Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.108 - Ryan Klopack on Helping Schools Flourish and Finding God in the Latin Mass | Arcadia Education | Classical Education | Homelessness Ministry

Transcript

Ep.108 - Ryan Klopack on Helping Schools Flourish and Finding God in the Latin Mass | Arcadia Education | Classical Education | Homelessness Ministry · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

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  I had a bit of a mystical encounter with God in that room
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  that day, where I could just feel the weight and the presence
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  and the glory of God in a way that I just can't explain.
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  It was like encountering the sun.
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  This is Virtuous Leaders, the podcast for based Catholics who
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  will speak truth, do good, or die trying.
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  Here's the show. It's always nice to connect with
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  normal people on the Internet. Yeah, likewise.
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  I was, I was just laughing reading through some of your
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  LinkedIn posts and seeing the words trumpet used online.
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  I'm like, this this guy's great. And then, yeah, the Utropalia
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  conversation happened and I was like, OK, we're we're five in a
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  year. This, this is my guy.
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  Well, I'm impressed you're willing to read more than 150
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  characters. Yeah, that teaching background
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  helped me do that a little bit. I had a work up to it.
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  Yeah, I see that you were the Dean of students at one of my
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  great hearts academies. Yeah, that's right.
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  I was Dean of students for a couple years.
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  Eight years prior to that, I was teaching.
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  And what brought you to Arcadia? So what brought me to Arcadia
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  was that I had a lot of excellent people that I worked
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  with at great hearts who I was just super impressed by.
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  Some of the most virtuous leaders that I've ever
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  encountered. They jumped on board with them
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  and we have some things going on in the family where it was clear
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  there's going to need to be more bandwidth freed up on my end.
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  And it just felt like a natural time to make a switch.
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  And so they had a position open for their director of executive
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  search, which is like part recruiter, part getting into the
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  weeds and the assessing the health and the essence of a
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  school and finding the right matchmaking for those two parts.
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  I'm stringing them just a little bit.
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  What? What is the mission of Arcadia?
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  OK, so Arcadia is a Christian company that is basically trying
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  to help schools flourish. So the short answer is that
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  nobody jumps into school leadership because they're
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  excited about their processes and systems.
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  That's the part that actually burns everybody out.
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  So, you know, things like HR running through applications,
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  hiring process, coming up with discipline, procedures,
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  procedures, procedures, procedures.
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  It's not the fun part of teaching, but it is the part of
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  the school that keeps it humming along.
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  And we say that a lot of the teacher turnover happens because
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  schools just aren't super well ordered.
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  It's not necessarily their fault.
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  You don't have a lot of teachers with a business or an
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  administrative background. And eventually most of them move
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  up into an administrative position.
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  They're kind of having to learn as we go.
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  So we have a ton of people who are super experienced with those
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  kinds of things who will come alongside of schools and say,
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  hey, we can help be your elbow grease and get some of those
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  kinks worked out so you can just focus on the best part of your
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  school and that's forming the souls of your kids.
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  Youth Quiller. Quiller staff there.
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  How big is this operation? So we have 10 to 12 who are full
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  time and then we just have a stable of experts who are
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  working on a contract basis. Clearly RK is a values driven
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  organization and wake up those organizations up.
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  The whole question that always arise to me is how sustainable
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  is it financially? This it seems like a consultant
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  model. Is it, is it financially
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  sustainable or is it more donor base?
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  I would ask the business guy. I'm not exactly sure what's
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  going on with the finances, but I mean, I've seen that.
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  I mean, just just my team has grown a lot over the last year,
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  even there's, there's been a massive demand because there are
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  a lot of consulting firms out there that can, can give you
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  generic advice and expertise on schools at large.
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  But very few have the, the heart and the soul.
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  That's that Catholic, Christian or liberal arts driven model.
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  And we just have a ton of people like that.
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  And that's kind of been our our value AD that we've been able to
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  communicate. And that's really taken off.
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  We've, it just seems like our reputation has really grown
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  quickly and word is spreading. Those Christian and Catholic
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  circles are so small. Word of mouth just does a lot of
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  work for us. So from from what I can see, it
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  seems pretty darn sustainable. So I previously interviewed Tim
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  Glimkowski, who's the head of Amazing Parish, which is kind of
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  like a consultant for bringing proven business ideas to
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  optimizing and the effectiveness of each parish.
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  Seems like you are similar, just with the rest of the schools
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  rather than parishes. Is that an accurate way of
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  thinking about it? Yeah, that's probably true.
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  I'm not as familiar with him, but it sounds like that might be
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  the case. Part of the things that I should
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  add to what we do. So I'm just one, one of the
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  people involved with several different branches of Arcadia.
