The Factory Model of Learning
How industrial-era education systems shape our minds and limit our potential.
We too often treat education as a personal milestone or a credentialing process. From the outside, it looks like progress: test scores, diplomas, degrees, résumés. But education is also one of the most powerful systems of social conditioning we encounter. It shapes how we think, how we relate to authority, and how we see ourselves in the world. In doing so, it offers both a path of liberation and a set of subtle constraints that follow us long after we leave school.
Like the family systems I’ve explored before, education becomes part of our invisible architecture of identity. The messages we absorb about intelligence, worth, and possibility influence our academic performance and become foundational beliefs about who we are and what we’re capable of becoming.
A system we all inhabit
The education system is one of the few that touches nearly everyone, yet we rarely talk about what it means to live inside it, to absorb its norms, internalize its labels, and carry its logic into our adult identities. For many of us, the education system is the first institutional system we experience outside the family. It sets the tone for how we navigate other systems: corporate, civic, and religious1.
Those early school experiences introduce us to institutional life in profound ways. Sit in rows. Raise your hand. Wait your turn. Follow the schedule. These are classroom management techniques, but they’re also lessons in how to exist within systems that value order, compliance, and measurable achievement above almost everything else. We learn to be students, which means learning to navigate structures that will shape how we approach authority, rules, and expectations throughout our lives.
Educational institutions signal social value as much as they deliver content. They define what kind of knowledge matters, who is seen as gifted, and which behaviors deserve praise or discipline. This isn’t incidental. It’s systemic (there’s that word again). Schools are sites of both learning and sorting, and tools for social reproduction and social mobility, often simultaneously2. For example, the student labeled ‘college-bound’ receives different opportunities than the one directed toward ‘vocational training,’ regardless of their actual interests or potential.
What strikes me most about educational systems is how they create hierarchies of knowledge. Academic learning ranks above practical wisdom, theoretical knowledge often outweighs experiential understanding, and abstract thinking is typically valued over emotional intelligence or creative expression. This approach reflects the values and needs of the broader economic and social systems that education serves.
The industrial origins of modern schooling
To understand why our educational systems function as they do, we need to examine their historical roots. The model of mass public education that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was explicitly designed to serve industrial needs. John D. Rockefeller and other industrialists saw education as a way to create compliant workers who could follow instructions, work in teams, and accept hierarchical authority3.
The General Education Board, funded by Rockefeller, stated in 1906: “In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand”4. This framing wasn’t about developing human potential. It was instead about creating a workforce that could serve industrial capitalism. The factory model of education, with its emphasis on standardization, efficiency, and obedience, directly reflected the needs of factory production.
Normal schools emerged during this period to train teachers in these standardized methods, ensuring that the industrial model would be replicated across the country5. The goal was to create a “reliable, reproducible, and uniform workforce” for newly industrialized economies, and to do so, ‘normalized’ standards of education were required6. This approach treated education as a manufacturing process, with students as raw materials to be shaped into finished products according to predetermined specifications.
These industrial-era assumptions persist in modern education despite dramatic changes in our economy and society. We still organize learning around age-based cohorts, standardized curricula, and external assessment, even though we know these approaches often limit rather than enhance human development.
The hidden curriculum of conformity
Beyond mathematics and literature lies what sociologists call the hidden curriculum, or the unspoken lessons that may matter more than any textbook. Some argue that schools transmit not only academic knowledge but also cultural capital —the norms, habits, and dispositions of the dominant class7. What’s rewarded in school, punctuality, deference, compliance, particular forms of expression, often mirrors what’s valued in traditional workplace hierarchies.
This hidden curriculum teaches students how to navigate institutional power, while also subtly conveying their place in the hierarchy. A student who learns they are “not creative” or discovers that their way of expressing ideas doesn’t fit academic norms doesn’t just struggle with specific subjects; they internalize a broader story about their capabilities and future potential8. These scripts, once learned, prove remarkably difficult to unlearn.
The tracking systems in schools, the social hierarchy of honors classes, remedial programs, and gifted and talented initiatives create separate and unequal educational experiences. Students internalize not just different content but different expectations about what they’re capable of achieving. Research consistently shows that teacher expectations significantly influence student outcomes, creating self-fulfilling prophecies that can limit or expand a young person’s sense of possibility9.
