Be Careful What Your Systems Wish For
Posted on November 16, 2016Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairytale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce.
–Donella H. Meadows, “Thinking in Systems”
Once upon a time, two men sat on opposite sides of the world, thinking very, very seriously about something that meant a lot to them. They did not know the other existed. They did not know they were both thinking about the same thing.
On one end of the world, in the city of Boston, the man tapped his pen against the table and thought about all of his training in public and educational policy, having spent six years studying in top-tier institutions in the United States. He considered the disparities in education, income and social mobility between students from low-income families and those from middle to upper-middle-class families. The man felt strongly that something must be done. He began to dream.
On the other end of the world, in a small town in rural South India, another man stood on a barren field, nothing around him but the red, clay colored dirt beneath his feet. He sorted through memories of his youth, reflected upon his own immigrant success story and all his lucrative years in business and finance. He also spent years attending a top-tier university in the States. Yet, though he studied finance and entrepreneurship, he kept thinking of the deep injustices and poverty inflicting thousands in his home country. The man felt strongly that something must be done. He, too, began to dream.
On that very day, a fairy named Donella sat in the sky, observing the two men. She decided to aid them each with their dreams. She made her way down to earth, jumping from cloud to cloud in a complex and multi-directional pattern, resembling a pathway of feedback loops that only she had the fairy brilliance to understand.
First she landed in Boston. She appeared in front of the thinking man and said, “I have seen you dreaming of a better world from where I sit in the sky. And I’m here to give you three wishes to make that dream come true. What is it that you wish for?”
The man leapt up from his seat, partly in shock and partly in awe—here was his chance to make a difference! He thanked Fairy Donella profusely and asked if she could come back the next day. He needed time to gather his most closely trusted colleagues so they could together decide how to make his dream a reality. She agreed and said she would be back in 24 hours.
As suddenly as she appeared, she flew away, this time headed to the other side of the world. Again she appeared almost magically—but actually it was systematically—from the sky. She told the other man the same thing and asked, “Do you know your three wishes?” The other man also felt shocked and awed, especially because he was a proclaimed disbeliever of the supernatural. But he put that aside so he could make use of the opportunity at hand.
He said, “Fairy Donella. Thank you for visiting me. Yes, in fact, I do know my wishes. I spent the past 30 years trying to define what my wishes are, and how to make them come true. I was in fact just sitting here, thinking for a long time about what I hope to build on this very spot. And after all that time, I believe I know.”
“Go ahead, then,” Fairy Donella encouraged, pulling out her rational, intuitive and humble wand of change.
“My first wish is to have a beautiful, open boarding school, built right here on this very spot, with its own gardens, farm land and maybe even some animals.
My second wish is that the school serve children of the ‘lowest caste’ so they can break the cycle of poverty and abuse they are born into.
And my third wish is that the school provide them with the care, love, community values and knowledge they will need in order to fulfill their own wishes—the careers and lives they dream of.”
Fairy Donella nodded. She cautioned, “I cannot grant you any outcomes, cannot guarantee that the children will break the cycle of poverty or fulfill all their dreams, but I can build the school, structure it to enroll impoverished children from neighboring villages and found in on the principles of care, love, shared values and knowledge.”
“I understand. Thank you, Fairy!” exclaimed the man. With that, Fairy Donella waved her wand, and the school was born.
The man got to work immediately, searching for teachers and staff whose dreams and values aligned with his in order to build out the school together.
Fairy Donella wished the man well and flew away, returning to Massachusetts. She arrived to find a whole collection of policy makers, businessmen, data analysts and a few principals. The first man greeted her with great warmth. “Welcome, Fairy Donella, welcome again! After a sleepless 24 hours, we have emerged with our wishes!”
“Wonderful,” Fairy Donella replied, “Please state them.”
The man stood up and excitedly announced:
“Number one: we wish to build a high school in Boston, in the old, unused car factory building, the one close to the University.
Number two: we wish this school to be the most innovative, high-performing school in Boston, serving low-income youth throughout the city.
Number three: we wish the students who attend the school, as well as the staff, to hold and meet unwaveringly high expectations so they can outperform students in private schools or public schools in wealthy areas, thus allowing them to break the cycle of poverty and oppression.”
Again, Fairy Donella warned, “I can build the school, determine which children it is for and structure it based off the values of innovation, high-performance and high expectations, but I cannot guarantee any outcomes. I am, after all, only a structural fairy.” And with that, she waved her wand and a public charter school was born.
Everyone cheered, hugged Fairy Donella and hoped her a safe passage home.
Years passed, both schools grew, receiving more and more students, and more press. Did each fulfill its great aspirations?
Today in Boston, students line up outside the school every morning wearing matching uniforms. They are reminded to stand straight, tuck in their shirts and remain silent in line. The principal stands at the doorway. In order to enter, they must shake his hand and make eye contact. He asks each student, “Why are you here?” and they must reply, “To learn.” Then he asks, “What does it take?” And they must answer, “Courage, discipline and perseverance.” If they do not present themselves according to the standards, they get demerits and are sent to the back of the line to try again.
A common phrase amongst the students is “Stop forcin’ it!” used at least ten times a class when the teacher drops piles of forms and worksheets on their desks. Some students become best friends, some enemies, many just try to get by. Some love their teachers (the ones who don’t quite follow the rules) while everyone else simply tolerates the others. The staff attempts to act from love, but often acts out of exhaustion, running towards ever-coming deadlines.
