Comprehensive Systems Design:

A New Educational Technology

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Comprehensive Systems Design:
A New Educational Technology

Edited by

Charles M. Reigeluth
Instructional Systems Technology Department, Indiana University,
School of Education, W. W. Wright Education Building, 3rd and Jordan,
Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA

Bela H. Banathy
International Systems Institute and Saybrook Graduate School,
25781 Morse Drive, Carmel, California 93923, USA

Jeannette R. Olson
Instructional Systems Technology Department, Indiana University,
School of Education, W. W. Wright Education Building, 3rd and Jordan,
Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA

Springer- Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Comprehensive
Systems Design: A New Educational Technology, held in Pacific Grove, California,
December 2-7, 1990

CR Subject Classification (1991): K.3

ISBN 978-3-642-63445-1 ISBN 978-3-642-58035-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-58035-2

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Originally published by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York 1993
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Preface

This book presents the results of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on educational
systems design as a new educational technology. The objective of the workshop was to
advance our knowledge about the comprehensive systems design approach for improving
educational systems. The workshop was organized for the transdisciplinary interaction of
three scientific groups representing design science, organizationaVsystems science, and
educational technology. Participants were selected based on their scholarship as members
of one or more of these three groups.
In preparation for the workshop the Director and Co-Director developed a framework
within which to integrate the participants' contributions (see Chapters 1 and 2). This frame-
work was sent to all participants several months prior to the workshop. Then each par-
ticipantprepared a position paper setting forth his or her initial input to the workshop. The
workshop was designed to build on and integrate these individual contributions in order to
advance the new technology of systems design of education.
At the beginning of the workshop, each group met in its own sessions and developed
its initial syntheses and extensions of its members' individual contributions. Then, these
syntheses/extensions were shared and integrated. Informed by these reports, the groups
had another series of sessions to further develop their ideas and elaborate their con-
tributions. At a joint session they again shared their fmdings. Based on all sessions, each
participant has revised his or her input paper for inclusion in this book.

March 1993 C.M. Reigeluth

B.H. Banathy
J.R. Olson
Table of Contents

Editors' Introduction 1

Part 1 The Framing Papers

Systems Design: A Creative Response to the Current Educational Predicament 9

Bela H. Banathy
Principles of Educational Systems Design 50
Charles M. Reigeluth
Structuring the Program of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop:
An Architecture of Decision-Oriented Disciplined Enquiry . 67
Bela H. Banathy

Part 2 Thematic Contributions

1 The Conceptual and Empirical Contexts of Comprehensive

Systems Design
Education as a Process of Increasing Access to Societal Resources:
Design and Methodology . 85
Gerard de Zeeuw
Human Leaming and Its Relation to Evolution and Needs Satisfaction:
Implications for the Design of Educational Systems 95
Nicolas C. Paritsis
The Empirical Grounding of System Performance Measurements 104
Bela Antal Banathy
The Designing Community: A Learning Community 109
Georges Goulet, Andre Dolbee
Defmition of Education and Meta-Design of Educational Systems 121
Nagib Callaos, Belkis de Callaos
Assessing the Adequacy of a Social System Design . 134
C. Lynn Jenks, Mary Amsler
 VIII

2 The Systems Design Focus

Design Inquiry as an Intellectual Technology for the Design of
Educational Systems 145
Harold G. Nelson

The Evolution of a Design Approach: A Historical Perspective and Its

Relevance to the Design of Educational Systems 154
Wojciech Gasparski

Surrendering to the Environment in Educational System Design 165

Oguz N. BabUroglu

'Jumping Out' of the Existing System During Design Genesis:

Penetrating the Anxiety Barrier . 174
Tad Gougen Frantz

Designing Value-Based Educational Systems 191

Thorbjorn Meyer, Peter Pruzan

Retrospective Design Analysis: A New Educational Technology 206

Ian Macnaughton

3 A Systems View of Designing Educational Systems

The Application of Systems Thinking to the Design of Educational Systems 225
Rafael Rodriguez Delgado

A Systems-Approach Knowledge Base for Education . 238

Hilda J. Blanco

Approaches and Methods of Systems Design: Critical Pedagogy 253

Wendy Gregory

A Systems View of Restructuring Education 260

Theodore W. Frick

Openness in a General Process Model for Systems Design in Education 272

Arne Collen, Giafranco Minati

4 The Educational Context of Systems Design

School Reform Movements: Tinkering with the System 281
Dwight W. Allen

Characteristics of Educational Systems and Their Development:

A Contribution to Understanding Differences in System~ in Europe
and the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Theo M.E. Liket

Applying Systems Theory Through the Lens of Learning:

What Does Learning Research Say? . . . . 314
Beau Fly Jones, Randy A. Knuth, Steve Baxendale
 IX

The Next Step in Educational Systems Design:

Some Contributions From Learning Systems Design 334
Ian McArthur
Learning Systems: Is There a Need for Change? 350
NimaJ Jayaratna
Systems Design Guidelines for Change 354
NimaJ Jayaratna
A Conceptual Framework for Systems Design of Education 357
P. David Mitchell

5 High Technology Focus in Systems Design

Hypersystems: A Base for Specification of Computer-Supported
Self-Learning Social Systems 381
Kristo Ivanov
New Educational Technologies Cannot be Fully Integrated in
Existing Educational Systems 408
Monique Grandbastien
Educational Technology Planning: Scanning the North American K-12
Education Environment 421
Wayne G. Blair

Index of Authors 437

 Editors' Introduction

Educational Systems Design and Educational Technology

Educational technology in the broadest sense is knowledge and competence for improving
the educational process: knowledge and competence for using hardware (equipment) , soft-
ware (methods), and 'underware' (underlying organizational structures).

Need. Design technologies in education have already been developed in ~ context of

instructional and curricular design and facilities design. A comprehensive technology of
systems design of educational organizations is only now emerging through the work of
several design scholars. At this point, given the general call for the 'radical redesign' of
educational systems, we are in great need of developing a broad-based defmition of this
new technology and advancement of its concepts and methodologies (Banathy, 1990).

Importance. Hardware and software, particularly computers (intelligent tutoring systems,

simulations, hypertext systems, interactive video, programmed tutorials, and drill and
practice programs), offer great potential which can never be significantly utilized as long as
the current 'underware' of our system of education remains: a time-based, group-based,
teacher-led system in which a class of 30 students is 'dispensed' the same content at the
same time and proceeds to the next topic regardless of individual readiness. Redesigning
the system is essential if hard and soft technologies are ever to approach their potential for
improving the educational process.

Timeliness. The currency of 'school restructuring' indicates increasing recognition that

the educational problems facing the NATO countries can only be solved by redesigning our
educational systems. It is a recognition that, just as the transition from an agrarian society
to an industrial society required a transition from the one-room schoolhouse to our current
educational system, so the current transition to an information society necessitates an
equally radically redesigned educational system.
 2

The Organization of the Book

Materials developed around the topic of the workshop are organized in two major parts.
The parts and their content are outlined below.

Part 1 The Framing Papers

The fIrst main part of this work contains three 'framing papers' that have been developed
by the Co-Chairs of the workshop in order to create a broad-based framework for the
contributions of the participants. The fIrst two papers, by Bela H. Banathy and Charles M.
Reigeluth respectively, provide the thematic framework. The third paper, by Bela H.
Banathy, sets forth the procedural structure of the workshop.

Part 2 Thematic Contributions

The workshop participants developed their contributions to this volume from three sources.
(l) They considered the overall purpose and the thematic structure of the program, as
defmed in the invitation to the workshop. (2) They studied the three framing papers that
elaborated the purpose and provided conceptual discussions on the various themes. And,
most significantly, (3) they worked out from their own scholarship, experiential context,
and knowledge base. From a review of the contributions an organizational scheme emerged
that enabled the editors to group the papers into fIve sections. The themes of the sections
and the contributions that are nested in the sections are identifIed next.

1 The Conceptual and Empirical Contexts ojComprehensive Systems Design

In the fIrst paper, Gerard de Zeeuw reviews the international context of education and fmds
that fundamental changes are called for, changes that should build on the availability of the
broad-based societal resources that can support learning and human development.
In the second paper, Nicolas C. Paritsis discusses the relevance of variety, order, and
motivation to evolution and learning and examines their implications for the design of
educational systems.
In the third paper, Bela Antal Banathy proposes the empirical grounding of systems
performance measures not only for the evaluation of learning, but also as an aid to the
design of educational systems.
In the next paper, Georges Goulet and Andre Dolbec move into the societal context of
comprehensive systems design and define the community as the social unit that should
learn how to design and how to carry out design as a community activity.
 3

Nagib and Belkis Callaos, in the next paper, interface a systemic defmition of education
and its systemic design within the larger conceptual context of meta-design.
In the final paper of the section, C. Lynn Jenks and Mary Amsler use Churchman's
'systems conditions' to explore an approach to assessing the appropriateness and viability
of organizational design. They suggest that such an assessment approach is appropriate to
judge emerging educational designs.

2 The Systems Design Focus

Harold G. Nelson, in the fIrst paper of this section, explores the emergence of the creative
design process as the most appropriate educational design technology for the creation of
complex purposive systems, such as educational institutions.
Wojciech Gasparski, in the second paper, discusses the ways that design is evolving as
a human activity, and the implications of these changes for educational systems redesign.
In the next paper, Oguz N. BabUroglu shifts the focus from the system to be designed
to its environment and challenges designers to suspend fIxed notions about the system in
the pursuit of access to the 'larger whole' through a group process methodology.
In the next contribution, Tad Gougen Frantz proposes that when a system has lost its
viability, focusing on the problems of the existing systems and trying to fIx them is a waste
of time. Designers should learn to 'jump out' from the system and, unconstrained by the
exigencies of what is, should consider the range of possibilities of what should be. She
pays particular attention to the issue of how to confront and cope with the anxiety of
'jumping out. '
Thorbjorn Meyer and Peter Pruzan, in their paper, propose that the design process, in
the contexts of education and the society, is an ethical process by which systemically
relevant value sets bring the educational system and its stakeholders into a state of dynamic
attunement. The authors describe methods for implementing the ethical process and focus
on the establishment of a 'dialogue culture.'
In the fInal paper of the section, Ian Macnaughton describes a methodology which can
assist educational designers to benefIt from a process of organizational learning in order to
enhance an iterative systemic process of continuous redesign. The paper portrays a case
study from which the author developed the methodology of retrospective design analysis.

3 A Systems View of Designing Educational Systems

Rafael Rodriguez Delgado, in his paper, discusses the application of such general systemic
methodologies as induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, static and dynamic, and
multilectic perspectives as promising approaches in the design of educational systems.
 4

In the next paper, Hilda J. Blanco argues that the real failure of our schools is to
educate people in a complex and interrelated world, where institutions and technologies
permeate the life of the society. The author identifies a number of features of a systems-
approach knowledge base to meet the challenge of designing new systems of learning and
human development
Wendy Gregory, in her paper, says that of the three styles of design, namely 'doing to,'
'doing for,' and 'doing with,' the third, namely the participative design, is the one which is
ethically sound.; She identifies systems approaches that generate the three styles and raises
the question whether systems science does offer any coherent and rigorous 'doing with'
design methodology.
In the next paper, Theodore W. Frick takes a broad, societally-based view of education
and argues that to limit ourselves to making changes in the structure of the existing
educational system will not solve current problems that are due to conditions whose genesis
is beyond the schools themselves. He sets forth perspectives that lead us to consider the
societal environment in redesigning educational systems.
In the last paper of the section, Arne Collen and Giafranco Minati explore openness - a
central concept in the theory of human activity systems - and apply this concept to the
design of educational systems.

4 The Educational Context of Systems Design

In this section, Dwight W. Allen's paper states that the American mass education system,
designed in the early part of the century to meet the needs of a mass production economy,
is inappropriate today. School reform will not succeed unless it not only raises but re-
defines the essential standards of excellence and strives to make quality and equality of
educational opportunity compatible with each other.
In the next paper, Theo M.E. Liket describes some indicators that can be used to
compare educational systems, such as the general aims of education, factors influencing
school systems, and different levels of educational decision making. He also discusses the
failure of centrally introduced changes and the success of changes introduced at the level of
individual schools.
Beau Fly Jones, Randy A. Knuth, and Steve Baxendale, in their paper, argue that
learning research needs to be considered by stakeholders to successfully redesign schools
that promote leaming.
Ian McArthur, in his paper, suggests that the design of future educational systems will
require input from a wide range of knowledge domains and external stakeholders. In this
coritext, the author sets forth a set of concerns that emerge from the domain of learning
systems design.
 5

Next come two related papers from Nimal Jayaratna. The first paper is a preamble to
the second, in which the author concentrates on four issues: desirability versus feasibility,
morphogenetic change, boundary conditions in design, and the question of why we should
engage in design in the context of educational systems.
The section closes with a paper from P. David Mitchell. He discusses the need for
lifelong learning and the need to consider the societal and political frameworks within
which educational systems operate.

5 High Technology Focus in Systems Design

Kristo Ivanov, in his paper, introduces some general features of the idea of a hypersystem
seen as a computer-technological implementation of the concept of self-learning social
systems. He suggests some future developments that will bring about what he calls 'co-
constructive'systems.
In the next paper, Monique Grandbastien suggests that an effective integration of new
technologies at every level of the educational system needs crucial changes in the system as
a whole.
Finally, Wayne G. Blair, in his paper, reviews the findings of forty-three documents
that report plans for technology applications and suggests that most technology plans reflect
an evolutionary stage of educational technology that provides little evidence that the
potential of educational technology is utilized in the transformation or design of educational
systems.
Part 1 The Framing Papers
Systems Design: A Creative Response to
the Current Educational Predicament
Bela H. Banathy

International Systems Institute and Saybrook Graduate School, 25781 Morse Drive, Carmel,
CA 93923, U.S.A.

Abstract: Traditional econometric/statistical methods of performance measurement are unable

to account for the complexity in educational systems. Oversimplified performance measures
can lead to organizational pathologies. Performance measures that retain empirical grounding in
systems-in-transition need to be developed.

Keywords: Systemic performance measurement, accounting for complexity, informational

pathologies, feedback, empirical production functions.

"If Rip Van Winkle would wake up today, the only place he would feel at horne is the
classroom." (From a conversation with the superintendent of a large school district.)

Introduction

In this paper the stage is set for introducing systems design as an intellectual technology to be
used in the design of educational systems. The paper is a condensed adaptation of selected parts
of [1].
In Part One of this paper, systems design is defined and offered as a lens to look at the
current state of the educational improvement movement. It will be shown that the improvement
efforts of the last decade have fallen far short of goals and expectations. After many years of
massive investment of funds and a host of recommendations the situation has not changed.
Shortcomings of these efforts are discussed and it is suggested that the major source of the
current predicament is a "crisis of perception" that hinders thinking about new ways of carrying
out the societal function of education, ways in harmony with current societal developments. In
Part Two, the educational implications and challenges of the post-industrial information society
are discussed, a framework for rethinking education is introduced, and an approach to creating
a new image of education is introduced. In Part Three, systems design is offered as an
intellectual technology by which-based on the image-we can devise a new system of
learning and human development and transform education by design. But first-as part of this
introduction-a definition of systems design is rendered.
 10

Systems design in the context of human activity systems is a future-creating disciplined

inquiry. People, who constitute a human activity system, engage in design inquiry in order to
create and implement a new system, based on their vision of what "should be." Or, they may
redesign their existing system in order to meet their own aspirations and the changing
conditions or expectations of their environment. These user designers aim to create a system
that has a "goodness of fit" internally as well as within the context of the larger society. When
the term "systems design" is used, I have in mind the kind of inquiry described here as I
explore its application to the design or redesign of educational systems.
Current educational change efforts start out with an analysis of the existing system.
Problems are identified and a plan is developed by which to correct the problems. Systems
designers, on the other hand, start with the exploration of the overall societal context in order to
formulate the purpose and the societal functions of education. They envision an ideal image of a
system that will have the potential to attain the purpose and attend to the functions that have to
be addressed in order to achieve the purpose. They design and describe the system that will
have the organizational capacity and human capability to realize the image. I shall discuss
systems design in the sense outlined here and use it as a "lens" through which to look at the
current educational improvement scene.

Part One: The Predicament and Its Implications: Improvement or

Transformation?

The current improvement scene is explored first and it will be shown that the way we have
approached educational improvement in the course of the last decade is a major source of the
existing problem situation. The other source of the predicament is a gap that has been developed
between education and the larger society. It is proposed that in order to close this gap we
should change our outlook (on education) and raise questions very different from what we have
asked in our attempt to improve education.

1. Exploring the Current Improvement Scene

This inquiry is developed by first suggesting that the nation is still "at risk." The various waves
of improvement efforts are described, and then the improvement I restructuring approaches are
examined from a systems design perspective.
 11

1.1 The Nation Is Still "At Risk"

The ship of education is sailing on troubled waters. One national report after another highlight
the current "crisis" of a "nation at risk," pointing out dangerous currents and menacing shoals.
There is an ever increasing realization that unless we change the course, the ship will sink. But
people are still trying to "rearrange the chairs" on the deck of the sinking ship.
The host of reports prescribe remedies for fixing education. Whatever terms are used-
reform, restructure, improve, or renew-the recommendations focus on making adjustments or
fixing the system, rather than designing a new one. The first wave of these recommendations
insisted upon doing more of the same (of what we are now doing). The second wave called for
doing the same but doing it better. And the third wave now suggests restructuring the system;
the rearranging of present components (rearranging the chairs on the deck) or the realignment of
current responsibilities.
In the course of the last few years, the states have spent up to 70% more on education,
supporting piecemeal improvements that have resulted-at best-in miniscule gains. "Now,
after five years of the most sustained school reform movement in U.S. history, it's becoming
clear to many that the U.S. educational factory is obsolete. It needs to be rebuilt from the
ground up in an entirely different way, under entirely different operating assumptions."l
In a recent statement, the Secretary of Education presented a gloomy report on the state of
education saying that "frankly, there has been very little educational progress made" and-
criticizing the educational reform efforts of the 80s. The nation has "gone through the-
motions," he said, but the situation is "virtually unchanged" and the achievements are
"dreadfully inadequate." A survey of the National Alliance of Business found that 72 % of
executives thought new employees' math skills had worsened in the last five years and 65 %
said the same about reading skills. Why?

1.2 Sources of Our Current Predicament

Analysts of the current educational predicament usually come up with a host of problems that
should be corrected. We hold, however, that there is much more to the genesis of the current
crisis in education than specific deficiencies. It is suggested that there are two major sources of
the current crisis. One is rooted in the way we approach educational change and reform. The
other is an ever widening gap between rapidly changing societal developments and the current
state of education, which seems to be unaffected by those changes.

1 The Wall Street Journal.

 12

1.2.1 A Review of Improvement Approaches

Piecemeal, incremental, and disjointed efforts have characterized most educational improvement
efforts of the last decade. Reports and descriptions of improvement ideas and projects could fill
whole libraries. We are reminded of warehouses fIlled with spare parts, parts that do not fit into
a whole. There is no blueprint for integrating these parts. This image applies: the myriad of
educational improvement programs and products do not "map" into a system, they do not
constitute a whole. This piecemeal/incremental approach follows the traditional social planning
approach. It reduces the problem defined into manageable pieces or sub-problems and seeks
solution to each. It is believed that solving problems piece-by-piece ultimately would correct the
larger problem of the current crisis. But: correcting what is undesirable will not ensure the
attainment o/what is wanted. Furthermore, this piecemeal planning is accomplished in separate
parts of the system, oblivious to the effect of how these (parts) are related or how they will
interact
The "Systems Design Approach "-proposed here-seeks to understand this design
problem situation in education as a system of interconnected and interdependent problems. It
seeks to envision an educational arrangement as a whole, as one that emerges-and can be
designed-in view of and from a synthesis of the interaction of its parts. A systems view
suggests that the essential quality of a part resides in its relationship to the whole. The system
and its parts should be designed from the perspective of the whole system and in view of its
embeddedness in its environment. The systems design notion requires both coordination and
integration. We need to design all parts operating at a specific system level of the organization
interactively and simultaneously. This requires coordination. The requirement of designing for
the interdependency across all system levels invites integration.

1.2.2 The Existence of an Ever-Widening Developmental Gap

Around the middle of this century, we entered the "post-industrial information / knowledge
age," a new stage in societal development. It has created massive changes, unfolded new
perspectives, new thinking, a new societal vision, new scientific orientation, and a new
planetary world view. It has brought about massive discontinuities and transformations in all
aspects of our lives; requiring changes and transformations in the way we think about
education, the way we perceive the societal function of education, and the way we provide
arrangements for learning and human development.
Few of the reports and recommendations have recognized the developmental gap described
above. They have failed to understand the complexity of current (societal) issues that surround
education. They have failed to grapple with the essential function of education as a societal
 13

system; a system which is embedded in a rapidly and constantly changing larger society.
Furthermore, current improvement / restructuring efforts suffer from taking a limited view of
problem setting. As a rule, improvement inquiries have focused on the existing system. They
"work out" from it and stay within its boundaries. At most, they might pay some attention to a
few selected societal problems-such as drug use, teenage pregnancy, at risk students--
suggesting changes at the margin of existing programs.
At times of accelerating and dynamic societal changes, when a new stage is unfolding in
societal development-as it happened around the middle of this century when the post-
industrial information age emerged-inquiry should not focus on improving existing systems.
An inside focus limits perception to the (old) societal image (of the machine age) in which our
current educational systems are still rooted. A design rooted in an outdated image is a bad
design. We must break the old frame (of thinking) and reframe our thinking. We should
explore educational change and renewal from the larger vistas of the evolving society, and
envision a new design. We should view the system we design from the perspectives of the
overall societal context. Approaching education from this perspective, we shall enlarge our
horiwn and develop the largest possible picture of education within the largest possible context.
An assessment of the current educational improvement scene now suggests that making
adjustments in or improving our educational system, which is still grounded in the assembly-
line thinking of the machine age, will not do at the current stage of societal development. Thus,
our challenge today is to understand the characteristics of our vastly changing society,
understand the educational implications of these characteristics, and create a vision that will
guide the transformation of education; a transformation directed by purposeful design.

2. A Call for New Thinking and A New Approach

From a review of the educational reform movement and from an understanding and analysis of
the sources of the educational predicament of the day, the picture developed here shows us that
the current "crisis" in education is first and foremost a "crisis of perception," This crisis now
calls for a major shift in perception. It calls for new thinking in-and a new vision of-
education. It calls for a new approach and a new strategy for educational inquiry. In this
section, we present an initial portrayal of this new thinking and action by: (1) introducing an
evolutionary perspective, and (2) proposing a new set of questions to be asked.

2.1 An Evolutionary Perspective

"You see things as they are"and ask WHY?

But I dream things that never were and ask WHY NOT? " (George Bernard Shaw)
 14

Education reflects the collective beliefs. values. aspirations. and cultural and ethical norms of
the society. This reflection is articulated in the educational purposes. expectations. and policies
that define the content and the form of the society's systems of learning and human
development. The underlying beliefs that inform these systems are likewise shaped by the
educational experiences provided to members of the society. Together. education and society
must consciously forge a co-evolutionary relationship that mutually influences and shapes
them.
Earlier. when societal evolution was slow and gradual. various systems of the society were
able to co-evolve and adjust to each other. There was time for balanced and coordinated
development across all systems of the society. During the last several decades. however. we
have experienced unprecedented scientific. technological advances and societal changes;
coupled with an explosion of information and knowledge. This phenomenon created a
situation. resulting in evolutionary imbalance between the rapidly transforming society and
some of its component systems.
As a new stage emerges in the evolution of a society. as it happened when the post-
industrial information society emerged around the middle of this century. the continued use of
old image. generates more problems than it solves. On the other hand. new images that are
congruent with the evolving age can exert "magnetic pull" toward the future. As a societal
system. such as education. develops its new image that reflects the unfolding sociocultural
characteristics and ideas of the society. it can forge a new system (of education) that can bring
the image into reality. Thus. the evolutionary balance can be restored between education and the
larger society.
Today we are far from attaining such a balance. One of the most troubling societal
predicaments we face is the ever-widening gap between education and the rapidly developing
post-industrial information society. We have yet to envision a new image that can lead us into
the nineties and beyond. We are investing tremendous efforts and resources into exploring
ways to "fix" a system that is by now outdated and should not exist anymore. To rephrase
George Bernard Shaw. rather than ask why our current system is not working. we should
dream of systems of education that never were and make our dreams come true by design.

2.2 Asking New and Different Questions

Educational improvement inquiries over the last decade have probed the adequacy of our
educational systems from within. Focusing on the existing system. we have asked such
questions as:
What is wrong with the system?
How can we improve it or restructure it to make it more efficient and cost-effective?
 15

How can we provide more instructional time?

