Good article, this is exactly where my own reading & writing has been lately. A few thoughts:
- Completely agree the storehouse model is inadequate. Curious if you make a distinction between your notion of a transformative learner and constructivism? My initial read was that you are emphasizing certain aspects of constructivism (eg accommodation), but generally agree with the model?
- I believe you imply/touch on this, but worth emphasizing: a key characteristic of such a transformative learner is the ability to hold competing frames without feeling the wrenching need to have an immediate answer. It's important to eventually get to a coherent updated frame, but holding open questions is a very difficult (and perhaps unnatural) intermediate emotional state.
- I like the idea that "the real question is not how to induce transformation in favorable conditions, but how to form a learner who can increasingly undergo transformative learning without them," but I do suspect the path to the latter runs directly through the former. Having a number of transformative learning experiences in different domains & reflecting on what it's like, what it takes, etc may be the path to being a transformative learner. My imagination may just be limited here.
- It's also unclear to me if it's necessarily better to form individual learners who are actively seeking to be transformed OR make the conditions that induce transformative learning more prevalent. The ones you list revolutionary curiosity replacing – motivation and credible end-goal – are important but I tend to believe social norms are dominant/upstream of these things. So it may be better to work on building social groups/cultures with norms that encourage transformative learning. This is why I like the Fractal model so much.
- Aside, but a few days ago I realized that many facets of the Montessori method are geared at building self-regulation, which is basically proto-metacognition in younger pre-reasoning children. Crucially, the prepared environment takes on some of the metacognitive load (determinate curriculum, materials isolate a single concept & provide immediate feedback, teachers model lessons) but as minimally as possible. Not directly relevant to this post, but I have been thinking lately about how we might help children acquire tacit metacognitive know-how to let them generate better internal experience from the same external input, and thought you would appreciate :)
This was lovely. I had so many reactions I'm just now sitting down to drop them here! Here are some thoughts i had, in no particular order
post does a great job of mapping a territory that feels very familiar, and gives lots of fun jargon to play with. also so many great specifics that help map 'near-enemies' of the transformative learner
love the parallel between the idea i had in my substack note and 'revolutionary curiosity'
- I often think of something like 'revolutionary curiosity' as less of a trait and more of a stance that you can become increasingly familiar with across contexts https://substack.com/@sniffthis/note/c-254155508 (this stance may be more or less stable depending on context)
- revolutionary curiosity as something you can embody by actively seeking contexts that threaten your current developmental structure (even in autodidactic learning, it feels that there is an important social dimension here)
one way I am thinking about experts and institutions here is that they function as cognitive prosthetics. they reduce the load on the individual learner to surface anomaly, sequence information, normalize destabilization, and prevent escape into shields or avoidance. the big question for me is what autodidactic learners can internalize from good learning environments so they can more reliably surface anomaly without full institutional support? i find myself trying to do this often in institutions where the pedagogy is a bit meh -- but gosh, it's not easy, and many people don't seem to want to do it
1- whats the split between trait and a familiar stance? Is it more like something that is part of your pattern vs a frame you invoke willingly? I'm very curious what your split is and what your experience/theory is that pushes you to split it this way
2- yes def a social dimension. I wish I had a thousand free hours to write and explore how the social dimension can push you to be frightened of change, vs. one that encourages the exploration. I think of schooled math vs math circles as being good manifestations of storehouse/transformative pedagogy in a way that cultivates the personality. (high social places!)
3-I want to hear ore about this internalization you are trying to do. It seems in a place where the pedagogy is meh, it's impossible! (what of value will you internalize?) but it seems you have something rich in mind here.
feel free to go to DM's if its more convenient, but I love thinking in public too!
wrt ORI: there aren't many exactly like mine in my current branch. some people are doing crazy computation theory stuff (wolfram) that I cannot understand at all. I am currently on track to open a Edu-Ori, that will be more aligned with the immediate domain of learning, child rearing, and the like.
the environment: ORI implicitly accepts the fact that there are hundreds diamonds in the floor and you just need to pick them up. most places assume the storehouse model of humanity AND that academia already has it all figured out. so the idea of research without credentials is absurd to many people, especially if it seems to fit a category of academia. for me that's education or cogsci, for you, I imagine biology and medicine. not having to waste energy explaining that the situation is quite dire, and academic (and/or business) incentives leave many valuable aspects of reality untouched.
Good article, this is exactly where my own reading & writing has been lately. A few thoughts:
- Completely agree the storehouse model is inadequate. Curious if you make a distinction between your notion of a transformative learner and constructivism? My initial read was that you are emphasizing certain aspects of constructivism (eg accommodation), but generally agree with the model?
