An Appeal (Again) for Mandated K-12 Systems Literacy Education

• Shana Pote Fielding Graduate University HOD-806: Systems Theory, Thinking, and Practice David Blake Willis, Ph.D August 5, 2020

Table of Contents

• Abstract An Appeal (Again) for Mandated K-12 Systems Literacy Education Vickers - Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda Educating for Future Survivability Nurturing Critical Pedagogy How Young is Too Young, How Old Too Old? Conclusion

Abstract

This paper discusses the current state of systems literacy in the United States educational system. It grounds the discussion in Geoffrey Vickers’s 1980 proposal to add systems dynamics as part of the core K-12 instructional program. It discusses the dangers of continuing only to provide compartmentalized curricula and highlights organizations that attempted to introduce systems thinking into educational culture and classrooms. It illustrates how systems literacy initiatives have not taken root, and that our future survivability is at stake. The paper concludes with a plea to mandate adding systems literacy to the educational curricula of our youth nationwide.

Keywords:  K-12, education, systems literacy, systems dynamics, systems thinking

Introduction

The Western system for primary and secondary education produces newly minted United States young adults ignorant of the myriad of systems within which they work, live, and play, and equally unaware of how they can influence change individually, communally, nationally, and globally. Additionally, and perhaps more concerning, it appears the influencers and caretakers of the educational system are themselves untrained in system dynamics and the harmful impact of their illiteracy on current and future generations. This situation is even more troubling, given that in 1980, Geoffrey Vickers petitioned American K-12 educators to explicitly add systems theory, thinking, and practice to the curriculum (Vickers, 1980)? Was his plea at the time understood but intentionally ignored, or its importance simply not grasped?

While the cause is not within the scope of this paper, given the current global responsibilities of coping simultaneously with climate, health, economic, and social justice crises, adding systems instruction to K-12 education now looms more crucial than when Geoffrey Vickers initially proposed it. I contend that today’s aggrieved outcomes are the very argument in favor of teaching systems literacy in primary and secondary education, and timing its introduction for higher education is much too late. Instead, I concur with Vickers that the proper timing is in K-12, and additionally, as educational institutions scramble to deliver effective remote learning, now is the optimal opportunity to disrupt what they are teaching as well. However, I believe Vickers did not go far enough and should have proposed mandating systems education for all grades.

My argument in favor of mandated systems literacy instruction for K-12 begins with a brief review of the specifics of Geoffrey Vickers’s 1980 proposal. It then highlights threats to survivability and responsible citizenship that teaching per Cartesian philosophy causes. It addresses one of the main oppositions to Vickers’s recommendation questioning whether K-12 students are good candidates to understand and internalize systems instruction. The paper then spotlights organizations that attempted to aid schools’ efforts to develop and incorporate systems literacy in their programming and provides a brief and sobering report on their results. It closes with an appeal for mandating systems literacy instruction in primary and secondary education.

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.                                                             ~Chinese Proverb

Vickers - Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Fortyyears ago, pioneering systems scientist Geoffrey Vickers (1980) proposed that systems thinking should be taught in primary and secondary school, allocating a full period per week for each respective term in which it was taught. The goals for the course, appropriate to grade level, were to develop 1) the mental ability to take account of the impact of decisions, 2) respect for responsible choices, 3) acceptance of the costs of avenues not pursued, and 4) familiarity with system dynamics as it pertained to the tendency, regardless of which choice elected, to result in both vicious and virtuous cycles. The underlying lesson was to teach our youth that stability was a myth, change was the norm, and discerning and accepting interdependence was the best means by which they would preserve the sustainability of the systems on which they depend. He suggested the curriculum use the educational system itself as the model for instruction, making that institution transparent for students through learning about their school as a physical, career, social, financial, administrative, and instructional system. He proposed “Interdependence” as a subject itself, lamenting how systems of the time, both internationally and intranationally, were exhibiting instability verging on a breakdown.

World conditions have not improved since Vickers’ recommendation, but instead have grown exponentially complex and unstable. Nor has our systems literacy improved in the intervening years, further compounding the challenges faced today. Imagine if educators in 1980 had indeed developed a curriculum to teach systems literacy to our children. The initial cohort of K-12 students, assuming four years post-Vickers’ paper to train teachers and assemble syllabi, would now be aged 43-52, inhabiting influential positions as parents, teachers, politicians, managers, leaders, and so on, in society. Had they received education in systems thinking then, where might we be today in addressing complex issues of our time? I contend we would be in far better circumstances, having raised and educated GenX, GenY, and the oldest members of cohort GenZ (Rudolph et al., 2018) how to discern, understand, and influence systems.

