The Countercultural Rhythm of Great Teaching with Carrie Eben

December 25, 2025·43 min·3 clips

How did Carrie Eben's 25-year journey from stumbling upon classical education to co-authoring 'The Good Teacher' redefine what makes a teacher great?

1. Base Camp Live host Davies Owens interviews Carrie Eben, co-author with Dr. Chris Perrin of The Good Teacher: 10 Pedagogical Principles That Will Transform Your Teaching. 2. Eben serves as founding board member of Sager Classical Academy in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and as head mentor for the Searcy Institute's Master Teacher Apprenticeship in the Ozark Mountain region. 3. The episode's central question is what distinguishes good classical teaching from conventional modern pedagogy, and what it takes to cultivate teachers who form rather than merely inform. 4. Eben traces her 25-year path into classical education: she was hired at what she believes was the first classical school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after showing a portfolio that featured hands-on embodied learning including medieval feasting and historical role play. 5. She later homeschooled her own children, teaching formal logic, Latin, and the classics, and describes this as one of the best professional educations she could have received as a classical educator. 6. She co-founded Sager Classical Academy in Siloam Springs, where she found that homeschool mothers made the best teacher candidates because their organic teaching approach aligns naturally with classical methods. 7. Eben and Owens agree that a master's degree in education is often counterproductive for classical schools, because teacher-training programs instill a methodology that directly conflicts with classical pedagogy. 8. The episode draws a sharp contrast between modern public-school teaching — where teachers follow a prescribed curriculum, administer frequent tests, and track children as data points — and classical teaching, where the teacher is the curriculum. 9. Eben cites a specific example: a friend's husband who teaches second grade in a public elementary school and has no freedom to deviate from a mandated testing schedule. 10. She warns that some classical schools are beginning to replicate the same over-structured error by prescribing too much to teachers and eroding their authority as lead learners. 11. The book's title, The Good Teacher, is intentionally not called The Classical Teacher to signal that the principles described are universal rather than tradition-specific. 12. Eben defines pedagogy as the practice of leading out and cultivating a child, connecting the Greek root paed (child) to the Latin educare (to lead out). 13. She argues the central distinction between classical and modern schooling is formation versus information: classical education aims to shape what students become, not just what they know. 14. Eben describes enrolling in Faulkner University's humanities PhD program not to pursue a professorship but to be personally formed by reading the great books. 15. She reports that over five years in the program she has grown substantially, and that her husband has been shaped by the same process through conversations with her. 16. Owens connects this to the classical principle that students become like their teachers — the teacher's own ongoing formation is therefore not a side project but the core of the teaching vocation. 17. The episode notes that classical education has historically done a better job specifying what to teach than how to teach, and that pedagogy remains an underdeveloped area even within classical schools. 18. The episode was recorded around Christmas 2025, with Owens noting that most Base Camp Live episodes are evergreen and can be listened to any time. 19. Sponsors mentioned include Wilson Hill Academy, Life Architects Coaching, the Searcy Institute, the Herzog Foundation, and Zipcast. 20. The episode is best suited for classical educators, classical school administrators, and Christian homeschooling parents who want practical frameworks for evaluating and developing teachers.

As heard by us

A grounded look at teaching that values formation and judgment over test prep.

Base Camp Live asks a plain question with a lot behind it: what makes a good teacher? It treats good teaching as more than delivery. The point is formation, curiosity, confidence, and the teacher as a real guide in the room.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a clearer picture of what a good teacher actually does.

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