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  So, so I'm, I'm running search and recruiting side of things.
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  We've got a guy who's over curriculum and coaching and
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  we've we've got a branch that's over business forecasting and
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  modeling, seeing whether or not it's a good idea to expand or
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  build a new school. We have people who are there who
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  can help consult with them, you know, setting up an admin team,
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  coaching on how to have a good leadership structure, HR stuff.
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  So there there's a lot of variety and a lot of different
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  places to go. So I think that's part of what
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  makes us so sustainable. That that's exciting.
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  Well, is there anything else that you want to mention about
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  Arcade before switch to a couple different topics?
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  Not at the top of my head. I was curious to see that you
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  launched A homelessness initiative, or rather healthy
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  people who are homeless. It was very successful.
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  I, I typically visit the homeless in downtown Houston
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  MIDI every month or two and it, it does seem kind of like a, a
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  hopeless cause oftentimes. What What did you do that was
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  successful in getting people out of homelessness?
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  Well, I mean, I guess the thing that really helped us is we went
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  in with the mindset that we weren't going to end
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  homelessness. It really was just an approach
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  of understanding that, you know, we have a very limited sphere of
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  influence and that's that's within our families, our church
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  communities and then the cities we're living in.
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  So if you're, if you're really just paying attention to the
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  places that you're driving, there's a radius that you can
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  have some kind of an impact on that's really tangible.
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  And we just noticed that there was a growing homeless
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  population in Scottsdale and a lot of that was just feeding in
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  from other areas around Arizona. So we worked with a couple of
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  our local church leaders to open up space where they could come
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  in, get out of the sun. It's I mean, it's like 120° in
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  the summer. So just having a little bit of
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  shelter is super attractive. They have some showers that, you
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  know, you might use after working out or like playing
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  basketball in the gym or something.
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  We opened those out so they could just get cleaned up.
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  They could get a little bit of food.
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  But I think the thing that was the heart and the soul of it,
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  and what we saw as being the real transformational agent to
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  it was that our primary focus was built on building
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  relationships with the people who are coming in, getting to
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  know them, hearing their stories, and doing what we could
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  to build friendships with them with no strings attached.
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  Like it's just you've got someone who's made in the image
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  of God who is clearly suffering in some capacity most of his
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  addiction. A lot of that addiction is
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  rooted in some sort of broken family life.
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  So I mean, at the heart, there's some sort of absence of
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  connection that's happening. So that was what we invested our
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  time and our energy in. And we saw that that that
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  started to shift the dynamics both for us and for them.
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  We would see them walking around the middle of Old Town
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  Scottsdale and we'd be like, oh, hey, it's good to see you.
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  So and so like, let's, let's just go grab a mule and they
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  would see us. They'd be happy to see us.
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  So they, they'd want to come and do I, I don't know what really
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  it was, but so many of those people who came in and built
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  those relationships with us out of time or over time had a
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  reinstalled vigor that they could or were worthy of getting
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  out of homelessness. Like there's something more to
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  them than just what their immediate circumstances were.
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  So a lot of them were willing to accept help from us and get
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  plugged into certain resources that could help them out.
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  A lot of them I think found a purpose and they they would come
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  to the shower ministry, we called it, They would come just
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  so they they could help out. So whether they wanted to like
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  clean the showers after someone used it or they would help with
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  food distribution, getting everything cleaned up, that that
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  was a major part. And we had a lot of people who
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  after leaving homelessness came back and they just continue to
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  help. And yeah, so I guess the city of
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  Scottsdale, they they did some, they ran some numbers and they
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  found something like 92% of the people who had left homelessness
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  within the last three years all came through our ministry.
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  So they asked us, you know, to maybe likely to seminar and help
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  them figure out how to end the crisis.
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  And even the city of New York reached out to one of our
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  directors and asked for help with that.
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  And I mean, yeah, it was it was pretty wild.
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  But I mean at the core of it, it was relationship and seeing them
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  as the image of God. Wonderful.
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  That's that's very beautiful, man.
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  Yeah. One thing that struck me when
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  God has me on LinkedIn is your love for the traditional Latin
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  Mass and being a common firm prostitism as you are.
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  That really struck me. Could you just speak to that?
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  Yeah, I I think that dynamic. So if I were, if I were to talk
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  about what's the animating core of what's just driven most of my
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  major decisions in life, it's been this process of trying to
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  strip away the artificial and replace it with the real.
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  So one of my earliest, earliest memories in in a church
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  background was so I, I grew up in a nominally Christian home,
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  non denominational church and really we kind of bouncing
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  around from place to place to place trying to figure out what
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  felt like the best fit for our family.