Sir Ken Robinson, whose TED talk Do Schools Kill Creativity? became one of the most watched presentations in TED history, argued that our education systems systematically diminish children’s natural creativity10. He observed that we educate people out of their creative capacities by privileging certain types of intelligence while stigmatizing others. Children enter school as natural learners, curious and unafraid of being wrong, but gradually learn to conform to narrow definitions of success.
I see this pattern clearly in many of my university students today. Many arrive with deep fears of failure and limited belief in their own creative abilities. They’ve been taught that there are ‘right’ answers and that making mistakes is something to avoid rather than embrace as part of learning. This creates what I call a learned helplessness around creativity, where students who have internalized the message that they’re ‘not creative people’ simply because their forms of creative expression don’t match traditional academic expectations.
The most common example I see is students who limit the concept of creativity to artistic expression, and somewhere along the way, a teacher says something like, “That’s a cow?” or “Isn’t the sky supposed to be blue? It looks a little green here.” becomes internalized, creating for the student a self-perception that they are not creative because they haven’t practiced drawing cows, or see the sky as a greener shade of blue. Creativity is something that is learned and practiced, and can be expressed in so many different ways that go beyond art. If creativity is not nurtured, it does not flourish within a student.
When systems exclude diverse ways of knowing
Not all learning happens in classrooms, and not all classrooms honor the full spectrum of human intelligence. What we learn at home, in community centers, on the job, or through cultural experiences (informal education), often has a more lasting impact than textbook knowledge. Yet formal systems rarely value this kind of learning. Degrees often outweigh lived experience. Credentials matter more than context11.
This dynamic reinforces systemic inequity while diminishing our collective wisdom. It ensures that those who’ve had access to traditional education are validated, while those who’ve navigated alternative paths must constantly prove their worth. Education systems become systems of recognition, but not always of understanding. They celebrate quantifiable achievement while often ignoring qualitative wisdom.
My own path illustrates this tension. I built a successful career through practical experience as an entrepreneur, learning to navigate complex organizational challenges, developing leadership skills through trial and error, and accumulating deep knowledge about how systems function in the real world. Along the way, I failed often as an entrepreneur, and those failures taught me more about resilience, adaptation, and innovation than any textbook could have. Yet it wasn’t until I returned to formal education later in life, earning my BBA in Entrepreneurship and Small Business, followed by my Master of Entrepreneurship, and finally my Doctorate in Organization Development and Change, that this knowledge gained academic legitimacy. What’s interesting is that many institutions value the mix of practical experience and education. In my case, it was the experience that put me over the top. The academic credentials alone probably would not have helped me land a job in academia.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I had decades of practical expertise as an entrepreneur and in organizational dynamics, yet the credential-focused system required me to translate this experience into academic language and frameworks to be fully recognized. While my formal education certainly deepened my understanding and introduced me to valuable theoretical concepts, it also highlighted how we often undervalue the learning that happens outside institutional walls.
Before returning to my academic journey, I also discovered that I had ADD, a diagnosis that came in my mid-40s and explained many of my earlier struggles with traditional educational approaches. Topics that didn’t capture my interest had always been challenging because my learning style didn’t align with conventional teaching methods; it had nothing to do with my intelligence. I cannot tell you how many times I heard that I “needed to apply myself.” Apply myself to what? The standards of learning that were expected of me?
It took me a long time to learn that “applying myself” meant to me that I had to learn how I learned, which was something that I couldn’t do until I was experiencing life and workplace situations. The experiential nature of learning was key for me. This revelation reinforced my understanding of how educational systems often fail to support students whose minds work differently.
The standardization of education, while perhaps necessary for managing large-scale systems, often flattens the beautiful diversity of how humans learn and express knowledge. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences reminds us that people possess different kinds of cognitive strengths, being, linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic12. Yet most educational systems privilege only the first two, leaving millions of students feeling inadequate or unsuccessful.
