PEDAGOGICAL WABI-SABI:BLUEPRINT FOR DEVELOPING LEARNING INFRASTRUCTURE

INTRODUCTION

Every generation loves to learn. However, our public schooling system has gone as far as it can take us. The abundance of easily accessible information on the internet, coupled with emerging tech like AI, decentralized protocols and bitcoin, means this is our time to innovate our learning infrastructure. A complete overhaul is due along with the development of a pilot program to test new and unconventional models. 

Let’s carve a path towards innovation by sparking discussion around this topic. Hence, this blueprint. It is a gauntlet for any person who genuinely wants to become a stakeholder for our country’s future. Entry points are:

• Builders—Startups, developers and investors who will fund and create infrastructure.

• Practitioners—Educators and researchers who will test models.

• Supporters—Parents, donors and community members who want to contribute.

Where Do We Begin?

Let’s think about crafting the main components of a new pilot model. Below are suggested areas of focus:

• DEFINITION

• APPROACH

• PHILOSOPHY

• CULTURE

• PHYSICAL DESIGN

• OPERATIONAL ORGANIZATION

• ACCOUNTABILITY METHODS

• RISKS & CHALLENGES 

• STYLE

• STAKEHOLDERS

How It Works

After researching your pedagogical ideas for current and future generations of scholars, it’s time to share your insights. Contribute  your viewpoint by structuring a blueprint—one page per section—in the following sequence:

• Definition of your modern learning model with its key principles.

• Description of the core learning approach. 

• Philosophy distilled into central concepts that will orient stakeholders.

• Culture your modern learning model aspires to live by.

• Potential challenges, risks and drawbacks.

• Design of physical spaces and rationale.

• Operational framework detailing adult and child learning organization.

• Accountability methods to ensure skill growth and competency.

• Style development and name of your model.

• Skin in the game, sign your model with your first and last name (unite stakeholders).

Perhaps if enough stakeholders come together, we can begin to actualize a more effective and updated way of learning. This is a challenge meant to separate those willing to engage in discourse, planning and laying foundations from those content to complain from the sidelines.

Why Now and Where Does the Money Come From?

After being a public educator for fifteen years, I learned you will not change the system, the system will change you. It’s time to design and build above and apart from the current model. 2025 is when courageous people step up to the plate and discuss our learning infrastructure. Whether it’s contributing out of the box thinking, modernizing curriculum, investing in startups or creating your own venture; there is no greater time than now. And no greater place than in the USA! 

(By extension, we also create the opportunity to influence our global allies including our neighbors to the North and South.)

“But how!?” Learning Producers is figuring it out by asking not, “how?” but “who?” Who will unite together to develop our learning infrastructure? If you decide you want to participate and join our efforts, share your blueprint as well. For all stakeholders, this is an investment in an untapped market of a new learning economy.

If not, you’re not alone. Some consider this just rhetoric, idealism, or wishful thinking. Additionally, it is unclear how such actions can be profitable or how such infrastructure building will be funded. Money talks. Bullshit walks, right? In that case, let’s talk, and let’s fine tune our BS detectors. Onward, with this call to action:

• Share your own blueprint online or reach out to Learning Producers, Inc. (Learningproducers.com).

• Conduct research on an ideal location and team to lay foundations on a pilot program at small scale.

• Engage in dialogue with investors interested in developing learning infrastructure for their own children and families.

• Secure stakeholders to develop and test a real world pilot model (real location, real agreements, real timeline, real people).

• Sponsor or donate resources to counter concerns over funding.

Now, we leave you with our blueprint:

PEDAGOGICAL WABI-SABI

We hope you enjoy it.

Sincerely,

Israel Hernandez

Founder of Learning Producers

DEFINITION

A modern learning model has four concepts at its core:

1. The learner is a human being with irreducible needs and the environment must prioritize an awareness of facilitating those needs being met.

2. The community, parents, and learners collaborate to establish the needs and wants of their intellectual and physical growth.

3. Groups of adults guide groups of learners in open transparent spaces; the responsibility is shared by cohorts of trusted, accountable partners.

4. The learning experience is enhanced with the availability and use of advanced technology and AI systems to prepare us for challenges of any kind.

The Seven Irreducible Needs of Children according to T. Berry Brazelton M.D. and Stanley I. Greenspan M.D.

