I'm out mowing mowing the lawn, I come back with lots of ideas.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: I come back with all sorts of things that I want to write down pretty quickly.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: That is so funny because I that is exactly the way that I perceive mowing the lawn too.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: I almost look forward to it, even though I consider it kind of a it's a chore and it's kind of a nuisance, you know, to a to a degree.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: But to me there's something very satisfying about you're mowing the grass, you're doing something that is tangible, you can see when it's done.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like the stuff that we're typically involved in with more intellectual types of work, you know, teaching and ministry, those kind of things.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: When cutting the grass, you do it, it's done, you have that satisfaction.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's just something very nice about that.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's part of it too, it it lets your brain access a different part of your brain where you're sort of shutting down one part and that's sort of freeing it up for to make all sorts of other connections.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I would definitely put that physical exercise in there as well.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's one of the keys of being creative for me, at least.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you like to go hiking, uh bike riding, you know, and it's kind of nice because you live so close to the Katy Trail here in Missouri, which for those who are not from the Missouri area or St.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Louis area, it is a bike and walking trail that runs almost all the way across the whole state, which is really, really cool.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there are a lot of places that you can do that, and no matter where you're at, I'm sure you're close to trails of some sort.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hopefully.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you live like downtown New York City or In that case, there's probably something in the central park.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can go back in and you go walking in the park.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, I I'll have to edit out that part.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I probably won't.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um appreciate your friendship and your it sounds weird to say appreciate your brotherhood.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't even make sense.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, that does make sense.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I'm glad that I was born with uh you for a brother rather than somebody else.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: For whatever that's worth.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with my brother Don as much as I did.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of every interview, I want to share three specific things that I learned.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: These are key action steps you can put into practice right away to start making a bigger impact in your life and creative work.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Takeaway number one is to see yourself as an educator.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter whether or not you have a title that's associated with teaching or education, that you may be a professor, a teacher, educator, or some type of administrator in a school, and that's all well and good, and that's great.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: But what if you're not?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: What if you don't have that title or you don't have that certification or you don't have that type of job?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it doesn't really matter because we're all educators.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing any kind of art or creative work or leading others or producing content, you are definitely teaching others.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason is that you have skills and talents that other people need to learn.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: You have knowledge that can benefit other people.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there are tons of ways that you can teach and impact others.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: For example, here are a few.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can enter into conversations with people, you can write blog posts, you can do a podcast, you can do speaking or training, you can teach a class, you can do live events, you can host or participate in a mastermind or a small group, you can write books and articles, you can mentor people, you can create social media posts, you can do consulting for organizations or for businesses or companies, and that's just scratching the surface.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's tons and tons of ways that you can be a teacher and an educator by using your content and your art and your creative work to impact other people's lives.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Takeaway number two is to be a constant learner.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you probably heard in this interview that my brother reads a lot, and if you know me and have followed my stuff for any length of time, you know that I read a lot as well.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we're both educators, but we also both just love to learn.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: You will rarely see either one of us without a book.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're constantly talking about books and exchanging them and talking about ideas from books and so forth.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: However, reading is only one of many ways to learn.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: For example, he is currently working on a doctorate degree.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: For myself, I am constantly participating in webinars, meetups, masterminds, and other learning opportunities.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't really matter what you do, the point is to stay fresh and relevant through continual lifelong learning.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there's tons and tons of ways to do that.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, takeaway number three is don't forget about face-to-face interaction.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Almost every college offers online courses today.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And speaking as a college professor who is also a director of an online college program, those can be very valuable, and I think those are great.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: However, there's still something really valuable about face-to-face learning opportunities.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: As much as I love online stuff, you know, and I love social media and podcasting and blogging and all that stuff.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: As much as I love all that and how helpful it is, there's still something special, there's still something unique about in-person and face-to-face interaction.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope that you'll make it a priority to build relationships offline, to attend meetups and local events and uh different things where you can interact with actual humans, you know, here in 2018.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you'll do all those things in addition to building your online presence and developing relationships online.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: In my view, the best thing to do is have a combination of those things.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, friends, that wraps up this episode of the Born2Create podcast.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can find the show notes at KentSanders.net slash education.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: This episode was produced by me, Kent Sanders, and our associate producer, my son Ben Sanders.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: I also want to give a shout out to today's podcast partners, Eric Marshall, Faye Rook, and Yolanda Nelson.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can find their links in the show notes.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: It only takes a couple seconds and it helps other people to discover the show.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can subscribe and leave a rating and review by visiting KentSanders.net slash iTunes.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: When you leave a review, please include your Twitter handle so I can give you a shout-out here on the podcast.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks in advance and thanks so much to those who have already subscribed or left a rating in a review.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I love reading those and those are a lot of fun.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or a family member who you also think would enjoy it.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can find lots more resources to help unlock your creative potential at KentSanders.net.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and designed to make a difference.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now go create something awesome.