The creativity crisis in education
Perhaps nowhere is the narrowness of educational systems more evident than in how we approach creativity. Robinson argued that creativity should be treated with the same status as literacy in education, yet our systems consistently undervalue creative expression, creating a hierarchy of subjects with mathematics and languages at the top, humanities in the middle, and the arts at the bottom13
This hierarchy sends clear messages about what kinds of intelligence matter. Students learn early that creative pursuits are less valuable than analytical ones, that artistic expression is a luxury rather than a necessity, and that real intelligence looks like performance on standardized tests. The result is what researchers call a creativity crisis, with declining scores on tests of creative thinking despite rising IQ scores14.
I witness this crisis daily in many of my social entrepreneurship and related courses. Students arrive with brilliant ideas for addressing social problems but struggle to trust their own creative instincts. Most have been trained to look for the right answer rather than explore multiple possibilities. Many seem to fear proposing solutions that ‘authority figures’ haven’t validated. This learned helplessness around creativity limits not just individual potential but our collective capacity to address complex social challenges.
This contradiction is interesting, don’t you think? We face unprecedented global challenges that require innovative thinking, yet we’re systematically educating creativity out of the very people we need to solve these problems. Climate change, inequality, and technological disruption are all issues that demand the kind of creative, systems-level thinking that traditional education often discourages.
Moments of transformation beyond the syllabus
Some of the most transformative learning happens outside sanctioned syllabi. A teacher who sees potential when others see only problems. A book that challenges inherited beliefs and opens new worlds of possibility. A workshop or dialogue that reframes a personal story and creates space for growth. These moments spark the most meaningful development, but they never appear on a transcript15.
As an assistant professor teaching social entrepreneurship, systems thinking, and related courses, I strive to create space for these transformative moments in my classroom. I’ve learned that the most powerful learning often occurs when students connect academic concepts to their lived experiences, when they’re encouraged to question assumptions rather than memorize answers, and when diverse perspectives are not just tolerated but actively sought out.
In my courses, I watch students wrestle with fundamental questions about how change happens in the world. I incorporate Organization Development and Change principles throughout my teaching, helping students understand that creating social impact requires both analytical thinking and emotional intelligence, both individual agency and systems awareness. These moments of integration, where theory meets experience and students begin to see themselves as capable change agents, often produce the deepest insights.
What I find most rewarding is watching students rediscover their creative capacities. When I create assignments that require them to design innovative solutions to social problems, to think systemically about complex challenges, or to reflect on their own experiences as sources of wisdom, something shifts. They begin to trust their own thinking, and many begin to see failure as feedback rather than judgment. They recognize that their unique perspectives and experiences are assets in the world, not liabilities. And quite often, there is no right answer.
The paradox of liberation and control
Education is never neutral. It either serves to domesticate and control, or to liberate and empower16. This is the fundamental paradox: we enter education seeking empowerment, but are often taught conformity. We’re invited and encouraged to think critically, but often penalized when our questions disrupt the existing order.
Education can unlock potential or reinforce limitations. It can teach us to challenge the status quo or to accept it quietly. The outcome depends not only on the curriculum but on the intent and structure of the system that delivers it. When education systems prioritize compliance over curiosity, standardization over creativity, and competition over collaboration, they may produce graduates who are technically skilled but intellectually passive.
This tension becomes particularly visible during moments of social change. Educational institutions often resist transformation, clinging to traditional approaches even when evidence suggests more effective alternatives. The slow adoption of innovative pedagogies, the persistence of lecture-based teaching despite research on active learning, and the resistance to addressing systemic inequities all reflect this conservative tendency.
Yet education also contains within it the seeds of transformation. When students learn to think critically, they may begin questioning the very systems that educated them. When diverse perspectives are welcomed, dominant narratives get challenged. When creativity is nurtured, new possibilities emerge. As James Baldwin shared, “The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.17” The most powerful educational experiences create learning that transforms both students and systems18.
Reimagining what education means
I think most of us would agree that education is far broader than schooling. Real education happens whenever we encounter ideas that challenge our assumptions, experiences that expand our empathy, or skills that increase our agency in the world.
The most meaningful learning often occurs in spaces that don’t call themselves educational at all. Community organizing teaches systems thinking and collective action, and parenting develops emotional intelligence and patience. Building a business creates understanding of risk, resilience, and adaptation, and failure in that business (or in life) builds wisdom that no textbook can provide. These experiences shape us as deeply as any formal curriculum, yet credential-focused systems rarely value them.
