When Structure Is Sound, Form Can Vary

When Structure Is Sound, Form Can Vary.

Have you noticed the traffic signals in Chennai?

The red light does not have the usual symbol many of us are familiar with.

Instead, it has a heart.

I found myself wondering if this was a good idea.

Traffic systems are meant to be predictable.

Across the world, we rely on shared symbols so behaviour does not have to be re learned every time.

And yet, people stopped.

They stopped because the system around the symbol stayed intact.

The heart was placed exactly where a stop signal always is.
It was the right colour.
It followed green and amber.
The surrounding structure made the expectation unmistakable.

What surprised Raaji Naveen and me was not that the symbol was different, but that it did not matter.

The meaning held, even when the form changed.

That small moment stayed with me because it is easy to confuse form with function.

And in education, we do it all the time.

Why the heart still worked

A good system does something quiet but powerful.

It reduces the cost of understanding.

It makes the next action obvious.

It does not demand constant interpretation.

That traffic light did not ask anyone to trust the heart.

It simply sat inside a structure that was already trusted.

Three examples make this easier to see:

1. You can change the font on a road sign, but if placement, colour, and layout stay consistent, drivers still understand.
2. You can change the design of an elevator panel, but if the buttons are in expected positions, people still find their floor.
3. You can change the look of a payment screen, but if the steps are familiar, users still complete the transaction.

In each case, the form changes.

But the structure holds meaning.

Where education gets stuck

In education, we spend a great deal of time debating containers.

Schools. And I catch myself asking, are they truly places of learning, or have we sometimes settled for well run day care with exams attached.

Buildings. I say this with a smile, because I have spent months, across two decades, thinking about school buildings. Designing them. Refining them. Believing that space can shape behaviour, and often, it does.

Timetables. And then comes the uncomfortable question. If schools carry such beautiful missions and visions, why do children’s days not always look like those words. Why does the timetable sometimes feel like a compromise we stopped questioning.

Pathways. We talk endlessly about getting to college. But I keep wondering whether the deeper goal is learning something meaningfully, and then seeking higher learning from that place of clarity.

Now, none of these are unimportant.

But I have learned to hold one distinction more carefully.

A container can look right and still feel empty.

Learning is something else.

It is what happens when expectations are clear, support is present, and progress is possible.

Learning does not happen because a building exists.

Learning happens because expectations are clear, support is present, and progress is possible.

When we argue about containers, we often skip the real question.

Is the structure coherent enough to hold meaning for the learner?

What a coherent learning structure feels like

A coherent structure is not loud.

It is steady.

It is the feeling of knowing what is expected, and believing you can get there.

It shows up in ordinary ways.

Three examples:

1. A learner knows what “good work” looks like, not as a vague compliment, but as a clear standard they can aim for.
2. A learner knows what happens when they struggle, who notices, and how support shows up without shame.
3. A learner can see progress over time, not only through marks, but through feedback that helps them improve.

When these are present, learning becomes less about compliance and more about capability.

The learner starts to trust the system.

And when trust exists, variation becomes possible.

Form can vary without breaking purpose

This is the part the traffic light reminded me of.

Legitimacy is often assumed to come from looking a certain way.

But legitimacy actually comes from doing the work a system is meant to do.

If a learning environment helps a child move forward with confidence and capability, perhaps the more important question is not where it happens, but whether the structure around it is sound.

You can run learning in a classroom.

You can run learning in a studio.

You can run learning in a small community setting.

But in every case, three things have to hold:

1. Clarity on what the learner is working toward.
2. Support that is reliable, not occasional.
3. A real pathway for improvement, step by step.

When those three hold, the container becomes less sacred.

And the learner becomes more central.

A heart, a stop, and a reminder

The heart did not redefine stopping.

It simply reminded me that when structure is sound, form can vary without breaking purpose.

Maybe that is a useful lens for education too.

Not to dismiss schools or systems.

But to ask better questions.

Does this environment make meaning easy to grasp?

Does it make growth possible?

Does it help a learner move forward, without losing themselves in the process?

If yes, then the form can evolve.

And the purpose stays intact.