Learning is About Building Mental Models for Interpreting the World

So what are you suggesting we do?

If it is true that the important lessons one should learn in school can be learned in almost any field, we should completely change the way we teach. Specifically, we need to figure out how to better optimize for motivation, instead of content.

Yeah, I always go back and forth on this. 12-16 years is certainly a long
time and much can and should be learned in that time frame. I think it
would be informative to actually write down all of these important lessons
just too see what we're dealing with. After that, do the same with the
essential information. There should be a decent amount of space left over
in that time frame, which gives you the "wiggle room" to redesign the
teaching approach.

I plan to attempt to write down these abstract models. I think the main thing as far as education goes is getting really good at something you enjoy, which school is not good for inspiring. In fact, the synthetic environment causes people to focus on the wrong things--things tangential to learning to deliver real value.

I definitely agree that the synthetic environment of school gets students
focused on the wrong things (e.g., grade chasing) rather than results. I'd
be interested in working on that list with you. I have a feeling it will
turn out quite large and complicated. We should start a wave for this...

If the concepts/models are sufficiently abstract, I don't think it will be too long, and won't be complicated either.
I think the key is to identify a number of them (not necessarily all of them) and show that they come up in a vast array of experiences. This can then be used to justify a completely new perspective on how we educate, which, as I said, is to just allow students to focus on just getting really good at something--anything in fact.

Haha, although I know you love Wave, I just don't spend enough time there. Plus, we can't get other random people involved that might be interested. I'm just going to do a series of posts on them since I write every day on my blog. That'll help me actually do it. You can then comment on those, and submit your own. I can also do posts on anything that comes up in the comments.

Have you heard of Montessori schools? This type of school is catching on in many places in the US. Look them up. They incorporate the type of approach to learning which you explore in this post.

I have heard of them, but I know very little about them. I'll have to study them a bit more closely soon. I'm curious to see how they implement these ideas.