Educating for Future Survivability

Education serves many purposes, but a significant objective is to raise a child to be a conscientious and competent member of their society (Vickers, 1980). Forty years ago, the visage of success was of man shaping the physical world to provide for his needs. The educational approach mirrored the mechanistic perspective of that time, focusing on dissecting knowledge into its various facts, seeking the “right” solution to every problem, separating the world into categories in an attempt to understand it better. This reductionist approach engendered a deep-seated need to control a world perceived as “other” from ourselves (Wheatley & Kellner-Rogers, 1999). Teaching children to see the world as a great machine translated into teachers and their students perceiving the world as alien to their humanness. This sense of alienation begets a need to dominate and control, not only further separating us from the world in which we lived, but perpetuating the marginalization of anyone we perceived as “other.”

Vickers believed challenges to this philosophy were on the horizon when he wrote, “We are beginning painfully to adjust ourselves to the ideal of Normative Man—Man working within a system of which he is a part to create a viable, normative culture, a culture capable of sustaining his relations with the biosphere and especially with his fellow men (1980, p. 94).” Yet, collectively we have not realized this anticipated adjustment. As evidenced by my experience and that of my children, a small but representative sample of recent upper-middle-class education, the first exposure to systems thinking did not occur until graduate school. As only one of my four children opted for higher education, three-fourths of my kin are uneducated in systems thinking. Even more alarming, 3.7 million students are expected to graduate from high school in the 2019-20 school year (The NCES Fast Facts Tool, n.d.), 13.1 percent of whom are expected to progress to graduate school (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.). Assuming only those students continuing to higher education will be exposed to systems thinking, this equates to 3.2 million remaining systems-illiterate. This blindness begs the question, if they cannot see in systems, how can they ever have hope of changing them and moving into a more natural alignment as Vickers imagined? How can the next generations choose responsibly, act globally, accept change as the norm, and live in harmony with the world and each other?

In short, the main object of education, as stated earlier, is not being met. Most new members of civilization are not receiving the necessary instruction to be conscientious and competent members of their society. As a result, systems illiteracy will continue to cause a compounding of the world’s issues. Generation on generation, the Cartesian view of the world will prevail until we mandate a change of course at its source, those earlier years of education.

Nurturing Critical Pedagogy

Not everyone has this blind spot, but those who see and comprehend the world’s systems are fearful of how a system might react if they refuse to comply with the rules and guardians trying to keep it stable, despite any long term destructive course (Dale & Hyslop-Margison, 2011). Those who cannot see or comprehend the systems are angry, resentful, and feel powerless because they are unable to see the patterns and leverage points on which to push back, exert influence and change the systems that seek to keep them contained (Meadows, 1999). Of even greater concern, teacher education itself has become weak, with teachers spending more time buried under the weight of publisher-driven, centralized, and standardized methods bloated with rubrics, KWL charts, high-stakes testing, and state-mandated curricula (Dale & Hyslop-Margison, 2011) than in expanding their skills and practices. Many have had no exposure to systems theory (Forrester, 2009), and those that have may be too fearful of challenging the very system on which they depend for career stability. Paulo Freire’s work offers some hope and direction.

While Freire’s work specifically addresses the education of illiterate adults in the Third World (Freire, 2000; Freire & Freire, 2003), over time, his educational philosophy has been deemed equally necessary for educators in technologically advanced societies. While he may have been writing about Brazil, his pedagogy of the question is applicable worldwide and meshes well with what changes need implementing to educate upcoming generations adequately. This work starts with the educators themselves. In the United States, the lack of systems education for our educators contributes to creating an underclass in which most individuals, but especially the disadvantaged, are trained to conform unquestioningly.

However, educators may find in Freire the inspiration to develop the inner strength to transcend their current conditions. This work is arduous and deeply reflective, requiring teachers to critically view their contribution and the ripple effect on future generations. It requires a firm belief that the human condition can be improved as much through education as by other means (Postman & Weingartner, 1971). Educators must look critically at their perpetuation of systems illiteracy in a world where change is constant, ubiquitous, and accelerating. They must acknowledge and accept that they are part of the system, and as such, can exert leverage at strategic inflection points (Meadows, 2008). For instance, they could get rid of low-quality bubble tests and rote memorization and instead develop integrated curricula and measurements that evaluate students’ ability to apply system dynamics to real-world, complex, multifaceted problems (Darling-Hammond, 2014).