How can we improve student and teacher performance?
How can we increase achievements in the basics and in science, so that we can compete in the
economic arena?
How can we assure more parent and community involvement?
Many more questions like the above are being asked. Such questions might be appropriate
in times of relative stability, when adjustments and piecemeal improvements in an existing
system could bring it in line with slow and gradual changes in the environment. However, in
times of turbulence, accelerating and dynamic changes and discontinuities that characterize the
current era; when a new and very different stage in societal evolution is unfolding; it is time-if
time. still remains for us-to ask new and very different questions. Questions such as:
(Understanding the societal challenge)
What is the nature and what are the characteristics of the current post-industrial information /
knowledge age?
and
What are the educational implications of those characteristics?
(Creating a new image of education)
What framework can we use to re-think education and what vision, what core ideas and core
values might inspire our thinking?
and
What new image is emerging from all the above that might guide the design of new systems of
learning and human development?
(Designing the new system)
What kind of approach and what strategies will enable us to realize and implement that image?
and
How can we apply the approach and strategies in designing new systems of learning and
human development?
Clearly, these are very different questions from those we are asking today. These new
questions shift the direction of the exploration from the existing system and from an
improvement perspective to a societal-based and future-generations-focused systems design
perspective. They represent a trust for the transformation of education and create the agenda for
the systems design of education. The rest of this text is organized around the three clusters of
questions introduced above.
 16

Part Two: A Creative Response to the Predicament

"Intentions are fairly easy to perceive, but frequently do not come about and are not
fulfilled. Design is hard to perceive. But it is design and not intention that creates the
future." (Kenneth Boulding)

At the recent "educational summit" of the States' Governors and the President, a set of
ambitious educational goals were set to be achieved by the end of this decade. Those goals
expressed intentions of high expectations. But intentions of the same kind have been stated over
and over in the course of the last decade, without any evidence that they are or will be fulftlled.
In spite of the many improvement efforts the systems that now exist are incapable of achieving
any outcomes, different from what they have been designed to produce. A horse-and-buggy
can not be improved or restructured to become a spacecraft. Thus, the obvious question arises:
Mr. President and our Governors of the States: What system will attain those ambitious goals
and realize the intentions you have aspired to achieve? Do any of you understand that it is
design and not intention that creates the future?
In this part, systems design is offered as a creative response to the existing educational
predicament. The genesis of this response is grounded in an exploration and understanding of
the educational implications of the massive societal changes that characterize the post-industrial
information age. The perspectives gained from such understanding will guide designers in our
communities to create a new image of education and based on that image engage in systems
design by which to realize the image.

3. Understanding the Societal Challenge

Current educational improvement efforts are locked into an internal analysis of the problems of
the existing system and-based on the analysis-plans are developed for "fixing" the system.
Recognizing that education is a societal system charged with specific societal functions, system
designers are not satisfied with an internal analysis that will lock them into the system. They
"jump out" from the system into the the larger societal context in order to: (1) explore and
understand emerged and emerging societal characteristics, (2) examine and define the
educational implications of these characteristics, and (3) define the kind of societal functions (of
education) that respond to those characteristics and restore the co-evolutionary relationship
between education and the society.
 17

3.1 Understanding Societal Characteristics

An understanding of the societal characteristics of the postindustrial infonnation age will help
designers to gain insight into the society that is now unfolding and transfonning. It is this
society which constitutes the functional context of education. This exploration will require
significant investment in time and effort. Designers will have to detennine the kind of questions
asked, they have to establish the knowledge-base required to answer those questions, and,
then, fonnulate their answers that will provide essential design information. In order to
demonstrate this exploration, I will propose here a set of questions that designers might ask and
speculate about potential answers. Questions such as:
What are the key markers-the general characteristics-of the post-industrial infonnation
society?
What are its sociocultural characteristics?
What sociotechnical characteristics have emerged?
How about socioeconomic characteristics?
What are the characteristics of the new scientific paradigm?
And what are some of the newly emerged organizational characteristics?

3.1.1 General Characteristics

The general characteristics that mark the current era are displayed in Table 1. These
characteristics are juxtaposed to those of the industrial / machine age in order to highlight their
novelty and show the discontinuity between the two eras. Even a cursory examination of the
differences will show that the characteristics of the current era can not be extrapolated from
those of the preceding. Understanding this discontinuity is of utmost importance to the
designers. It clearly shows that the current educational system-as it is rooted in the industrial /
machine age--can not be "improved" or "restructured" to match the characteristics of the post-
industrial infonnation age. We need a new design, a new system.
Even a brief review of the infonnation presented in the table will help us to recognize that
what our schools offer today and the way they offer it are inadequate to respond to the
characteristics of today's society. Once we recognize this, our challenge becomes to design
systems of learning and human development that are grounded in emerged and emerging
societal characteristics and create a new vision of education.
 18

INDUSTRIAL AGE CURRENT ERA

Purpose and Mode Processes organized around Processes organized around

mechanical energy for intellectual technology for
material production. information and knowledge
development.

Power Base Extension of our physical Extension of our cognitive

powers by machines. powers by high technology.

Domirumt Paradigm Newtonian classical science, Cybernetics / systems

deterministic, reductionist, science, emerging mutual
single causality, organized causality, dynamic
simplicity. complexity, ecological
orientation.

Technologies Inventing, manufacturing, Gathering / organizing /

fabricating, heating, storing information;
engineering, etc. communicating, networking,
and systems planning and
design.

Principal Commodity Energy, raw and processed Theoretical knowledge and

materials, machines and information used to support
manufactured products. innovation, design policy,
and services.

Social Consciousness National and race. National, race, transnational,

and global.

Table 1: General Characteristics

3.1.2 Sociocultural Characteristics

Sociocultural characteristics reflect the unfolding value system of the society and represent the
emerging sociocultural and ethical norms that shape a new image of humanity. A few examples
of such characteristics include:
The ethical dimensions of (a) self-realization ethics that place the highest value on the
development of our potential; (b) social ethics that strive to attain economic and social justice;
 19

and (c) ecological ethics that emphasize the oneness of the community of life on earth:
humans, animals, plants, all of nature.
Seeking a balanced and coordinated development of the various existential systems of the
social, cultural, economic, physical/mental / spiritual, intellectual/scientific, technological /
aesthetic, and political.
The emergence of a communal society in which people are to be empowered with
reconstructive, critical, and creative capabilities which enable them to overcome
powerlessness and alienation and enable them to forge a common framework of values and
social consciousness and attain a local and global worldview of humanity.

3.1.3 Sociotechnical Characteristics

Intellectual technology is the emergent feature of this era, with theoretical knowledge having a
strategic role in all technological developments:
Information and knowledge are the key products that can be shared by all, while products of
the industrial era were possessed by individual buyers of the products.
While the industrial era focused on mechanical production with the use of machine
technology, today the focus is on cognitive processes. Information and knowledge
processing become the dominant features; and information transmission is the new
infrastructure, added to the transportation and power infrastructures.
We have become aware of the multiple consequences of technological applications, which
often have a devastating effect on the society and the environment. We now understand that it
is sociocultural intelligence that should guide and control technological applications.

3.1.4 Socioeconomic Characteristics

Socioeconomic characteristics that have emerged indicate that the economics of information and
knowledge (of the new era) are very different from those of the economics of material goods
(of the industrial society).
Emphasis has shifted from production of goods to human, social, professional, and technical
services. The shift from manual to cognitive activities has created discontinuity and major
changes in occupational distribution.
In the industrial age people worked primarily with machines, today they work with-and have
to learn how to work with-other people. Marketing goods was dominated by competitive
strategy, today as information and knowledge become the strategic resources, a new strategy:
cooperation is required to increase knowledge production, dissemination, and utilization.
 20

Living today, we shift the measuring of quality oflife by physical! mental! spiritual wellness,
education, recreation, and the arts. It is the inner quality of life which becomes most
important.

3.1.5 Characteristics of Scientific Inquiry

Characteristics of scientific inquiry that have emerged in the course of the last forty years have
forged a new scientific paradigm.
The traditional scientific paradigm that has focused on analysis and reductionism is now
complemented by the evolutionary I systems paradigm, with a focus on synthesis,
expansionism, and emergence. We now understand that there is no separation between the
observer, the observed, and context of observation; they mutually influence each other.
Purpose, meaning, and ethical I moral considerations have assumed a guiding role in
disciplined inquiry.
We begin to understand the "counterintuitive" nature of complex systems. Intuitive judgments
seek immediate cause-and effect relations which are true only for simple and restricted
systems. In complex systems, causes are mutually effected, are recursive, and deeply hidden.
Invention, the main scientific activity in the industrial era, is replaced now by the intellectual
technology based disciplined inquiry of systems design. The design of social systems invites
the full participation all those who are involved: the client, the user, the decision-maker, the
stakeholders; and all those who are affected by the design, including future generations.

3.1.6 Organizational Characteristics

Organizational characteristics that have recently emerged are best understood in contrast with
the characteristics of the earlier era.
The amount, the variety, and the availability of knowledge -as well as its absolute growth-
are significantly higher than in the previous era. This requires organizations to have a marked
increase in both specialization and diversification AND integration and generalization.
Internal and external complexity is increasing. The more discrete the components of the
environment the greater the complexity of the system (the law of requisite variety), requiring
an increase in the amount and diversity of information. Furthermore, an increase in the rate of
change pressures the organization to process information rapidly, distribute it more widely,
and transform it quicker to organizational knowledge.
 21

An increase in external turbulence and uncertainty place a higher premium on organizational

flexibility, the ability to learn as an organization, and engage in continuous organizational
renewal by design.
The characteristics introduced above are only indications of what designers will find as they
explore the massive changes and transformations that have occurred in the course of the last
four to five decades. They will most likely find that understanding those characteristics will
have major impact upon their thinking about what learning should be offered, how, where,
when, and how should we organize for providing learning experiences and resources. I will
speculate about these implications in the next section.

3.2 Exploring the Educational Implications of Societal Characteristics.

As designers understand the emerged and emerging characteristics of the society the question
they ask is: What are the implications of these characteristics for education? From a review of
the examples introduced above, it appears to me that each and every item has significant
educational implications. In the text below an interpretation of some-not all-of the
implications is presented as examples of what designers might formulate as the outcome of their
exploration.

3.2.1 Emerging Societal Functions

Societal junctions that pertain to the relationship of education to the society are two-fold. One is
the establishment of a co-evolutionary relationship between education and the society.This
means a shift from an interpretation of the past to a mutually shaping relationship. The second
function will seek the forging of new kinds of relationships with other societal systems, that
would break out from the current isolation of education and establish coordination, possibly
even integration, with societal systems that can offer resources and make contribution to
nurturing learning and human development.
Societal junctions that are relevant to learning and human development seem to include the
following:
Nurturing human potential and enabling individuals to become what they have the potential
and aspiration to become. The full development of our inner quality enriches our own lives,
the lives of the systems we belong, and the life of the society.
Ensuring the freedom and right to learn and the right to know. Only if these rights are
recognized can we expect that the individual and the society will achieve full self-development
and self-determination.
 22

Advancing human quality and wisdom. Developing the kind of sociocultural intelligence that
will guide science and technology and allow us to make wise decisions individually and
collectively.
Very little of what our schools offer today addresses the functions presented above.

3.2.2 The New Learning Agenda

An understanding of emerged societal characteristics will help designers to formulate learning

agenda that will enable the development and nurturing of those human competencies and
qualities that are required by all of us individually and collectively at the now unfolding stage of
societal development. The new agenda might include the following:
A shift to higher order learning. Learning content can be classified as data, information,
knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. These five constitute a hierarchy and convey a
sense of increasing complexity and utility. The higher order embeds and makes use of the
lower. The distribution of the five types in today's curriculum is something like: 48% data,
38% information, 28% knowledge; leaving some to understanding, but very little to wisdom.
An understanding of the educational implication of societal characteristics calls for a major
redistribution of allocation of the five types, by focusing on the development of
understanding of the self, the systems and environments we live in, and the situations we
experience. We can nurture wisdom by offering learning by which to relate knowledge
acquired and understanding gained to pragmatic, moral, ethical, and affective issues.
Developing competence called for in the technological age. Emerging technologies require
changes in competence required to work and live. Today systems are not the "off shelf' type,
characteristics of the industrial age. They require educated, sophisticated, open-minded, and
creative people, able to adapt new technologies to suit particular needs and uses. This calls for
the learning of process rather than content; learning the processes of knowledge acquisition
and utilization and nurturing innovation and creativity.
Learning to manage and shape change becomes essential in times of rapid change and
discontinuity. Innovative learning enables us to face new and unexpected situations and shift
from reactive adaptation to purposeful, directed changes. Learning to design engages our
creative potential as we learn to envision future images of our systems, develop these images
in terms of design alternatives, evaluate the alternatives, and realize the selected alternative by
purposeful design.
Acquiring competence in cooperation (as we have seen in the previous section) is a major
requirement of our era. This calls for a major shift in current educational practices of
promoting and rewarding competition. By nurturing cooperation as a method of learning as
well as the development of cooperative interaction skills we increase our capacity for entering
 23

into ever-extending social relationships, while concurrently developing competence in

managing and resolving conflicts in a non-violent manner,
Competence in systems thinking and action. The ever increasing complexity and the changing
dynamics of our systems call for competence by which we can understand and manage
complexity, cope with ambiguity and uncertainty, and grasp the connectedness and
interdependence of the systems to which we belong. Learning to think systemically, and
applying systems thinking and systems methods in all aspects of life will generate this
competence. By engaging in systems learning we shall develop capability to relate to the
systems in which we are nested, attain a systems view of the world, and-ultimately-learn
to appreciate the oneness of humanity and ascend to global consciousness.
The five domains of the new learning agenda are intrinsically interconnected. In their
synergistic interaction and interdependence they begin to exemplify a new system of learning
programs. Learners will find competence in these five areas to be directly relevant to and useful
in situations they confront in their daily lives. The new learning agenda-described here-will
be integrated with those learnings we now provide and hold to be essential.
In this first section of Part Two, an exploration strategy was introduced by which designers
can gain insight into emerged societal characteristics of the current era and explore the
educational implications of those characteristics. This strategy requires designers to "jump out"
from their present system of education into the largest possible societal context (in which their
system is embedded) in order to understand the requirements of the system they will design.
Only if they so do can they design a system which will not only be compatible with its societal
context but will be able to co-evolve with it continuously.

4. A Framework for Creating a New Image of Education

"The image not only makes society, society continually remakes the image"
(Kenneth Boulding)

Image creation should be guided by questions that probe into the very essence of education: the
relevance of its purposes, the learning content it offers and the way it offers it, its relationship
to the society and, consequently, the designation of its societal functions, and the viability of its
organizational forms and arrangements. The framework for creating images, introduced next,
enables us to formulate some of those questions. It leads us to engage in the purposeful
exploration of the boundaries of future systems of education. It helps us to consider new
images that can be created, based on which new systems can be designed. At the same time, the
use of the framework will dramatize the difference between current approaches to educational
 24

improvement and the systems design approach that enables us to create a new image and a new
design.

4.1 Description of the Framework

A framework fonhinking about new educational systems and creating images of new systems
and exploring options for their design is depicted in Figure 1 and is described here. The
framework is constructed of three dimensions upon which we can project sets of core ideas and
values of a new image. These three dimensions in their interaction constitute the context in
which image options can be explored, and within which the selected core ideas and values can
be synthesized. In the sections that follow I will (1) identify the dimensions of the framework,
(2) characterize its potential uses, and (3) elaborate the constituents of each of the three
dimensions.

4.1.1 Dimensions of the Framework

The dimensions of the framework and their constituents are described next

4.1.1.1 The dimension of the focus of the inquiry.

The designation of the focus of the inquiry is the most salient dimension of the framework. It
leads us to ask the following question: In the hierarchy of the systems complex of education,
which system level is in focus: the learning experience, instruction, administration, or
governance? Or to ask it another way: Which level is designated as the primary level around
which to design and build the entire systems complex?

4.1.1.2 The dimension of establishing boundaries and defining the scope of

the inquiry.
This dimension has, again, four options: (a) The boundaries and the scope of the design inquiry
can be limited by the boundaries of the existing system. (b) They can be broadened to consider
certain issues in the environment. (c) They can be extended to include the entire community as
the domain of design. (d) Finally, with the broadest scope and within the most extended
boundaries, they may mark the larger society as the space of design. (This scope was explored
in the previous section.)
 25

4.1.1.3 The dimension of patterns that connect.

Four types of interaction patterns may be considered as patterns that may connect the
educational system with other societal systems that can offer situations and opportunities for
learning and human development. These are (a) information exchange between the system and
other systems in its environment, (b) cooperation with external systems, (c) coordination, or
(d) integration with other societal systems in the community and beyond.

Relationships Between
Educational Systems and Other

,
Organizations and Agencies

C ,

CI.l
a.
o
u
V)

~
In
.~ B
cv
'0 Primary Focus
c::
::::s
o
c:a

Figure 1: The Framework

 26

4.1.2 The Uses of the Framework

The framework enables us to accomplish the following:

Portray the image of the existing system as a "base-line" against which to design or from
which to depart.
Map the overall context within which to explore and create new images of education.
Consider and create various alternatives to the existing image of education.
Formulate criteria by which to select from the alternatives. (Criteria are formulated by
considering the advantages and disadvantages of choices made of available options offered by
the three dimensions and their constituents.)
Select from the various alternatives the most promising alternative and describe it as the new
image. Map the selected image into the framework. By so doing, we also define the
boundaries of the system we intend to design.

4.1.3 A Description of the Constituents of the Three Dimensions

The constituents of the three dimensions are described below in a way that makes transparent
their implications for the creation of images.

4.1.3.1 The constituents of the dimension of the focus of the inquiry

The constituents of the dimension of the focus of the inquiry and the choices of the primacy of
systems level are the learning experience, instruction, administration, and governance.
If the learning-experience level is in focus, the learner is designated as the key entity and
occupies the nucleus of the systems complex of education. The primary system function is the
facilitation of learning. The primary system level is the learning-experience level, around
which, in response to which, and in support of which we design the other systems of the
complex: the systems of instruction, administration, and governance. A learning-experience
focused arrangement is rarely manifested today.
If the instructional level is in focus, administration and governance are to provide policies and
resources for its support. The instructional system defines the content and method of
instruction, and students are called upon to respond to it. This approach is the typical
arrangement in higher educational institutions. Some recent restructuring efforts in public
schools have proposed a realignment of instructional leadership, by shifting instructional
authority to groups of teachers.
If the administration level is in focus it sets the goals of instruction, defines the instructional
content and method, and provides directives for the use of resources. Governance sets broad
 27

policies and is called upon to secure needed resources. This arrangement is the most frequent
in our public schools today.
The governance level is in focus when the purpose of education is indoctrination and
enculturation. Top decision makers (in the government or in a church) define policies and
regulations, and mandate uniform curriculum and instruction.

4.1.3.2 The constituents of the dimension of the scope of the inquiry

The order of the description of the constituents of the scope of inquiry indicates a move from a
(very) limited scope and narrow boundaries toward an ever broader, widening, and extended
scope and, consequently, enlarged boundaries.
If the scope of inquiry is limited to the existing system of education, the inquiry stays within
the boundaries of the current system and may explore issues surrounding management,
organizational communication, instructional effectiveness, staff development, school climate,
etc. This narrow scope is typical of the current reform movement, with the goal of making the
existing system more efficient or more effective.
At the next level we broaden the scope and make some changes at the margin of the existing
system, and extend the inquiry in order to consider issues in the environment to which
education might respond. For example, the inquiry might focus on such problems as
dropouts, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, students at risk, economic competitiveness, etc.
Next, the scope and the boundary of inquiry might be further extended into the entire
community as the space of systems design. The involvement of a wide variety of societal
systems, organizations, and agencies is explored that might provide resources. arrangements,
and territories for learning.
In the broadest scope, we extend our inquiry into the larger society and re-vision education
and guide the design inquiry based on our understanding of the evolving major societal
changes and transformations. We seek not only to respond to these massive changes and
transformations, but also to create a new image of education by asserting that education has a
special and unique responsibility today to participate in shaping societal development. (It is
this scope that was explored as the educational implications of the characteristics of the post-
industrial society were considered in the previous section.)

4.1.3.3 The constituents of the dimension of patterns of interaction

This dimension contemplates and maps various patterns of interaction between the educational
system and other systems in the society.
Information exchange implies the least amount of interaction. It projects exchange between the
school and the community, by providing information to the community about the school and
 28

gathering information about the community for use by the school. Information might be
developed about resources in the community that could supplement instruction, This pattern
of interaction is the most frequent today.
Cooperation implies a pattern of interaction between the school and other societal institutions
and agencies for the purpose of attending to complementary goals or sharing some resources.
Participants in cooperative arrangements still maintain their autonomy but may enter into
mutually advantageous relationships.
Coordination implies interorganizationallinkage, and shared-ownership of an educational
enterprise which is mutually beneficial to the participants. It also implies giving up some
autonomy and indicates longer-lasting commitments. Formal organizational arrangements are
created for the accomplishment of shared goals of education and human development. In
some isolated instances we have created programs that have engaged in this type of interaction
(e.g., Experience-Based Career Education Program).
Integration is the most intensive and the highest level of interorganizational arrangement of
creating systemic relationships. If integration were to be considered, the entity that we now
call school might become a component of a community-wide system of learning and human
development. Such a system would be designed from the integration of systems of the public
and private sectors, community organizations, and various agencies that have the potential to
offer resources and arrangements for learning and human development. Participating systems
would integrate a portion of their resources and services into a new entity that would assume
the responsibility for designing and carrying out the societal function of education and human
development. As of today, we have not yet seen an example of such a community-wide
integrated system of education and human development.

4.2 Implications of the Use of the Framework

Some generalizations can be made from the implications of the use of the framework, including
the following:
If the inquiry space is drawn on the framework so that the intent is to stay within the current
boundaries of the system, then we cannot speak of creating an image and designing a system
which is different from that which now exists. We may be concerned with the improvement
of the system, but not with the design of a new system.
If the inquiry space is drawn so that an option or options are chosen that move out from the
existing system to a different level of constituent(s) of one (or more) of the dimensions, then
we are changing the boundaries of the system, and consequently we are engaging in the
creation of a new image, and based on it, in the design of a new system.
 29

The further we move from the existing level of practice on any one-or more-of the levels of
the constituents of the various dimensions, we create a need for an increasingly more
extensive knowledge base for creating the image and designing the system. We also extend
the time frame and resources needed for design, increase, the amount of design
experimentation and testing, and invite more intensive involvement and participation of people
in the system as well as the various clients and stakeholders of the system.

4.3 An Example of Selecting an Option

Given the three-dimensional framework and the available choices offered by the constituents of
the dimensions (as displayed in Figure 3.1), a variety of option configurations can be stipulated
that define the image of a new educational system that we wish to design. Which one of the
options we select will depend upon our worldview and our view of the society, coupled with
our perspectives on the societal functions of education, and our core ideas and values about
education and human development. An example is briefly outlined next.

4.3.1 A Possible Option, Mapped in the Framework

The example I introduced here is grounded in an appreciation of the major societal

transformation described in Part Two, and its implications for education as I understand them.
In developing this particular option as an example of the use of the framework, the following
choices have been made:
On the dimension of Focus of the Inquiry, the learning-experience level has been designated
as the primary systems level around which the systems complex of education is built.
Consequently, we shall require a much broader learning resources base than the current
educational system utilizes.
On the dimension of boundary and Scope of Inquiry, the overall societal context is the choice
with the involvement of all societal systems that are relevant to education and that can offer
resources for learning and human development.
On the dimension of Patterns of Interaction between the educational system and systems in its
environment, coordination that moves toward the ideal of integration will apply.
 30

4.3.2 Image Elements of the Option

Given the above choices, their interactive consideration leads me to propose a very limited
set of core ideas that are the key elements of my example-and only an example-of a
possible new image.
The image reflects focus on the learning-experience level with arrangements made in the
environment of the learner by which the learner is enabled to fully realize his or her potential
as an individual and as a participating and productive member of the society.
Integrate the functions of nurturing learning and human development as synthesized
components of a comprehensive societal system.
The content of learning embraces domains that have emerged as the societal characteristics of
our era were explored (e.g. higher order content, technological intelligence, cooperation,
ethical! moral imperatives, change management, systems thinking).
Use the large reservoir of learning resources and arrangements available throughout the
community and the society by which to support and nurture learning and human
development.
Provide resources and arrangements for the lifelong learning and human development of all
members of the community.
Involve and integrate all those societal systems.that can offer resources, arrangements, and
territories for learning and also are dedicated to human and societal development. Systems
involved may include various social service agencies; systems aimed at the development of
the physical, mental, and spiritual health of people; and the whole range of private, public,
volunteer, and community agencies that will become partners in carrying out the societal
functions of education and human development.
The "broad-stroke" picture painted above could represent one of the findings of the first
spiral of a multi-spiral process of creating an image. The first spiral may involve the exploration
of many possible image configurations that can be created with the use of the framework. We
might eliminate some based on the criteria we devised and go for a second spiral which
explores fewer images but in more detail. Then, we can go for a third spiral that would explore
in much more depth a couple of images, until we develop confidence in selecting the most
promising and most satisfying image.

5. Creating the Image: Approach and an Example

"A young nation is confronted with a challenge fQr which it finds a successful response.
It then grows and prospers. But as time passes the nature of the challenge cha,nges.
And if a nation continues to make the same once successful response for the new
challenge, it inevitably suffers a decline and eventual failure." (Arnold Toynbee)
 31

Systems design creates a normative description, a representation or model of a future system.

