Education Revolution: Dr Jeff Hittenberger Of Vanguard University On Innovative Approaches That Are Transforming Education

The landscape of education is undergoing a profound transformation, propelled by technological advancements, pedagogical innovations, and a deepened understanding of learning diversities. Traditional classrooms are evolving, and new modes of teaching and learning are emerging to better prepare students for the complexities of the modern world. This series will take a look at the groundbreaking work being done across the globe to redefine education. As a part of this interview series, we had the pleasure to interview Dr. Jeff Hittenberger.

Dr. Jeff Hittenberger serves as Dean of the School of Education at Vanguard University. He previously served as Chief Academic Officer at the Orange County Department of Education and as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Vanguard University. He has done consulting, research, or study in Morocco, Cameroon, South Africa, Mali, and Haiti. He is an author and host of the podcast “Education for Love and Wisdom”.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share the “backstory” behind what brought you to this particular career path?

I grew up in Haiti speaking Haitian Kreyol, playing soccer, and hanging out in the neighborhood with my Haitian friends. As an American and the son of missionaries, I had the opportunity to go to an international school in the capital, but a lot of my Haitian friends did not get to go to school because there was no functional public school system in Haiti. If you didn’t have enough money for private school, you didn’t get an education.

That’s when I started thinking about maybe becoming a teacher and creating educational opportunities where they had been denied.

That opportunity gap exists here in the U.S., as well. Students in communities with more limited resources tend to have more limited educational prospects. Teaching in high needs environments, working on international teacher training projects, facilitating career academies like the Global Business Academy at Valley High School in the Santa Ana Unified School District, have all been part of this calling, fleshed out over 41 years of working in education. Now my focus is on preparing teachers at Vanguard University. The students in our teacher candidates’ classrooms now will very likely live into the 22nd century! That demonstrates the profound and generational impact of an educator.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of the most rewarding experiences of my career is being involved in sharing the history of the Mendez et. al v. Westminster School District case that led to the desegregation of schools in California seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Through this work, I’ve gotten to know Sylvia Mendez, who was 9 years old at the time her parents challenged school segregation alongside four other Mexican American families in 1945. They won the case in 1947, prompting the State of California to pass legislation outlawing de jure segregation of California schools. That legislation was signed by Governor Earl Warren, who went on to become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and penned the unanimous decision in Brown v. Board.

Every year, we take our Vanguard University teacher candidates to Mendez Tribute Monument Park to meet Sylvia Mendez, now 88, and walk the path that Sylvia and her brothers had to take past the all-white school to go to a school down the street designated for students of Mexican heritage. Hearing from Sylvia has a transformative impact on our teaching candidates, as she shares with them the power and importance of educational opportunity for all.

Last year, the California legislature supported unanimously, and the governor signed, Assembly Bill 1805, assuring that every student in California will learn about Mendez v. Westminster. That’s the fruit of 35 years of Sylvia’s advocacy for educational opportunity.

Can you briefly share with our readers why you are an authority in the education field?

Formally, I have the credentials that include a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, many years of K-12 teaching experience, leadership in county offices including Monterey County Office of Education, and eight years as chief academic officer for the Orange County Department of Education. I’ve served as provost at Vanguard University and am the inaugural dean of the School of Education. I’ve also worked on education projects or done study and research in Cameroon, Mali, South Africa, Morocco, and Haiti. I’m the lead author and editor of two books on “Education for Love and Wisdom” and the host of a podcast with the same title.

On a personal level, the journey I’ve been on with my son, Ben, has been my most profound learning experience and the source of what I have to share. Ben is my best buddy. He’s 32 and has a dual diagnosis of down syndrome and autism. He and my wife and daughter have been the most significant teachers in my life. Ben reminds me every day of what it means to bring love and wisdom to education, to be more focused on the person than on appearances, to fully enter into someone’s experience rather than to stay on the surface.

One of the big topics in education is the concept of neurodiversity — every brain is different. We used to think that there was a ”normal” brain, but now we have a much richer understanding. We realize that the human brain is extremely dynamic, that every brain learns differently, and that the brain is constantly rewiring itself, which we call neuroplasticity. Learning is like setting off a fireworks show in your brain.

We have come to realize that neurodivergence can be enriching and that we benefit from the gifts of people who see and process the world differently. We try and bring this understanding into our teaching and our classrooms. Our responsibility is to learn who children are, what matters to them, and how they are processing the world. And then it’s our job to get on board with them, be part of their journey and help them shape a world that they want for themselves.

And we get to do that every day with Ben. Ben has taken us much deeper as learners and helped us to better understand that there is so much more to life beyond just words.

Can you identify some areas of the US education system that are going really great?

Yes, this recognition of neurodiversity, that every child and young person brings gifts to the world, is an area that has greatly improved over the past generation.

Our system has typically been exclusionary. It wasn’t until 1975 that laws were passed that required educational opportunities for children with special needs. If Ben had been born a couple of generations earlier, we would have had to fight just to get him into school.

Now the education system is more inclusive, embracing children and young people from all backgrounds and with many different challenges, focusing on assets rather than deficits. This is a huge step forward in education.

However, this comes with challenges for teachers, who need a strong support system in order to effectively teach students with diverse needs without becoming overwhelmed. It’s important that we continue to improve funding for support systems so that teachers have a robust team to support their students.

Can you identify the key areas of the US education system that should be prioritized for improvement? Can you explain why those are so critical?