1. The Need for Ongoing Nurturing Relationships

2. The Need for Physical Protection, Safety, and Regulation

3. The Need for Experiences Tailored to Individual Differences

4. The Need for Developmentally Appropriate Experiences

5. The Need for Limit Setting, Structure, and Expectations

6. The Need for Stable, Supportive Communities and Cultural Continuity

7. Protecting the Future

Our reasoning for this novel model is expressed by four core principles:

• The health and well-being of adult and child learners is a priority.

• Learners of all ages have unbound potential and a personal destiny to express.

• The learning community sharpens its intellect and strengthens its skills to apply academic ideas to real-world problems.

• Learners demonstrate proficiency on standardized tests and are presented options to attain traditional credentials for further application.

APPROACH

The approach I propose is developed by Dr. George Engel and is today known as the biopsychosocial-technological approach. This is a comprehensive framework for understanding human health and well-being. It recognizes that multiple factors interact and contribute to an individual's overall state of health and functioning. This biopsychosocial-technological approach recognizes the following four interrelated domains: 

• biological factors

• psychological factors

• social factors

• technological factors 

It recognizes that these four domains are interconnected and can influence each other in complex ways. For example, a chronic illness (biological factor) can lead to psychological distress (psychological factor), which may strain interpersonal relationships (social factor) and impact the use of technology for managing the condition (technological factor).

By emphasizing the specific aspects necessary for healthy growth, we increase the likelihood of addressing those needs if necessary before labeling young learners as deficient, problematic, defiant, and so on and so forth.

Allow me to expand with an excerpt from the powerfully insightful book, The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller.

“The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor absence of pain, but vitality—the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings. It is part of the kaleidoscope of life that these feelings are not only happy, beautiful, or good but can reflect the entire range of human experience, including envy, jealousy, rage, disgust, greed, despair, and grief.”

We acknowledge the complexity involved in the well-being of the human learner. We see the person as having a name and a range of natural, healthy, even beautiful emotions. Guided by the biopsychosocial-technological approach we may chart the course for us to reach maximum health, highest potential, and above all: our true self.

PHILOSOPHY

In formulating the philosophy I envision for a modern learning environment I reflected on the following wisdom from surgeon turned best-selling author, Dr. Miguel Ruiz. He says, 

"We will never know what we are. We're as mysterious as life itself. We're as incomprehensible as energy. We're as miraculous as light. We are so much more than words can describe... and so much more than knowledge can explain."

I share these words to illustrate that the unknowns of the unknown eclipse the understanding we currently have. Labels are optional; we’ll focus on replacing what doesn’t work with something that does. This is the foundational idea of what we’ll call our “unknown philosophy”. It is a humble concept, upon which the rest of the philosophy is built.  

How does this fit in the context of designing a new schooling system? (After all, we want learners to be rational.) Well, what I envision for a modern learning environment includes the concept of “skin in the game”, popularized by the great flâneur, Nicholas Nassim Taleb. He has stated, “There is no such thing as ‘rationality’ of a belief, there is rationality of action.” He elaborates on this by sharing,

“How much you truly ‘believe’ in something can only be manifested through what you are willing to risk for it…Recall that skin in the game means that you do not pay attention to what people say, only to what they do, and how much of their neck they are putting on the line.”

Therefore, this is the philosophy in a nutshell:

• The human experience is as mysterious and incomprehensible as the unknown unknowns.

• Rationality is not what you say but what you do.

• We survive in order to take risks in actualizing our potential and possibly collective growth.

• [Customized philosophical principle based on learners and their setting.]

CULTURE

Embracing dynamics is the essence of a modern learning culture. The opposite of static, rigid and authoritarian institutions is the way of the future. Peter Thiel, builder and investor, says, “Bureaucratic hierarchies move slowly, and entrenched interests shy away from risk. In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work.”

Therefore, in modern learning settings, work for work’s sake may be rare occurrences and replaced with learning for the sake of learning. Inevitably, skill practice that leads to mastery will arise and genuine paths of interests will unfold before us.

