A Future of Learning Built on Competency, Coherence, and Purpose: Three Key Takeaways from CFL’s Conversation with Educator David Sabey

“Oftentimes school has felt like jumping through hoops…the experience as a whole doesn't feel coherent, doesn't feel particularly purposeful.” – David Sabey, Educator, Scholar & Innovator

For many students and educators, the traditional school experience feels fragment–one class after another, assignments that feel disconnected from real-world meaning and a heavy emphasis on standardized testing models. While these systems may deliver structure, they often fall short in coherence, relevance and purpose. 

A recent conversation on The CFL Podcast explored a powerful question: What could learning look like if it were intentionally designed around coherence, relevance and purpose? More importantly, the discussion addresses what needs to change to support this kind of implementation across Nevada. 

To explore these ideas, David Sabey, Educator, Scholar & Innovator, joined CFL Co-Founder & CEO Sean Parker and Co-Founder & Chief Impact Officer Jeanine Collins for a deep dive into competency-based learning and its potential to reshape the future of learning in Nevada.

A Clear Vision for Nevada: Learning as Intellectual Fitness

“The goal is that Nexus will feel like a coherent training program. So there’s coherence, transparency, agency, and the goal is not just to jump through hoops but to do something that’s meaningful and that will empower you beyond the classroom.” - David Sabey

David’s vision for Nexus High School, a proposed charter school in Southern Nevada, emerged from a critical reevaluation of the current educational landscape. Rather than tweaking traditional structures, Nexus is designed from the ground up, focusing on competency-based grading, interdisciplinary project-based learning and portfolio development.

David argues that while traditional schools may offer rigorous solutions, they often lack meaning. Students are required to complete tasks to earn grades and credentials, yet struggle to understand why their learning matters or how it connects beyond the classroom. 

This is where David introduces a compelling analogy: school as a training program, not a checklist.

He points to CrossFit as an example of clarity as participants understand what “fitness” means, how it’s developed and why it matters beyond the gym. The same clarity, he argues, should exist in education.

At Nexus, that clarity is defined as intellectual fitness, preparing students to:

• Analyze complex issues

• Make sense of information

• Collaborate effectively

• Take thoughtful, informed action in the real-world

This vision closely aligns with The Center for the Future of Learning’s (CFL) mission to reimagine learning beyond seat time and task completion toward more future-ready, meaningful learning experiences. 

Define the Competencies That Matter

To make intellectual fitness tangible, David’s work with Nexus is building a clear, transparent competency framework—the skills and dispositions every learner is expected to develop.

David explains that these competencies fall into two core categories:

Outcome Competencies

• Analysis

• Modeling

• Contextualizing ideas

Process Competencies

• Collaboration

• Reflection

• Resourcefulness

By clearly naming and operationalizing these competencies, educational institutions across Nevada ensure that students understand what they are learning, why it matters and how it transfers beyond school.

This approach reflects CFL’s long-standing advocacy for competency-based education as a cornerstone of equitable, future-ready systems where learning expectations are explicit and success is not tied to time spent in a seat.

Curriculum Built for Coherence and Relevance

“The plan is to have integrated interdisciplinary courses where students complete projects, meaning project based, interdisciplinary coursework that allow them to develop and demonstrate these competencies… And then alongside that, they have literacy and numeracy labs, where they’re just getting targeted practice with numeracy and literacy, which we see as the building blocks of these higher order competencies.” - David Sabey

Rather than isolated classes, David, Sean and Jeanine discuss the importance of engaging in integrated, interdisciplinary project-based learning, blending humanities and STEM. These authentic projects function like intellectual “workouts,” giving learners repeated opportunities to practice and demonstrate competencies in real contexts.

For example, a typical day might include:

• One hour of literacy

• One hour of numeracy

• Extended blocks for humanities and STEM exploration

This structure prioritizes depth over speed. The model mirrors how knowledge is applied in the real world and reflects CFL’s commitment to learner-centered design that supports collaboration among Nevada’s education systems.

Agency, Purpose, and a Call to Reimagine Learning

At a time when student stress and disengagement are widespread, models like Nexus offer a compelling alternative, one that is rooted in agency, coherence and purpose. By designing learning around clearly defined competencies and future-ready solutions, Nevada can intentionally make school more relevant for learners. 

A strong advisory system, grounded in the Portrait of a Nevada Learner, ensures that students are not only building academic skills, but also developing lifelong capacities like reflection, goal-setting, collaboration and self-direction. This is where learning becomes personal and where students learn how to learn.

Learner agency and whole-child development is at the core of CFL’s mission. Future-ready education doesn’t happen by chance; it requires intentional design that empowers students to understand their learning, own their growth, and apply their skills beyond the classroom.

Through conversations like this, CFL and innovators like David Sabey are exploring what’s possible when we move beyond traditional classroom settings and checklists toward learning experiences that truly prepare students for the world they’re stepping into.

Want to listen to the full conversation?

Watch or listen to The CFL Podcast episode featuring David Sabey to dive deeper into competency-based learning, intellectual fitness, and the future of learning in Nevada.

Click here to watch the conversation: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0EUt76VUuU0cGnRi1aM2rw

Below is a featured transcript clip from the conversation (08:36–11:25), exploring how learning can be defined as an intellectual fitness.

David Sabey: The goal is that Nexus will feel like a coherent training program. I'm not a CrossFitter myself, but I've recently been studying CrossFit as a good analogy, as an alternative learning environment. 

David Sabey: I think we can learn a lot from places where people learn and develop outside of school and I think a lot of times those contexts are more aligned with the science of learning than what happens in a conventional school. 

David Sabey: So anyhow, someone who goes to CrossFit has a really clear vision of what they're trying to accomplish. CrossFit has a clear definition of fitness that they're trying to facilitate. They operationalize that through a variety of different exercises and over time, empower the athletes to deal with a variety of different physical challenges outside of the gym. 

David Sabey: So, I think that's a good analogy for what I think a school could be and what we're trying to make Nexus like. So there's coherence, transparency, agency and the goal is not just to jump through hoops, not just to check these boxes off, but to do something. That's meaningful and that will empower you beyond the classroom.

Jeanine Collins: I really love that CrossFit analogy. The high school dance teacher in me really loves that CrossFit analogy. 

Jeanine Collins: Two things are coming up with what you said. One, the results are really tangible, right? You can see the results, you can feel the results, and they're also personal, because you're setting your own goals. They're tied to your own health or tied to your well being. They're tied to metrics that you're trying to hit. So I love the sense of I love that analogy, because there's like a real clear through line around who the assessment is for and why it's valuable, and also, sort of the public nature of it. 

Jeanine Collins: I'm a parent of two kids, and sometimes I'm always like: Who is this work for? Who is this test for? And if I never see it, I call it “trashcan work”, right? And sometimes you do a fair amount of trashcan work that doesn't feel aligned to what you were describing or doesn't feel purposeful or coherent or tied to an outcome. 

Jeanine Collins: So, I don't know, I'm excited to think about a full day, a full day, or a full week, or full years of experiences that scaffold on themselves to feel like I'm hearing a sense of purpose potentially emerge from a set of experiences like that.