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  But one of my earliest memories at a church was going to
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  vacation Bible school at a mega church in Dallas called
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  Prestonwood Baptist Church. And that's, that's where all the
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  Dallas Cowboys go. I think they had their
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  auditorium system, something like 5000 people and they've got
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  a ton of services. I mean, it is it's mass appeal
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  and their vacation Bible school was was crazy like over the top
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  programming and one of the staples of it was this
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  performance that ended the day and it was like a it was like
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  this Christian Broadway production.
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  I have you ever heard of Bible man before, dude?
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  OK, so there's this thing with, there's this phenomenon I've
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  noticed where a lot of Christians will try to hybridize
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  popular culture and Christianity and then make some sort of child
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  out of that that's neither pop culture or Christianity and it
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  doesn't fit either and it doesn't work either way.
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  So that's kind of what Bible Man was.
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  So Bible Man was this show that was supposed to be, I guess this
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  educational programming for kids where you had the the hero Bible
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  Man who dressed up like Batman, but he had a lightsaber.
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  And his main opponent was this adversary called the Quizzler,
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  who would just ask like really tough theological questions and
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  Bible Man would respond with his lightsaber or like canned
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  answers that you would find on a Hobby Lobby plaque to kind of
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  like fend off any sort of doubts of the faith.
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  A lot of light show, a lot of smoke, a lot of mirrors.
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  And I remember as a fourth grader sitting in that
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  performance, just rolling my eyes and thinking, I I don't
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  know if God is in this performance.
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  Well that that next year was the year my my 5th grade year was
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  the year that the twin towers fell.
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  I came home one day from school, walked in, saw my mom watching
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  the images over and over and over of the planes hitting the
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  buildings, and was, I guess given my first ever picture of
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  inexplicable evil that could not be explained away with canned
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  answers. And I was exposed to something
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  that needed something with extraordinary gravity to replace
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  the evil that I have seen. Bible Man wasn't cutting it.
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  The canned answers weren't cutting it.
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  The artificial wasn't cutting it.
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  Well, what was really interesting was a little bit
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  later in the year, we went back up to Prestonwood and there were
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  some missionaries there, and they were in Afghanistan on the
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  day that the twin towers fell, and they were telling their
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  story of being missionaries on the ground.
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  When that happened. They were kidnapped by al Qaeda.
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  They were thrown. Yeah, they were thrown into
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  prison, and they were prepared to suffer and die for their
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  faith. And I'm hearing this as a fifth
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  grade kid. I'm just in awe of these people.
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  And they talked about how they remembered the story of their
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  early church being thrown into prison and all these miraculous
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  things that would happen around persecution.
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  So they just, they prayed that God would intervene and that he
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  would free them. And they fell asleep and they
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  woke up and the prison was totally empty.
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  All the guards were gone, all the doors were left open and
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  they just walked out. And as they walked out, that was
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  right when they, I, I guess the US military had gotten word that
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  they were kidnapped. And they, they came, they found
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  them, they rescued them. So I heard that story and I was
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  like, OK, that is a real authentic faith.
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  And that that seems to be animated by a God that's far
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  more real than Bible man. And I had a bit of a mystical
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  encounter with God in that room that day where I could just feel
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  the weight and the presence and the glory of God in a way that I
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  just can't explain. But it was like, it was like
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  encountering the sun. I mean, it was just this
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  gigantic force where there was, there was, there were no really
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  there was no room for my preference.
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  Like if something was to change, if something was to transform,
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  it had to be me. And I was meaning it on its
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  terms. So you're asking about the Latin
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  Mass. I, I, the, the reason I'm
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  telling this story is that there, there is a sense of awe
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  and grandeur and an understanding that I've got to
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  be the one that's changing. And I need a liturgy that's
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  going to transform me and redirect me to a God that is
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  radically weighty and radically holy.
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  The Latin Mass, when it's done in the best way possible, with
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  all the Gregorian chance, with the with all the beauty of the
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  Eucharist, with all the kneeling, with all the the
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  ancient mysterious Latin, all the smoke, It does preserve that
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  weight in that holiness that it seems like a God that big
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  demands. And it forces me to understand
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  that I am, I am not the one who's setting the conditions and
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  the terms to reality. I need to conform to it.
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  And this is the beating heart of it right there on the altar.
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  So that there are a lot of steps along the way to get me to the
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  Latin Mass. That was actually classical
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  education, was part of my bridge in discovery into Catholicism at
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  all. And that's that's where it ended
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  and that's where it landed. Thank you for sharing that,
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  Ryan. I really felt a little presence
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  of God while while you were talking.
