The Future of Learning Doesn’t Live in Classrooms

Why I’m Starting This Substack and Why You Should Care

Our world needs more Calvins, there are plenty of Susie Derkins’ out and about

Kids aren’t just bored—they’re being broken.

Their joy is smothered beneath busywork. Their curiosity drained by compliance rituals. Their childhood traded for the cold currency of standardized scores. This isn’t education. It’s betrayal dressed in a school uniform.

That’s why this Substack exists.

To make war against the system that did this. To arm parents and rogue educators with tools that actually work. And to gather the few who still believe that learning should feel like fire, not sedation.

This Is Personal

I’ve walked every hallway the system offers—homeschooled, public schooled both in my neighborhood and bussed in to the inner city, private schooled. I trusted the process, played the game, got the degree.

It cost me twenty years of momentum. Twenty years chasing security while my calling atrophied.

You don’t forget that kind of theft.

So no, I’m not here to improve the system. I’m here to see it replaced.

This newsletter is part of a larger mission but will be solely education focused via the two oldest methods of learning: games and stories. Physical play and mental play.

I'm using this in part as a log for my published essays and also to stop repeating myself and actually start building something. Here's where I'll be consolidating the insights that finally shook me free in hopes that even one more person can keep their child from the waste I experienced.

Who This Is For

This is for the parent watching their child fade from a bright rosy-cheeked flame to a guttering and mournful teen already beaten down.

For the teacher who can’t stomach the soul-death another year, uncertain how to wake up the slumping students in the seats and perhaps even equally dismayed by the overeager who make grades and head pats their whole raison d'etre.

For the rebels, the builders, the ones whispering, “There has to be a better way.”

You’re right. There is. But it won’t be handed down. We build it ourselves—brick by hacked brick.

What You’ll Find Here

This isn’t an ivory tower of theories. I aim to make a field manual for insurgents and a place to reference when you move within your own communities. You’ll eventually find:

• Games that teach more thoroughly than textbooks

• Fiction that doesn’t just entertain but awakens your inner explorer

• AI tools to reignite the love of questions and nuanced language use

• DIY curriculums that make learning feel like adventuring as a hero, not chores

• Strategies for unschooling, rewilding, and rebuilding from the roots up

If it’s nontraditional and it works, we’ll talk about it here. And if it threatens the status quo? Even better.

What to Expect

I’ll post once a week, maybe twice. Eventually I'll write a third post for paid subscribers: print-and-play games, downloadables, and build-your-own-quest kits.

Expect essays, not platitudes. Tools, not theories. Provocations, not PR.

Why It Matters

Because the system doesn’t just waste time—it warps souls. It is the source of the great malaise we feel around us in our cities. It manufactures obedience, suppresses gifts, and drains the will to build.

But we can unmake it. One child. One lesson. One liberated mind at a time.

So if you're tired of waiting for permission and ready to start building what’s next?

Let the bureaucrats keep their bells and benchmarks.

We’re here to raise builders. Please. My kids need peers that will challenge them.

With fire, conviction, and a backpack full of games,

Paul