So how do we foster a dynamic culture in learning environments? We use the adage popular in military and survivalist circles: one is none and two is one. As in, cohorts of educators working with cohorts of scholars. Let’s envision replacing the lone educator trapped in a boxy room with 30 scholars. A shift to at least two full-time educators and one aide is worth exploring. This accomplishes three things:

• Provides transparency within classroom activity—More professionals are present to observe each other, assist when needed and critique when necessary.

• Allows flexibility if one scholar needs additional intervention and or attention.

• Communicates to the young scholars that they have a team of adult professionals they can depend on for their learning needs.

No administrators. Instead, there will be a group of stakeholders that assume responsibility for the operations of the learning campus. This is accomplished with collaborative efforts between parents, educators, and community members.

An app can be developed to hire, evaluate and coordinate educators to work with various rosters of scholars. For example, an educator uploads their picture, bio, past experience and samples of their work (portfolio, online publications, instructional videos, etc.) Parents then review the candidates and approve or reject them to instruct their child. Similarly, parents upload their family values and expectations allowing the educator to opt in or out of working with their children. This increases alignment and harmony instead of blindly trusting bureaucratic agendas.

PHYSICAL DESIGN

One striking design that can be implemented in a future pilot program is the geodesic dome. As a matter of fact, they are already being used as Montessori schools in California and for science laboratories by grammar school kids in the United Kingdom. According to the Buckminster Fuller Institute, 

“The spherical structure of a dome is one of the most efficient interior atmospheres for human dwellings because air and energy are allowed to circulate without obstruction. This enables heating and cooling to occur naturally. Geodesic shelters have been built all around the world in different climates and temperatures and still they have proven to be the most efficient human shelter one can find.” 

A campus of geodesic domes that allow for easy access outdoors and nature learning is far more conducive to healthy growth than what is the norm today. The importance of excellent school design is well reported yet why do we stick to old layouts and insist on keeping children indoors and in their seats for the majority of the day? Modern physical design is hybrid or “Oh, this again?”

With AI and virtual educator networks, “hybrid” doesn’t only mean outdoor/indoor activities but accessing knowledgeable experts via a remote learning portal of some sort. Adults switch from managing classrooms to becoming facilitators of research and exploratory, active skill practice. Such an approach empowers young scholars to engage with the real-world and with the abundance of information and technology available online.

Actualizing such design would increase the likelihood of experiences like growing a garden (building planter boxes, birdhouses, etc.), cleaning litter around the neighborhood, apprenticing in community businesses and so on. The opportunities for real-world feedback improve significantly.

Think about the concept of feng shui and how it focuses not just on what we add to our spaces but what we remove as well. Thus, eliminating administrators means allowing the emergence of a more effective link between scholars, their peers, their educators and the household. Ownership and responsibility becomes continuous and collaborative as opposed to obligatory and hierarchical. With this kind of strengthened connectivity, scholars and their adult networks reflect upon new learning together. Hopefully, empowering the development of lifestyles unique to our values, interests and circumstances.

OPERATIONAL ORGANIZATION

Learning thrives on dynamism. In turn, a pilot program for an innovative, nascent, and modern schooling system involves reconsidering all dynamic aspects of operating a formal learning organization. Let’s begin by focusing on three key areas: language, environment, and scholar-parent-educator relationships.

INSTEAD OF ONLY USING THE WORD:

• School, we say: base, hotspot or headquarters.

• Classroom, we: say forge, dojo, studio, or arena.

• Teacher, we say: educator, coach, learning producer (or adult’s name).

• Student, we say: scholar, learner, (or child’s name).

INSTEAD OF OCCUPYING:

• Rectangular, boxy buildings, we build a large geodesic dome.

• Dull hallways and claustrophobic rooms, we build small geodesic domes.

• Spaces blocked off from nature, we unite indoor & outdoor spaces for nature exploration with tents, sheds & equipment.

INSTEAD OF RELYING ON:

• Bureaucratic red tape, we allow educators to collaborate together and parents choose educators of their choice.

• One educator for each forge, we hire two educators and one aide

• Limited access to learning professionals, we implement a portal to access virtual educators from around the USA.

• Administrators, we let educators and parents coordinate lessons and activities (curriculum and skill practice is based on learner needs and assessment data).

• Human biases and blind trust, we integrate AI into research, brainstorming, and feedback loops.