This creation is grounded in the designers' images, ideas, and aspirations regarding what that
future system should be. In the previous section a framework was introduced for thinking
about a new educational system and considering design options. Strategies were outlined and
an example was presented for the use of the framework. As designers explore design options
they will articulate individually and collectively core values and core ideas that guide the
formulation of those options. Now, they are ready to move on and create their image of the new
systems of learning and human development. In the course of their work, designers have by
now realized that the existing system of education are based on an outdated image. The
quotation from Toynbee makes this point elegantly. At the end of the twentieth century, we face
a new challenge of a new era. This challenge requires a new educational response. It requires a
new image and a new system of education, very different from what we now have. This image
creation has three strategies:
Articulating a vision, the grand ideal,
Synthesizing the core values and core ideas that elaborate the vision and guide the creation of
the image, and
Creating and describing the image.
Based on the image and guided by the core values and core ideas, we can proceed with the
design that will transform the image into a descriptive representation of the new system. In the
following, examples are selected from the source book of this paper.

5.1 Articulating a Vision

"Where there is no vision people perish." Proverbs XXIX. 18

"Vision" is defined in the dictionary (Webster, 79) as an act or power of seeing, an act or
power of imagination, a revelation, an object of imagination, an unusual discernment or
foresight. Designers can express their vision in the form of a metaphor, as an event foreseen, as
a visual representation, or as a linguistic description. A vision-quest will engage imagination
and creativity, and create excitement and inspiration. The quest is both individual and shared.
Examples follow.
The grand idea of paideia, the learning society, seems to be a vision of a society in which
learning, fulfillment, and becoming truly human are the primary goals.
Designers might contrast the old vision (of education) with the new:
A visual description of an assembly line using outdated machinery and producing more rejects
than good products is a visual metaphor for the old vision of education. A creative artist's
 32

studio in which everyone is excited by learning to create and creating uniqueness is a vision
of a new system of learning and human development.
The old vision is expressed by "Learning to make a living" and the new vision by "Learning
to make a life." Furthermore:
The invariant perennial vision of the limitlessness of human potential and the quest for the
realization of higher-self through ongoing learning and human development is a powerful
representation of a grand idea.

5.2 Examples of Core Values

It is of utmost importance that designers articulate their individual beliefs and values about
education. Values underlie the vision and guide the design inquiry. Examples:
There are two absolute values: the individual and the global system of humanity. Sociocultural
systems that exist between these two should serve both. Systems of learning and human
development are such arrangements.
Of all the resources on earth, the resources of the highest value are the uniqueness and the
unique potential and creativity residing in the individual, in the family, and in our various
social systems. (These are the resources that are most wasted today.)
Among the highest order of values of human rights are the freedom and the right to learn.
The development of inner quality of life is of the highest value for the individual.
Developing and maintaining creative and cooperative interpersonal and social relationships are
key values in societal life.
Of all the values provided to individuals and to society collectively, the nurturing of learning
and human development is the highest.
The above examples are provided only to indicate the kind of statements that designers might
express.

5.3 Examples of Core Ideas

The vision and the core values inspire the creation of the image, but the core ideas are the
"stuff' of which the image is made. The core ideas that designers generated in the course of
using the framework will have to be arranged in sets that enhance the creation of the image and
the design of the system. Examples:
 33

5.3.1 Core Ideas about Functions and Purposes

The creation of a Learning Society is the central core idea; others may include the following:
Learning should be provided by which the individual and societal systems develop
competence and will become empowered to give direction to their own evolution by design.
Education should co-evolve with the society as well as spearhead societal evolution.
Educational systems should nurture the entire range of existential experience: the social,
cultural, ethical, economic, physical, mental, spiritual, intellectual, aesthetic, and moral
domains of the life of the individual and the society.
The content and experience of learning and human development should be integrated with the
stream of real life experiences.
Educational systems should develop the organizational capacity and human capability to
engage in continuous organizational learning and design.
Arrangements, resources, and opportunities should be provided by which to nurture the
uniqueness and develop the unique potential of the individual.

5.3.2 Core Ideas about the Learner and Learning

There are no limits to learning, learning and human development never end.
The individual has a basic desire to learn, to seek knowledge and understanding, to become
competent.
The individual is capable of initiating, directing, and assuming increasingly more
responsibility for learning.
The individual's development is best facilitated if his or her uniqueness is recognized,
respected, and nurtured.
Inspiration and motivation are the most powerful facilitators of learning.
The most potent satisfiers to the learner are discovering something new, gaining new insights,
and acquiring new skills.
Self-confidence develops in the learner as a result of mastery of learning tasks, and using
what has been learned in real-life situations.
There are differences among learners existing in many dimensions; acknowledgment of and
respect for these differences are essential in offering resources and arrangements, and creating
a climate for learning.
 34

5.3.3 Core Ideas that Might Guide Systems Design

Learners should assume the central position in systems of learning and human development.
The content of learning should include knowledge, understanding, ways of knowing and
thinking, skills, dispositions, sensitivities, and values.
Characteristics of the transforming society and requirements that emerge from the
transformation are the primary sources used in selecting the content of learning and human
development.
Learning can flourish only in a climate in which caring relationships are created and support
and trust flow both ways between those who learn and those who foster learning. Nurturing
builds confidence and encourages exploration. It offers openness to creativity and continuous
learning and human development.
We have available in the society a large yet untapped resource base for learning and human
development, residing in many systems and situations of the community and the larger
society.
The power and the potential of social and human services will dramatically increase by the
integration of the various systems that provide for those services and by the design of a
comprehensive system oflearning and human development.

5.4 The Creation of a New Image

The image created provides us with the first "broad-stroked picture" or "macro-view" of the
future system. The image outlines the essential "markers" of the system. The example that
follows is grounded in the core ideas and values introduced above. For demonstrating what an
image might be seven "markers" are selected: (a) relationship with the society, (b) relationship
with other systems, (c) the overall function, (d) the scope of the educational experience, (e) the
key organizational imperative, (f) types of intervention, and (g) resources used. The image is
introduced by contrasting it with the image of the existing system. It is suggested that the
characteristics of the existing system present barriers to the attainment of the new system.
The image of the new system presented above is probably revolutionary, but the move
toward it is evolutionary. Designers will create a collective representation of their image of the
future system. Components of the image should be compatible with each other. They should
represent an internally consistent system of ideas. The image projected above indicates the
creation of a design for the total transformation of education.
 35

The Image of a Desired The Image of The

Future System Existing System

Education should reflect and interpret the
society as well as shape the society
through co-evolutionary interactions, as a
future-creating, innovative and open
system.
Education is an instrument of cultural and
knowledge transmission, focusing on
maintaining the existing state and opera-
ting in a rather closed system mode.

Education should be coordinated with Education is an autonomous social

other social and human service systems, agency, separated from other societal
interpreting learning and human develop- systems.
ment.

Education should provide resources, Education now provides instruction to

arrangements, and lifelong experiences individuals during their schooling years.
for the full development of all individuals
and the society.

Education should embrace the coexis-
tence, including the sociocultural, ethical,
moral, economic, physical /mentallspirit-
ual, scientific/technological, and aesthet-
ic.
Education focuses on the basics and
preparation for citizenship and employ-
ment.

Education should be organized around Education is now organized around the

the learning-experience level: arrange- instructional level: arrangements are
ments should be made in the environment made that enable teachers to present
of the learner by which to master the subject matter to students.
learning task.

We should use a variety of learning Today teacher-class and teacher-student

types: self-directed, other-directed, indi- interactions are the primary means of the
vidually supported group learning, educational experience.
cooperative learning, social and organ-
izationalleaming.
We should use the large reservoir of The use of educational resources and
learning resources and arrangements arrangements is very much confined
available in the society. within the school.

Table 2: The Image of a Desired Future System

6. The Design Journey

"Where we are going there are no roads."

 36

Educational refonners who have elected to take the design path have traveled up to this point on
the frontal terrain where they have explored reasons for design, contemplated new ways of
thinking about education, articulated core values and ideas that will guide their design, and
formulated a new image of a system of learning and human development that has expressed
their intention. Now comes the difficult part of the journey: guided by the image they have
created, they are to design the system that will have the human capability and organizational
capacity to realize the image. In this section, the continuation of the journey is mapped out, a
comprehensive definition of systems design is offered, and strategies of systems design are
outlined.

6.1 Mapping the Design Journey

Design is a journey toward a desired future state which we define for ourselves and want to
realize. Engaging in design, we ask: Where are we now? What is our present state? Why do we
want to take the design journey? Where do we want to go? What is the future state we wish to
attain? What route should we take? And, what do we have to do to design the desired future
state?
If we have made previous design journeys, the map of how to go about design may be
imprinted in our mind. If not, we need a map that is a descriptive and explanatory
representation of the design inquiry: that shows the territory of design and the paths we should
travel to accomplish the design. The design map is described here in the functional context of
education. Judging from the current literature and the various studies and reports on educational
refonn, the educational community is not familiar with and is not practicing systems design.
"There are no roads marked out" yet for a design journey in the field of education. Neither
schools of education nor educational professional development programs offer curricula in
systems design.

6.1.1 The Design Map

Design operates in five territories or "spaces." These are depicted in Figure 2. The front-end-
part of the map depicts the Space of Exploration and Image Creation (which has been already
described in the previous parts). In this space we examine and describe the current state of our
educational system and its environment: the larger society. From an understanding of the
educational implications of these explorations, we might generate an intent to engage in design.
Next, we fonnulate core ideas and articulate values that will guide design inquiry and create an
 37

image of the desired future state of education (where do we wish to go?). Finally we engage in
activities that will help us to "get ready" for the design journey.
The experiences we gain in the exploration space help us to develop information and
knowledge we can use in the course of design and that will guide us in our journey. The lower
large circle of the map pictures the Knowledge Space, where we display our findings about the
educational implications of explored societal characteristics, the selected design option, core
ideas and values, and the image of the future system. We also "store" in this space organized
knowledge about design as a disciplined inquiry.
The center circle of the map represents the Space of Generating the Design Solution. Here
we formulate the "core definition" of the system, describe the specification against which we
design the system, create the the ideal system of function we need to devise in order to meet
specifications, and design the systems that have the human capability and organizational
capacity to carry out the functions.

Evaluate Alternatives

Explore Societal formulate:

Characteristics & Core Definition & Systems
Their Specifications Environment
of Future Syst.
Create Images of Design:
Future System System of Functions The Model of Future
System
Get Ready for
Des~ig.:.;.n_ _-:

'" Societal Characteristics

and Their Implications

Core Values/Ideas & Images

How to Conduct Design

and Describe Social Systems

Figure 2: A map of the design journey

 38

The upper circle is the Space of Exploration in which we evaluate / test the various
alternatives we have generated in the design solution space. The basis of our evaluation is the
criteria we generate for the evaluation of alternatives.
The circle in the right-side of the map is the Space in which we Display the Model, the
Comprehensive Description of the New System, the description of the Environment of the New
System, and the Plan for Implementing the Design.

Two questions drive the journey between the beginning and the end: What route should we
take? and What do we have to do to accomplish the purpose of our journey, the design of a new
system? There is a large terrain between the beginning and the end which we shall navigate. It
is this terrain on which no roads are yet marked out by the educational community. We are
marking such a road now. This road-marking and navigation require the hard work of
disciplined inquiry and the exciting adventure of creating. The interaction and integration of
these two constitute systems design.

6.1.2 The Dynamics of the Journey

The image that has emerged from the description of the design journey and a review of the map
depicting the journey clearly show that the route is not linear, it is not a straight line. We are
constantly crossing into the knowledge base and design experimentation as we pursue our
design inquiry in order to gain new insights. We also often return to the formulations articulated
in the front-end of our journey and might revise and reshape our stated purposes, aspirations,
and images. We ask recursive questions: How does what we formulated earlier shape what we
do now? and How does what we formulate now change the purpose, the vision, and the images
we shaped earlier? The same is true as we journey into the knowledge base in the course of
traveling through the spirals of the design solution. The questions we formulate in the design
solution space become ever more informed and the answers ever more enlightening as we
consult organized knowledge. Often those questions will require the acquisition and analysis of
new knowledge; thus, our knowledge base is enlarged. Traveling into design experimentation,
we reality-test our emerging design solutions and gain knowledge that further informs our
design.
Design is an ongoing journey of creation. In organizations that are" alive" and want to co-
evolve with their environment, design never ends. If education wants to remain viable in our
constantly changing environment and become socially responsive to society, then the journey of
creation-the journey of design- will always continue, and it will lead us to design systems
that will be ever more capable of nurturing learning and human development.
 39

6.2 A Definition of Design

In an age when the speed, intensity, and complexity of change increase constantly and
exponentially, our ability to shape change rather than being its victims depends upon (a) the
availability of theories and methods of disciplined inquiry that enable us to give direction and
shape to our systems by design, and (b) the acquisition of competence in the use of models,
approaches, methods, and tools which empower us to participate in the design of our systems.
Human activity systems, organized at various levels of a society, from the family on up to
global systems, can give direction to their evolution and shape their future by engaging in
systems design. They can enhance their continuing development and effectiveness by
purposeful design. Design is a creative, decision oriented, disciplined inquiry that aims to
accomplish the following:
Diagnose and describe the design problem situation.
Clarify the reason for engaging in design.
Establish the boundaries of the design inquiry.
Formulate core ideas, values, and an image of the future system that will guide the design.
Define expectations, aspirations, purposes, and requirements of the system to be designed.
Create and evaluate alternative representations of the future system.
Establish criteria by which to evaluate alternatives.
Using the criteria, select the most promising alternative.
Describe the future system, and
Plan for the development of the system, based on its description.
Of the set of design tasks outlined above, at this juncture we have completed the description
only of the first four, but have developed the map of design for all the rest of the design
operations. In the concluding section, the rest of the operations are introduced. Before those
operations are described I should briefly note the requirement of getting ready for design.
Getting ready for systems design of education requires (a) an understanding of what design
is and how it i~ carried out, (b) the development of design capability in user-designers, (c)
organizational capacity to carry out design, (d) willingness of the community to support the
design effort, and (e) the preparation of a plan for engaging in the design inquiry. The
accomplishment of these task requires the availability of special orientation programs, programs
of design learning, and the availability of descriptions of design approaches and methods.
(Fortunately, these programs and materials are now available.)

7. The Process and Operations of Systems Design

"Two roads diverged in a wood-and I-I took the one less traveled by, and that has
made all the difference." (Robert Frost)
 40

Systems design is the road that makes the difference. It can make the difference in educational
reform. The design road is the road "less traveled by" in the educational community, but once it
is taken and followed, it will become a journey to create the future and not just retrace the past.
The educational reform movement stands at a juncture where it has a choice. It can either
continue on the well-traveled road of improvement (and continue to make changes at the
margin), or select the less-traveled road of systems design and create new systems of learning
and human development.
The description of the exploration and "get ready" stage of design having been completed,
in this section the remaining design operations are introduced-and characterized. Before these
operations are described, organizing perspectives that guide thinking about design are
introduced.

7.1 Organizing Perspectives

Engaging in design inquiry, designers share their own values and perspectives about design.
Explicitly stated perspectives help then to organize their thinking and action and guide them in
their inquiry. The perspectives introduced here are only examples.
Commitment to Participation. Participation of all those who will inhabit the system and I or
have a stake in it makes it possible for them to make a contribution to the creation of the
system, and incorporate their individual and collective aspirations and values in the design.
Participation will ensure that people will take part more effectively and with a deeper level of
commitment in the implementation of the design. Participation is empowering, and design is
empowered by it.
Commitment to Idealized Design. This means the determination to create the most inspiring
and best possible design, one that will act as a magnet and pull us toward its realization. Once
the ideal future state of the system is represented by the design, then-and only then-shall
we consider constraints and enabling resources in order to attain a feasible, workable, and
now implementable design. The ideal will be "out there" and will inspire our continuing move
toward it.
Design is Learning. By learning to design and by engaging in design, we learn as individuals
and as an organization. As individuals we improve our understanding of the system and will
realize how our performance affects the performance of the whole. As an organization, we
learn to reexamine our purposes, perspectives, values, and modes of operation, and develop
knowledge and insight based on which we can (re)design our system and make continuous
contribution to its life.
Design is Continuous. As we move toward the horizon, the horizon is moving ahead of us.
Thus, we realize that the ideal model will change as time goes by. We shall re-image the ideal.
 41

As we move toward the realization of that ideal, the environment and the situational context in
which we operate will change. Thus, we shall reexamine and possibly reshape our ideal
model. Furthermore, our perspectives may also change, suggesting again a new look at both
the model and the way we bring it about.
Nurturing Human Values and Human Quality. We consider the systems we design to be
human activity systems in which human beings are the most valued and are the ones to be
served by the system. We believe that it is our destiny--and it is within our power--to guide
our own evolution and the evolution of our system toward a better future for all.

7.2 The Process and the Operations of Designing the System

Once we have gained a good understanding of what design is and completed our planning of
the design inquiry, we are ready to engage in the designing or the redesigning of our system.
This involves conceptualizing and testing potential alternatives, and selecting the most desirable
alternative. Design inquiry from here on can be pictured as having four spirals that cross the
design solution space, the knowledge base, and the design evaluation space of design inquiry,
discussed in the previous section. Inquiry during the first spiral focuses on the formulation of
the core definition of the system. The second spiral represents the development of specifications
for the future system. The third spiral stands for the design of the ideal system of functions.
The fourth spiral represents the design of systems that provide the organizational capacity and
human capability to carry out the functions. Figure 3 depicts the four spirals.

Formulate Create

Image

New
System

Figure 3: The spirals of design

Note that the arrows on the spirals point in both directions. This indicates the feedforward
and feedback nature of the inquiry. Design work accomplished at any point of the inquiry may
have an effect on what already has been done and may lead to a reformulation of earlier
resolutions. At the same time, design is also in a feedforward mode as its ongoing inquiry
 42

provides bases for making subsequent design decisions. Furthermore, each spiral is made up of
"sub-spirals" in that at each choice point several alternatives are created and considered.

7.2.1 Spiral One: Formulating the Core Definition

Here we ask the overall question: What is the system about? More specific questions that guide
the inquiry include the following: What are our aspirations regarding the ideal system of
learning and human development? What is the mission of the system in serving humanity and
the larger society, the community, the learners, people who serve the system, and other
stakeholders? What is the shared vision of all these people with respect to the societal function
of education and human development? What is the purpose that can give everyone served by the
systems and those in the community a sense of clear direction and commitment? A well-
structured explanatory synthesis of all answers to these questions will provide us with a
comprehensive and very rich "core definition" of the system to be designed.
In the course of the "front-end" design exploration portrayed in the previous chapters, a
great deal of information was developed as designers considered design options, and identified
general societal functions of education and human development which were formulated as the
educational implications of emerged societal characteristics were considered. They defined core
ideas and core values, and created an image of the future system. All this information is now
placed in the knowledge base and used in formulating the core definition. The richness of this
knowledge base is such that designers have all that is necessary from which to synthesize and
formulate a comprehensive mission statement and elaborate it as a statement of purposes of the
future system.
A mission is a very general statement that can endow everyone in the system and in the
community with a sense of commitment. It provides guidance to the design inquiry as it
becomes its focus and enables the creation of internal cohesiveness and clear identity for the
system, and also informs those who are outside the system. Thus, it should be both inspiring
and informing. Following an expression of the highest level of aspiration, statements of the
mission should tell us what the system is going to do for (a) learners and the community, (b)
the environment. (c) other systems, (d) its members, and (e) how it sees itself.
A statement of purposes complements the mission statement as it interprets the image created
earlier. The mission statement is a very broad and comprehensive statement, while the statement
of purposes focuses more on the design of arrangements for learning and human development.
The "core" definition of the future system is a composite of the mission and purposes. In
formulating the core definition, designers draw on work they have already accomplished and
always consider alternative formulations which they will test against the core ideas I values and
the image. It should be noted that designers operating in a specific community, which is always
 43

unique, will formulate core definitions that are unique to their own values. beliefs, core ideas,
and the unique image they created in view of the environment in which they live. It is for this
reason that it is suggested that each and every community should design its own system.

7.2.2. Spiral Two: Developing the Specifications for the System

The core definition, formulated as the outcome of spiral one, becomes the basis of developing
the specifications of the future system. The inquiry now frames questions the answer to which
will lead designers to transform the core definition into sets of specifications of the future
system. The following clusters of questions may guide the generation of specifications:
Who are the clients of the system? What educational and human developmental services
should be offered to them? What characteristics should those services have? Where, when,
and how should those services be provided?
Who should "own" the system? How should we distribute ownership? What rights and
responsibilities should owners have?
What kinds of responsibilities should the system have toward its clients, the community, and
the larger society? How should these responsibilities be handled?
How should the educational system relate to the various levels of government? What should
be the responsibility of these levels toward the system?
What kind of relationship should the system have toward the community, community
organizations, the private sector, volunteer agencies, and other educational systems and
agencies within and beyond the boundaries of the community?
The above clusters of the inquiry are "general" types of examples, the kind designers
would be most likely to ask. There are others that will emerge that are specific to the context of
design. In working with those questions, designers should consider all the decisions already
made in the course of the inquiry. Within the context and scope of those decisions, they should
explore alternatives, select the alternative that is most responsive to the core definition, and
ensure that there is internal consistency among the elements of the specifications. Answers to
questions that lead to specifications are to be synthesized into a comprehensive statement. This
statement and the core definition developed earlier constitute systems requirements against
which we shall design the system.

7.2.3 Spiral Three: Designing the System of Functions

The core definition and systems specifications provide the basis for the consideration and
selection of functions that the future system should carry out. Spiral three inquiry leads into the
 44

design of the first representation or model of the ideal system. Questions pursued in the course
of this inquiry probe into setting the boundaries of the system and designing the functions
model of the future system.

7.2.3.1 Establishing the boundaries of the ideal system

Boundaries are drawn to mark and set aside a system from its environment. In the course of
exploring design options, designers already set boundaries for the design inquiry. Now they
are setting the-boundaries of the future system of education, based on the design information
that has been developed in the course of the two design spirals. Questions that frame the inquiry
include the following:
Where should we draw the boundaries of our new system so that it will have the
organizational capacity, the human capability, and the resources to enable it to achieve the
stated mission and purposes and meet the requirements of the specifications?
What systems of the community should be included within the boundaries that can provide the
necessary organizational capacity, collective human capability, and resources required?
What boundaries mark the systemic environment, the environment with which the future
system will constantly interact in order to acquire the various resources needed for the
operation of the system?
Earlier, when designers used the framework within which they explored design options, they
considered some of the boundary questions. Now they reconsider them in much more detail in
view of the core definition and systems specifications.

7.2.3.2 Designing the first model: The system of functions

The product of design inquiry is a representation or a model of a future system. The term
"model" has several meanings. Here we are concerned with an inductive conceptual model. An
inductive model is a representation of a system that does not yet exist but is being designed.
Systems design produces a model of the future educational system. We must represent or
model the future system and make the inaccessible accessible so that we can make judgments
about the adequacy, relevance, and feasibility of establishing a desired system. Model building
is a most cost-effective and economical mode of disciplined inquiry. It makes it possible to
freely speculate about design solution alternatives that can be described and tested in order to
arrive at the most promising solution, without a large investment of resources. It is much
cheaper to design and test alternative models than to build and test alternative systems. Systems
design and model building are activities that can save a great deal of money and disappointment
to the educational community. Throughout the years we have wasted unknown and untold
amounts of resources by not knowing how to design educational systems.
 45

A human activity system, such as an educational system, is designed and organized by

people in order to attain purposes. These purposes are attained by carrying out functions. Thus,
purposes and the junctions mark the system. Once the purpose has been determined, the issue
becomes: What functions have to be carried out to attain the purpose? And only then: What
components have to be involved in what arrangement (the organization) that have the capability
to attend to the functions? Thus: "form follows junction."
The functions model is built from verbs which denote the functions. The relationship of these
verbs to each other marks the structure of the model. The model is constructed at several levels
of resolution. The key or major functions are organized at a low resolution level and then
expanded at a higher level of resolution when the components of each major function are
identified. As a result, a systems complex of functions will emerge which will be "pictured" by
displaying the functions and connecting them with arrows that represent relationships and
interdependencies. Questions that drive the identification and systemic arrangement of functions
include the following:
What key functions are to be selected that enable the system to attain its mission, purposes,
and expectations as specified in the core definition, satisfy the requirements of the
specifications as stated, and provide the services as identified?
How do these key functions interact, and how do they integrate (at a low resolution) to form a
system of functions of the future educational system?
What are the subfunctions of the key functions displayed at a higher resolution, and how can
those be organized into subsystems of the key functions?
How can designers portray the system complex of functions as an arrangement of the key
system functions and their subfunctions?
The relational arrangement of the key functions and their subfunctions (and 1lliili:
subfunctions) constitutes the first systems model of the future system.

7.2.3.3 Evaluating the model

The functions model is a conceptual model. It is tested conceptually through a line of inquiry
which evaluates its adequacy. The criteria for testing the model come from the statements of
mission and purposes and the specifications. Questions that drive the inquiry include the
following:
Did we provide for all the functions necessary to satisfy the core defmition of the system? Are
there any redundant functions?
Will carrying out the functions empower the system to obtain the systems specifications as
described?
Does the system have a functi~ns-based capacity to learn and engage in continuing design?
 46

In exploring these questions, we move into the design evaluation, which most likely will lead to
a redesign of the model.

