How Systems Thinking Applies to Education Frank M. Betts, Ed. Current approaches to solving problems in education are the same ones used by generations of educators and are stoutly defended as having worked in the past. But we can now see clearly that the environment within which education is embedded has been changing at an increasing rate since about 1900. Currently, the call for systemic change in education is becoming increasingly strident. Unfortunately, the word system has been popularized without a fundamental understanding of its implications, to the point where everything is a system but nothing really is treated as one.
Many people say they are using a systems approach, but almost no one really is.
Furthermore, popular interpretations of systems tend to use inappropriate mechanical models and metaphors. Decision makers need to fully understand why our current approaches won't work and what is different about the systems approach. The seeds of public education's current failures are found in its success in the past. From its inception, public education has been called on to transmit core knowledge and cultural values, provide custodial care, and prepare students for life after school, the most important aspect of which is critical and creative thinking for problem solving and decision making. Public education has been very successful in its first function, generally successful in the second, and much less successful in the last.