An Awakening

I spent some time consulting for a non-profit last summer. It was one of the first times I had worked outside of a school-centered environment, with mainly non-teachers. Obviously, the experience was helpful in forming APT, but maybe not in ways you might expect.

Almost everyone I met during my contract had some sort of side business or passion project they were running in addition to their work.  They spoke openly about their ideas, and used the community at their disposal to inform their own paths.

Above all, they seemed excited to simply go out and “do” something.

I thought for a while about the experience as I got farther and farther away from it, moving back into my typical routine of teaching.

What was stopping me from “doing” something? Why was I asking others for permission to follow the path my experience was leading me toward?

I knew I could be doing more with what I had learned over my 15 years in the profession of teaching, and I had to stop waiting for someone to give me an opportunity.

Simple. Useful. Free.

Administration will come and go over our careers, and we need to begin to understand that we need to operate outside of our schools and districts as we seek professional development.

I thought about something simple, something useful, something free.

The next day, I pitched my idea for APT to John, and introduced the idea of the Socratic Oath as our first project.

Our first product

As a kid, I distinctly remember walking into various doctor’s offices. In every room, along with the academic credentials of each doctor, was a framed picture filled with words.  The script varied, and the appearance and size of the picture was rarely uniform, but at the top was always legibly, “The Hippocratic Oath.”

At an early age, and quite subliminally, I was aware that these different doctors were all connected in some way. Regardless of their background and chosen specialty, all of them had prescribed to an overarching set of agreed upon norms.  This promoted confidence in these doctors, and I was more trusting of them as a result.

I wanted to make something for teachers that would boil down the essence of what we do.  Not a series of platitudes, but a contract with our students, their parents, and administration that laid down the fundamental promise of our profession.

I knew however, that this couldn’t come from a single voice.

Our first product was born, and we need you to help us make it.

It needs to start with teachers

Teachers today are kept in smaller and smaller groups.  We are segregated within our departments and buildings, often never even truly communicating with the other schools within our own districts. There is little to no communication that happens between teachers from different schools.

Our goal is to attract a wide variety of teachers that are representative of the diversity in our profession, as a way of creating an ideal, or series of ideals, that define us.

Let’s get out and do something, let’s get out and make something.

Let’s take back control over the direction of our profession.