I was attending an out-of-town conference after twenty plus years in education with a friend and colleague, Bryan Hunt. While there was nothing wrong with the speakers at the opening session, I found that I didn’t learn anything new. The topics covered could all be found in books such as How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, Work Hard, Be Nice by Jay Matthews, and others. The presenters were qualified speakers, but I felt sure that I wasn’t the only one in the room who probably already knew the ideas that were conveyed.

So what did I, as Head of Middle/Upper School at a small independent school, do while they were presenting? Instead of sitting there bored, I began to build out slides for my next faculty meeting. I had a tendency over the years of reading books not specifically about education and then applying them to our profession. In this case, I was transferring ideas from Originals by Adam Grant to a presentation for my faculty. I began realizing we have no system to curate books for educators. My faculty are learning about Originals, and I have heard of other faculty learning about The End of Average, What the Best College Teachers Do, Teach Like A Pirate, etc. 

I began to wonder why the average educator was getting an arbitrary slice of how we could improve education. 

Then I had a eureka moment: “Why don’t we have a warehouse of thought leaders' ideas in terms of how they could improve education?” At that point it was an idea with no real plan for implementation.

That evening, I was trying to learn a bit about philosophy. I realized that, even though I was in my mid-forties, I had never really formerly learned anything about the subject. I started reading about Socrates and why he was condemned to death. He was on trial for not worshipping the Athenian gods (which wasn’t a big issue, more of something to say) and “corrupting the minds of Athenian youth” (which was the real issue). I started to think how amazing it was that a man who held no official position in the government or any other institution could be such a threat. He didn’t write papers, give speeches to the masses, or formally organize anyone of anything. All he did was walk around town and ask people questions. It was at that moment that the three pieces of my day came together: 

I was thinking about Socrates and what he would do if he were in my shoes. What would he do, considering the tools of the day, to push education forward? So, in Socratic fashion, I asked myself the following question:

And in that moment, I thought the answer was to start an organization dedicated to making schools better. We will do it by asking questions of thought leaders to offer more effective and meaningful professional development. In honor of that inspiration, we titled ourselves: Socrates - Head of School.

Thanks for reading about our origin. I hope you find our Open Educational Resource helpful in changing leading and learning in your school.

Yours in pursuit of answers,

Mark Engstrom