It’s amazing what you find on the Internet.  For instance, I found a great article on systems thinking as it applies to education.  As I was reading it, I said to myself, “Yes!  Exactly!”

I thought the article was groundbreaking, since it speaks to the need for systemic change rather than gradual linear change.  To top it off, it was published by ASCD, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Then I saw the publication date of the article – 1992!  It’s 32 years old!  That’s a generation and a half (perhaps 2 generations, since generations are defined as a period between 15 and 20 years in length), and we’re STILL simply talking about it!

If you’d like to read the article, find it at https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/how-systems-thinking-applies-to-education

In the article, research by Banathy (1991) speaks to the “piecemeal, or incremental, approach” to changes.  There’s a blog at http://www.edu-cat-ion.com which has a series of articles titled “Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation” that’s attempting to re-emphasize the realization that the problems we experience cannot be solved by the same type of thinking that created them.

© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2012-2024