This broader understanding of education has implications for how we might reimagine formal schooling. What if schools prioritized emotional learning alongside academic achievement? What if they honored different ways of knowing and expressing intelligence? What if they prepared students not just for economic productivity but for civic engagement, creative expression, and personal fulfillment?
Some educational innovations point toward these possibilities. Project-based learning connects academic content to real-world problems, while social-emotional learning curricula help students develop interpersonal skills and self-awareness. Restorative justice practices in schools create opportunities for healing and growth, rather than relying on punishment. These approaches suggest that education can serve human development more completely.
And I argue it’s time to get started.
Reflections on the Journey
As someone shaped by both traditional education and its alternatives, I carry a complicated relationship with schooling. I’ve been the student who struggled with subjects that didn’t capture my interest and the adult who found success outside conventional academic paths. I’ve experienced education as both limitation and liberation, sometimes simultaneously. What I’m learning is that education doesn’t end with a degree, it begins when we start to see how we’ve been shaped and ask what kind of learning we need to reclaim.
My journey back to formal education later in life taught me something unexpected: the value wasn’t just in the knowledge I gained, but in the recognition of knowledge I already possessed. The doctoral process forced me to articulate insights I’d developed through decades of practical experience, creating bridges between lived experience and academic theory that enriched both.
Now, working with students, I’m constantly reminded of education’s dual nature. I see bright minds hungry for knowledge, but I also see the subtle ways the system has shaped their expectations about learning, success, and their own capabilities. Part of my job is helping them unlearn these limiting beliefs while developing the knowledge and skills they need to create positive change in the world.
I’m struck by how educational experiences mirror other systemic patterns I’ve explored in previous articles. Like family systems, schools create roles and expectations that can either expand or limit our sense of possibility. Like workplace cultures, they reward certain behaviors while discouraging others. Like communities, they can foster belonging or exclusion based on how well individuals fit dominant norms.
The questions I continue to ask myself are:
How do the industrial-era assumptions embedded in our educational systems limit human potential?
What would education look like if it were designed to nurture creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence rather than compliance?
How can we help students develop healthy relationships with failure and risk-taking?
What forms of knowledge and wisdom do we systematically undervalue, and how might we better honor diverse ways of knowing?
Our systems need reimagining, but so do our definitions of what it means to be educated. Real learning invites us not just to perform knowledge but to transform ourselves and the world around us. Education at its best fosters critical thinkers, creative problem solvers, and engaged citizens who see themselves as capable of making meaningful change. That’s the kind of education worth building systems for, and it’s the kind that honors the full complexity of who we are and who we might become.
P.S. If you’ve made it this far, consider checking out this video from 17 years ago, about how students were changing. For the most part, the environment has remained the same.
Hugh Mehan, “Understanding Inequality in Schools: The Contribution of Interpretive Studies,” Sociology of Education 65, no. 1 (1992): 1–20, https://doi.org/10.2307/2112689.
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling In Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life (Chicago, Ill: Haymarket Books, 2011).
Frederick Taylor Gates, The Country School of To-Morrow (New York City, General Education Board, 1913), http://archive.org/details/countryschooloft00gates.
Gates, p 6.
Wendy A Patterson, “From 1871 to 2021: A Short History of Education in the United States,” December 8, 2021, https://suny.buffalostate.edu/news/1871-2021-short-history-education-united-states.
Patterson, para 6.
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (New Haven, Conn., London: Yale University Press, 2005).
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development (Carmarthen: Crown House Publishing, 2003).
“Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Video, TED Talk, February 2006, https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity.
Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, 1st ed. (Harper & Row, 1972).
Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011).
Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 2016).
KyungHee Kim, “The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking,” Creativity Research Journal 23, no. 4 (October 1, 2011): 285–95, https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2011.627805.
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994).
Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).
James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers” (Speech, Miami Dade College, October 16, 1963), para 2, https://sunypoly.edu/sites/default/files/baldwin_atalktoteachers.pdf.
hooks, Teaching to Transgress.
My parents instilled in me some of the things created in this semantic. To our own peril and success we’ve created a paradox in education that challenges us to put new wine into new wine skins. Change for the sake of change is not a good route, but those who refuse to change is an even greater travesty.
Thank you for every word you wrote here.