Getting Comfortable Not Knowing: The Case for Emergent Learning

by Dan Meadow

I recently listened to an interview with author and professor of creative writing, George Saunders, in which he described writing as a process of not quite knowing what you’re doing, but proceeding anyway—making a move, reacting to it, revising, and slowly discovering what the piece wants to become. He had my attention, not because it was novel, but because it was so familiar. It is how so many meaningful processes in everyday life unfold, whether we are writing a story, building a table, learning to cook, or trying to understand anotherperson. We begin with a hunch, we act, we notice, we adjust.

And yet, in school, this way of learning is often the exception rather than the rule.

Many educational environments are not designed to support emergent learning. Quite the opposite. They are structured around predetermined outcomes, linear progressions, and narrow definitions of success. There are reasons for this. Structure matters. Skills matter. But when structure becomes the whole story, we risk losing something essential: the learner’s relationship to curiosity itself.

Learning That Begins Within

Learning can rarely be delivered in a neat package. It’s a pursuit. Questions lead to more questions. Interests branch and re-branch. There is no clear roadmap, but there can be momentum.

Emergent learning builds on these premises. It begins with curiosity, with a question or an interest, and unfolds through interaction with the world. It is not aimless, but it is open. It allows for direction without demanding a fixed destination.

This kind of learning naturally leans toward complex, higher-order thinking. When a learner is invested—genuinely invested—they analyze, they synthesize, they evaluate, often without being prompted to do so. They are often braver and more confident in their abilities than they are in more traditional academic environments. They are not completing a task; they are engaged in a process.

Redefining Success

To support this kind of learning, we have to expand our definition of success. In an emergent framework, success is not limited to arriving at the “right” answer. It includes the unexpected outcome, the failed attempt, the abandoned plan that led to a better one.

This requires a level of psychological safety that is not always present in traditional settings. Students need to feel that they can try something, realize it isn’t working, and change course without penalty. That they can not know, and still be moving in the right direction.

In this sense, failure is not a detour from learning—it is one of its primary mechanisms.

The Skills We Say We Value

We often talk about wanting students to develop skills like problem solving, flexibility, collaboration, and executive functioning. Emergent learning does not sidestep these skills; it creates authentic conditions for them to develop.

When a learner is pursuing an open-ended project, they are constantly making and revising plans. They are deciding what to try next, reflecting on what worked, and adjusting accordingly. They are improvising. They are collaborating, whether with peers, adults, or the broader environment.

This is executive functioning in action—not as an abstract skill set, but as something lived and practiced.

Importantly, open-ended does not mean unstructured. Planning still matters. Reflection still matters. The difference is that these processes arise organically from the work itself, rather than being imposed from the outside.

You’re Already Doing This

It is easy to think of emergent learning as something that belongs in progressive classrooms or specialized programs. But the reality is that most of us engage in emergent learning all the time.

A child becomes interested in insects and backyard wildlife. Suddenly, there are questions: What is this one? Why does it move like that? That curiosity leads to observation, maybe to a book, maybe to drawing, maybe to building a small habitat. Along the way, there is reading, writing, hypothesizing, experimenting.

Or consider a family cooking together. A recipe is followed loosely, then modified. Something doesn’t turn out as expected. Adjustments are made next time. There are conversations about measurement, timing, taste. No one calls it a lesson, but learning is happening.

In shared family spaces—the living room, the garage, the yard, the playground—multiple streams of interest can coexist. One child is building, another is drawing, someone else is asking questions about how something works. These are not distractions from learning. They are learning.

For Caregivers and Educators

One of the advantages of emergent learning is that it shifts the role of the adult. Instead of being the sole source of knowledge, the adult becomes a collaborator, a guide, a co-investigator.

This does not mean stepping back entirely. It means being present in a different way.

It might look like:

• Noticing an interest and helping to name it

• Asking questions that deepen thinking rather than close it down

• Making resources available—books, materials, experiences

• Joining in the process, not to direct it, but to participate

It also means modeling. Letting children see you try something new, struggle with it, adjust, and continue. Letting them see that learning is not something we outgrow.

Breaking Out of the Rut

Even curiosity can fall into patterns. We all develop habits around what we pay attention to and how we engage. Emergent learning can help disrupt those patterns.

By following one interest deeply, we often stumble into others. A fascination with basketball might lead to statistics, to writing, to history, to physics. A love of drawing might connect to storytelling, to observation, to geometry.

When learning is allowed to branch in this way, it becomes both broader and more integrated. It becomes a rich web in which every bit of knowledge and ability are interconnected. 

The Bottom Line

Life rarely presents us with clear instructions. More often, it asks us to notice, to try, to reflect, and to try again. If we want young people to be prepared for that reality, we have to give them opportunities to practice it.

This does not require abandoning structure or curriculum. It requires making space within them. Space for questions that don’t have immediate answers. Space for projects that evolve. Space for not knowing.

We are already wired for this kind of learning. The task, for both educators and caregivers, is not to create it from scratch, but to recognize it, to support it, and perhaps most importantly, to grow comfortable within it ourselves.