7.2.4 Spiral Four: Designing the Enabling Systems

The system complex of function tells us what activities have to be carried out in order to attain
the mission and purpose and meet systems specifications. In the course of the next design
spiral, decisions will be made as to who or what will carry out those functions. During spiral
four, the inquiry involves the design of the noun-based version of the functions model as
designers create systemic arrangements enabling the attainment of functions. The inquiry
focuses on the question: What components have the capacity and capability to carry out the
functions identified in the functions model? and, What should be the arrangement of these
components? Two noun-based models will be constructed: (a) a model of a system that has the
capacity and capability to manage the functions, and (b) the model of the organization that will
carry out the functions.

7.2.4.1 Designing the management system

The first noun-based model that should be designed is the model of the management systems
that will have the organizational capacity and staff capability to guide the educational system and
ensure that the functions will be carried out as specified in the functions model. The question
designers ask at this point is: What design (of the management system) will enable it to:
Conceive a plan to initiate action that provides appropriate response and guide the actions
taken?
Motivate and energize for individual and collective performance?
Interact with the environment and collect and analyze information which is of value to the
system and which enhances the accomplishment of functions?
Engage the system in continuous organizational learning and redesign it whenever
appropriate? and
Acquire and manage the resources needed by the system?
In Part II, organizational implications of changed societal characteristics were explored and
examples of those implications provided. In designing the management system, as well as the
organization, those implications will provide a useful knowledge base.
 47

7.2.4.2 Designing the organization that carries out the functions

The design of the organization builds the second and major noun-based model of the new
system. The challenge of designers is to model a system which will have the organizational
capacity and the staff capability to carry out the functions as specified in the functions model.
Questions that drive the design inquiry include the following:
What organizational and personal capabilities are required to carry out the identified functions?
What system components and people will have those capacities and capabilities?
How should we organize the selected components in relational (vertical/horizontal)
arrangements?
What authority / responsibility should be assigned to whom?
What resources should be allocated to what component?
The design is now completed by synthesizing the products of all the spirals into a
comprehensive statement of systems description of the future educational system.

7.2.4.3 The products of design

The outcome of design is products that designers have created in the course of their inquiry. A
description and presentation of these products can be arranged by the use of the three general
systems models.
Using the systems-environment model, designers first characterize the systemic
environment, that part of the general environment with which the new system will constantly
interact. The systems-environment model enables designers to describe the new educational
system in the context of the community and the larger society. The model will describe
systems-environment relationships, interactions, and the dimensions of mutual
interdependence. A set of inquiries will guide designers in assessing the environmental
adequacy and responsiveness of the new system and, conversely, the adequacy of the
responsiveness of the environment toward the system.
The functions / structure model is used to describe the new educational system at a given
moment in time. It guides designers in presenting the mission and purpose of the system, the
functions that must be carried out in order to attain the mission and purpose, the relational
arrangement of those functions (the functions model), the components of the system complex
that engage in attending to the functions, and their relational arrangement (the structure of the
new system). Coupled with this model is a set of inquiries that enables designers to assess the
functions / structure adequacy of the new system.
The process / behavior model concentrates on what the new educational system does
through time. It portrays how the system behaves as a dynamic societal system in interaction
with its environment: how it receives / screens / assesses and processes input, transforms input
into output, assesses and processes the output, makes adjustments and systemic changes, and,
 48

if necessary, transforms itself based on information coming from within the system and from
the environment. Another set of inquiries helps designers to evaluate the process I behavior
adequacy of the new system.
The three models collectively provide a comprehensive description of the new system and
its systemic environment. This description also includes elements that provide opportunities to
make a first comprehensive assessment of the system.

7.2.4.4 Testing the new system

In addition to the inquiry-based evaluation of the new system to be accomplished by the use of
the three models, another form of testing is also useful. This form is testing by arranging small-
scale-real-life-implementation of the integrated design. The findings of this testing, and the
assessment made with the use of inquiry built into the three general models, will lead us to
assess readiness to develop and implement the system. Or it will lead us to initiate the redesign
of the system. The process of testing and revision will reach a point at which designers will
have enough confidence to move into systems development and implementation. This point can
come quite early, due to the fact that we have designed a system that is capable of continuous
learning and redesign. Learning never ends. Neither does design.

7.2.4.5 Systems development and implementation

Based on the outcome of their testing, they might decide that development should proceed. In
the case of redesign, however, they need to establish a base-line from which to depart in
implementing the design. This base-line is a systems description of the existing system. They
will describe the existing system in the same terms they used in describing the new system,
namely, with the use of the three general models. With this description in hand, they can now
identify the discrepancy between what now is, namely, the existing system, and what should
be, namely, the new system. The specifications of this discrepancy become the basis for
planning the means and methods (of development) by which they can close the gap between the
existing system and the future system.
In this section, I introduced the territory of the design journey, mapped out the process of
design inquiry, and has provided a description of the products of design. This section can serve
as an orientation to those who wish to know more about systems design and find out what the
scope of design inquiry is. I have guided the reader through the four "creative" spirals of design
and discussed strategies that implement design.
 49

Summary

This paper provided a general introduction to systems design: a new intellectual technology
applied in the context of education. The paper is a selective condensation of [1].
In Part One, systems design was defined and offered as a lens to examine the current state
of the educational improvement movement. It was shown that the various improvement and
restructuring efforts of the last decade fell far short of expectations. It appeared that the major
source of the current predicament is a perception of education which is still grounded in the
assembly line thinking and practices of the industrial society. This outdated perception hinders
the development of a new mind-set; new ways of perceiving the societal function of education,
ways that are in harmony with current societal development. In Part Two, the educational
implications and challenges of the Post-Industrial Information Era were discussed. An approach
to creating a new image of education was introduced, and systems design was offered as a new
intellectual technology by which our educational communities can realize the image they created
and transform education by design.
Systems design is the road less traveled. It is a difficult and challenging road. But it is the
road that makes the difference. It is the road that offers the journey to create the future by
designing a new system of learning and human development.

Reference

1. Banathy, Bela. Systems design of education: A Journey to create the future. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications 1991.
Principles of Educational Systems Design!

Charles M. Reigeluth

Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, U.S.A.

Abstract: A year prior to the NATO workshop described in this book, the first Asilomar
Systems Conference was held (in 1989). One of the focuses of that conference was how to
bring about systemic change of our current educational system. This paper describes the
author's view of the results of those discussions: a stakeholder approach to educational systems
design. It describes 15 activities that appear to enhance the success of system design efforts,
and it identifies what appear to be the most important principles or guidelines for successfully
carrying out each activity.

Keywords: Educational systems design, systemic restructuring, change process, stakeholder

approach, parallel system approach.

Introduction

There is widespread recognition that fundamental change is needed in education. Since "A
Nation at Risk" was released in 1983, over 150 reports have called for fundamental change
rather than the traditional, piecemeal, "tinkering at the edges" approach to educational
improvement (Perelman, 1987; 1988). Prominent trade magazines have devoted special issues
to the topic (Phi Delta Kappa, December 1989 and January 1990; Educational Leadership,
February 1988 and April 1990). Teachers' unions are advocating and experimenting with
fundamental change (Futrell, 1989; Shanker, 1988; 1990; Watts & McClure, 1990). The
American Association of School Administrators endorses fundamental, systemic change
(Rhodes, 1988). The National Governors' Association is committed to such an approach to
educational improvement (Cohen, 1988). And the United States Department of Education has
established a national research and development center and a New American Schools program
tofurther such an approach. Therefore, there is wide recognition that fundamental redesign of
educational systems is necessary.
But fundamental change is far more difficult than piecemeal "add-ons." Fundamental
change is systemic, in that a change in one aspect of the system requires changes in other
aspects for it to be most successful (Banathy, 1988). This means that virtually all aspects of the

1This paper was published in the International Journal of Educational Research and (with
minor changes) is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Pergamon Press.
 51

current educational system are likely to be changed, including the use of human resources (eg.
the roles of administrators, teachers, assistants, and students), material resources (eg.
space/classrooms, instructional materials, and advanced technology), and time (eg. grade
levels, periods in the day, hours of operation, and days of operation). Therefore, there are
many constituencies that must "buy in" to any fundamental changes, which greatly complicates
the process for bringing about such change.
This article does not address the question as to what kinds of changes are needed or what
our new educational system should be like. That question has been addressed elsewhere
(Leonard, 1968; Reigeluth, 1987). Rather it addresses the question as to how to bring about
fundamental change of our current educational system. It describes a process for designing a
new educational system.
Three considerations impact on the nature of the process for fundamental change. First, at
this point in time, there is no new model (representing fundamental systemic change) that has
been field tested, debugged, and proven effective. Therefore, a process to implement
fundamental change must be a process to invent, debug, and continuously improve a new
system, not just adopt one. Second, if a fundamentally different educational system is to be
successful, all the key players must be content with their new roles: students, teachers,
administrators, policy makers, and parents. Therefore, the change process must be one that
results in shared ownership of the new system. Third, since fundamental change entails
new roles for the key players, the process must be one that effects substantial professional
development to the point of changing people's mind-sets about education.
Given these three considerations, one can analyze the pros and cons of two fundamentally
different approaches to educational systems design: the expert approach and the stakeholder
approach. The expert approach entails one or a few creative experts in educational systems
design engaging in a systems design process to plan all aspects of a new system. Then the new
system must be "marketed" to school districts and/or state education departments, stakeholders
must be informed and allowed to "buy in" or opt out, personnel must be retrained for their new
roles, facilities must be reconfigured, and new learning resources must be procured. Finally,
the original designer(s) must work with the personnel to debug and continuously improve the
system. The disadvantages of this approach are that the experts may not be familiar enough
with local needs and conditions, and that local stakeholders may not "buy in" to the new system
and will likely feel less ownership and commitment.
The stakeholder approach is much more collaborative, requiring representatives of all
stakeholder groups in a local school district to work together on a design team. The team must
receive training in educational systems design so that they can effectively engage in a systems
design process to plan all aspects of a new system. Access to outside expertise and resources
are very helpful to the process. All stakeholders should constantly be kept informed by their
representatives and allowed to "buy in" or opt out. Then personnel must be retrained for their
 52

new roles, facilities must be reconfigured, and new learning resources must be procured.
Finally, the design team must work with all personnel to debug and continuously improve the
system. The disadvantage of this approach is that the members of the design team may lack,
and may not be willing or able to acquire, the mind-set and systems design expertise needed to
break out of the current paradi~m and successfully plan a viable alternative.
This paper reports on a process for implementing the stakeholder approach to
educational systems design.

Overview

One year prior to the NATO Workshop reported in this book, there was a meeting of many of
the same people in the same place (Asilomar Conference Center in Monterey, California). The
participants were primarily people who had been involved in helping to bring about
fundamental change in public schools using the stakeholder approach. They were from
different regions of the United States and Canada and included representatives from three
regional educational laboratories funded by the U.s. Department of Education: the Far West,
the Mid-Continental, and the Northeast and Islands. They met for five days of intensive work
sessions to synthesize their collective experience and wisdom into a common knowledge base
about the process for fundamental change in education. What follows here is my view of the
results of that "Asilomar Conference" effort. Please keep in mind that my view may not
overlap completely with the views of other participants in the conference.
Discussions at the Asilomar Conference centered around two points of view for the change
process: that of stakeholders inside a school district and that of an outside facilitator. This
article describes a change process from the perspective of an insider using the stakeholder
approach.
In the discussions, it became evident that there were certain activities that should be
performed, and that in many cases there was an order for performing them. But it was also
evident that a set of steps was not sufficient to successfully guide the process. On the contrary,
it appeared to me that a set of principles or guidelines represented the most important
knowledge about the change process, and that the steps just helped to indicate when the various
principles might best be used. Accordingly, the following change process is a set of principles
organized according to a series of ordered activities. But it should be kept in mind that even
those ordered activities do not represent a linear order. Rather they are iterative. Some
activities need to be done simultaneously, and it is often beneficial to revisit earlier activities at a
later point in the process (Banathy, 1984). It should also be kept in mind that these principles,
although based on participants' experiences, are offered here as hypotheses that remain to be
rigorously tested.
 53

Given those qualifications, the following is an outline of the activities under which the
principles of educational systems design are nested:
1. Assess the readiness of the community.
2. Get an outside facilitator.
3. Get a commitment from all stakeholder groups.
4. Select an approach for the change effort.
5. Select participants for the coordinating council and design teams.
6. Prepare the participants.
7. Relate with nonparticipants.
8. Find common values and analyze learner and societal needs.
9. Develop core ideas and goals.
10. Develop an image, and design a system of functions.
11. Design enabling systems.
12. Analyze the feasibility.
13. Plan the implementation.
14. Implement the design.
15. Document/market the system.
The following is a discussion of hypothesized principles of educational systems design for
each of these activities.

1. Assess the Readiness of the Community

There are some preconditions in a community which are essential for a fundamental change
effort to be successful. For example, a poor relationship between the teachers' association and
the district administration would make it almost impossible to have the kind of collaboration and
trust necessary for a fundamental change effort to succeed. Furthermore, fundamental change
is risky business, especially for administrators and school board members, who don't have
tenure. Therefore, the top administrators and a majority of the school board members have to
believe frrmly in the need for fundamental change.
Teachers are on the front lines of the educational system. Corporate restructuring has
recognized the importance of the "front-line" employees and has proceeded to invest much
greater responsibility and decision-making authority in them. Whoever the personnel will be in
the new system, they must "buy in" to the new system, and they must understand the new
paradigm on which it is based. This leaves two alternatives: replace current people with new
people who possess those qualities (if you can find them) or "retool" the people who are
already there (if they are willing). From a practical point of view, replacing the current people
is very difficult and expensive (if not, in many cases, next to impossible). And chances are
 54

slim of finding replacements who are any better in terms of understanding and buying in to a
new--as yet nonexistent--system. For retooling the current people, it is very helpful for the
impetus for fundamental change to come from the teachers, and therefore for the change
process to be led by one or more teachers. Furthermore, it is important for those teachers to be
ones who are highly respected in the district and community. The process is not very likely to
be successful if it is led by "oddball" teachers or by an administrator.
Similarly, the change process is far more likely to be successful if there is grass-roots
community support for fundamental change. The support of respected parents, business
leaders, and community leaders can provide the political support necessary for the school
board, the administrators, and the teachers to feel they have a mandate to try something bold, or
even radical.
In sum, a basic principle is:
1.1 Don't undertake the restructuring effort unless conditions are highly favorable.
There is a good relationship between teachers and the administration.
There is strong support for fundamental change from the top administrators and school
board.
Some respected teachers are interested in leading the effort.
Some respected parents and business leaders are interested in supporting the effort.

2. Get an Outside Facilitator

Fundamental change is very difficult to bring about In our current educational system, we are
used to thinking in terms of win-lose situations, rather than win-win situations. Trust is
essential for the change processes to be successful. A neutral outsider who can earn the trust of
all participants can play an essential role in mediating the resolution of conflicts and in building
trust among the participants.
Furthermore, the process of fundamental change is, among other things, a design process.
Since there are no ready-made solutions, the first communities to change are going to need to
invent their own solution. But the participants do not have any experience or training in
designing a new educational system. While the leadership for the change effort needs to come
from within the district, the effort will be much more likely to succeed if there is also a design-
process facilitator from outside.
Therefore, additional principles are:
2.1 Select an outside facilitator who is an expert in the educational systems design process and
whom all stakeholder groups trust
Make sure the facilitator has no ulterior motives or predetermined solutions.
Make sure the facilitator has no favoritism towards any stakeholder groups.
 55

2.2 Assign that expert the role of facilitator / consultant, not leader, of the process.

3. Get Commitments from All Stakeholder Groups

There are many stakeholder groups which have an interest in any changes that are made to our
educational institutions, including students, parents, teachers, administrators, policy makers,
and business and community leaders. The more of these groups which are strongly committed
to fundamental change, the greater are the chances of a successful effort (all else being equal).
Perhaps the greatest incentive for commitment from each of these groups is a dissatisfaction
with the current system. Therefore, one of the first activities you should undertake is to build
dissatisfaction with the status quo. However, you must exercise great caution here, because
such efforts could be divisive and build animosity and resistance to your change efforts.
Therefore, you should probably first build dissatisfaction among those who have the greatest
vested interest and responsibility for the current system: the central administration. Then, with
their permission (or, better yet, at their request), proceed to other stakeholders: board members,
building administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community and business leaders.
But building commitment entails more than building dissatisfaction with the current system.
That alone can be negative, unless it is channeled in positive ways, such as providing a mandate
for action and a commitment to provide necessary resources to take action. Given the
importance of support from all the stakeholder groups, such action should likely be to form a
collaborative design team with representation from every stakeholder group.
In sum, additional principles are:
3.1 Get commitments from all stakeholder groups to make fundamental changes in the
educational system.
Get a mandate from all stakeholders to take action by forming a design team. This
includes endorsements from the school board, the superintendent, the building
administrators, the teachers' association, the parent-teacher association (PTA), business
leaders, and community leaders.
Get a strong resource commitment from the administration and school board to act on the
recommendations of the design team. You may also need to get a resource commitment
from the business community.

4. Select an Approach for the Change Effort

There are two different approaches that can be used in a fundamental change effort: whole-
district and parallel-system. The whole-district approach entails changing the entire district
 56

at once. On the other hand, the parallel-system approach entails allowing teachers who want
a change to design and implement a separate school or schools in the district and a separate
administrative system for the school(s), while giving teachers who do not want to change the
option of continuing with "business as usual."
The whole-district approach has the disadvantage that teachers and parents who don't want
to change are likely to sabotage, or at least water down, the change effort. It is also likely to
take much longer to design and implement. Furthermore, the resulting schools in the district
would be more likely to be quite similar to each other than if different design teams were
designing different schools for the district. This last problem could be mitigated by the way the
whole-district approach is implemented.
The parallel-system approach has the disadvantage that the new system might be viewed
with hostility, or at least benign neglect, by the people who have elected not to be a part of it.
Hence, fundamental change would be less likely to occur in the rest of the district. However, it
is possible that the whole district could buy into the notion of the parallel system as a trail-
blazing experiment which, if successful, would be followed by a fixed timetable for the rest of
the district to switch over, one school at a time, to the new system. One expectation of this
approach is that the advantages of the new system for both students and teachers would lead
both groups to want to switch over in roughly equal proportions. However, if there were to be
an imbalance, strife would almost certainly result, either with teachers who are reluctant to
switch over being forced to by parental demand, or with parents who are reluctant to switch
over being forced to by teacher action.
Perhaps the decision as to which approach to use should be made largely on the basis of the
proportion of teachers and parents in a district who are favorably disposed to fundamental
change. If it is higher than a certain amount, then perhaps the whole-district approach would
have the best results in the long run; but below that amount, the parallel-system approach might
be best. My hunch is that the parallel-system approach will usually be better because it will be
quicker, less stressful for teachers and parents who don't want to change, and less risky for
administrators and board members to implement. But this is an empirical question that needs to
be tested.
In sum, additional principles are:
4.1 Use the whole-district approach if most teachers, parents, and other stakeholders in the
district are favorably disposed to fundamental reform.
4.2 Use the parallel-system approach if a sizable number of stakeholders in the district are
resistant to fundamental reform.
 57

5. Select Participants for the Coordinating Council and Design Teams

For the parallel-system approach it is wise to have both a coordinating council and design
team(s). The coordinating council is a district-wide group whose purpose is to give a
district- and community-wide identity to the redesign effort. The council should represent all
stakeholders, should have as many nonschool as school representatives, and should be
empowered by the school board to make administrative decisions regarding all redesign efforts.
Depending on the size of the school district and community, the council should be comprised of
25 to 40 people who are selected because they have the respect and trust of their respective
stakeholder groups (constituents), or because they are members of the design team(s). The
council members should all be involved in pyramid groups with their respective stakeholders,
both to inform them and to be informed by them. (In pyramid groups, each member meets with
a certain group of constituents to pass information to them and to get input from them. Then
each member of that group meets with another group of constituents to do the same, and so on
until all interested people are involved.) The coordinating council should engage in activities 6 -
9, whereas the design team(s) should focus mainly on 10 - 15, with the coordinating council
providing support and watching to ensure that the district-wide values, needs, and goals are
being addressed.
Each design team should be a school-based group whose purpose is to design a new
school within the district. The selection of the participants is a crucial activity. Lack of
representation of a stakeholder group could lead that group to mistrust and eventually resist (or
even sabotage) the change effort. Furthermore, the design team is likely to have a difficult time
reaching consensus on any fundamental changes unless the participants are open-minded,
collaboration-oriented people who share a strong dissatisfaction with the current system.
Literature on group process has found that group dynamics change notably when group size
exceeds about 15 people. This has important implications for design team size, as well as
school size. Given that literature on school size also shows clear advantages for smaller
schools (Gregory & Smith, 1987), it seems likely that the new schools in a parallel system
should be comprised of a maximum of about 10 teachers and minimum of about 5. This would
allow all the teachers who will comprise a new school to be on the design team for their
school, along with a representative from each of the other stakeholder groups. This is
particularly important, because the purpose of the design effort is not only to create a blueprint
for a new school, but also to create an appropriate change of mind-set about schooling in the
people who will staff the new school.
If more than 10 teachers in a district are interested, then several separate schools should be
designed, each by a separate design team. Preferably, each of those schools will become a
"school within a school" so that teachers will not have to be moved from one school building to
another and so that parents will not be forced to choose between their neighborhood school and
 58

the kind of school they think will be best for their child (new or old). Then all design teams
should collaborate on the design of an administrative system to govern and support them.
In contrast, for the whole-district approach, all teachers in all schools will be changing
to the new system, but not all the teachers can be on the design team, for that would make it
unwieldy. In this case, to get broader representation and participation, it might be advisable for
the design team to have several working groups, each chaired by a member of the design team.
Rather than each working group designing a whole new system just for its members, each
would work on one aspect of the new system (e.g., design one subsystem) and the design team
would orchestrate the efforts. Pyramid groups should also be used with this approach.
In sum, there are several principles that are important regardless of which approach is used,
but some will also vary depending on approach.
5.1 All stakeholder groups should be represented on all councils I teams I groups: parents,
administrators, board members, teachers, students, business leaders, community service
agency leaders.
5.2 All design team members must be viewed as of equal status in the design effort.
5.3 Only enthusiastic volunteers should comprise the design team. No teachers should be
required or even pressured to participate.
For the parallel-system approach:
5.4 The coordinating council should be comprised of highly respected opinion leaders in the
district and community.
5.5 Each design team should be small (about 15 people).
5.6 Each design team should select a leader who is an opinion leader among the teachers in the
district, has good interpersonal and group-process skills, and is highly motivated to
redesign the system.
5.7 Each "New School" should be small (about 6-10 teachers), and all of its future teachers
should be on the design team. This results in essential buy-in, as well as in-service
professional development
5.8 If possible, have more than one, but no more than about three, design teams working
independently. Having more than one will increase the chances and speed of finding a
good model for the new schools. More than three would likely be too expensive and too
difficult for an outside facilitator to support.
5.9 The coordinating council and pyramid groups should be used to get the rest of the district
to view the design teams as trail blazers for them to eventually follow once the best trail is
found and there is evidence as to how much better it is than the "road more traveled."
For the whole-district approach:
5.4 The design team should be comprised of highly respected opinion leaders in the district I
community.
 59

5.5 The design team should select a leader who is an opinion leader among the teachers in the
district.
5.6 Working groups should be formed to do most of the detailed design work.
5.7 Each working group should be small (about 15 people).
5.8 Pyramid groups should be formed to involve all interested stakeholders.

6. Prepare the Participants

The fundamental change process is first and foremost a systems design process. But the
participants on the design team will be people who have no experience or training in systems
design. It is very difficult to break out of the prevailing mind-set--the prevailing paradigm--to
design a completely new, complex, human-activity system. Therefore, the design team
participants (and coordinating council and working group participants) should receive some
training for this novel task. Given such training, the design team will be prepared to design its
own design process, or at least modify a generic design process for its particular needs and
conditions. It will also be prepared to set criteria to judge the quality of any designs it creates.
Hence, additional principles are:
6.1 All members of the design team (and coordinating council and working groups) must
receive training in the design process, including:
Paradigm shifts.
Systemic view.
Needs-based approach (societal and learner needs).
Levels of design, starting with the leaming-experience level (Banathy, 1991).
6.2 The design team should design its own design process.
6.3 The design team should develop criteria to evaluate its design (the new system).

7. Relate with Nonparticipants

Regardless of whether you use a whole-system approach or a parallel-system approach, many

stakeholders (teachers, parents, administrators, students, policy makers, business leaders,
community service people) will not be directly involved in the effort. But many of those same
people can do much to sabotage the effort if they start feeling threatened, left out, or dissatisfied
with the direction that the effort is going. Therefore, the following principles are important to
keep in mind:
7.1 All teachers in the district should be assured that none of them will be forced to change.
 60

7.2 All stakeholders in the district must view the effort as designing and testing a prototype that
could work anywhere in the district. The fundamental change effort must not be viewed as
creating another "alternative school."
7.3 The design team must constantly share its thinking with all other stakeholders in the
district, at each and every stage of its process, and solicit input from them. This should be
done throughout the change process, not just at one point in time. Pyramid groups are an
excellent vehicle for doing this.