American education is a contested space that has become highly politicized. In a democratic nation, we will inevitably have diverse perspectives on what educational goals and strategies should be prioritized. But we have historically made progress toward creating a public system where people with a variety of perspectives can be heard, can find common ground, and, within a given community, can find working solutions for their local schools.

In recent years, forging these working solutions has become more challenging due to political polarization and culture wars. We need to recover some of those civic virtues that are foundational to life together in communities. That doesn’t mean we’ll all agree, but we can agree on our desire that all of our children should have rich educational opportunities and choices, and that every child should receive the support they need to flourish.

Please tell us all about the innovative educational approaches that you are using. What is the specific problem that you aim to solve, and how have you addressed it?

The theme of Vanguard University’s School of Education is “Education for Love and Wisdom,” and the focus of our two recent books. Our society right now is stressed, distressed, and stressful. Our children and young people are especially impacted. There are so many pressures on all of us, especially children and young people who are just trying to navigate the day-to-day and find their way into adulthood. All of this impacts their ability to focus and learn.

Research shows that a ‘pedagogy of love,’ a focus on the value of each child, an appreciation of the gifts of each student and the contributions of each family, results in schools and classrooms full of learning and flourishing. With love and wisdom, educators provide a community of care, one of hospitality, where everyone is welcome. Everything else is dependent on that. Our books and podcast describe how love and wisdom can shape every aspect of education, from instructional strategies to assessment to our use of educational technologies.

In what ways do you think your approach might shape the future of education? What evidence supports this?

There is a hunger across our nation for more love and wisdom in our communities and our schools. People resonate with it. I see it every day on campus and in our classrooms. Our teacher candidates are entering the profession because they want to bring love and wisdom into their classrooms and communities. As we share this vision with educators and others in our community, the response we receive is overwhelmingly positive. We’re bringing our shared humanity back to the center of education. This applies not only to teachers, but also to educational administrators. We’ve just started recording Season 4 of the podcast, entitled “Leadership with Love and Wisdom.”

How do you measure the impact of your innovative educational practices on students’ learning and well-being?

In the school of education we have the opportunity to interact with and demonstrate our approach of love and wisdom with candidates as they begin their journey toward teaching the generations to come.

We use the books we are publishing and the podcast, “Education for Love and Wisdom,” in our classes and in our mentoring of students. Our program assessors at the state level see these qualities in our teacher candidates, who excel on state assessments.

In years to come, we will be measuring the impact of our graduates as they take this ethos into their classrooms. Many of them are already earning Teacher of the Year honors and all of them are having a transformative impact. Next year we are launching an Administrative Services Credential and we’ll be able to also track the impact of school leaders who carry this vision into their districts.

What challenges have you faced in implementing your educational innovations, and how have you overcome them?

Some people hear “love and wisdom” and think it might be too idealistic. This initial hesitation can be overcome by demonstrating that it can be done. With faith in students, hope in their future, and love of learning and learners, real progress can be made.

Keeping in mind the “Law of Unintended Consequences” can you see any potential drawbacks of this innovation that people should think more deeply about?

Part of the challenge of using the word “love” in our society is that it’s used in so many different ways. The way we define it in education is that it is a commitment to facilitating another person’s flourishing.

“Wisdom” is the commitment to applying our knowledge to other people’s flourishing. Wisdom goes beyond knowledge by applying knowledge with love.

The potential unintended consequence is that people misunderstand the meaning of “love.” It doesn’t mean removing all boundaries and letting chaos take over! In fact, it means setting healthy boundaries and providing coaching and constructive feedback to equip students to thrive.

If you try to practice love without wisdom, it doesn’t work. When you bring both love and wisdom to education, students flourish.

What are your “5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started”?

1. There are no great leaders (or great parents, or great teachers). We hear lots of people talk about wanting a “great leader,” and that often looks like an aggressive or dominant personality who draws attention to himself. That’s a distortion, and a function of having the focus on the wrong thing. If we focus on becoming great, we’re missing the point of being a teacher, parent, or leader. It’s not about me; it’s about the people I’m serving. If we are focused on being great, we are losing our focus. We need to stay focused on the right thing — the people we serve.

2 . Cultivate a growth mindset not a fixed mindset. There is so much we don’t know. In the first couple of years in education we’re just trying things out, and the only way to get experience is trying new things, having them not work, and then trying something different. Everything is about growth, not perfection.

3 . Put first things first. Young men in particular are socialized to pursue “success”, and we put ourselves completely into the work we’re doing, to try to ‘make our mark.’ When I first started out, I was a workaholic. I thought about teaching 24/7, and honestly, didn’t give nearly enough energy to my wife and family. I could have lost my marriage, and that would have been devastating. I had to rethink my priorities and make sure I was putting first things first. You can get a lot of kudos from this society by being obsessive about work. But you can also lose a lot. Don’t get so obsessed with your work that you neglect core relationships, because ultimately those are the most important things in your life.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Mother Theresa — “We can’t do great things; we can only do small things with great love.”

We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

I would choose my father. He has Alzheimer’s but is still full of joy and humor. I just got to celebrate his 90th birthday with him!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Podcast:

https://www.vanguard.edu/school-of-education/loveandwisdom

Website link:

https://www.vanguard.edu/about/vunews/posts/~board/news/post/this-is-jeff-hittenberger

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-hittenberger-23b12794/

Thank you so much for these insights! This was so inspiring!