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  That's an honor to hear. Thank you.
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  And speed, what a privilege. You've experienced a lot.
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  I know you wanted to get to know me a little bit.
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  Is there is there anything that you want to ask me?
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  Yeah, I am fascinated about your career as a Christian.
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  I have seen, I've seen counseling and therapy hijacked
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  by a postmodern story that has left me really frustrated with
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  some of the experiences that I've had, knowing that there's
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  there's got to be something to counseling and therapy, but
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  feeling like I'm getting the artificial version of it.
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  So maybe tell me, how does what, what is the harmony between your
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  work and the Catholic faith? How?
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  How does it animate it and bring it to life?
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  Big picture grace builds on nature.
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  You said stripping away the artificial to encounter the
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  real. We can encounter the real on the
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  natural level and on the supernatural level.
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  My career as a psychologist is primarily perhaps exclusively on
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  the natural level and the way we encounter that is through press
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  where we can phrase like scientific research, research
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  based mental health treatments, seeing what actually works in
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  fact in reality rather than just one person's opinion on how they
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  think things should work, IE Freud and other people who have
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  that approach. So the the scientific, the
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  supported form of psychology, or at least the most scientifically
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  supported form is called cognitive behavior therapy in
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  your worse. It's very effective, especially
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  for anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder,
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  which is my specialty. That's the first thing I would
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  say is just providing effective therapy on the natural level
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  that works, which when it say like that, perhaps use obvious
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  the more most faith-based Christian Catholic therapist.
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  They in fact don't do that, and they tend to practice some
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  esoteric therapy that does not have demonstrable support or
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  they just shoot from the hip bend, just do whatever they
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  think seems right at the moment. That's the first point I would
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  make. And then the second point I
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  would make is I do offer an explicit alignment with natural
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  law values of the dignity of human life created male and
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  female, and the beauty of chaste love.
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  This is what I think. Is that more important than
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  identifying as Catholic or Christian?
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  Because someone's saying that they're a, let's just say
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  Catholic therapist tells you nothing about what they actually
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  believe, unfortunately. So in fact, they can lead to an
• 23:50
  even greater danger. Someone could be so-called
• 23:54
  Catholic therapist that's not believe that's we are created
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  male and female. And on the other end, people who
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  hold these natural law of values, they, they are more
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  aligned in my eyes with Catholicism than a kind of
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  lukewarm semi heretical Catholic.
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  That's why. And there's a third factor,
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  which is oftentimes faith-based practitioners are just
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  incompetent and unprofessional. We've seen that in entertainment
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  industry. We've seen that with Bottle Man,
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  he said. There's definitely seen that in
• 24:35
  therapy as well. So that's why I don't want to
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  advertise myself as a Catholic therapist.
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  Rather I say like these are my values, Values the first
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  therapy. That's the name of my practice.
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  These are my values. I'll always respect them.
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  Usually they don't come up in therapy.
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  Usually they're not relevant. Sometimes they are.
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  And when they are is very important.
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  And my first value is professional excellence.
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  Does that answer your question? It does.
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  And that's a really good explanation because, yeah, I've
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  encountered, you know, Christian and Catholic therapist where
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  it's just, yeah, it it, it just seems so thin and artificial.
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  And they're like, there is still an approach of it's up to you to
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  maybe construct your own values or you find your truth and all
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  of this. And I'm a little bit exhausted
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  by that. Like that's that.
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  I don't think that's that's helping anybody.
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  That's what's getting a lot of us into this rut in the 1st
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  place is the things that we invent for ourselves.
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  They don't usually work like it. There needs to be a kind of a
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  discovery of what's actually like the real natural set of
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  values that we align ourselves to rather than the other way
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  around. So that's refreshing to hear.
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  What else can I clarify for you? I think that's the big one.
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  So yeah, I mean, where are there a lot of you guys out there?
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  I haven't found very many people like that.
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  I can't think of anyone who articulates their values on
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  their website as I do can't think of a single person.
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  And then yeah. And if you're looking for the
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  overlap between somebody who provides science based therapy
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  and and maintains those values, even if they don't express them
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  on their website, that that number is also very small.
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  So, yeah, it's a it's a shame. That's part of the reason why I
• 26:47
  do it, because I think in part people are just afraid to say
• 26:50
  what they think and becoming less so with Trump and not sure
• 26:53
  like and other people, Tucker. But yeah, I really believe
• 26:59
  that's, hey, we need to, we need to speak the truth or die
• 27:03
  trying. I love that motto, it's so good.
• 27:08
  Speak the truth or die trying. Thanks for listening.
• 27:13
  Please like, subscribe and share with your friends.
• 27:15
  See you next time.