8. Find Common Values and Analyze Learner and Societal Needs

The purpose of an educational system is to meet the needs of society and its individual
members. An educational system is a subsystem--a part of a larger system--of society. Like all
subsystems, the educational system must meet the needs of the larger system of which it is a
part, or the larger system will act to change it or replace it. And it must deal with the conditions
of the larger society or it will not be able to perform its functions. Over the past 25 years, our
educational system has gotten steadily worse in spite of greatly increased real expenditures on
education (Perelman, 1987). As we have evolved into an information society, the needs of
society have changed in ways that render our educational system inadequate to meet those
needs. Therefore, any effort to redesign the system should begin with a careful analysis of the
ways society is changing and is likely to change in the future as we get deeper into the
information age (Banathy, 1991). And we should then explore the educational implications of
those changes. Those implications should be couched in the form of educational needs of
individualleamers, as well as those of the society as a whole.
Furthermore, any design for a new system of education will be based on values. Different
values will naturally lead to different features for the system. Therefore, to achieve consensus
on the nature of the new system, the design team members must first achieve consensus on
their related values.
The following principles reflect these considerations:
8.1 Design team members should share a great dissatisfaction with the status quo in their
schools.
8.2 Design team members should explore and share their own values regarding such things as:
Their own experiences as a student.
How they would like to learn.
Their personal goals and motivations in becoming an educator or in becoming involved
in this educational design effort.
 61

8.3 Design team members should arrive at a common view of:

Societal needs to be met by their new system.
Learner needs for an information society, to be met by their new system.

9. Develop Core Ideas and Goals

Once common values and learner and societal needs have been identified, the next activity is to
identify core ideas and goals that implement them. Core ideas are fundamental characteristics of
the new system, and goals are what the new system should accomplish. These core ideas and
goals will in tum provide the basis for developing an image of the new system (discussed
next). For examples of core ideas and goals, see Banathy (1991). In sum:
9.1 A unifying set of core ideas and goals should be developed, based on present and future
needs of society and learners.

10. Develop an Image, and Design a System of Functions

Core ideas and goals provide the basis for developing an image of the new system. The image
is similar to the core ideas, except that it is more complete, detailed, and systemic. It is
systemic in the sense that all the major functions of the system and their interrelationships have
been conceived in such a way as to work together well as a system.
A major obstacle to this activity is the difficulty, especially for those closest to the current
system, of "breaking set" with the current system, of breaking out of the current paradigm and
envisioning alternatives. One of the most effective ways to overcome this obstacle is to discuss
a variety of alternative images or paradigms, such as the one-room school house, my "third-
wave" system (Reigeluth, 1987; 1991), or Leonard's (1968) image. In doing so, it is advisable
to start by envisioning the kinds of learning experiences that the new system should support,
then envisioning the kinds of instructional support necessary to implement those learning
experiences, then envisioning the kinds of administrative support needed, and finally
envisioning the kinds of governance (district and state policy support) needed (Banathy, 1991).
And the envisioning on the learning-experience level should be based heavily on the values,
needs (societal and learner), and core ideas and goals from Activities 8 and 9.
The following principles are based on these ideas:
10.1 The design team members should be exposed to alternative educational systems to "break
set" with the current system.
Read about alternatives.
Listen to credible outsiders.
 62

10.2 The design team should initiate imaging at the learning experience level after careful
consideration of how learning occurs, and gradually progress to the instructional,
administrative, and governance levels.
Write stories about "a day in the life."
10.3 The design team should use the needs-based approach for envisioning the new system.
Work from societal and learner needs, based on changes in society.
IDA Design a system of functions which is the first "model" (or blueprint) of the future
educational system (Banathy, 1991; Checkland, 1981).
Work from societal and learner needs, and the image.

11. Design Enabling Systems

Once the image has been developed and the design of the system of functions has been
accomplished. progressively more detail can be worked out for the system functions by
designing the enabling systems (Ackoff, 1981). The image gives a holistic, systemic view that
helps to keep the design of each subsystem on track. so that each subsystem will work well
with all of the other subsystems.
The following are some principles or guidelines to keep in mind:
11.1 Start at the learning experience level, and gradually progress to the instructional and
administrative levels.
11.2 Using an "ends-to-means" approach. gradually work out more and more details for the
enabling systemslsubsystems--that is, details for the system that will guide the carrying
out of the functions.
11.3 Throughout the design process. focus on interactions and interrelationships among people
and among system components.
1104 Be sure to design a separate administrative system for the new system.

12. Analyze the Feasibility

At this point, the new system has been designed--a model has been created. This model should
be an "ideal". that has not been constrained by particular barriers and obstacles that might exist
in the district/community (Banathy, 1991). Experience has shown that this approach almost
always results in a superior change. because many barriers and obstacles that were initially
thought to be insurmountable in fact end up being surmountable. However. it then becomes
necessary to identify any and all barriers and obstacles. find out which ones are presently
surmountable. which ones may be surmountable at some time in the future. and which ones are
 63

not likely ever to be sunnountable. Often, rather than being a black-or-white issue, there are
tradeoffs to be made. And resource needs must be identified.
Therefore, the following are useful principles to keep in mind:
12.1 The design team should identify barriers and obstacles, along with alternative solutions
for each.
12.2 It should identify tradeoffs/compromises that might have to be made.
12.3 It should identify resource needs for the transition process.
12.4 t should identify incentives and rewards for engaging in the fundamental change effort.

13. Plan the Implementation

Once you have arrived at a feasible model for the new educational system, its implementation
should be planned. Implementation is a difficult and expensive process, even though the new
system, once implemented, will likely be more cost-effective than the current system.
Therefore, a master plan should be created in considerable detail to guide the implementation
effort, and that plan should be approved by all stakeholder groups, especially those invested
with authority and resources in the district/community.
But a master plan is not enough. Those who will be doing the work need a support
network, for there will inevitably be times of disappointment as well as times of elation, there
will be failures as well as successes on the road to implementation. And the implementors will
need training to help them implement the new system, especially wherever new roles for
personnel are called for. Implementation planning should also include any redesign of facilities
and procurement of new equipment and other resources called for by the model of the new
system.
In sum:
13.1 A master plan for action should be developed in considerable detail, and appropriate
approvals should be obtained.
13.2 Coalitions and support networks should be built.
13.3 Plans should be made for training personnel who will fill new roles called for by the
model.
13.4 Plans should be made for any redesigning and remodelling of facilities called for by the
new model.
13.5 Plans should be made for procuring and installing any resources and equipment called for
by the new model.
13.6 Sufficient time and money must be provided for all these activities.
 64

14. Implement the Design

At this point the major remaining activity is to carry out the implementation plan and work the
bugs out of the new system. However, the proverbial cup isn't at the lip yet, and there is still
plenty of room for a slip. In one district I've worked with, a few parents got "up in arms"
because they wanted their children to learn the same way they had learned. And there will
inevitably be many problems that need to be ironed out, no matter how well conceived your
model is. Time and resources need to be allocated to working out such problems. Some
functions and subsystems may need to be redesigned. The design team should remain active,
but in a trouble-shooting mode.
The following are some principles to consider:
14.1 You should only accept students whose parents volunteer them to attend the new school.
14.2 Trouble shooting, problem solving, and redesign should be continuous. The design team
should meet frequently to discuss problems and "fme tune" the new system.
14.3 Don't expect things to work well at first. Allow at least three years of operation before
conducting any summative evaluation.

15. Document I Market the System

So, now your work is done? Not quite. If you are using the parallel-system approach, this
fundamental change effort is but the first step in getting the district to change. It is important to
show other teachers how much better the quality of work life is in the new system, and to show
other parents how much better their kids' education will be in the new system. Neither teachers
nor parents should be forced to change; but, if the new system is working better than the old,
you have a moral obligation to share what you have learned. And whether you are using the
parallel-system approach or the whole-system approach, it is important to show other
districtslcommunities the advantages of the new system and share with them the process you
found most helpful. The following principles are relevant:
15.1 Use a broad range of measures, induding traditional tests as well as nontraditional
assessments of:
thinking skills and learning strategies
attitudes toward learning and school
emotional/psychological development
social development
moral/ethical development
development of creativity.
 65

15.2 Share the process, experiences, and results with other stakeholders, especially teachers,
and with other districts/communities.

Summary

It is well recognized that fundamental change is needed in education. What we don't know is
what the new system should be like. Therefore, the traditional change model of disseminating
and implementing an innovation (e.g., Rogers, 1983) is inadequate to the task. We must focus
more on the process of change--as a design process--than on the products of change--ready-
made solutions (new educational systems). Although the expert approach may work, perhaps
we need a change model in which the users of the innovation (the stakeholders) are also the
designers of the innovation.
In this article, I have presented a tentative model for a fundamental change process using the
stakeholder approach. The model is based largely on the experiences of people well versed in
systems design. But much work is needed to test and improve this process model.
Furthermore, it seems likely that, as new systems are designed and implemented, the optimal
process may change. On a scale ranging from pure invention by the users on one extreme to
pure adoption of someone else's invention on the other, the optimal position may well gradually
shift from close to the pure invention side to moderately close to the pure adoption side
(adoption with slight modifications) over the next decade.
My hope is that this tentative process model will provide a useful springboard, if not
foundation, for further development of powerful process models for the fundamental change of
our educational system.

References
1. Ackoff, R.L: Creating the Corporate Future. New York: John Wiley & Sons 1981
2. Banathy, B.H.: Design in the context of human activity systems. San Francisco:
International Systems Institute 1984
3. Banathy, B.H.: Systems inquiry in education. Systems Practice, 1 (2), 193-212 (1988)
4. Banathy, B.H.: Educational Systems Design: A Journey to Create the Future. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications 1991
5. Checkland, P.: System Thinking, System Practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons 1981
6. Cohen, M.: Restructuring the education system: Agenda for the 1990's. Washington, D.C.
National Governors' Association 1988
7. Gregory, T.B., & Smith, G.R.: High Schools as Communities: The Small School
Reconsidered. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation 1987
8. utrell, M.H.: Mission not accomplished: Education reform in retrospect. Phi Delta Kappan,
71 (1),8-14 (1989)
9. Leonard, G.: Education and Ecstasy. New York: Delacorte 1968
10. Perelman, LJ.: Technology and Transformation of the Schools. Alexandria, VA: National
School Boards Association 1987
 66

11. Perelman, L.J.: Restructuring the system is the solution. Phi Delta Kappan, 70 (I), 20-24
(1988)
12. Reige1uth, C.M.: The search for meaningful reform: A third-wave educational system.
Journal of Instructional Development, 10 (4), 3-14 (1987)
13. Reigeluth, C.M.: In B.H. Banathy (ed.), Educational Systems Design: A Journey to
Create the Future. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications 1990
14. Rhodes, L.A: We have met the system - and it is us! Phi Delta Kappan, 70 (I), 28-30
(1988)
15. Rogers, E.M.: Diffusion of Innovations. (3rd ed.). New York: The Free Press 1983
16. Shanker, A: Reforming the reform movement. Educational Administration Quarterly,
24(4), 366-373 (1988).
17. Shanker, A: The end of the traditional model of schooling - and a proposal for using
incentives to restructure our public schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 71 (5),345-357 (1990)
18. Watts, G.D., & McClure, R.M.: Expanding the contract to revolutionize school renewal.
Phi Delta Kappan, 71 (10),765-774 (1990)
Structuring the Program of the NATO Advanced
Research Workshop: An Architecture of
Decision-Oriented Disciplined Inquiry
Bela H. Banathy

International Systems Institute and Saybrook Graduate School, 25781 Morse Drive, Carmel,
CA 93923, U.S.A.

Abstract: Conclusion-oriented disciplined inquiry-the domain of the scientific disciplines-

is concerned with generating knowledge about what is and describing it. Decision-oriented
disciplined inquiry focuses on the use of knowledge for making decisions about what should
be. Systems design is a decision-oriented inquiry. It creates a model of a future system. An
architecture for selecting methods of systems design and carrying out design is introduced in
the paper. The architecture also provides a framework for the organization of the workshop.

Keywords: Systems design, design architecture, disciplined inquiry, conclusion-oriented

disciplined inquiry, decision-oriented disciplined inquiry, designing the design inquiry,
systems inquiry.

Introduction

In this paper an architecture is presented which offers a framework for organizing the
approaches I strategies I methods for conducting any disciplined inquiry. The architecture was
proposed for use at the NATO advanced research workshop as a framework for organizing our
own inquiry. The paper has four parts.
In Part One, decision-oriented disciplined inquiry (DODI) is defined in the larger context of
disciplined inquiry and is juxtaposed with conclusion-oriented disciplined inquiry (CODI).
Design is defined as one mode of DODI. From this discussion emerges the rationale for the use
of an architecture for DOD!. In Part Two, I introduce the use of the architecture I developed
earlier in conducting design inquiry in the context of designing human activity systems.
In Part Three, the architecture is used in the planning of design inquiry itself, and this mode
of use is demonstrated in the context of a specific situational application. In Part Four, I
propose to use the architecture for the organization of our own inquiry. The first three parts
help to set the stage for approaching Part Four.
 68

Part One: Why an Architecture?}

Design inquiry is a creative, decision-oriented disciplined inquiry that aims to formulate a

conceptual representation of a future system. As such, design inquiry has its own conceptual
environment. This conceptual environment accommodates the two modes of disciplined
inquiry: one which is conclusion-oriented and one which is decision-oriented. Design belongs
to the latter. From an exploration of distinctions between the two modes of inquiry, I develop
not only the rationale but the need for an architecture that enables us to organize approaches I
strategies I methods of decision-oriented disciplined inquiry (DODI) in general, and particularly
in conducting design inquiry.

1.1 Mapping the Domains of Disciplined Inquiry

Scholars and professionals make the observation that the logic and methodology of the natural
and behavioral sciences have often been adopted uncritically to various professions. This has
blurred a fundamental difference between the disciplines and professions, as Simon (1969)
observed. Natural and behavioral sciences describe what things are and how things work.
Scientists form theories and make predictions based on those theories. Organized in
compartmentalized disciplines, such as the physical, biological, behavioral, and social sciences,
the salient intellectual process for the sciences is analysis, and their guiding orientation is
reductionism. For any given disci-pline at any particular time, its methods are clearly defined
by the "guardians" of the discipline, and those methods are the hallmarks of the discipline.
On the other hand, professional fields, such as engineering, architecture, law, medicine,
organizational inquiry, education, and the various social service fields, are concerned with what
should be and how systems can be changed. Professionals in these fields are concerned with
constructing and reconstructing a system in order to: (1) adapt it to a specific environment, (2)
change the system, or (3) select or create the environment in accordance with the purpose of the
system of interest. In addition to analysis, the salient intellectual process of the professions is
synthesis, and their guiding orientation includes teleology and expansionism. In the
professions there is a wide range of approaches I strategies I methods available, from which to
select those that are most appropriate to the context and the content of the inquiry and that match
the type of system of interest.
Both the sciences and the professions pursue disciplined inquiry, the quality of which
distinguishes it from opinion and belief. Cronbach and Suppes characterized this quality as
follows:

lPart One is an adaptation of my chapter in [1] "The Conceptual Environments of Design Inquiry."
 69

Disciplined inquiry is conducted and reported in such a way that the argument can
be painstakingly examined. The report does not depend for its appeal on the
eloquence of the writer or on any surface plausibility. The argument is not
justified by anecdotes or casually assembled fragments of evidence [4, pp. 15-
16].

Disciplined inquiry is either conclusion-oriented or decision-oriented. The distinction made

here is also a way of distinguishing between the sciences and the professions.

1.1.1 Conclusion-Oriented Disciplined Inquiry

Disciplined inquiry which is conclusion-oriented takes its direction from the investigator's
commitments and hunches. The researcher formulates questions about a particular issue. The
aim is to conceptualize and understand the chosen phenomenon. Particular findings are only
means to that end [q.v. 4, 5]. Conclusion-oriented inquiry is the primary domain of research.
Its manifestations are the various scientific disciplines. Its outcomes are technical and research
reports and journal articles. They usually have little immediate consequence for practice. The
researcher has no obligation to transform newly found knowledge into actual applications in
various applied fields.

1.1.2 Decision-Oriented Disciplined Inquiry

In decision-oriented disciplined inquiry, the investigator is asked to provide information wanted

by a decision maker, such as a corporate executive, a government policy maker, an industrial
manager, or an educational leader. As a commissioned study, this type of inquiry is pursued
with specific objectives and its results are expected to produce measurable changes when
applied. Design, development, and assessment or evaluation are carried out within the
framework of decision-oriented inquiry. Those engaged in the inquiry are expected to create
products, processes, or systems; produce information by which to assess or evaluate the
effectiveness of the products, systems, or people who operate the system. Often the
expectation is to create a range of alternatives or choices for consideration. A map of
conclusion-oriented and decision-oriented disciplined inquiry is portrayed in Figure 1.
In DODI we often make use of the outcome of COOL Findings of CODI that are relevant
to the particular DODI become part of the knowledge base and inform our inquiry. The
outcomes of 0001, on the other hand, are considered in COOl as findings that might support
or refute the outcomes of their own research.
 70

1.2 Locating Design in the Larger Inquiry Space

Design is concerned with how things ought to be. It explores pathways and creates systems
that are directed toward the attainment of aspirations and purposes. Design often involves us in
unbounded speculation about desired outcomes and how to achieve them. The designers set
orth images of a desired future state, create acceptable (alternative) representations of that state,
evaluate the alternatives, and select and describe the most promising alternative. Every part of
the above set of activities implies decision making. Thus, in the larger space of disciplined
inquiry, design can be seen as fitting into the domain of decision-oriented disciplined inquiry-
inquiry that is pursued by the various professions.

Disciplined Inquiry:
Investigating Various Areas of

I
..
Interest

I
Conclusion-Oriented Inquiry: Decision-Oriented Inquiry:

. .
The Domain of the Disciplines The Domain of Professions

Findings: Outcomes:

Technical/Research Products, Processes,

Reports and Scientific ____ .. Systems' Designs
Articles Systems Development

New Knowledge - - - -.. Use of Knowledge

Direct Flow - - - - Contribution

Figure 1: A map of disciplined inquiry

When, however, design becomes a subject of disciplined inquiry as a domain of scientific

study, when we focus on what design IS and how it works, when we conduct research on
design and produce knowledge about design, then our inquiry becomes conclusion-oriented.
Thus, design as a purposeful human activity maps into the decision-oriented space, and design
as a subject of study maps into the conclusion-oriented space. The relationship between the
two inquiries is interactive. Findings of the conclusion-oriented study of design generate the
 71

knowledge base from which we draw in conducting design. On the other hand, as we carry out
design-in a self-reflecting and contemplating mode-we gain new insights and knowledge
about design itself. The design knowledge, thus generated, becomes input into conc1usion-
oriented inquiry. The complementary nature of the two modes of inquiry should always be on
our mind.
In our workshop we formulated (synthesized) a knowledge base for the introduction of
systems design as a new intellectual technology in education, and we speculated about the use
of this technology in designing systems of learning and human development.

1.3 The Relationship of Design to Other Types of Decision-Oriented Inquiries

Next I contemplate the conceptual space of decision-oriented disciplined inquiry in order to

identify various disciplined inquiries-in addition to design-that inhabit this space, and to
explore the relationship of design to its "peer" inquiry types.
There are several types of disciplined inquiries that inhabit the domain of decision-oriented
disciplined inquiry and operate in the various professions. These include such types as:
Representation (description / characterization / modeling of an existing entity, system, or
process);
Analysis, diagnosis, assessment, evaluation;
Purposeful changes, in such modes as: planning, adjustment or improvement, and design or
redesign;
Development, construction, implementation, and management of systems and inquiries.
Relationships between design and its "peer" inquiries are explored at two levels: (1) the
relationship of design to other inquiry types, and (2) the relational distinction between the
various modes of change.
Embedded in design are analysis and representation. The front-end of design involves the
analysis / diagnosis of the design problem situation, as well as the description or modeling of
the system to be designed. In the case of redesign, we also have to represent or model the
existing system. If we decide that the design will be made real, then development will proceed
as the design is implemented. Furthermore, whatever is implemented will have to be managed,
and design itself should be managed as a disciplined inquiry.
Within the domain of purposeful change, it is useful to make some distinctions among the
various change modes. Adjustment and improvement are inquiries that are driven primarily by
negative feedback, with little, if any, change contemplated in purposes and boundaries.
Design, on the other hand, is the creation of a new system. Redesign is driven primarily by
positive feedback, involving changes in purposes, norms, perspectives, boundaries, functions
and structures.
 72

Planning in its various manifestations-such as strategic / long-range, tactical / short range,

operational, etc.-works out from an existing system. It sets out goals / objectives, defines
steps in a time frame that have to be taken in order to attain desired ends. It also specifies
resources required to carry out the plan. Design, on the other hand, "jumps-out" from the
existing system, it works back from an ideal image, it is dynamic (not linear), it is concerned
with the creation of a system that has the organizational capacity and staff capability to attain
desired outcomes, and it implies a never-ending inquiry.

1.4 The Relationship of Design with Various Types

of Conclusion-Oriented Disciplined Inquiry

To create the knowledge base of design, in addition to "design knowledge" (discussed earlier),
designers will draw upon the findings of the natural and behavioral sciences which are relevant
to the content of design. For example, conducting design in the context of human activity
systems, we may draw upon philosophy, psychology, sociology, ethics, economy,
anthropology, linguistics, political science, demography, environmental science, and most
significantly: systems science.

1.5 Mapping the Various Types of Design

Design is carried out within various professions, such as engineering, architecture, law, the
health professions, management, education, business / industry, social services, etc. Within
these professions, design involves the construction and reconstruction of synthetic entities.
Constructed systems include: abstract (conceptual systems); physical/machine systems; hybrid
systems (machine-nature systems, such as a hydroelectric plant); man-machine systems (a car,
a computer, the Apollo spacecraft); and human activity systems (organizations, social and
societal systems) that may incorporate all the above system types. In our present work our
interest is to define disciplined inquiry that is relevant to the design of human activity systems in
general, with a focus on the design of educational systems.

1.6 Constructing the Rationale

What has emerged from the exploration presented above is an understanding of a clearly
definable distinction between CODI and DODI. The two major distinctions are inherent in (1)
the purpose (and products) of the two kinds of inquiry and (2) the nature of the approaches /
strategies / methods used in the two modes of inquiry. The notion of the architecture emerges
 73

from item (2). While the disciplines insist upon the use of a clearly articulated and sanctioned
(by the discipline) method, the professions have available and use a wide variety of approaches
/ strategies / methods from which the inquirers select those which are most appropriate to: (1)
the particular domain (context and content) of their interest and (2) the nature and type of
system which is the target of the inquiry. To make those selections, the inquirers need a
framework-which I call architecture-that enables them to organize into an internally
consistent system the approaches / strategies / methods they consider appropriate to their work.
The architecture introduced next enables the inquirers to make the judgement of selection in a
disciplined way. The architecture is presented in the functional context of systems design,
which was the focus of the workshop.

Part Two: The Use of the Architecture in Systems Design

The architecture described here is an organizing framework within which to formulate

design inquiry in the context of human activity systems. Associated with the architecture is a
description of an approach that can guide design thinking and action in formulating design
approaches / strategies / methods that are appropriate to the system to be designed.

2.1 An Image of the Architecture 2

An image of the architecture is presented in Figure 2. As the image shows, the architecture is
constructed in five spaces. In the context of design, these are: (1) the front-end (contextual and
genesis) space of design, in which we set the "stage" for the inquiry; (2) the design solution
space, in which we carry out the design activities; (3) the organized knowledge space, in which
we locate information / knowledge relevant to and required by the disciplined inquiry of design;
(4) the experience space, in which we test out the adequacy of the emerging design solutions;
and (5) the outcome space, in which we display the model of the system we designed and the
model of its systemic environment. The relational arrangements of these spaces and their
pattern of interaction provide us with a general architecture of systems design. The image is
shown below.

2.2 The Description of the Architecture

In the front-end contextual and genesis space, we "set the stage" for design. This space is the
"task-environment" of design in which we identify the systems / environments that are

2Parts Two and Three are adapted from [2].

 74

involved, formulate images and aspirations, and define the reason(s) that are the genesis of
design. This space also includes organizing perspectives that shall guide design thinking and
action.
The organized knowledge space contains information and knowledge pertinent to the
inquiry. Whatever we developed in the front-end space is deposited here as design input. This
space is very much alive in that we constantly add to it as design alternatives are formulated in
the design solution space which may require additional/new information or knowledge.
Knowledge generated here informs design and provides substance to the emerging design
solution. This space also includes organized knowledge about design itself.

\
The Organized
Knowledge Space

Figure 2: The general architecture of design 3

The experience space is created by designers in order to: test the emerging design
alternatives against the stated purposes and the design criteria of the system, by evaluating them
conceptually and also in real-world settings. Such testing mitigates against the acceptance of
invalid alternatives and conceptual errors, as well as against faulty perceptions of the real world
and the relevance of the design to that world.
In the outcome space-the space of the future system-we display / describe / represent the
model of the system we designed and the model of the systemic environment of the future
system. (The systemic environment is that part of the general environment with which the

3For details see Chapter IX in [3].

