I interviewed Michael Strong who is the Founder of The Socratic Experience, which is an online innovative international school. My previous guest from Ep. 35, Raheen Fatima, is a student at TSE and Michael is her mentor. Michael has 28 years creating innovative K-12 programs and schools, based on Montessori, Socratic, and entrepreneurial principles. His book, The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice summarizes his approach. All of his schools are based on the cultivation of respectful, civil, authentic intellectual dialogue. The Socratic Experience is a secondary school for parents seeking a warm, motivating, high performance virtual educational experience for their children, specializing in creative, intellectual, and entrepreneurial students. Michael says “The foundation of our curriculum focuses on these questions: Who are you? What do you stand for and why?
Michael Strong’s YouTube Channel
The Habit of Thought by Michael Strong
How to Be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport
Quotes
“Gale survey-75% of high school students are unhappy. 1 in 3 students in high school are engaged.”
“Vast majority of students are tuned out and unhappy.”
“We need to form coalitions. The system will not just change. One by one we can push this system in a new direction.”
“Most teachers know that the old system is not working.”
“Getting kids to think independently and authentically about what they believe and why is the whole game.”
“By leading socratic seminars I felt I was liberating prisoners. They were so eager to think and talk.”
“Writing is about 95% thinking. When students have an hour to think about something then they are motivated to write.”
“I describe our curriculum at The Socratic Experience as the conscious development of personal identity like Socrates-’know they self’”
“We use the purpose or Ikigai diagram-What do you Love? What are you good at? What will the world pay for? What does the world need?”
“We want kids to talk about big philosophical worldviews.”
“We want all students to do an entrepreneurial creative project by the time they graduate based on their personal passion. Doing a really impressive project is actually more important than grades and test scores.”
“I began working with a 4 year old and by the time she was 10 years old she was taking a college level Python course and mostly learning it on her own.”