Do most students end up in college, as the founder had wished? Many continue onto some form of further education, whether a four-year university, a two-year transition program, or trade school. When the students graduate, most say they will never return. They have formed deep relationships with one another and with some of the teachers, but they continue them far outside the walls of the founder’s beloved school. Do they graduate from college? About half do. The rest . . . they’re still trying.
And the other school?
The first thing anyone hears when they enter campus is this: laughter. Every morning, the students begin the day either with study time or playing outside. Then they collect at a morning meeting, where they recite a nondenominational prayer about gratitude, love, learning and appreciation. Then there’s time for songs, dances, presentations and other announcements.
And what of the graduates? Almost 100% go on to university and graduate from those universities. And they love coming back. In fact, they talk about looking forward to the weekend so they can come back to their school, share their knowledge with the younger grades, be again with their family—the teachers and students and caretakers of the school.
After graduation, they find work. Some go to work in major global companies. They make money. They make enough money to provide for their families, care for their basic needs and health. Others go on to write books, become therapists, travel. And they are always talking about love.
Be careful what you wish for, warns Fairy Meadows, for it will come true.
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I realize my fairytale is an extremely long-winded way to use Donella Meadows’ systems thinking to make sense of two very different school models. And yet, her warning that systems (and people) tend to produce exactly what is asked of them helped me make sense of two educational experiences I’ve long struggled to understand.
After college, I joined a tutor/teacher-training program that placed a cohort of about 30 recent graduates in a charter school. I worked there for a year, trying to suppress my own instinctual reaction that the school was so focused on the numerical achievements of students and staff that they severely under-provided for students’ mental, emotional, physical and creative needs. It was a confusing, disorienting and emotionally draining year filled with one thousand good intensions and two thousand invisible meltdowns.
About a year later, I went to a school in the rural south of India—a nonprofit institution built for children of the “lowest caste” coming from extremely impoverished villages. I hesitated for months before deciding to apply to volunteer there; I worried that I would have another good-intention-love-filled but body-spirit-destroying teaching experience. But when I read about this school’s founding values: championing love, curiosity and community, and spoke to past volunteers (they are all full of warm memories, and some make an effort to return to the school once a year), I trusted that this educational system would be different.
It was. I collected my own bucket of gushing, warm memories. I discovered what a school looks like that serves a population with almost no financial resources, that itself had very few resources, yet managed to foster community, creativity, thoughtfulness and intelligence.
So how did two schools with such similar goals end up so different?
Of course there are many specific cultural, political and economic forces at play. I cannot proclaim with confidence that the model of the nonprofit Indian school would operate as well, nor as successfully, as it does in rural South India (and some could make the argument that it isn’t very successful”considering its disrupted classroom education due to volunteer turnarounds along with its various unchecked systems of authority). However, I do think both places face some similar factors: both populations have faced deep-seeded prejudice for the entirety of their country’s history, both nations favor highly competitive business ventures that bring in money, fame and prestige, and both nations place an inordinate amount of stress on standardized test scores (India, in fact, has even more rigid rules and requirements than the US).
The real difference, I believe, stems from each school’s stated values and “wish list.” When writing my fairytale, I revisited both schools’ websites. The contrast is stark; the language alone reveals the tone pervasive throughout their hallways. For instance, notice their About pages:
Charter School (I know it’s a silly effort because it would be easy to find this, but I’ve blocked out the name of the school as I’m critiquing it. I would also like to note that I’m speaking from my personal perspective, and I recognize that many tutors and teachers at the school have contrasting, highly positive experiences there).
Nonprofit Rural School:
In the charter school, everything down to the side tabs focus on test scores. The “About Us” section highlights numbers, intense working hours and “success in college and careers.” All of these numbers signal that the school is highly product and outcome focused. Phrases like “unwaveringly high expectations” and “world class teachers” invoke competition, intensity and rigor. That may sound exactly like what we want in our schools. Why? Because competition, intensity and rigor make people that are really good at working within capitalistic systems; it is a recipe for employees who are trained into their core to work 60 – 80 hour work weeks. Isn’t this so much of what “success” in college and careers has come to mean?
In contrast, the school in India uses phrases like “globally shared values,” “holistic high quality,” “beacon of hope” and “shines a path of opportunity”. They talk about creating an “oasis” supported by a “global network of volunteers”. They, too, use the words “world class,” but this school speaks of world class “education” as opposed to “teachers”. What’s the difference? It may be too minute to pick on, but I think that education focuses on the whole–the community and the process itself–whereas teachers focuses on the individuals–the “best of the best”. Whereas the latter indicates that a school has the Top 10 American Teachers, the former suggests having a top (potentially replicable) educational experience/design. Finally, if a reader wants to learn more, the next link they see is titled “Our Children”–quite different than the tabs of test scores, college completion rates and media acclaim of the Boston school.
Re-reflecting on these schools with a Meadows’ inflected systems lens has left me thinking deeply about language and intention. When creating systems for social change, I think it’s extremely important that we consider what our wishes are for that system, and whether we even have the language to explain what we hope to build. As Meadows says, “A society that talks incessantly about ‘productivity’ but that hardly understands, much less uses, the word ‘resilience’ is going to become productive and not resilient. A society that doesn’t understand or use the term ‘carrying capacity; will exceed its carrying capacity . . . The industrial society is just beginning to have and use words for systems, because it is only beginning to pay attention to and use complexity . . . New words are having to be invented” (Thinking in Systems, 174, 175).
In our educational spheres, I hope we see more language around care, love, curiosity, joy, wonder, creativity, collaboration, play, liberation and expression. High-performance is fine, but it’s nothing without heart. As my sister used to warn me (read: taunt me) as a child: “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”
-Nandita Batheja