Twenty-two years on one problem — a history told in three versions of one course, each rebuilt on what the last one proved.
Established by Robert Kegan and taught at Harvard for decades: a brilliant and beloved course on adult development, which featured intense developmental exercise in two of its sixteen weeks. Students loved it; the theory moved them; though the structure of their minds was not its primary target.
Radically restructured in a 2013 pilot, then fully launched in 2014 for the Harvard study: developmental practice through all sixteen weeks, with a new methodology engineered to the four conditions the growth literature identifies. This is the version that was measured: +0.49 stages vs. control, p = .005.
Rebuilt to live outside academia — no institution, no credit, no prerequisite but a self — with the validated developmental engine untouched. The medium is new: cinematic interactive e-classes, not recorded lectures. Launching 2027.
The proposal. Having enrolled in Robert Kegan's adult development course, Kal Shore proposes — in a seventy-page paper — a global course that would still teach adult development, but in a revised form built to deliberately promote it across all sixteen weeks. Work begins that year.
The search for a delivery mechanism. Before the course found its form, the question was how developmental work could reach a general public at all. Routes explored: an offering with Oprah, with the Royal Society of Arts, through a behavior-change app, and through edX.
The re-engineering. The proposal built: a pilot in 2013, then the full intervention course launched in 2014 — developmental practice across every week, evaluated at the top of the institution by its students.
The organizational methodology. Workshops, designed simulations, and work-embedded routines — the self-authoring operating system, designed and field-run.
The rebuild. The paper in submission (Shore & Kegan). The course rebuilt for the world. The platform live.
The public launch.