 75

system constantly interacts and from which the future system will receive I exchange
information, energy, and resources, and to which it will send its outcomes.)
It is the design solution space in which we formulate the design of the future system. In
this space design is carried out through recurring cycles in a spiral mode as we explore-and
reexplore-the various spaces of the design inquiry and integrate information, knowledge, and
experience into emerging alternatives and eventually attain the validated design of the future
system.
The pattern of relationship among the five spaces can be further characterized as follows.
As we proceed with design and as some solution alternatives emerge, we continue to revisit the
contextual space as we gain an increasingly better understanding as to what to look for in that
space that would enlighten our design. The same is true with the knowledge space. We shall
draw upon organized knowledge (displayed in the knowledge space) increasingly and ever
more effectively as the questions we formulate in the design solution space become ever more
focused. In so doing, we shall often need new knowledge to respond to emerging questions
and better inform and enlighten our inquiry. In the same fashion, as design inquiry proceeds,
we move into the experience space repeatedly, in order to test the emerging design alternatives.
This testing shapes the future system, validates I rejects alternatives, and becomes the main
source of confidence in judging the "goodness of fit" of a selected alternative. The design
inquiry that goes on in all these spaces will eventually converge as it produces a representation
or model of the future system.
In the next part, I introduce another use of the architecture.

Part Three: The Architecture of Designing the Design Inquiry

In any design, conducted in the context of human activity systems, designers face the task of
selecting approaches I strategies I methods which are appropriate first of all to the type of
system they wish to design. The types of human activity systems can be defined on a
continuum as to their closed-open nature, their degree of complexity, their mechanistic vs.
systemic characteristics, and the degree to which they are unitary or pluralistic in their
purposes. Using the continuum, I constructed a model of system types, differentiating five
distinctively different types, suggesting that each type requires a different system of inquiry.
Designers should be sensitive to the differences in types and select the approaches I
strategies I methods that are most appropriate to the type. Other considerations for selection
include: (1) the design problem situation and the parameters of the design program, (2) the
competence of designers, (3) the organizational capacity and human, technical, and financial
resources available, and (4) the degree of commitment to carry out the design. In designing
human activity systems, each design situation is unique and each design outcome is unique.
The considerations introduced above attest to such uniqueness.
 76

The architecture introduced in Part Two is used now for designing the design inquiry itself
in preparation for the design program. Thus, this application of the architecture is a special case
of use. The outcome or the product of this type of use of the architecture is a description or
display of a model of the design inquiry program that will be used in designing a specific type
of human activity system in a specific functional context. The model emerges from the
synthesis of selected design approaches I strategies I methods that designers judge to be
appropriate to the system type and their specific design situation.

3.1 The Image of the Use of the Architecture for the Design of Design Inquiry

Using the architecture for the design of the inquiry, designers proceed from the contextual
space, set the stage for designing the inquiry, and draw upon the knowledge base about design
(deposited in the knowledge space). They will move into the experience space in order to
validate the selected approaches I strategies I methods. They go through several spirals in the
design solution space in considering alternative configurations of approaches I strategies I
methods and, finally, will select the alternative that best meets their criteria Then, they display
I describe it in the outcome space as the model of the design inquiry. Figure 3 projects the
image of using the architecture for the design of the design inquiry program. The figure is
followed by a description of the design operations, highlighted in the context of an application
example: the design of an inquiry program for the redesign of an R&D laboratory.

The Contextual
The Design Solution
Space
Space for the Design
of Designing
of the Design Inquiry
the Inquiry

Organized Knowledge
About the Specifics of
the Design Topic and
About Systems Design

Figure 3: The architecture of designing design inquiry

 77

3.2 A Description of the Use of the Architecture: An Example

In the contextual space, where we set the stage for the design of the inquiry, we designate the
system of interest we wish to design, the larger system which would embed it, and other
systems that are relevant to the design effort. We define key players who will participate in the
design: stakeholders, clients, users, and those affected by the design. We contemplate the type
of system we wish to design and consider the aspects mentioned in the first paragraph of Part
Three. We now explain why we engage in this design program (the genesis of design). In the
case of the example, at the Far West Laboratory we initiated design because: (1) we found that a
mismatch existed between the laboratory and its environment, (2) we recognized internal
inadequacies and discrepancies, (3) we wanted to become a different type of system (move
from purposive to purpose seeking), and (4) we had developed new aspirations.
We also found that all the considerations enumerated in the first paragraph of Part Three
should be taken into account, in that all those indicated a need for a design of design inquiry.
In addition, we felt that engaging in such design (1) would enable us to develop system design
capability in our own staff, (2) would enable us to learn to design collectively and therefore
would develop new organizational-learning capabilities, and (3) would generate deeper
commitment to implement the design.
In the space of organized knowledge in designing design inquiry we display the following:
Knowledge about design in general, design approaches / strategies I methods that are
appropriate to the design of human activity systems.
Knowledge about the various types of human activity systems and their characteristics.
Knowledge about ways that human activity systems can be described I modeled.
Information about organizational capacity and staff competence in carrying out design.
Information about resources available to support design.
At the Laboratory we had design knowledge and expertise available to the extent that we
were able to offer an intensive design learning program for our staff. We also had rich
literature on design at our disposal, including the products of our two year research program on
systems design.
In the testing / validationg space of designing design inquiry, designers are involved in
setting forth criteria by which to select approaches I strategies / methods. This task is the most
crucial and requires in-depth exploration of the considerations mentioned earlier, as well as
good knowledge about the design literature and practice. For the design inquiry program of the
laboratory we developed the following criteria:
External criteria probed into the general validity of the candidate approaches / strategies I
methods, their integrity, evidence of testing, successful and documented use in organizations
like ours, and articulated theoretical base.
 78

Internal criteria assessed "goodness of fit" with our own institutional characteristics and
planned design effort. The criteria had four categories:
(a) General assessment of being realistic and feasible to use in our context, as well as effective
and efficient. Their use should also be compatible with our institutional culture.
(b) Allows for: (1) the emergence of design solutions which may go beyond the existing
boundaries of our system and our systemic environment, (2) design process flexibility, (3)
integration of the design process, (4) continuous review and evaluation, and (5) continuous
emergence.
(c) "Systemic match" in that whatever is selected should be appropriate to the type of system we
wish to design.
(d) Attractiveness / openness, nurturing unrestricted exploration of ideas and initiatives,
emphasizing enabling conditions while also considering barriers.
The above set is only an indication of what designers should consider in establishing
selection criteria.
The design solution space of the design inquiry is the territory which we travel intensively
as we consider selecting approaches / strategies / methods and synthesizing them into an
internally consistent model of our design inquiry. We enter into this space with: (1) the design
input we generated in the contextual / design genesis space, (2) an initial stock of organized
design knowledge, and (3) the selection criteria we generated.
Given such information / knowledge bases, we proceed in the design solution space by: (1)
formulating the purposes of the design of the inquiry, (2) displaying the various approaches /
strategies / methods that might be applicable to our inquiry, (3) evaluating their adequacy /
appropriateness, (4) creating various potential design configurations from those (tentatively)
selected, (5) testing the configurations for their power / relevance / attractiveness / internal
consistency; and (6 ) selecting the most promising design configuration.
We now move into the outcome space, where we display / present the model of design
inquiry. This model represents a synthesis of the approaches / strategies / methods we selected
and tested in the course of designing the design inquiry program. Having designed the inquiry,
we also develop a plan for the implementation of the inquiry.

Part Four: Using the Architecture for the Design of Our Workshop

As we have seen in Parts Two and Three, the frontal part of the architecture is the space where
we set the stage for the inquiry. Setting the stage for our own inquiry has been already partially
accomplished. The proposal we sent to NATO and various memos sent to participants
represent much of what the frontal part is calling for. The set of questions introduced next-
and the answers provided-identify the purpose and the nature of the inquiry, explore its
genesis, describe its various contexts, and designate the kind of educational system we have in
 79

mind. Questions that drive the inquiry in the frontal space-and initial answers to those
questions-are introduced next.

What is the Present Inquiry About?

It is about the formulation and description of the intellectual technology of systems design, its
theory bases, its integration into educational technology, and its application in education.

What is the Nature of This Inquiry?

It is disciplined inquiry which will integrate findings of conclusion- AND decision-oriented

disciplined inquiry relevant to systems design, in order to formulate findings pertinent to the
formulation of a systems design technology in education.

Why is This Inquiry Pursued?

The genesis of the inquiry evolved from a realization that the current design of education is
grossly outdated and attempts to improve it did not lead to desired outcomes-that they are in
fact a waste of effort and resources. The massive changes and transformations that have
happened in the larger society call for a radically different (from what exists now) educational
design. Unfortunately, the educational community does not possess the organizational capacity
and the required human capability to carry out system design. In response to the question of
"Why this inquiry?", we shall make an assessment of the current state-of-the-art of educational
technology. An initial assessment indicates multiple shortcomings, including: (1) a lack of
conceptual and methodological power in offering a comprehensive and systemic view and
approach to education (such as an approach to systems design), and (2) a lack of conceptual
and methodological power to offer learning-focused (learning systems level) intellectual
technology. (As mentioned earlier, the current scope of educational technology is limited to
instructional and curriculum analysis and design.

What are the Domains of the Inquiry?

The domains of the inquiry can be defined by considering (1) the focus of the inquiry, (2) its
functional context, (3) its conceptual bases, and (4) core ideas about education, the synthesis of
which presents an image of education and provides input to our own inquiry.
(1) The focus of the inquiry is systems design, which is missing from the current repertoire
of educational technology. (We have now technology only for instructional and curriculum
designs.)
 80

(2) The junctional context of the inquiry is educational technology embedded in education.
Its situational context is the Advanced Research Workshop. comprised of a system of four
activities. as pictured in Figure 4. The preparatory phase includes activities that have been
accomplished prior to the workshop. namely: (1) the work of the workshop organizers. (2) the
development of the research papers. (3) the framing papers. and (4) working with the research
and framing papers. The intensive inquiry phase is depicted in the image of the use of the
architecture (Figure 5). and it is described there. The follow-up phase includes the tasks of
preparing for publication the findings of the workshop. writing articles and research reports.
and acting upon resolutions I plans made at Asilomar. During the application phase.
participants may initiate systems and design programs in their back-home situation. test the
product(s) of the workshop. and prepare for the next workshop.

The Intensive Inquiry

Space at Asilomar

Applications Guided
By Participants

Figure 4: The activity system of the situational context

(3) The conceptual bases of the inquiry include: (a) systems and evolutionary theories. (b)
the theory of social systems. (c) design theory. (d) theories of learning and human
development. and (e) approaches I methods that are based on those theories. The initial
research papers serve as the first "spiral" of developing the conceptual bases.
(4) core ideas about systems of learning and human development that guide the inquiry
include several sets. An initial proposal for such sets is introduced below for the participants
consideration. We provided time at the beginning of the workshop to further develop those
sets. The synthesis of the emerging sets offered an image-shared by all of us-of the kind of
system we had in mind. in view of which we were to develop the conceptual and
methodological bases of an intellectual technology required for systems design. There had to
 81

be a "goodness of fit" between the image of the system and the intellectual technology proposed
for its design.

Presenting the Architecture for Our Workshop

What follows here is a presentation of a map depicting the use of the architecture as a
framework for organizing our workshop, followed by a description of its use.

Conceptual Testing
Against Stated Criteria

Purpose and
Nature of the Formulation of the
Inquiry and Its Conceptual/Methodological
Genesis; Its Bases of Systems Design in
Conceptual Education
Domains

Organized Knowledge
That Informs the Inquiry

Figure 5: A map of the use of the architecture for our workshop

A Description of the Use of the Architecture

In the sections above I have described the use of the frontal space: the contextual and genesis
space of the architecture. At the beginning of the workshop we revisited this space in order to
arrive at a consensus of the statements / ideas formulated in this space. These provided an input
to the workshop. A new task was the formulation of criteria by which to evaluate the emerging
solutions.
The first spiral of formulating the conceptual / methodological bases involved the synthesis
of the research papers in the various domains in which those papers were developed. The
synthesis was tested by using the criteria developed for evaluating the emerging solutions. At
the same time we explored the need for additional knowledge that would inform our synthesis.
 82

The second spiral addressed the integration of the findings of the first spiral across the
various domains. Again we evaluated the outcomes of the work of the second spiral with mE
use of these criteria. We also determined the need for additional knowledge.
The third spiral focused on the pragmatic issues of: (1) presenting our findings in the
outcome space, (2) considering the means and methods of reporting the outcomes, (3) derming
our continuing work, (4) formalizing relationships among us and defining us as a "nucleus
group" for "building a design culture" in the global educational community, and (5) preparing
for the next workshop.

Reflections

The workshop offered a unique opportunity for us not only to create something of significance
and value, but also to envision our collective involvement in the service of the global
educational community, so that we could become instrumental-through our continuing and
expanding work-in creating just systems of learning and human development for future
generations. There is no more noble task than this to which we can dedicate ourselves.

References

1. Banathy, B. H.: The conceptual environments of design inquiry. In: Cybernetics and
systems, 88 (R. Trappl, ed.). Kluwer Academic Publishers 1988
2. Banathy, B. H.: The design of design inquiry in the context of human activity systems. In:
Design inquiry (B.H. Banathy, ed.). ISGSR and lSI 1987
3. Banathy, B. H.: Systems design of education: A Journey to create the future. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications 1991
4. Cronbach, L.D., and Suppes, P.: Researchfor tomorrow's school: Disciplined inquiry for
education. New York: Macmillan 1969
5. Simon, Herbert: The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1969
 Part 2 Thematic Contributions

Section 1 The Conceptual and Empirical Contexts

of Comprehensive Systems Design
Education as a Process of Increasing Access to
Societal Resources: Design and Methodology

Gerard de Zeeuw
Center:for Innovation and Cooperative Technology, University of Amsterdam, Grote
Bickersstraat 72, 1013 KS Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Abstract: Over time teaching has changed in many ways, partly due to new technologies.
For example, instead of a direct provider of knowledge, the teacher's role has changed to one
of a guide, of a facilitator to acquire access to knowledge. It is suggested that new changes are
necessary. Methods for change are discussed. The approach via so called 'core systems' is to
be preferred. Good candidates for core systems are the languages used in education. They
should be helped to change into 'elaborated code' [3, 11], to gain access to societal resources -
as opposed to the strict code that presently seems to relate competence on individual and
collective levels. Loosening this relationship will imply a productive change in the educational
system.

Keywords: Core system, diagnosis and treatment, disciplinary stories, education, elaborate
code, competence, language, user, variation and seiection.

Introduction

'There is widespread recognition that fundamental change is needed in education' [10]. This
diagnosis concerns the present educational situation in the United States. Whatever its status as
such, the statement certainly seems to be valid in other countries too, especially the
Netherlands. After a twenty-five year period of government support in Dutch educational
research, at the rate of some hundreds of millions of guilders, similar diagnoses have been
reported - both in terms of the internal situation, the production of learning, and the external
situation, the contribution to wider societal processes [12]. Here too fundamental change is
deemed necessary.

The next step obviously must be one of method: how to choose the necessary changes and
implement them. There turn out to be some difficulties here, however. Guidance often is
sought by trying to find out what 'made the present as it is', its determining variables.
Strangely, there usually seems to be very little in the past that did not contribute. The next
 86

step therefore also seems bound to fail, that is to try and translate such determining variables
into activities, and to redress what went wrong. Such translations by themselves can not reduce
ambiguity. In fact, these drawbacks have become so serious that the original cry for
'fundamental change' now seems to cover its method as well [2].
Consider for example the relative lack of interest of women to study mathematics. If one
wants to change this situation, about any type of variable seems willing to take the blame:
differences between men and women in visuaVspatial tasks, in social stereotypes, in kinds of
motivations; in early experiences; in the low number of female teachers to allow for
identification with a competent adult; etc. Similarly, trying to translate such variables - for
example into higher numbers of female teachers - seems to create ambiguity rather than reduce
it: results for some girls improve, but, alas!, also those of some boys [13]. The approach of
'diagnosis and treatment' does not provide the necessary guidance here and gets one lost.
Although many interpretations of this curious situation have been brought forward, the
most obvious one still seems one of method, that is of an ill-match between what is studied and
the way it is done. Indeed, the type of difficulty encountered suggests that we are dealing here
with an interactive system. In such systems local changes often will have unpredictable effects,
or can have their intended effects cancelled by other (side-) effects. Hence it will be difficult to
find finite sets of determining variables, as even the history of implemented changes will
determine future changes. Ambiguity arises when it is not clear what the external environment
of the system is, to be used as change agent. In this case, even failures can have some positive
effects.
Resolving this ill-match necessarily must mean changing the approach to improvement of
the system. In this paper we will focus on this problem: what approaches can be followed to
implement the need for 'fundamental change' in education? The main obstacle to answer this
question of course is that many conditions have to be satisfied that in a sense are invisible:
education is part of a larger societal system that is determining it, but also is determined by it;
though we may often improve parts of the system by replacing its components (e.g. change
one's selection of pupils), the whole system can not do so; it is caught in its own present and in
what is available.

Disadvantages of Adapting the Method

The approach of 'diagnosis and treatment' is one that has become entrenched in Academe
(matched by the distinction between fundamental research and applied research or technology)
and - even worse - is widely practiced by research organizations dependent on outside financial
support [10]. Changing it therefore will not be easy. A frequently chosen direction is to
somehow maintain the Academic approach, that is by taking the structure of the whole
 87

educational system itself as the 'determining variable' to be manipulated, not any part. A
special case is where 'what the system was' is taken as the determining variable, to be
manipulated as a form of repetition. Another one is where 'what the system is going to be' is
taken as the determining variable, a 'vision' to change expectations. More general approaches
are to change the method as such, e.g. by telescoping diagnosis and therapeutic action into each
other, or by taking the limiting condition of their combination. We will come back to these
possibilities later (last section).
The approach of blaming the system itself, as the determining variable, has even been
elevated by some authors to an ideology, 'holism' (in both versions: when taking aspects of its
past as the operational form of the determining variable or aspects of its future). The approach,
of course, is effective, at least to resolve the problem of the 'overflow' of determining
variables. Unfortunately, it also helps to aggravate the problem of translation, requiring
additional solutions. Reigeluth [10] for example defines both an expert translation and a user-
oriented one (the stakeholder approach, applied on the district level - either the whole district or
parts thereot). The latter unfolds according to a number of general principles, not derived from
the actual school situation. Basic activities for representatives of stakeholders, both individually
and collectively, are sketched. Their design is derived from concepts concerning the position
and activities of the actors in the educational process; their content is determined by the local
situation.
Such a full-out effort at redesign of the 'whole' system can have positive effects, though
this does not seem to be due to the approach as such. Indeed, the ambiguity in the translation
tends to remain a major stumbling block. An example is provided by the Innovation Project
Amsterdam (acronym IPA, also in Dutch), implemented by Van Calcar [4, 5, 6]. In retrospect
it seems to satisfy all the conditions enumerated by Reigeluth [10], as well as to implement all
of his injunctions (though not all schools in the district participated; a method which Reigeluth
has dubbed the parallel system approach). At its termination, the project got a very negative
rating. This was based on a standard test procedure, in which average test results of pupils
were prominent. It was admitted, though, that changes had been achieved in many other areas,
less easily accessible to quantification. There seemed to be for example a general increase in
language capability. It can also be noted that those schools that participated originally were at
the bottom end in the district; they now - after a period of more than 10 years - are considered
the best organized. Conversely, given an early all-out opportunity to use computers in a sec-
ondary school, teachers reverted very quickly to more proven ways of working [8].
Many people were extremely dissatisfied with the evaluation of the IPA. That includes not
only the Ministry for Education (the subsidizer), but also and especially the participants. Most
of them had spent enormous efforts, and were sure that the project had been successful. To
some extent the latters' feelings may be explained by their commitment, of course.
Unfortunately, from the Academic point of view, there were also some serious questions
 88

regarding the evaluation. The overall aim, for example, had been translated to aims for
participating actors. Too often the latter could make clear that their aims had been realized,
though the sum of such realizations did not match realization of the overall aim. Here the
translation to local actors may be blamed; or, conversely the way coordination between the
various actors was maintained. It remains unclear therefore, how, when one wants to blame the
structure of the system as a whole, restructuring can be systematic (apart from too simple
derivations from general statements like: 'the system is rotten, the system should be rebuilt
from the bottom').

The User Concept

A different way of 'blaming the whole system' would be to look at the educational system - at
all levels - as an inalienable part of the societal system. To change the educational system, one
needs to change the societal system. International comparisons can function as a basis for such
changes. For example, lack of mathematical skills in American school children, as compared to
Japanese children, are taken by some to be a direct consequence of the difference between the
loose discipline generated by American individualism and the strict discipline of Japanese
collectivism [9]. Unfortunately, such comparisons neither explain how one would change
societal systems on this scale, nor whether educational systems and societal systems are linked
closely enough to guarantee an accompanying occurrence of the desired kind.
A quite different approach would be to question the identification of the system to be
changed. The problem may not be to find the relevant 'whole' system, the functions of which
should change, but to find some 'core' system, that is that system, change of which would lead
to - and facilitate - changes in other systems. Such 'transchanges' may be defined vertically, in
the sense of changing sub- or supersystems, or horizontally, in the sense of changing parallel
systems by interaction. Examples of possible core systems are teachers (changing other
systems for example via a band wagon effect), but also the process of learning itself (changing
other systems via a change in emphasis, such as a change to 'learning to learn'), etc. Change of
each such system has strong effects on other areas of education as well as society - though
there still seem to be systems which are more 'core' than the ones mentioned. The main
question becomes one of fmding the core system with the most desirable cost/effect ratio, over
all affected systems.
This type of approach therefore strongly depends on an appropriate concept of quality.
Without it, it will be difficult to distinguish the strong 'positive' effects on other systems from
the 'negative' ones, and to maintain the positive ones, when implemented. One often takes
'competence' to be the quality concept. It designates both a collective acceptance of something
to be an activity (for example teaching), as well as a skill (teachers may differ in their skill in
 89

teaching, but all teach). To detect increases in competence one must look at all changes
generated by a core system. They should spread! to increases in competence in many other
systems: increases in teachers' competence should lead to increases in pupils' competence, but
also to increases in the competence of 'combined actors' such as the school system itself. The
competency effect should eventually spread to all societal systems (either horizontally or
vertically), as a parallel increase of both individual and collective forms of competence.
Support may be needed is to detect and prevent decreases of competence.
This approach can be generally characterized by the idea of 'users'. That is to say, all
systems that profit from changes in a core system (in the sense of increasing their competence)
can be said to be using that core system. That is to say, teachers can be made to change, but
pupils need to use such changes, to allow teachers to effect their intended increases in
competence. In this sense the relation between core system and user is not assumed to be
necessarily automatic, causal or of an impositional nature. Indeed, the concept of use becomes
the more pregnant when relations between core system and user are more volitional, and con-
tributes to increases in competence: for all users individually, but also for the collective of
users. Pupils become more competent when they use teachers better; educational systems
become more competent when they use teachers better; etc. Use will be supported by other use.
Support of use may become embodied in support systems (which hence amplify the function of
being core systems).
Several aspects of this approach are worth commenting upon. First, it is important to keep
in mind the special nature of the concept of competence (and how it differs for example from
the concept of learning). Increase of competence indicates various things: that activities become
more robust against obstacles that threaten their continuation; that new activities become
possible; that individual actors can create meaning so as to be able to select a next activity.
Second, increase of competence may just be due to using the core system, and hence may be
different from any effect of learning. For example, to deliver a poem, one may have to learn it
by heart, but one may also read a text (which needs less time to prepare). The text thereby
becomes a support system to increase competence in the activity [14]. Support systems speed
up increases of competence, but are not like individual learning.
A third comment concerns the fact that users of core systems represent variety: in general
differences in resources, in historical development, etc. Specifically, when users are
individuals they will differ in experience, and in experience to be gained by use. This type of
variety is not reduced by using a core system, possibly supported by a support system, but is
even helped to increase, to promote further increases in competence. In this the approach via
core systems differs quite strongly from the 'diagnosis and treatment' approach, where the

I In another formulation, a more competent system is a system that can maintain its functions
more robustly, or that can increase its functions. It is in this sense that one may think of a
more competent delivery system.
 90

structure of the 'whole' system is taken as the variable to be manipulated. Here variety is taken
as a symptom of lack of functionality, therefore to be reduced; increase of quality will depend
on more coordination, and hence on less local variety. There also is no interest in changes, just
for the sake of becoming more competent
Fourthly, it may be noted also that the concept of 'user' implies the notion of a language:
users 'talk to' each other via their use of the core system. They need such a language to indicate
what they allow the system to do to them, but also to be able to contribute the possibility of
new variety to other users. The relation between user and system therefore is a fundamentally
linguistic one, introducing the special constraints that will allow users to function and change.
This implies an essential difference with the 'diagnosis and treatment' approach. Now, one is
much more interested in using 'variation and selecting', on any level where core systems can
be distinguished, and where, hence, diagnosis and treatment can be taken as metaphor at best.

