I've been tremendously impressed (and sometimes intimidated) by the
quality of the dialogue on this list, as participants from every part of
the world and every sort of organization explore ideas and propose plans
of action. If I can elicit even a fraction of the response to my thesis
that has poured in around, say, the nature and role of jargon, or the
distinctions between responsibility and accountability, I'll be elated.
I wouldn't ask this if I didn't believe that what I'm proposing isn't
merely important, but critically so, with implications not only for every
matter that's ever been discussed or will be discussed on this list, but
for every society, every organization, every individual on earth.
A sentence I highlighted on page 68 of THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE the first time
I read it speaks to my concern: "So it should come as no surprise that
the unhealthiness of our world today is in direct proportion to our
inability to see it as a whole."
Senge is surely right. What's needed is an ability to see holistically,
an ability that goes beyond a mere romantic conception of the world as
global village, and provides not only leaders but the general citizenry
with tools for conceptualizing the systemic nature of reality.
The key is education, and today's education isn't up to it. The subjects
and courses that make up the general education curricula in our schools
are, in large measure, ritual. Neither individually nor collectively do
they speak to the issue Senge raises. In fact, as students move through
the school day, exposed to an hour of this and an hour of that, exactly
the opposite conclusion is justified: no "whole" exists. The message is
that nothing relates to much of anything. As long as this approach to
education continues, each generation will have as much difficulty grasping
the systemic nature of reality as the previous generation.
In earlier postings, I've touched on facets of the approach to general
education I've been working on for many years. It isn't an alternative to
present practice. If that were true, it would be doomed from the start,
for education is surely the most conservative and rigid of all
institutions. It's an "add on," and with a little vision and perhaps some
nudging from outside the educational establishment (maybe from
organizations like many of you represent), it could be impemented.
One way to think about what I'm proposing is to see it as an effort to
provide the young with the broadest possible "systemic conceptual context"
for everything else that's taught--both in and out of school. If the
whole of reality is visualized as a conceptual tree, the familiar
disciplines are various-sized conceptual clusters of branches of that
tree. Presently, the thrust of advanced-degree programs is toward ever
greater elaboration of these clusters, with new "twigs" appearing on their
periphery. I'm working in the other direction, trying to help students
connect those more or less random disciplinary conceptual clusters, and
other random clusters, to major "limbs," and then connect those limbs to
the "trunk,"--reality, the whole.
Note: Senge uses the phrase "our world." Except in the most general
sense, I don't think we're soon going to understand our world. It's my
view that, given the subjective nature of our perceptions of reality,
societies or language groups are the largest, most complex systemic
entities the coherence of which we can ordinarily usefully grasp. These
are the "parents" of the organizations and institutions we create and
within which we function, none of which can "fall very far from the tree."
The potential immediate benefit to us of putting our organizations and
institutions in larger, sociocultural context, and a general concern for
human welfare now and in the future, convince me that what I'm asking is a
legitimate request.
Below is what I'd like you to critique. In 8 or 9 point type, it'll fit
on a single page. Every comment will be much appreciated.
THE GENERAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM
1. The purpose of general education is to expand understanding of
reality. The central question is, "What's going on here?"
2. Reality presents itself to us whole, but the educational establishment
considers it too vast and too complex to study holistically. It has been
"broken apart" into various specialized studies such as biology,
psychology, chemistry, political science, physics, anthropology, etc..
3. The conceptual frameworks of these specialized fields cannot be meshed
so as to model reality holistically. No current
approachinterdisciplinary, theme, topic, social problem, etc.even makes
an attempt to provide students with a comprehensive, integrated conceptual
framework for the holistic study of reality. Individually and
collectively, the traditional disciplines and other current approaches:
Ignore vast areas of extremely important knowledge
Fail to show students the systemic, integrated nature of reality
Disregard basic principles of learning
Lack universal, overarching goals with which instruction connects
Fail to disclose the subjective nature of knowing
Are bulky, time-consuming and inefficient
Are static, with no built-in mechanisms to adapt the curriculum to change
Emphasize passive information absorption rather than information
generation
Are, in varying degrees, irrelevant to and remote from life as it's lived
Provide no criteria for determining relative content significance
Sell the human potential for understanding and intellectual growth very
short
4. Holistic study, by its very definition, requires the use of a SINGLE
conceptual framework encompassing all knowledge. (This framework will
include, but not be limited to, the conceptual frameworks of the academic
disciplines.)
5. Such a framework need not be invented. It already exists, is in
constant use, and is familiar to all, even small children. However, its
very familiarity makes it difficult to recognize, and, if recognized, to
appreciate its inherent sophistication.
6. The framework has five major components. All comprehensive
descriptions and all analyses of reality, all histories, research studies,
news stories, diaries, memories, crime reports, predictions about the
future, dreams, fantasies, etc. are constructed of the five. They are:
(1) a physical location or environment
(2) the participant actors or objects
(3) the action, state, or condition of the actors or objects
(4) the cognitive states/mental models of the actor(s) or observer(s)
(5) the time dimension
Example: Soon after midnight (5), the angry (4) crowd (2) stormed (3) the
jail (1).
Example: Volcanic eruptions (2) occur (3)(5) where the earth's crust (1) is
thin (4).
7. Each of the five categories has a vast, elaborating conceptual
substructure, the general features of which are familiar to, and are
constantly used by, all members of a society. In describing or analyzing
an aspect of reality or a human experience, the useful elements of these
conceptual substructures are those which relate systemically to that which
is being studied. In other words, those elements of a particular aspect
of reality are important which, if different, would cause other aspects of
that particular reality to be different. (To illustrate, play with
alterations in individual elements of the above examples.)
8. The five should be thought of as distinct disciplines, but as
disciplines so interconnected they must be studied simultaneously. All
are essential. However, (4) abovethe cognitive configuration/mental
models of the actor(s) or observer(s)is primary. And of this cognitive
configuration, the major elements of a society's "collective
unconscious"it's shared assumptions about time, the individual, others,
nature, causation, the good life, the supernatural, etc., have the
greatest explanatory power for human affairs.
Making these assumptions explicit should be the overriding purpose of
every society's general education curriculum. All else is support (How
did these ideas originate? How translated into action? How transmitted
integenerationally? How evolving? With what consequences? Etc.)
9. Individual and collective knowledge grows primarily through the
exploration of relationships between various aspects of reality.
Instruction should help students make explicit as many elements as
possible of the implicit conceptual framework they share with other
members of their society, and facilitate their exploration of interactions
within and between these elements.
-- Marion Brady GMBrady@aol.com