• Centralized communication and payments, we encourage optionality such as decentralized platforms like Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) for immediate payment via bitcoin and uncensored feedback for participating adults.

• Overtesting in order for test makers to profit, we assess for skill competency and mastery using the countless standardized assessments at our disposal.

• Emphasis on grades, we build artifacts and produce content through intellectual expression learning for the sake of learning.

  ACCOUNTABILITY

Although I am proud of my 15 years as a public educator I acknowledge the reality that there will be no significant innovation from within the system. (Reform is a dead end.) Hence, we are accountable to each other to build from outside and above the system. With emerging tech, the world is a more connected place than before and with more complex systems. We can no longer discover its wonders from only one adult, spending most of the time in one room, studying within a rigid framework. 

Now, I’m aware that bureaucratic red tape can be found everywhere and in some cases is completely unavoidable. However, does this mean we must accept stagnation and raise the white flag on innovating schooling models? Nassim Taleb described it eloquently, “Academia, it’s a business where people are entirely judged by peers. Entirely, this is what causes all the problems we have -bureaucrats, who judges bureaucrats? Other bureaucrats, the boss, etc., it doesn’t work, they start to have meetings…look busy…talk to you on the phone for two hours, write emails…”

Who ought to judge educators then? The clients! Which are the parents and the scholars. Either they are learning skills and applying them or they are not. Therefore, we can cut through to the reality of the progress being made or lack thereof. Better than blindly trusting the admin who are merely following the orders of their admin. 

Effective methods for accountability in a novel schooling model include:

• Transparency of values and learning content delivered by educators using a public profile accessible to community members.

• Focus on data, time spent on skill practice and continuous progress monitoring.

• Demonstrating competency by excelling on standardized tests.  

• Communal evaluations carried out by scholars and their parents using AI as an optional facilitator of feedback loops.

What about unions? Don’t educators need protection? When the working conditions have been established by the parents, educators and community members (including businesses and startups) this is less of a deal breaker. Some of the largest and most powerful teacher unions in the country still find themselves fighting tooth and nail for a “more just” contract every few years. Like clockwork. All while being disrespected, ignored and overwhelmed by their Board of Education. Is that effective? Innovative? Inspiring? Or is it just a pissing contest between bureaucracies, steered by ideological agendas and power plays? Difficult and challenging discussions await those who want to claim themselves as stakeholders.

RISKS AND CHALLENGES 

First, let’s acknowledge that compared to ancient times, we now live in a society with more increasingly complex systems. As a result, we’re more likely to become enslaved as an “employee”. This means sacrificing your freedom of speech and the time you provide unconditionally to your employer. Sure, you might come to comfort your golden handcuffs and that may be the greatest risk of them all. It begs the question: Are we merely preparing scholars and educators to submit to this economic servitude? Or will we empower educators, parents and scholars to do things differently in the real world, independently of bosses and bureaucrats?

Although I am a founder of a learning design startup, natural learning needs no design– it is pure, boundless and never ending. However, an outdated and unsustainable learning infrastructure does exist and is in need of attention. So, let’s use the following guiding questions to keep us on track:

• What are the educator teams doing to demonstrate an awareness of scholars’ needs? (All learning is experienced via groups - no individual educator will bear the sole responsibility for a group of growing scholars.)

• What specific information is prioritized among educators and parents about the aspirations of their children? (Essential considerations are documented and juxtaposed with this framework.)

• What real world problems are being solved important and vital for the families and their communities? (Skin in the game must be demonstrated based on specific events and circumstances.)

Undoubtedly, this will result in blood, sweat and tears. And at times, stressful situations. However, doesn’t this already exist in our current public education system? Real-world experiences demonstrate some stressors are necessary to strengthen human functioning. (Lifting weights and having some heart rate variability for example, are stressors that can promote healthy growth.) With the adage of “no pain, no gain”, drafting a blueprint for what one day could be a new private or public learning model, will come with its share of scorn and ridicule. 

The bottom line is that our greatest challenge is not so much the daunting task of funding and working out the logistics of such an endeavor. Rather, it’s recruiting stakeholders to step up and face the uncertainty of doing what has never been realized.