Disciplinary Degrees of Freedom

We tum now to some practical aspects of the approach, noting that the dominant principle in
education is the idea of a discipline. Disciplines are the source of most of the learning material.
Their boundaries are taken to delineate the way education is structured. That is not to say that
the educational process did not change over the years, for example by placing greater emphasis
on group projects, and transdisciplinary projects. Still, the main concept is that what must be
learned is part of a coherent whole, the discipline. Selections of 'disciplinary stories' constitute
the learning material. One teaching strategy is to have pupils learn the intended material by
heart. Another is to have pupils explain their own stories, which then gradually are transformed
into the intended disciplinary story - by discussion, by examples and counter examples, by
translation [7].
The idea of disciplinary stories seems to constitute a core system, even in our present
educational set up. As indicated, disciplinary delineations determine the way learning material
is ordered. Most strategies of learning are based on them. The same applies to the way teachers
are educated. This implies that changes in the present educational system most of the time can
only succeed when they do not violate the disciplinary structure. In that sense such systems can
end up by functioning as bottlenecks: they prevent increases in competence. It also implies that
disciplinary distinctions can function as the core system to be changed - in the case of education
presumably leading to strong effects, particularly on its users. Deleting mathematics from the
curriculum (or providing a quite different selection, or introducing computer languages) for
example would have far reaching effects on education, and even on society in general.
Taking the present selection of disciplinary stories as the core system, one of its changes
may be to have pupils learn better how to use the disciplinary material, without learning its
 91

contents. Such a change would imply the introduction of a linguistic support system: a
structure for adapting knowledge to one's needs. Though usually not recognized as such, this
strategy is becoming more frequent by the day. Many libraries have become more accessible in
this sense, as well as many databanks via computer links. In this sense the problem of
improving education has become the problem of 'providing access to societal resources', to
help increase competence for as many people as possible. Learning is becoming distributed,
and less consensualized over disciplinary stories, as it used to be.
Another type of change would be to give up the idea of a discipline, not only change the
way disciplinary stories are accessed. Pupils would be asked to tell their own stories, but not to
transform them into a general one; they would be asked to change their stories so they would
become more useful in supporting action. One may think here of a group of pupils that create a
story of how to enjoy study instead of sports; and, outside the school, one may think of a
group of women who concoct their local story of how to take initiative, how to become a pillar
to their community or otherwise. Such stories would not be without a concept of quality: they
would have to be coherent, and testable against the idea of competence. The main difference
compared to disciplinary stories would be in their lack of durability: they need to be only a little
bit more stable than the situations they are supposed to provide additional competence in.
According to the standard 'diagnosis and treatment' method, an increase of competence can
only be justifiable on the basis of a disciplinary story, that is of a story the usefulness of which
does not depend on its context. Such a story therefore would have to be the same both on the
individual and on the collective level. In the case of the 'core system' approach on the other
hand stories can differ on such levels. The latter type of linguistic structure has been called
'elaborate code', as opposed to the 'restricted code' which characterizes disciplinary stories [3,
11]. The use of the 'core system' approach hence supports a change from the former to the
latter code, concomitant to a change to more flexibility in what the various actors in the
educational system can do, and to an increase in competence for such actors [15]. Such
changes imply a spread of competence to all the societal systems involved.
It is relatively easy to imagine the kind of effects changes of the kind described would have
on educational users [1]. Pupils would not have to learn disciplinary stories that have
unfamiliar and dominant structures. They would be able to learn how to make use of dis-
ciplinary results by introducing support systems in the form of stories; they would become
more flexible when they start to function in society; they would become true 'users of their
world'. Teachers would change: their education no longer needs to be structured according to
disciplines. Unfortunately, there might be some losses of competence too: for some people it
might become difficult to handle the many possibilities. Such users need additional support
systems.
 92

Concluding Comments

In the above we have started by pointing out the double meaning of the need for 'fundamental
change in education'. Not only is there a need for improvement of the educational system, but
there also is a need for a change in the presently dominant approach to improvement, the
'diagnosis and treatment' approach. Without such a methodological change the system will
withstand the changes, and transform them into a return to start. Next we explored the
possibility of adapting the 'diagnosis and treatment' approach, without fundamental changes.
We then discussed the approach in which one looks for a 'core system', changes of which can
lead to increased competencies for the users of such systems. A promising application of this
approach seems to be to take disciplinary distinctions as the core system, to be eliminated. This
type of change can be implemented on a local level, but will have competence-increasing effects
on very general levels, even to the point of changing societal structure.
It has been noted that the introduction of the distinction between user and system implies a
change to a linguistic approach. Users are not identified as people with certain properties, but
as places in time and space that can be 'addressed', and that can exchange messages to change
activities - often in the form of linguistic constraints on their ability to create variety. Changes
on the basis of this property therefore will be quite democratic: neither personal abilities nor
previous learning should index users in the sense of preventing for example the less well gifted
and the less educated to profit from a change in the system. Indeed, the main advantage of re-
designing education in this way would be to increase access to users and thereby the possibility
of increases in competence, independent of such an indexing.
It may be noted that this type of re-design fits in quite well with the changes that at present
times we are participating in. They relate to the three factors that in general make it possible to
improve an activity, as implemented by some actor. The first factor is the 'composition' of the
actor, his or her make up. We may improve on an activity by replacing him or her by a better
copy. The second is the knowledge of the actor, and his or her acquisition of knowledge. We
may improve on an activity by replacing worse knowledge by better knowledge. The third
factor relates to the principles, according to which an actor orders the interaction between
environment, activity and knowledge. We may improve on an activity by replacing one or more
principles by others. Recently we can see a change in emphasis to the third factor, as opposed
to earlier trends: emphasis on individual selection (lst factor), or on changes in the curriculum
(2nd factor).
These three factors can be recognized in organizations from time immemorial, in the same
order. The first type of improvement was practiced already extensively by the pyramid
builders: individuals were replaceable. The second type of principle started to become relevant
only later, when individuals could become trained (in Europe mainly dating from the 12th cen-
tury). The third type of principle started to become more important, when it became clear that
 93

replacement according to the first two factors nowadays often is impossible, or very expensive.
It is not suggested of course that this sequence implies that the second and third factors were
not used in early times. The argument concerns the intentional use of the three factors.
Intentional re-design of the educational system according to the concept of users appears to be
part of the third type of improvement (part of a sequence, limiting certain types of change).
The new principles of improvement that are part of this third type, are based on the idea of
changing the relations between existing systems, via changes in a core system. Such changes
imply a process of emancipation and extension, in the sense of including teachers in the
research process, including pupils as part of the educational system (as users, and no longer as
consumers), including parents, including societal processes, including non-disciplinary stories,
etc. These various inclusions make for more coherent and interdependent systems, in which
competence can be spread. They can be interpreted as break-outs, as ways of overcoming
bottlenecks. According to the above they can also be seen as changes in the principles of the
third factor. These changes allow for more variety: in the research process, in pupils, teachers,
parents, societal processes, teachable stories, etc.
We can detect a basic design-decision in this type of change. Usually systems are designed
on the basis of design criteria, and on the basis of the properties of possible components. The
latter are combined to form a rough prototype, to be refined later. In the above we indicated
another design principle. Systems are designed by taking already existing systems, and by then
allowing each component more freedom - up to the point where the old functions of the system
still can be maintained, but new competencies appear. In terms of the old terminology, the
starting system now is the refined system, to be roughened by increasing variety in various
ways. Improved systems appear by selection on this roughened prototype. One of the main
advantages of this second approach is that it stresses - and helps study - cooperation among
free(d) actors.

References

1. Ascott, R.: Is there love in the telematic embrace? Art Journal. 241-247 (Fall 1990)
2. Banathy, B.: 'Systems design: a creative response to the current educational
predicament'. (Condensed and selective adaptation of new book: Systems Design of
Education: A Journey to create the Future. Educational technology Publications, 1990)
3. Bernstein, B.: Elaborated and restricted codes: their social origins and some
consequences. American Anthropologist. 66/6,55-70 (1964)
4. Calcar, C. van: Innovatieproject Amsterdam, Deel I: Bronnenboek. Amsterdam: Van
Gennep 1975
5. Calcar, C. van: Innovatieproject Amsterdam, Deel II: Tussenstand. Amsterdam: Van
Gennep 1976
6. Calcar, C. van: Innovatieproject Amsterdam, Eindverslag: Een opening. Amsterdam: Van
Gennep 1980
7. Egan K.: Teaching as storytelling. An alternative approach to teaching and the curriculum.
London/Ontario: The University ofWestem Ontario 1988
 94

8. Kersten, A., A. Nienhuis, H. Sligte, 1. Timmer, G. de Zeeuw: Voorstudie implementatie

proefstations. Amsterdam: SCO/Andragologie (1986)
9. MOlsi, D.: Some well-wishing advice for America. Time. October 29 (1990)
10. Reigeluth, C.M.: Principles of Educational Systems Design. Paper presented at the 1990
AECT Convention
11. Scholten, J.: Retoren en demokratie. Funkties and disfunkties van de retorika in klassiek
Athene. Ph.D. Groningen 1990
12. Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport. Rijswijk: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau 1990
13. Witte, M.: Women and mathematics. Internal memo Center for Innovation and
Cooperative Technology, 1988
14. Zeeuw, G. de: Verborgen vaardigheden. In: Volwasseneneducatie. Dilemma's en per-
spectieven. (H.J.M. van der Zee, B.W. Rosendaal, H.P. Stroomberg, eds.). Meppel:
Boom 1984, p. 158-169
15. Zeeuw, G. de: Coordinated cooperation and increasing competence. In: Managing
knowledge for design, planning and decision making. (W.F. Schut and C.W.W. van
Lohuizen, eds.). Delft: Delft University Press 1990, p. 129-146.
Human Learning and its Relation to Evolution
and Needs Satisfaction: Implications for
the Design of Educational Systems
Nicholas C. Paritsis

University of Crete, Heraklion University Hospital, Stavrakia, Heraclion, Crete, Greece

Abstract: The concept of optimal variety and the relation of variety to infonnation and entropy
are discussed together with the contribution of order and variety to evolution and learning. For
designing systems learning a motivational system is included, in addition to the cognitive one.
This motivation system, viewed as a complex control one, is seeking also an optimal variety
and order, in the context of its need for development and hence can influence development
learning and evolution. Some properties of variety, order, and motivation (both at the level of
education system as a whole and at the individual level) and some specific subsystems related to
intelligence and learning (at the level of education systems as a whole) are considered for the
design of education systems.

Keywords: Learning, evolution, variety, entropy, motivation, human intelligence, designing

education systems, systems intervention, optimal variety.

Introduction

The existence of analogies and of mutual influence between learning and evolution is not new
[23,8]. This paper will examine some isomorphisms among evolution, learning and
development such as the increase of order and variety, and the "law of optimal variety" [16].
These will be discussed in relation to entropy and infonnation, and some consequences
outlined.
It has been well established, after the contribution of the works of Stafford Beer [5] that
social systems, (e.g. organizations), possess a cognitive system similarly to animals and man.
Furthennore, it has been argued [18] that social systems posses also a motivation system,
which interacts with the cognitive one.
A huge amount of data has proved that learning in animals can hardly be achieved without
the motivation element [22, 26] and that motivation in man is a strong component for learning
(e.g. [28]).
It has been argued that a motivation system is involved in human evolution, by facilitating
and giving directionality to it [18]. A few implications of the above, possibly useful for the
 96

design of Educational Systems (ES), will be mentioned. Also, in this paper some aspects of the
model of man's intelligence as a purposeful and hierarchical system [15, 17] will be applied to
the design of ES. This model is preferred since it has the advantage of emphasizing both the
cognitive and motivational aspect of man and their integration in the process of learning and
personality formation.

Order and Variety as Contributors to Evolution and Learning

The concept of optimal variety

Ashby (1958) paid attention to and discussed the dimension of variety as being directly related
to information, and put forward the law of requisite variety and the law of experience. The law
of requisite variety states that: in order for a system to be adaptive, the variety of possible
environmental states has to be matched with the variety of possible distinctions (classifications)
the system can make and with the variety of possible reactions (output). The law of experience
states that a system with no input or with constant input (tending towards zero amount of
information) will decay, or at best remain the same. Information underload, or overload, has
shown to lead to stress in both animal and man (Miller 1980). It has also been suggested that a
system has a certain ability to process information and that inputs leading to information
processing above or beneath this ability will cause overload or underload stress. Besides, from
the knowledge on developmental psychology it is well proved that increase of variety of
stimulation (in most cases referred to simply as stimulation) contributes strongly to the
development of human intelligence during childhood, and the state of human intelligence during
adulthood [6, 11].
From the above it follows that if environmental variety is very low in relation to the ability
of the system to process information, there is decay (law of experience), stress (Miller's law),
and low development of intelligence.
If the environmental variety is very high in relation to the ability of a system to generate
variety and process information, then danger (law of requisite variety), and stress (Miller's law)
is generated.
It is possible, however, for environmental variety to be at an amount high enough to cause
development without overload stress, and low enough to be of low danger and without
producing underload stress; this environmental variety is called optimal variety [16].
The contribution of optimal variety to development has been termed the law of optimum
variety [16].
 97

The relation of variety to information and entropy

According to information science the amount of information is determined according to the

formula H = -L Pi log Pi [25] where H is amount of information and p the probability of
possible states or events. This formula implies that the absolute value of H will increase with
equiprobable states, related to randomness and lack of order, and with variety of possible
states. To put it simply, information is related to randomness and variety.
De Raad [10] addressed the question of how learning, information and entropy are related
and empirically tested relevant hypotheses. He considered viability of a system and its rate of
success as markers of learning, and found empirically, among others, that:
a) entropy is positively correlated with perceived variety,
b) entropy of the environment and information of the system are positively correlated, and
c) the relation between entropy and time is logarithmic.

Order and evolution

Examining variety at the chemical level of description, in particular that of atoms, it can be
noticed that the variety on earth is given. However, evolution is related to rearrangement of
atoms to form a variety of specific molecules, then cells, then organisms and finally
organizations. This rearrangement of atoms related to evolution has been shown by Prigogine
to be a way of increasing order at the level of relations of atoms. Prigogine [14, 24] shows that
systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium can increase their order at the atomic level by
utilizing free energy, after having absorbed energy from the environment.

Variety and order in learning and evolution

Increase in variety (variation) is necessary for evolution. Besides, increase in order through
natural selection is also necessary for evolution.
From the previous discussion it follows that environmental variety (together with?) is
necessary for both evolution and learning, and at the same time contributes to environmental
entropy, the reduction of which is considered as a basic characteristic of evolution. How can
this evolutional paradox be resolved?
This can be solved in a similar way to that behind the theory of types. At the lower level of
atoms order is increased, while at the same time variety is increased at the higher level of
molecules.
 98

Order and variety can be simultaneously produced during the process of evolution.
Similarly, high variety of cells at a particular order can form organisms and so forth.
In learning, order and variety are mapped in the intelligent system as a reflection of the
outside and inside world. The variety of inputs are represented in a coded and relatively abstract
form. As happens when order is created through chemical reactions in the biological systems
that process matter-energy, order is similarly created in the case of information processing in
learning by cohesion of a set of representations (of inputs, outputs and throughputs) in a
whole, reflecting the order of the physical world or the order of the represented world already
mapped. For example, the characteristics of a tree when a tree is shown several times (where
the tree is a result of order) come together to form a whole. Similarly, when a sequence of
ordered events (e.g running a maze successfully), are repeated, the parts of the sequence form a
whole by coming together.
These wholes of repre~entations can be called in general zeugmata (from the Greek word
Zevyv"6ro =put and tie together). The hypothesis can be put forward that these zeugmata have a
representative at a higher level of generality in the intelligent system. This representative can be
called zeugnion (the one who ties the elements together). A set of zeugnions can also form a
zeugma at a higher level, and so on. Learning can then be viewed as the formation of (a
hierarchy of) zeugmata useful to the organism. The members of zeugmata are related to each
other.
When variety is continuously introduced through its inputs and through the formation of
zeugnions at a higher level, the second law of thermodynamics is not violated as the knowledge
of the system increases.

Evolution, Learning and Needs Satisfaction

When learning in social systems is discussed it is probably better to consider social systems as
possessing an intelligent system which also includes a motivation subsystem, rather than only a
cognitive one.
Models or designs of intelligent systems, or brains, refer very little to motivational aspects.
For example, Ashby [2] discusses learning as relevant to a "better" behaviour: by "better" he
means one which satisfies the organism's needs to a greater degree without further analysing
the matter. Miller [12], in his work on subsystems that process information, does not include a
subsystem for motivation, and motivational variables, without a special analysis, are included,
among many other variables, in the decider sub-system. However, Paritsis and Steward [18]
and Paritsis [15, 17] discuss in some detail a motivational subsystem as part of a larger
intelligent system.
 99

Since the author of the present work includes a motivation subsystem within his model of
the intelligent system, this model will be preferred for use as a basis for design systems
learning.
Arbib [3] considered a need to learn and Paritsis and Stewart [18] suggested a need of
intelligent systems for development which argued that these needs can facilitate human
evolution [19] and development of nations [20]. This need of intelligent systems for
development also implies a need to learn. Learning can be seen, in a sense, as a process by
which the development of intelligent systems is realized during a lifetime. Evolution can be
seen, in a sense, as a process by which development of intelligent systems (the species) is
realized during many successive generations. The model of Paritsis and Stewart [18] about
motivation suggests a need for interactions that leads to satisfaction and development
The motivation towards development is realized in the model through a regulatory process
for the increase of needs when satisfied (positive feedback) and through a particular need for
development This need for development (and for learning and evolution) can be divided into
sub-needs for variety and for order. The satisfaction of those needs depends on the
environment, and on the ability to generate a variety of matter and energy.
The motivation system is also viewed as a more complex control system [27, 15]. A
motivation system - based on the original Paritsis and Stewart [18] theory - seeking an optimal
environmental variety and order can influence learning and evolution.

Implications for Designing Education Systems

Variety and order

Contribution to the method of designing

The method of Cristakis and Warfield [9, 29] of design culture and the method of Banathy [4]
enhance variety through the participation in the design process of both the design experts and
the users of the design. Also, the discussion and a computer program searching for relations
among basic concepts and proposals enhance order.
In Checkland's [7] method, through the different aspects of the key persons among the
owners of the problem, variety is enhanced and through the following discussions and
comparisons the order and coherence is enhanced, towards solutions or designing solutions of
the problem.
Those methods of designing a system or a system's change which are considered more
advanced and efficient in systems methodology have the characteristic of enhancing variety and
 100

order over the rest. This can be seen as a case where higher variety and order can characterize a
"better" system.
Also, other methods enhancing variety and order can be considered in the design of systems
change, like the one designed by Paritsis and his colleagues using a group of experts and the
group of all the owners of the problem with the steps of a) agreeing on the basic goal(s), b)
collecting formal data in their own terms, c) a circular sequence of many meetings of the experts
alone, and the experts with owners of the problem, and d) facilitating decisions by the owners
of the problem. This method has been successfully applied in an intervention in an institution
for children's care [21].

Contribution to the content of designing

There are two aspects of variety useful to be discussed here. One is optimal variety for
accelerating development, and the other is that development, learning and evolution can be
viewed as an increase of variety and order. Both concepts can be applied to the design of ES at
two levels. One level is that of the ES as a whole, and the other that of the students.

At the level of the education system as a whole interactions with the environment have to be
designed that would guarantee, as much as possible, an optimal variety for the continuous
development and adaptation of the education system.

At the level of students and staff, different and parallel forms of variety are useful to be
designed for learning (e.g. variety of educators, lectures, practical exercises, theoretical
foundations, and technology). The more variety is designed, the more rules (for order) have to
be designed.

Motivation

At the level of the education system as a whole there must be a committee or service for seeking
development, financial support, and public relations of the ES. This committee will also seek
the improvement of the educational status of the staff. This role is usually taken by the
Administrative Board. It is proposed here that there must be a separate committee or service for
the coordination of the described tasks. This sub-system can be viewed as the realization of a
motivation system at the level of the institution, that would seek satisfaction and development
through particular interactions.
 101

At the individual level the whole environment has to be organized, so that studying would
be a rewarding experience. Variety of experiences in teaching (which can contribute to
information and to knowledge) can also serve to motivate the education process.

Other sub-systems related to intelligence and learning at the level of the

education system as a whole

Receptors. These processes include the realization of filtering into the education system, so
only particular information would enter the system. Receptors will be designed to include rules
governing the entrance and distribution of information and offering desirable variety.
Information entering without rules would contribute to an increase of entropy and disorder, or
to decay if there is just a strong barrier, as well as to possible overload or underload stress.

Perceptor. The particular type and variety of subjects and specialities of the ES should be
defined and gradually increased. A principle similar to optimal variety should be applied, in the
sense that there must be an optimal variety of specialization according to the size of the ES and
the organization it can afford.

Motivator. Besides what has been mentioned on application of the motivation process in
relation to development, a motivator has to be designed that would monitor the degree of
satisfaction of students and teachers and of other members of the ES in order to induce
satisfaction via available resources and via power to influence rules in the ES.

Model o/the world. This includes the library, the records, the history of the institution, and
the written values and rules governing the institution. A committee would be designed,
including key experts, administrators, representatives of students and of administrative board,
that would contribute to the key decisions of the ES.

Generalizer. On the basis of the written records about the model of the world, this sub-
system (e.g. committee or service), would produce conclusions and new knowledge about
general principles and values that would give the character and identity of the institution and
would specify general strategies, policies and philosophies.

Planner. A committee or service whose task is to elaborate detailed plans by realizing the
goals and decisions of the decision making group(s), it would also look after the realization of
plans. The above described processes within the ES are useful, when desired, to design a) not
just the stability, but also the evolution of ES, and b) an ability of the ES not only to offer
 102

learning to its students, but also to itself (including the process of learning to offer better
learning).

References
Ashby, R: An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman and Hall 1958
2. Ashby, R: Design for a brain. London: Chapman and Ha111960
3. Arbib, M.: Cognition - A cybernetic approach. In Cognition: A multiple view. (P. Garvin,
ed.), New York: Spartan Books 1970
4. Banathy B.: Design in the context of human activity systems. San Francisco: International
Systems Institute 1984
5. Beer, Stafford: Brain of the fIrm. London: Wiley 1981
6. Casey, P.: Development and the environment. J. Ark. Med. Soc. 77,3, 147-149 (1980)
7. Checkland, P.: Systems thinking Systems practice. New York: Wiley 1981
8. Csanyi, V. and G. Kampis: Autogenesis: The evolution of replicative systems. J. Theor.
BioI. 114, 303-321 (1985)
9. Christakis, A.: High technology participative design: The space-based laser. Proceeding of
the Annual Meeting of the Society for General Systems Research, May 1985.
10. De Raadt, J.: The implications of Beer's viable system model for organisational
adaptation: A study in an insurance organization. In General Systems (J. Dillon, ed.),
Louisville, Kentucky: Society for General Systems Research 1985
11. Doorminck, M., B. Caldwell, C. Wright and W. Frankeburg: The relationships between
twelve months stimulation and school achievements. J. Child Dev. 52,1080-1033 (1981)
12. Miller, J.: Living systems. London: Chapman and Hall 1978
13 Miller, J.: General living systems theory. In Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. Vol.
I, (H. Kaplan, A. Freedman, and B. Sadock, ed.), Baltimore: Williams Wilkins 1980
14. Nicholis, G. and I. Prigogine: Self-organization nonequilibrium systems. New York:
Wiley 1977
15. Paritsis, N.: A model of man as a hierarchical and purposeful intelligent system. In:
Systems Inquiring Vol. II. Proceedings of International Conference, Society for General
Systems 1985
16. Paritsis, N.: Behaviour systems and cybernetics. In: Systems Theory (M. Decleris, ed.),
Greek Systems Society, (in Greek) 1986
17. Paritsis, N.: Man as a hierarchical and purposeful intelligent system. Systems Research,
4,3, 169-176 (1987)
18. Paritsis, N. and D. Stewart: An interaction theory of motivation and purpose in natural
intelligent systems. In: Improving quality and stability in social systems, Society for
General Systems Research 1982
19. Paritsis, N. and D. Stewart: Adaptational problems in natural intelligent systems with
changes in environmental variety. In: Cybernetics and Systems Research (R Trappl, ed.),
North-Holland 1982
20. Paritsis, N. and D. Stewart: Satisfaction and the development of socio-cultural systems
through the control of interactions. In: The relation between major world problems and
systems learning. VoLl, Seaside, California: Intersystems Publications 1983
21. Paritsis, N., Anna Lambidi and Mina Todoulou: A systemic multilevel intervention model:
Application and evaluation. Workshop at the International Congress on Family Therapy.
In: The patterns which connect. Summary proceedings, Prague,Czechoslovakia, May
1987.
22. Pavlov, I.: Conditioned reflexes. Oxford University Press 1927
23. Piaget, J.: Biologie et connaissance. Paris: Gallimard 1967
24. Prigogine, I. and I. Stengers: Order out of chaos. New York: Bantam Books 1984
25. Shannon, C. and W. Weaver: The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana:
University of lllinois Press 1949
26. Skinner, B.: How to teach animals. ScientifIc American, 185,26-29 (1951)
 103

27. Toats, F.: Physiological and behavioural systems. In Systems Behaviour (B. Mayon-
White, ed.), London: The Open University 1983
28. Woodworth, R. and Schlosberg: Experimental psychology 2nd ed. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston 1954
29. Warfield, J.: Developing a design culture in higher education: Some laws and principles of
design. Proceedings of the Society for General Systems Research, May 1985.
The Empirical Grounding of System Performance
Measurements

Bela Antal Banathy

Monterey Peninsula College, 980 Fremont, Monterey, CA 93940, U.S.A.

