The School of Compartments vs. the School of Projects

A slightly longer text than usual. But sometimes, it takes time to think differently.

Learning to separate, when we should be learning to connect

What if we stopped learning in silos?

We are taught to follow a program, to memorize books, then to reproduce them.

Subjects are carefully arranged in boxes, as if it were dangerous to mix them. Dangerous like an unpredictable chemical reaction — we fear the explosion, so we separate everything. We progress by discipline, by level, in very linear steps. We become ‘good at math’, ‘average in history’, ‘not very literary’.

As if these compartments were watertight, and it was better they remained so.

But reality doesn’t work that way.

In real life, you need to mobilize multiple skills to complete a project — and often, you don’t have them all. So we hire people, then people to manage these people, then others to manage the managers. The terms ‘overhead’, ‘silos’, ‘cross-functional processes’… do they ring a bell?

Sometimes, we call on experts. Because they know. Because they master a skill that seems essential to the completion of the project. But here too, the silos persist.

There’s a silent tension between this school of compartments and the world once school is over. A tension that many feel without really being able to name it. We don’t know — because we haven’t been taught to know differently.

At 20, we’re thirsty for knowledge.

At 30, we start to understand that our basic studies are not enough.

At 40, we realize we’ll never know everything.

And at 50… we understand that it may no longer be time to learn everything.

But that there might still be room to learn differently.

So we go back to training. We do a bachelor’s, one or more master’s degrees, CAS, a doctorate, an MBA. We can. It takes time, it’s expensive. We come out with a title, sometimes even with some certainties. But also with knowledge that often has never been put to the test. And this silent question, deep down: what to do with it now?

Doing your first project at 5 years old

What if learning didn’t start with learning to write, but with learning to carry out a project?

A real project, chosen, driven by what truly motivates us.

We could imagine a kindergarten child who wants to build a hut. To do this, they will have to draw, count the number of elements, collaborate with their classmates, and present their hut to the class. They won’t learn geometry, writing, or oral expression ‘separately’. They will discover them because they need them, for a very specific purpose. For something useful and concrete.

You might retort: how can they learn to write by building a hut? Well, they’ll need a name — or maybe a sign for their hut. This is where the true usefulness of writing comes in. Grammar rules and spelling? It’s better to know how to write your sign correctly to remain credible.

This is just an example to illustrate a different approach. What the classical system presents as isolated disciplines becomes here a logical sequence of knowledge and skills — and above all, things applied with a purpose. A grammar rule has no purpose in itself, just like knowing how to do division, integrals, or derivatives.

This is not a rejection of fundamentals. It’s another access route: driven by a purpose, by motivation, a real desire — and not a duty. Learning through projects is not about doing peripheral activities. It’s a way of bringing out the necessity of knowledge. We don’t add knowledge on top: we learn what is necessary because we need it.

It’s a different mindset.

I knew how to be good at school. Top of the class, when it made sense. But I could also become very stupid when there was no purpose to a subject — or at least no direct connection. I’ve always liked the concrete. And yet, as a teenager, I also liked psychology and philosophy.

In compulsory education, I went through all the branches: scientific, technical, economic… And I would have changed many more times if I could have. Out of curiosity. And especially because, without a purpose, I would have wanted to know everything.

But the school didn’t see it that way. Like everyone else, I was put in a box.

So I put more energy into my personal projects — and just the minimum to maintain an average grade. Not a tenth more if possible, as I considered that a waste of energy and time.

Originally, I wanted to become a rally car mechanic. But due to circumstances, I took a different path — and ended up in an apprenticeship as a polymechanic.

And finally, it’s the only school that made sense to me. Because after every effort behind my lathe or my CNC machine, I obtained something concrete: a mechanical part with a real purpose. I was good because there was relatively little superfluous work. It’s also during this time that I decided to write correctly, because a poorly presented internship report, both in form and content, was not conceivable.

I wanted to become a sound engineer. At 13, I was already tinkering with equipment, passionate about music and technology. I spent nights, months, years training myself, experimenting. But I was discouraged: few job opportunities, low salaries, risky career path. So I learned on my own — and, without realizing it, I ended up acquiring all the skills.

I then reoriented myself towards an engineering school, because it seemed that engineers earned a better living — and because my father wanted me to be an engineer. Deep down, I knew nothing about it. But I also knew that I wasn’t going to spend my life doing turning and milling.

So I spent a few years learning abstract math, doing physics experiments that I still don’t know how they’ll serve me in life.

But it was fun.

The only two things that really interested me during this period: computer programming — which I was already practicing before the end of compulsory school, to the point of sometimes knowing more than the course — and music: I calculated musical signals, programmed software to make and process sound.

And one day, I had an engineering degree. Great. It at least allowed me to negotiate a better salary — in a field that had absolutely nothing to do with what I had studied. I became a research and development engineer and project manager in a completely different sector.

Then, I stopped school. And I didn’t want to hear about school anymore. I still don’t want to today.

And yet, that didn’t stop me from learning — and especially, from deeply applying subjects like project management, business analysis, strategy, marketing, communication, finance, leadership, management, and law.

Not by studying them in principle, but by activating them, project after project, until they became reflexes — tools that naturally engage when the situation calls for it, like facilitation, which has become second nature over time.

Give Me My School

Learning is not accumulating. It’s connecting, choosing, projecting.

If I had to do this journey again, would I make the same choices? No. Clearly no. Would my choices have been better? Maybe. Maybe not.

What I take from this is that you don’t become more competent by adding boxes, but by approaching things from a different angle. The angle of the concrete. The practical. The pragmatic. The one that limits the waste of time, energy, and meaning. That of utility. Of purpose. And therefore, of effectiveness.

Learning is not accumulating. It’s connecting. Bringing out motivations. Passions that lead to action.

Project comes from the Latin proicere — “to throw forward”. And perhaps the school of tomorrow will be the one that teaches us to launch. Not to repeat.

— Breaches Structures

A field of tension, architecture, and freedom.

#ProjectBasedLearning #EducationalInnovation #TransversalSkills #EducationTransformation #GapsAndStructures