Former Dubois teacher named executive director of new Springfield education center

A former teacher at Dubois Elementary School and finalist for Illinois Teacher of the Year has been named the executive director of a new education center opening next school year on the former campus of Benedictine University.

Dan Hartman was named Tuesday as the first leader of the Dream Center, a nonprofit that purchased 44,000 square feet of space on the campus in April from a group led by Tony Libri, a former Sangamon County circuit clerk and Republican Party chair.

The nonprofit is led by the Rev. Eric Hansen, pastor of the Destiny Church based in the former Ursuline Academy site on North Sixth Street. Destiny moved into the Ursuline site – also bought from Libri – in March.

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Plans are for the facility to begin classes in the fall with STEM courses and vocational trades such as carpentry, engine repair, HVAC and plumbing being provided. The center is looking to target school-aged children and teenagers from the ages of 6 to 18.

Hartman was a teacher at Dubois for more than six years and at Washington Middle School in 2020-21, leaving District 186 at the end of the school year to pursue other opportunities.

In 2019, he was nominated for Teacher of the Year by the Illinois State Board of Education for his work at Dubois, which he said was influenced by his unusual path to the classroom and his early struggles connecting with the children that he was teaching.

"Once you step foot in a classroom, you find out real quick that it's theory, and a lot of it simply doesn't apply," Hartman said. "So, I scrapped everything. I talked to my principal (Donna Jefferson, who retired two years ago) and said, 'All of the stuff that we picked up through our education is not working.'"

After his conversation with Jefferson, Hartman set out to make his classroom unique and different, something that would engage students and make them enjoy learning again. A lot of those principles are things he plans to bring to the new Dream Center, as Hartman wants his students to apply the information they learn in the classroom to real-life situations.

"It's the confluence of how things went through my own education into the classroom as a learner, then standing in front of the classroom and figuring out that you have to model that learning," Hartman said. "You can't just espouse all your knowledge. You have to facilitate a place for kids to do rather than to just be there and absorb information."

The center plans to have STEM courses at least 2-3 times a week, with Hartman saying the school wants students to have a foundation in the STEM fields that will guide them as they move through the program.

"We have to start with a very bedrock-like foundation," Hartman said. "It's not that we're saying everything is wrong in the public (school) sector, we're saying that after the first year or two, we keep repeating stuff and they're bored. We kill the joy in learning (in) most of public education."

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The nonprofit said the Dream Center is built on Christian principles, with Hartman saying he does want to teach from a Christian world view. He finds that even things that may not have much to do with religion – like math – can fit into this due to his thought that God is a God of order.

"The reality is (that) God is a God of order," Hartman said. "If he is the Creator – and we believe he is – then we can teach from that perspective. Why does math matter? Why does reasoning, logic and order matter? Because it is designed by the Creator to be that way.

"There are certainly going to be questions like that from our students – probably from the interested families – and so what they need to know coming in is that our faith does inform us. Everything we teach and the way we teach it, the onus behind why we want to give kids these opportunities is because we believe that they're designed uniquely by our creator for a specific reason."

While Hansen made clear that he didn't want to be the face of the new facility, he said that Hartman brings a unique perspective on education that made him right for the new role.

"Dan ... was an unconventional learner," Hansen said. "(He) dropped out of school, but eventually went back and got his GED. There are kids that learn differently and a lot of that has to do with hands-on stuff – which is how STEM is primarily taught -- that sometimes doesn't happen in the public school system. It's just another alternative way for young people to learn and to be educated to be useful people in society."

The overall goal for Hartman is to ensure that the Dream Center is a place that fills in some of the gaps he has found through his years in the public school system. Hartman is looking to focus on equipping students with the kind of tools they need to engage in the world around them, by doing things differently than how they typically are done.

"We are pro-education," Hartman said. "We are fans of learning and learners. We are fans and cheerleaders for teachers and for school. What I saw firsthand, getting opportunities that I got because I was shifting the way I was doing (things) in the classroom for my learners, was more of the brokenness.

People are sold on systems of doing things because they call them best practices; they're sold on the buzzwords, the flavor of the day. They're not bad, but when we get caught up on saying the right words to make people happy, we miss the point of what is (in) our kids' hearts. What is in their minds and their passions and how do we bring them out?"

Contact Zach Roth: (217) 899-4338; ZDRoth@gannett.com; @ZacharyRoth13

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Former Dubois teacher named new Springfield education center director