How Young is Too Young, How Old Too Old?

One concern to incorporating systems literacy into K-12 education, as Vickers (2014)1980) highlighted, is whether primary grade students are capable of understanding or maintaining interest in the practice. Systems educator Linda Booth Sweeney (2014) argues instead that young children have an intuitive understanding of systems, which instead of fostering and nurturing, traditional education gradually erodes through its compartmentalization of subject matter and downloads of facts and answers into passive student vessels. In her work, she challenges educators and parents to nurture their charges’ attention to patterns, interrelationships, and dynamics through everyday conversation and activities, explicating this via stories about her children. A frequently used phrase in her household is, “what do you think would happen if everyone did that?” This opens a dialogue on systems dynamics and archetypes ranging from wasting water at the sink tap (cloud/rain/domestic water cycles and tragedy of the commons), taking turns at a traffic roundabout (stocks and flows), and fighting with siblings (escalation and closed causal loops). Because most adults do not have system literacy themselves, it is highly likely they will need to educate themselves to engage in this manner, or even better, co-learn in tandem with their child.  Sweeney’s experience as a systems educator leads her to conclude that children innately grasp the nature of systems, while adults must unlearn patterns of linear thinking before gaining comfort with systems thinking. Without repeated practice, the ability to develop and maintain system awareness and clarity is eventually lost in favor of the more pervasive Cartesian view (Forrester, 2009). System literacy requires both conceptual knowledge and reasoning skills applied to complex interrelationships, but that doesn’t mean that teaching and modeling it needs to be complicated. When we talk to children about current issues, such as healthcare, social justice, climate change, terrorism, and water use, we can raise their awareness of the material and social worlds, helping them bring together insights from history, science, literature, and mathematics.

Thirty years ago, it seemed education practices might begin incorporating systems literacy. In 1992, the “father” of systems dynamics, Jay W. Forrester, presented an approach for incorporating system dynamics in school curricula, including early thoughts on what would be required to implement this change (Forrester, 1992). Contemporary to this, he also founded the Creative Learning Exchange (Creative Learning Exchange, n.d.), a non-profit organization whose mission is to work directly with schools to encourage the use of system dynamics and learner-centered learning in K-12 education. In the intervening years, CLE’s mission has continued, along with the Waters Center for Systems Dynamics and a few school districts across the United States. K-12 lessons now exist that integrate into the subject matter of the classroom, thus not requiring the establishment of a separate subject or class period. To spread their reach, these organizations provide their entire resource and syllabi libraries freely online. Research is slowly emerging regarding the efficacy of this approach and the impact on students and young professionals exposed to systems instruction (The Waters Center for Systems Thinking, 2020). While more study is still called for by these organizations and others, there is early evidence (both action research and empirical) of enhanced student engagement, growth in critical thinking, problem-solving empowerment, and gratifying learning achievements. From the teachers’ perspective, those who do the work to incorporate systems literacy are affirming that both standards-based education and systems thinking approaches not only can coexist but can also complement each other.

Conclusion

The momentum gained, however, is not sufficient to change the choices we make in any significant measure. Much more needs to be done. Elective adoption of systems dynamics education is not penetrating quickly enough nor with permanence. According to a 2007 report (Fisher, 2007), only eight school districts nationwide made concerted efforts to incorporate systems literacy into their educational programming. Widespread adoption of system dynamics has not been forthcoming. Those schools that did initially gain momentum in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most have not maintained their programs after the outside funding provided to initiate them ceased. Teachers still prefer their teacher-centric methods over learner-centered. K-12 education as an extensive system itself has a built-in resistance to change, and when challenged to perform better, they fall back on practices and policies that have worked in the past and with which they are familiar.

K-12 systems literacy will simply not spread without committed effort across the entirety of the educational system. And yet it must do so, for the sustainability of our planet and its occupants. We need our youth to comprehend the mess we have created, and they continue to contribute to as parts of the system, lest they are left with nothing at all. Imagine what might be if every school district has as part of its core mandate to provide yearly instruction in systems dynamics for K-12. What might our lives look like in another 20 years? “What do you think would happen if everyone learned to think in systems?”

References

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