STYLE

Every generation loves to learn. Despite one of the major concerns of educators today being “behavior issues” or “lack of consequences” among their students, the youth of today are merely embodying the rebellious cowboy archetype of the USA ethos. So why not match that energy? What’s the point of living in a free country if we can’t build freely? Adults must guide the youth but at what point do we stray from being a responsible authority to people who bend the knee to empty suits?

The style I propose is called: Pedagogical Wabi-Sabi. That is, the Japanese concept of embracing the beauty in imperfection, cycles of growth and decay. Acknowledging imperfect reality while building towards our aesthetic ideals. It’s also inspired by the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright who built a masterpiece of an estate called Taliesin. Portions of the home burnt down more than once and each time that happened, he rebuilt it even better than before.

In an interview about his style and approach Wright revealed, “We must come back, to the soil, and try to make something beautiful out of it.” When asked to describe Taliesin, located in Southern Wisconsin, he said,

“[Having] low hills, protruding rock ledgers. The site determined the features and character of the house…I’d like to have architecture appropriate to the Declaration of Independence, to the centerline of our freedom. Architecture that belonged where you see it standing. And was a grace to the landscape instead of a disgrace.”

When asked what he considered his most satisfactory achievement, he responded, “The next one, of course. The next building I build…whatever it is, that will be it.” Mind you the man was around 70 when he stated this. So in that same tradition, the style I put forth is one that embraces imperfection and courageously believes the best is yet to come. 

How does this apply to schooling as a business (vendors, payroll, contracts, etc.)? As a first time founder, one observes the reality of business. That is, that lies will be shared in order to close a deal or secure a contract.  Profit and success ensue but is there a hidden cost we are ignoring? Humans are complex and this is reflected in the increasing complexity of our societal and technological systems. Because of this, Pedagogical Wabi-Sabi is not about changing the world but recognizing our imperfect reality. Accept where it is decaying. Investigate where it can grow. Nurture our human potential—which has never been more ready to be uncovered.

STAKEHOLDERS

The question on innovating a new schooling model is not how but who? Who will be the ones to take on this gauntlet? Mainly, it will be the people who have the capital to invest, hire and build on such an endeavor. For this reason, it’s important for any stakeholder to consider, “In what capacity will I contribute to such an effort?” Will it be through direct financial backing, providing legal counsel, tech support, promoting discourse or donations of resources? (Heck, even moral support is deeply appreciated!)

In the case of Learning Producers, Inc., based out of Chicago, it is a mix of publishing resources toward meeting this objective (such as this blueprint and research published online) as well as eventually financially investing in the logistics of such a pilot program. Additionally, as a founder I’ve positioned myself to focus on using AI to develop our approaches to learning and skill practice. Naturally, that will extend to discussing our country’s infrastructure and ideally to our global partners willing to undertake such cutting edge tinkering.

Who qualifies to be a stakeholder in the building of such a pilot model? For the Pedagogical Wabi-Sabi blueprint we’ve selected the following criteria:

• Accept uncensored and free expression (practice courage)

• Embody the virtues one expounds (demonstrate high agency)

• Honor team members (attack ideas never the person)

• Provide value with honesty and integrity (Does this sound like you?)

• Take action and some risks (it is what we do not say)

• Support building from the ground up (unconventional tinkering)

Stakeholders would work together to navigate:

• Financial Frameworks and Policies

• Develop Tech for Pilot Program Operations

• Regulatory Compliance Pathways and Recruiting Investors and Testers

AFTERWORD

Pedagogical Wabi-Sabi guides a vision where well-being, skill practice, freedom of speech and adventure come together. It’s a signal for a new level of infrastructure. One where we can honor the traditional credentials and assessments of the present while navigating more modern methods of arriving at them.

It is a flag for researching and discussing learning concepts with the public. We hope a community can form around building from the ground up for an increasingly complex world we do not understand. From optionality and upskilling to greater effectiveness and even rehabilitation, a new model is up to us to direct.

If you choose to write your own blueprint or roadmap on this topic, at the very least, it is an exercise in reflecting on acquiring and applying knowledge in our everyday behaviors. Perhaps, it can be distilled into two questions:

• What is most important to you?

• How do you want to see it actualized in your world?

First iteration of this blueprint or one similar awaits in 2026 or beyond. Chicago, Las Vegas, Denver, or a town near you. We’ll be figuring it out.

Thank you for reading.