About Alan Bandstra

Author and educator Alan Bandstra, with glasses and a beard, smiles and stands next to his yellow vintage school bus outdoors, about an hour before sunset.

Alan Bandstra is a veteran educator, speaker, and author known for blending research, storytelling, and humor to spark meaningful conversations about student behavior, classroom dynamics, and faith-informed education. His relatable style and deep insights equip and encourage audiences ranging from educators to ministry teams.

Drawn to the middle years

Alan Bandstra teaches middle school math and science at Sioux Center Christian School in northwest Iowa. His passion for working with preteens stems from three sources:

  • the delight of quirky adolescent humor

  • the challenge of engaging learners who aren’t naturally drawn to school

  • the desire to support young people through a life stage that was once difficult for him

Two young girls and a man standing behind a table with rocks and labeled samples. The girls are smiling and the man is standing behind them in a classroom setting.
Teacher and four boys gathered around a wooden block, using a level and a hammer during a hands-on classroom activity about construction or engineering.

A student of behavior

Over the course of three decades, Alan has served as a classroom teacher, youth ministry volunteer, and father. These roles have given him a front-row seat to the ways group behavior—especially negative behavior—can spread like an infection.

His ongoing research explores topics such as social contagion, interpersonal neuroscience, self-determination theory, invitational learning theory, care theory, and the drive for status. What began as a practical need to manage classrooms has evolved into a broader quest to understand human motivation and character development.

Book cover titled 'Solutions That Heal: Responding to Infectious Behavior in Learning Spaces' by Alan Bandstra, with cartoonish flowers showing various facial expressions, some smiling and happy, some sad or angry, with roots in soil and a caterpillar at the bottom.

Published February 2025:

How do you manage your classroom when prominent children negatively impact group behavior?

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Shaped by grace

Alan credits his growth to mentors who saw past his childhood mischief and asked better questions about the “why” behind behavior. They modeled a blend of compassion and accountability that has become central to Alan’s approach. “I am a product of grace,” he often says—and his work seeks to extend that grace to others.

Scrabble blocks spelling 'GRACE' with blue and white dried flowers on the left side and some loose flower petals on a white background.

Photo by Alex Shute https://unsplash.com/@faithgiant

Thoughtful storyteller

Colleagues and readers describe Alan as thoughtful and quietly humorous. He’s the kind of person who might be caught reading a book at the shopping center—or wandering the parking lot in search of his car. True to form, he tends to ponder relevant theories before jumping to solutions, and he loves explaining big ideas through stories. His classroom scenarios and writing style often reflect the storytelling cadence he absorbed from his grandfather, a pipe-smoking farmer who loved talking with his cows and watching the corn grow.

A man with gray hair, wearing a red and black plaid shirt and jeans, sitting alone on a wooden picnic table by a pond, looking at the water, with trees and grass in the background.
A group of people outdoors on a grassy field, with one person holding a level and appearing to explain or demonstrate something to the others, including a young girl wearing a purple knit hat and a pink hoodie, a man with glasses and a brown jacket, and a person in a blue jacket.
A group of children and one adult posing outdoors with shovels and tools, on a dirt trail surrounded by green trees under a clear blue sky.

Teaching that transforms

In his teaching, Alan is driven by more than academic achievement. He wants students to care deeply about the world beyond the classroom. That’s why he embraces the Teaching for Transformation (TfT) framework, a model that encourages students to do real work that meets real needs for real people.

Learning that reaches beyond

At Sioux Center Christian School, Alan has helped lead a rich, ongoing partnership with Oak Grove Park. Their collaboration has yielded projects such as :

  • Building and maintaining a mountain biking trail

  • Researching and curbing the spread of invasive species

  • Designing solutions to mitigate destructive erosion

  • Proposing plans for adaptive-friendly mountain biking paths that remove barriers for riders with mobility challenges

Watch a story of student transformation here.

Grace, insight, and impact

Through his teaching, speaking, and writing, Alan Bandstra continues to explore what it means to teach and lead with both insight and empathy—equipping others to do the same.

Contact Alan Bandstra