- I believe you imply/touch on this, but worth emphasizing: a key characteristic of such a transformative learner is the ability to hold competing frames without feeling the wrenching need to have an immediate answer. It's important to eventually get to a coherent updated frame, but holding open questions is a very difficult (and perhaps unnatural) intermediate emotional state.
- I like the idea that "the real question is not how to induce transformation in favorable conditions, but how to form a learner who can increasingly undergo transformative learning without them," but I do suspect the path to the latter runs directly through the former. Having a number of transformative learning experiences in different domains & reflecting on what it's like, what it takes, etc may be the path to being a transformative learner. My imagination may just be limited here.
- It's also unclear to me if it's necessarily better to form individual learners who are actively seeking to be transformed OR make the conditions that induce transformative learning more prevalent. The ones you list revolutionary curiosity replacing – motivation and credible end-goal – are important but I tend to believe social norms are dominant/upstream of these things. So it may be better to work on building social groups/cultures with norms that encourage transformative learning. This is why I like the Fractal model so much.
- Aside, but a few days ago I realized that many facets of the Montessori method are geared at building self-regulation, which is basically proto-metacognition in younger pre-reasoning children. Crucially, the prepared environment takes on some of the metacognitive load (determinate curriculum, materials isolate a single concept & provide immediate feedback, teachers model lessons) but as minimally as possible. Not directly relevant to this post, but I have been thinking lately about how we might help children acquire tacit metacognitive know-how to let them generate better internal experience from the same external input, and thought you would appreciate :)
This was lovely. I had so many reactions I'm just now sitting down to drop them here! Here are some thoughts i had, in no particular order
post does a great job of mapping a territory that feels very familiar, and gives lots of fun jargon to play with. also so many great specifics that help map 'near-enemies' of the transformative learner
love the parallel between the idea i had in my substack note and 'revolutionary curiosity'
- I often think of something like 'revolutionary curiosity' as less of a trait and more of a stance that you can become increasingly familiar with across contexts https://substack.com/@sniffthis/note/c-254155508 (this stance may be more or less stable depending on context)
- revolutionary curiosity as something you can embody by actively seeking contexts that threaten your current developmental structure (even in autodidactic learning, it feels that there is an important social dimension here)
one way I am thinking about experts and institutions here is that they function as cognitive prosthetics. they reduce the load on the individual learner to surface anomaly, sequence information, normalize destabilization, and prevent escape into shields or avoidance. the big question for me is what autodidactic learners can internalize from good learning environments so they can more reliably surface anomaly without full institutional support? i find myself trying to do this often in institutions where the pedagogy is a bit meh -- but gosh, it's not easy, and many people don't seem to want to do it
thoroughly enjoyed this! thanks for sharing :)
first off, thanks for the compliments!
I have a bunch of thoughts:
1- whats the split between trait and a familiar stance? Is it more like something that is part of your pattern vs a frame you invoke willingly? I'm very curious what your split is and what your experience/theory is that pushes you to split it this way
2- yes def a social dimension. I wish I had a thousand free hours to write and explore how the social dimension can push you to be frightened of change, vs. one that encourages the exploration. I think of schooled math vs math circles as being good manifestations of storehouse/transformative pedagogy in a way that cultivates the personality. (high social places!)
3-I want to hear ore about this internalization you are trying to do. It seems in a place where the pedagogy is meh, it's impossible! (what of value will you internalize?) but it seems you have something rich in mind here.
feel free to go to DM's if its more convenient, but I love thinking in public too!
this reminds me of the debate around trauma and memory. the recent op ed by kotler, friston et al. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/systems-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2026.1812957/ where they critique the storehouse model of trauma (which may or may not be a fair characterization of the original book)
very curious about ORI — are there research projects like yours? what about the environment there makes you interested in continuing to write?
I printed this out and will read it.
wrt ORI: there aren't many exactly like mine in my current branch. some people are doing crazy computation theory stuff (wolfram) that I cannot understand at all. I am currently on track to open a Edu-Ori, that will be more aligned with the immediate domain of learning, child rearing, and the like.
the environment: ORI implicitly accepts the fact that there are hundreds diamonds in the floor and you just need to pick them up. most places assume the storehouse model of humanity AND that academia already has it all figured out. so the idea of research without credentials is absurd to many people, especially if it seems to fit a category of academia. for me that's education or cogsci, for you, I imagine biology and medicine. not having to waste energy explaining that the situation is quite dire, and academic (and/or business) incentives leave many valuable aspects of reality untouched.
that's at least what comes to mind off the cuff.