Click HERE to read Blog 2: The Third Wave of Education – Why Schools Must Embrace Brain-Based Learning or Be Left Behind
Lars Kolind’s The Second Cycle: Winning the War Against Bureaucracy remains one of my most impactful reads. In it, he describes how organizations become tone-deaf—blindly following outdated structures and traditions, unable to hear the changing needs of the people they serve.
Education is no different.
Schools, trapped in the first cycle, are obsessed with curricula, standardized testing, and bureaucratic control—ignoring how the brain actually learns.
🚨 The warning signs are everywhere:
❌ Disengaged learners, memorizing for tests rather than understanding.
❌ Overwhelmed teachers, forced to follow rigid policies rather than facilitate thinking.
❌ A system that measures success by compliance rather than problem-solving.
Yet, the system remains tone-deaf to the urgent need for transformation.
Is There a Way Out?
Brain-based learning provide an approach that challenges this stagnation, offering a second cycle for education—one that reconnects learning with thinking, much like how Kolind advocates for organizations to rediscover their purpose and agility.
But first, we must understand what’s wrong with the first cycle of education.
The First Cycle: When Schools Stop Listening
Kolind describes the first cycle as the natural growth phase of an organization. Initially, schools had a clear purpose—to prepare young minds for the complexity of life.
But as the system expanded, the focus shifted from learning to management.
What started as a mission to educate has devolved into a bureaucratic machine, focused on efficiency of the system, rather than meaningful learning.
Symptoms of First-Cycle Education
✅ Rigid teaching structures – Teachers are evaluated based on lesson compliance rather than learner thinking outcomes.
✅ Siloed knowledge – Math, science, and languages are taught as isolated subjects, even though real-world learning is interconnected.
✅ Overemphasis on memorization – Standardized testing forces learners to cram for exams rather than develop transferable cognitive skills.
✅ Passive learning culture – Learners are expected to receive information, rather than actively construct and apply knowledge.
This tone-deaf approach to education ignores the realities of modern learning, where adaptability, problem-solving, and creativity are far more valuable than rote memorization.
The Second Cycle: A Thinking Revolution
Kolind argues that to escape bureaucracy, organizations must enter the second cycle—a reinvention based on agility, purpose, and engagement.
Education needs this transformation. The first cycle’s outdated structures must give way to a second cycle that embraces the brain’s natural learning processes. Brain-based learning provide the framework for this shift, moving from compliance-driven education to learner-driven thinking.
2. From Passive to Active Learning
🚀 Traditional: Teachers lecture, one-directional communications = 50% communication which nullifies communication
🚀 Learners are supposed to listen but their minds wander
✅ Second Cycle: Brain-based learning allow learners to organize their own learning, making them active participants.
3. From Standardized Testing to Real-World Thinking
🚀 Traditional: Exams focus on short-term recall summative assessment rather than long-term understanding.
✅ Second Cycle: Empower learners with thinking skills = life skills and achieve long term understanding,
just recalling isolated facts.
4. From Siloed Subjects to Interconnected Thinking
🚀 Traditional: Subjects are taught separately, with little connection between disciplines.
✅ Second Cycle: Brain-based learning help learners recognize patterns across subjects.
✅ Knowledge becomes transferable, rather than isolated to a single subject.
5. From Teacher Overload to Teaching Fulfilment
🚀 Traditional: Teachers are forced to deliver content, with little flexibility.
✅ Second Cycle: Teachers facilitate structured thinking, rather than just delivering information.
✅ Learners take ownership of their learning.
6. The Urgency for Change: Stop Being Tone-Deaf to Learning
Kolind warns that organizations stuck in the first cycle will collapse under their own rigidity. Education is no different.
❌ Learner disengagement is rising.
❌ Teachers are burning out at unprecedented rates.
❌ Graduates are leaving school unprepared for real-world complexity.
Yet, despite this, the education system remains tone-deaf—clinging to outdated methods rather than embracing the thinking revolution.
Brain-based learning offer a way out—a shift into the second cycle of learning, where learners become thinkers, not just learners.
The real question is:
🚀 Will schools wake up in time, or will they continue marching to the bureaucratic drumbeat of the past?
Coming Next in This Series: The Burning Platform for Change
🔥 Why schools resist change until a crisis forces them to—and how we can accelerate transformation. Stay tuned!