Abstract: Traditional econometric/statistical methods of performance measurement are unable

to account for the complexity in educational systems. Oversimplified performance measures
can lead to organizational pathologies. Performance measures that retain empirical grounding in
systems-in-transition need to be developed.

Keywords: Systemic performance measurement, accounting for complexity, informational

pathologies, feedback, empirical production functions

As systems designers we often make the tacit assumption that the traditional approach to the
collection and analysis of empirical data can serve as an adequate basis for systemic decision
making. Perhaps as a testimonial of our faith in the quantitative methods of the social sciences
we tend to place the empirical data base issue in the systems "implementation" category.
Given proper systems designs, adequate models, the contemporary statistical tool set is
surely flexible enough to fill the gaps between the model and the real world, to cement the
system into its empirical setting. This paper questions the adequacy of the traditional approach
and raises some questions about the directions in which the boundaries may be extended.
There seems to be general consensus in the systems community that human activity systems
are in need of redesign, that systemic transformations are in order. The perpetual accountability
crises in public sector institutions signal the need for change, there is growing public consensus
that "something needs to be done". Yet, we marvel at the stability of bureaucracies as we throw
up our hands in desperation calling for a complete transformation, wanting to start over. As
systems are restructured or new ones are built how do we go about measuring their
performance? Can we rely on a more intensive application of traditional metrlcs and analysis
procedures or do we need to develop new ones? Levin's assessment is that" ... informational
feedback on operational performance of the schools is neither visible nor easily obtainable from
existing data." (1976, p. 161) Presumably we can fall back to the qualitative models, hoping to
cope with normative issues and complexity in that domain. However, to do so ignores the
continuing improvements in the storage and processing capabilities of computer based
 105

infonnation systems, capabilities that are invariably applied in accordance with prevailing
analytical procedures.
Senge (1990) attributes institutional inability to function effectively to "organizational
learning disability", a phrase that is suggestive of the questions we should be asking. Some
questions come to mind. Are educational - institutions suffering from sensory deprivation or
sensory distortion? Do we fIlter or aggregate requisite variety out of the available data and then
fmd that it is not relevant? What should we be looking for?
A rather crisp perspective on the forces at work comes from the pen of Margaret Mead

The distinctions I am making among three different kinds of culture -- postfigurative, in

which children learn primarily from their forebears, cofigurative, in which both children
and adults learn from their peers, and prefigurative, in which adults learn also from their
children -- are a reflection of the period in which we live. (1970, p. 1)

Arguably the information age embodies all three cultures. "If we are to build a prefigurative
culture in which the past is instrumental rather than coercive, we must change the location of the
future." (Mead 1970, p. 75) The point is that as we take an active role in shaping the future we
may alter some landmarks that were navigational aids in the past. This may be the case with
affInnative action programs, remedial programs, in fact any efforts that re-define the nonn.
Are these programs failing? If so, why, and how do we know why? Can it be that the
institutions have learned to ignore the feedback loops that seemed never to reflect reality in
"their" context? What feedback or feedforward system keeps our repeated attempts at
restructuring from having any lasting effects? Is it a problem of momentum? Are we unable to
find the points of leverage? Is it that one night we fell asleep to awaken the next morning in
Mead's prefigurative culture where the child, not the parent or grandparent represents what is to
come? Having no warning, did we not prepare?
Now, we strive to build wonderful models, maps of what should be. But what kind of
compass do we use to navigate; what kind of tools do we use to get our bearing, to collect and
analyze data about the progress we are making as we follow the maps?
The compass we use has a long tradition. Our compass is trusted by virtue of repeated
calibration during successive journeys over the same terrain, by virtue of the law of large
numbers. We can trace fonnal statistical approaches for the description of social phenomena
back to at least the nineteenth century, to the work of Quetelet and his contemporaries. Quetelet
defined his I 'homme moyen, or average man, in tenns of the average human attributes in a
given country and "... maintained that this abstract being, defined in tenns of the average of all
human attributes in a given country, could be treated as the 'type' of the nation, the
representative of a society in social science comparable to the center of gravity in physics."
(Porter, 1986 p. 52) Arguably we have been measuring perfonnance with reference to some
"average" since that time. We have developed mathematical statistics to the point at which we
 106

can build sophisticated models that describe complex phenomena in terms of population
parameters. Our compass simplifies the problem, it reduces the empirical database to a
manageable set of parameters. Now, this paper is not a call to abandon the elegance and
simplicity of mathematical forms, forms that have the delightful effect of reducing our cognitive
and computational load. Rather, this is a call to accept the expressive/representational power of
a multi-modal approach to data analysis where the additional modalities make different use of
available data to help shape the analytical models.
The present discussion normally runs into problems at the operational level. At some point
we have to confront the problem of designing studies (experiments), collecting data,
analyzing/synthesizing the data, and ultimately making statements about the world. Now, the
"what should happen" guides the way in which we choose the phenomena to be examined, our
choice of variables. The appropriate way to proceed is guided by the nature of the questions
being asked. When we ask tightly focused questions, we can consider the factors that confound
the questions and try to control for them - we try to free the discussion from the context in
which it is embedded and come up with a crisp picture of some aspect of the world. This is a
search for population parameters describing central tendencies. We can construct causal models
and use statistical techniques such as regression analysis to measure the closeness of fit
between our expectations and the observed outcomes.
When we ask diffuse questions that try to account for the relationships between things, we
need to anchor the discussion to the context in which the relationships unfold. This is a search
for localized tendencies, a search for aspects that draw elements together into clusters, clusters
that may become increasingly differentiated from each other. In this case we look for emerging
relationships rather than causal models.
In a prefigurative setting templates for optimum behavior are less readily available.
Institutions become increasingly differentiated as additional features of their evolving context
are swept into the inquiry. The mechanisms of goal formation (and performance measurement)
become more problematic. Consider what happens when some external agent (for example, the
state) intervenes in local operations. At least two cases need to be considered. If the intervention
is intended to incrementally refine the status quo then traditional parametric performance
measurements should work. If on the other hand, the intervention is intended to restructure
existing operations then traditional parametric tools will not be sensitive to the new structure.
Keeping in mind that the restructuring is embedded in a larger context, if the restructuring
works, then we will be observing a system in evolution. The previous parametric tools will no
longer provide a good fit, the changing aspects will not be visible. If the restructuring does not
work (it resulted in only incremental change), then observations with respect to previous
models will give some indication of the changes. But how do we know whether or not it
worked? Presumably the intervention places us at a bifurcation point; a continuation of or a
break with the past.
 107

In the event of a break, our task is two-fold: 1) verify and/or construct models (map) of the
new enterprise; 2) verify and/or establish data collection and analysis tools (compass). The
previous model(s) are not invalid, they are embedded in the new one. We now have two maps
and two compasses, quite possibly based on different reference points. The new compass
applied to both maps may give some indication of the distance traveled. The old compass
applied to both maps may find ambiguity or lack of progress since the reference point(s)
became less distinct (invisible?) after the bifurcation. In more concrete terms, our obligation is
to construct representative models of the enterprise. We do this by constantly sweeping
additional characteristics into the model. When the enterprise is in transition we need to look at
all available data, be sensitive to changes in existing parameters, and more importantly, to new
characteristics that may not yet have parametric ties to the past.
This is the distinction that Miller (1978) makes when he talks about concrete versus
abstracted systems. Concrete systems delay reduction of data to parametric forms, and routinely
return to the data base in search of new relationships to be formalized. We are still constrained
by the observational bias inherent in the definition of what data are to be collected, but there is
less inertia to overcome in the introduction of new data. From this perspective, error is a
manifestation of incompleteness in the model. Additionally, while dissatisfaction with a model
may be due to its incompleteness, we need to face the fact that it may also be due to the
incorporation of a new (different) set of norms, norms not necessarily shared by the observer.
Now, our computational capabilities are increasing at a phenomenal rate. We may already
have computing platforms upon which to build procedures that are more suitable to the task.
This author has no prescriptions beyond the following speculations. When the phenomena
being examined are changing, the data envelopes (extreme values) may be more descriptive than
measures of central tendency or some other set of parameters. Techniques such as Data
Envelopment Analysis and other Liner Programming based approaches may be more
appropriate than traditional econometrics. And finally, the information systems design
definition of information as "data in context" would suggest that we delay aggregation of data
up to the point at which questions are raised.
The systems we design will need more empirical grounding than current methods provide.
It may be time to invest some energy in the design of the compass as well as the maps, the two
are certainly related.

References
1. Levin, H. M.: Concepts of economic efficiency and educational production. In: Froomkin,
J. T., Jamison, D. T. and Radner, R. (eds.) Education as an Industry. Cambridge, Mass:
Ballinger Publishing Co. 1976
2. Mead, M.: Culture and commitment, a study of the generation gap. Garden City, New
York: Doubleday 1970
3. Miller, J. G.: Living systems. New York: McGraw-Hill 1978
 108

4. Porter, T. M.: The rise of statistical thinking. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press 1986
5. Senge, P. M.: The fifth discipline. New York: Doubleday/Currency (1990)
The Designing Community: A Learning Community

Georges Goulet and Andre Dolbec

Universite du Quebec aHull, Hull, Quebec J8X 3Y7, Canada

Abstract: Many experts deplore the failure of the present Education Systems in achieving the
desired goals of literacy and preparedness of their graduates to cope with the problems that
plague our society today. This paper presents a concept for designing Education Systems
which is intended to be a break with the causal, piecemeal and expert oriented planning process
which has produced the systems which are now seen as deficient. The proposed "designing
process" can be seen as a dynamic, deliberate, participative and collaborative endeavour
towards defining shared goals and the efficient and effective ways to achieve them. It is
presented as an open, ongoing activity which takes place in an awareness heightening learning
commuriity in contact with its social, cultural and physical environment while rooted in the
acknowledged powerful resources of its protagonists.

Keywords: Designing process, education system, emerging system, human activity system,
gestalt, holistic, learning community, synergistic experience.

Without denying the contributions of positivist philosophy which has produced so many new
discoveries, one cannot escape wondering about the negative impact it has had on the planning
and implementing of human activities such as management and education. The classical
management model initiated by Taylor and Fayol has permeated most of our systems. Just as
Taylor systematized the dissection of industrial operations in order to give them a so-called
"scientific" character, educationists, over the years, have taken a piecemeal approach to the
designing of education systems. Schools have been seen to be a network of specialized "gears"
which work like a clock set into motion as a result of the commanding action of whoever winds
it up. Similarly, educators have been expected to "wind up" their students in an effort to bring
them to learn skills and knowledge which are often meaningless both to the students and to the
surrounding society.
Nowadays, in almost every walk of life, people are beginning to realize the failure of such a
system. Students are dropping out in droves while those who graduate do so with skills and
knowledge which are often irrelevant to the work place. Curricula do not succeed in keeping
pace with the unprecedented knowledge explosion and schools are incapable of creating a
learning environment which can avoid social problems and disorders.
 110

The causal linear model, which assumes that all problems are rooted in some preceding
cause which once corrected eliminates the problem, has brought about hordes of cause-
searching researchers who spend their time in a piecemeal analyzing process. In doing so, they
assume to be part of a perfect system whose deficiencies are mere accidents. They also consider
that finding the discrete causes of these deficiencies will bring about a satisfactory education
system. Thus, they perpetuate somewhat of a stimulus-response model which consists in
responding to symptoms rather than questioning whatever phenomenon is taking place.
Paradoxically, educationists trail behind researchers in the fields of administration and
management which have long become aware that human systems are far more complex and
dynamic that the mere network of "gears" or "chips" which make up time pieces or computers.
In recent years, as it has been fully demonstrated in the field of natural sciences, evidence of
the need for a new scientific paradigm has emerged. Humans can no longer keep on patching
up misgivings generated by piecemeal analytic problem-solving. In the field of education in
particular, time has come to look at education as an instrument which will better the human
condition through the enlightenment of younger generations which must become faithful
custodians of planet earth and its inhabitants. This new reality requires a designing process
which will liberate its protagonists from the prison of the linear-causal approach which
predominates the planning and management of most human systems. Traditionally, we have
been taught to consider any management process as made up of a sequence of four successive
sub-processes: planning, organizing, directing and controlling or P-O-D-C. This process locks
any human activity into a pre-planned straight jacket in which managers must organize reality in
order to shape it and then implement a plan that has already become irrelevant to an ever
evolving situation and, finally, through planning allover again, taking into account what they
have learnt through this controlling process.
A new designing process must therefore provide the designers with the opportunity to jump
out of the old rut which considers the education system to be perfectible but okay. On the other
hand, the prevailing misconception that a system can be prospective through planning or
designing and then activated through implementation must be replaced by the notion of a system
as an emerging reality conceived by a group of designers committed to changing a situation
which has outraged them. Thus, no one can become a good designer merely because he or she
has learnt a series of prescriptions to be applied in a given situation. Designing involves a state
of mind, an attitude and a readiness to question one's own values, aims and goals as well as
one's roles, functions and expectations in regards to the education system. By its very dynamic
nature, system's designing requires that the designer remain open to changing the process
itself. Therefore, no pre-set procedures may be considered as systemic design. Thus, a
systemic designer must be content to refer to broad guidelines in order to structure his
intervention and forsake his dream of discovering the defmite procedures which once and for all
can be used in all circumstances to design the perfect, unquestionable education system.
 111

Moreover, the human systems model must not relate to an abstract construct. According to
Gestalt, a human system emerges from the presence and the relationships which exist between
people. If society is to be considered as a human activity system, it must not therefore be seen
as an abstract reality which exists somewhere, out there, in complete isolation from real people.
The social environment in which the education system bathes must therefore be seen as a
nourishment as well as an influence which "informs" the education system itself. It is only
through the awareness of its protagonists that the education system designed for future
generations cannot exist without the contribution of today's enlightened citizenry, be they
students, educators, lay people, politicians and others. Only through the foresight of real people
can we pretend to design a system which will nurture future generations.
Thus, a new designing process must also provide the designers with the opportunity to
learn about each other as well as about procedures which will enhance the very designing
process in which they will participate. It must also provide for learning opportunities which will
highlight the innumerable experiences and knowledge present in the hearts and souls and heads
of its protagonists. A design community therefore becomes a learning community in which the
designers engage in a learning and growth process as well as in a designing process which
jumps out into the far reaches of each of its protagonists' ideals and perceptions of the universe
in which they are immersed.
In order to meet the purposes which have just been described, a systemic designing process
must possess certain characteristics and be immersed in a community which will be described in
the following lines.

Characteristics of the Designing Process

1. Axiological
2. Teleological
3. Emerging
4. Recurrent
5. Experiential
6. Experimental
7. Participative
8. Egalitarian
9. Organismic
10. "Equifinal"
11. Information sensitive
12. Sharpening awareness
13. Introspective
 112

14. Assuming a collective responsibility

15. Self Revealing
16. Modelling Instrument
17. Learning through research

Characteristics of the Designing Community

1. Network of emerging groups

2. Network of relationships and perceptions
3. Network of synergistics efforts
4. Network of affective, cognitive, psychomotor learnings
5. Respectful of readiness and learning

Characteristics of the Designing Process

1. Axiological

The process of designing human activities must be rooted in a study of the values and meanings
which govern both its protagonists and their social environment. Indeed, Third Force
Psychology claims that human behaviors and attitudes are rooted in the meanings which each
individual give to their actions. Therefore, any systemic designing process must help its
protagonists to rise their awareness of their own values and of those of their social
environment. The behaviors of its participants must also emanate a climate of respect and
consideration for what each of its protagonists consider to be meaningful. A good system's
designer must avoid the temptation to become an ardent proselyte of any set value. He must be
ready to cherish any value which emerges from his cohorts' awarenesses. Such a commitment
is rooted in Maslow's assumption that each human being is fundamentally good and searches
for a vital harmony with its physical and social environment. Such a process thus appears to be
liberating for each of its actors because it gives them the opportunity to get in touch with
positive values present in their inner self which they have managed to muffle in order to protect
themselves in an environment they often perceive as hostile.
A second aspect of the axiological nature of the systems design process consists in bringing
out in the open both the espoused theories and the theories of action (Argyris, 1973) as well as
the incongruities, apparent and real, which exist between the two.
 113

2. Teleological

Values or meanings which do not translate into purposes remain ineffective in giving direction
to human actions. Therefore, to be effective in focussing a human activity system, values must
be translated through deliberation into purposes which may be made explicit through statements
of mission, goals and specific or concrete objectives, each of which, in tum, may be assorted
with a network of efficient and effective means. Thus the designing process can he considered
as deliberate.

3. Emerging

By its very nature, any specific human activity happens as a gestalt resulting from a focussing
or a rearrangement of diverse convergent factors. It thus can be seen as a system which is
continually "informed" and "re-informed" by its environment In order to take this into account,
therefore, the designing of human activities possesses somewhat of a dynamic emerging
quality. It is ongoing and never ending. Moreover, because, as we have said before, it is
axiological and teleological, it is directed towards the attainment of some ultimate end rooted in
the personal values and goals of each of its protagonists as well as in what they and their
contemporaries consider to be important to society as a whole now and in the future. These
values .and goals act as poles of attraction which give direction to whatever emerges.

4. Recurrent

To insure that both its emerging and deliberate characteristics are maintained, the designing
process must he conceived as a recurrent process. In this process, values, aims and goals as
well as the means to achieve them are continually questioned. They are then re-targeted in order
to take into account the information or the factors present in its environment from which it
continually emerges. Such a process is not to be considered as a static reality but more as "a
film that would always reproduce that which was imprinted on it. It is more like a play that
would be recreated at each performance in response to the interacting director, actors and
audience." (Dolbec, 89)
The clarification of the aims of the intervention is never settled once and for all. On the
contrary, it has to be repeated over and over again to take into consideration the changes
happening in each individual as a consequence of the learning generated by the interactions of
the people involved.
 114

s. Experiential

As people get together to share their outrage and question what can be done about it, the
designing process emerges through the convergence of whatever the protagonists experience in
the here and now of the situation as well as of the innumerable treasury of experiences that they
bring with them.
According to gestalt principles, any human experience can be considered as a dynamic
cycle. As this cycle evolves, one's awareness of some discomfort or even "outrage" (Banathy,
1990) mobilizes one's energy to initiate some action in order to alleviate the initial feeling. The
use of this model can facilitate, as a referential, the understanding of what "real" people
experience in their particular environments. As the experience goes on, the designing process
must focus on the here and now and enhance contacts among the actual protagonists. It must
also allow space for any of its actors in the midst of the action as well as in the process of
thinking about it. Moreover, it must consider the ideal situation as a situation to be pursued
rather than to be attained. Aims do not exist as such, they only become real when they are
perceived and understood by people who give them meaning. This process can be seen as
experiencing a changing situation in the midst of people who, as actors, in this planned change
process, learn, behave, become different and grow in the context of this particular situation
which could be considered as a prototype of any other situation of the process to be designed

6 Experimental

Although these spontaneous emerging experiences are to be considered as the most valuable
material used in the designing process, structured targeted experimentation can be used as an
instrument to create situations in which designers may gather information and learn about skills
and attitudes which can be useful in the pursuit of the designing process. As they go through
this experimentation, they learn, change and enhance contacts with real persons rather than with
projections of imaginary members of an abstract society or organization. This approach is quite
different from the traditional teaching approach which favors learning through a passive
introjection and regurgitation process.

7. Participative

In order to facilitate the flow of the emerging designing experience, the process must emphasize
the participation of everyone as formal roles are de-emphasized. They are thus provided with a
situation which will favor their own actualization through the creation of a system which they
 115

will conceive as their own relevant system of intervention. Thus the protagonists will not feel as
if they were a system of "gears" put together by someone else but as a network of deliberate
designers involved in an interaction focussed on the pursuit of their own shared values and
goals. In so doing, each of the participants will be provided with a means to satisfy his need for
change in his own life as well as solutions to questions that outraged him personally.

8. Egalitarian

Considering that the designing process is rooted in the values of each of its protagonists as well
as in the perceptions and feelings they have about the environment, each and everyone of them
may be considered as an invaluable asset in the ":informing" of the system to be designed.
Thus, this process must facilitate, on an equal base, the free expression of any of its
protagonists in order to make sure that no "precious" information is overlooked.

9. Organismic

As a human activity system, the designing process must take into account the hierarchical
interconnectedness of the whole social process involved. The designing process must reflect the
image of the system to be designed. It must be seen as integrated into a larger system which
sees society as a supra-system including education and other social agencies as well as political,
economical and social systems which are either in its environment or to which it is subservient.
On the other hand, it includes a hierarchy of sub-systems which gravitate around the awareness
of the persons involved. These subsystems may be represented by different subgroups of
individuals, by each of the individuals themselves as well as by the intrapersonal reality of each
of them which in tum can be seen as cognitive, affective or behavioral. In this process, one
must be aware of the fact that any change in any of the systems involved, be they supra, sub or
environmental systems, may induce a corresponding change in the whole system and in each of
its components.
Thus, from the humanistic point of view, it could be said that the process should be
expected to favor the personal growth of each of the intervention's protagonists. Consequently,
in tum, this growth would contribute to a corresponding growth in the group in which they
evolve as well as in the education system in which they are partners and in the society in which
it is embedded. In that regard Humanistic Psychology and Systems Theory concur in such a
consideration.
 116

10. "Equijinal"

According to Systems Theory, systemic change may be induced by different points of entry as
well as by different processes. Applied to systems design, this assertion implies that the
process might be approached as well through each of its protagonists or through sub-sets of
these or, again, through some kind of a conceptual construct which may be proposed for
discussion by the decision takers.

11. Information sensitive

To remain relevant, the system's designing process must remain sensitive to all of the
information available in its environment, be it external or internal. This may be easily
understood through a comparison with the human breathing system. Indeed in order to remain
alive,any human being needs to inhale air, treat the air inhaled to retain its oxygen and exhale
whatever gases may be detrimental to his organism. Thus, the very livelihood of the designed
system is conditioned by its capacity to collect the information which is available and to treat it
in order to remain responsive to the social factors which nourish it.

12. Sharpening awareness

As a human activity system, the designing process is tributary to the capacity of each of its
human component in the gathering of the information which it requires. On the other hand, as
deliberate, it is tributary to the quality of the awareness of each of its protagonists according to
the cycle of experience presented by the Gestalt Theory. Therefore, the process must heighten
the awareness of the people involved and help them deal with all the dimensions of their
humanity: sensations, feelings, perceptions, wants, values, assessments and behaviors. This
increase in their awareness will thus facilitate their autonomy and responsibility, both at the
intrapersonal and the interpersonal level as well as at the group and societal level.
On the other hand, it must support them in their choices and facilitate their autonomy and
responsibility through greater personal awareness. It must also provide the protagonists with
the opportunity to learn how and when they become aware and have contact, to learn about the
nature of their awareness and contact, and to learn how and when they block them.
 117

I3~ Introspective

As the process of gathering information in any human activity system is filtered through each
person's ability to sense and perceive the available information through his own sets of v~ues
and former experiences, each protagonist may be made aware of the multitude of filters which
will color the information that he gathers. Thus, awareness of the environment always passes
through awareness of one's own filters. Above all, the process of introspection enters each
person into a privileged contact with his/her most profound inner values, deep seated being and
invigorating aspirations

14. Assuming a collective responsibility

By increasing the awareness of the protagonists, the process must facilitate their autonomy and
responsibility, support them in their choices and finally help them to implement their own
decisions. The process, thus, encourages people to make a conscious choice either to change or
to stay as they are at the moment they choose. It will then support them in their choices since its
goal is not to force them to follow anyone else's personal choices but to make their own.
The designing process must be considered as emerging from the harmonized individual
awarenesses of all of its protagonists rather than a system dictated from the top down. The
proposed system will help each person grow as a system in synergy with other systems rather
than be little sub-systems in the service of Big Brother. The system's quality will be measured
by the ability of each of its protagonists to take a personal stand, share it with his cohorts, and
commit himself to its fulfillment.

15. Self Revealing

In order to insure easier sharing of the awarenesses of its protagonists, the process must incite
each of them to reveal his point of view or his Weltanschauung through the clarification of his
own assumptions as well as that of his perceptions of the information he gets from the other
actors. These informations may concern their own roles, the role of the intervention, as well as
their assumptions about man and society. Whether they are consultants, sponsors, lay people,
students, educationists or any other people involved in the process, anyone of them should be
encouraged to clarify his own aims as well as what he perceives to be the aims, goals and
values of the process as a whole.
 118

16. Modelling Instrument

In order to structure the data which is worked on, the designing process provides for a
modelling instrument inspired from Soft System Methodology which helps to structure both the
ideal situation and the data which occurs in the real life situation. It must facilitate the
monitoring and control interventions of the protagonists and will ensure the attainment of the
stated alms. It will also provide the tools to think about and to conceptualize the different sub-
systems which will be necessary to attain the goals.

17. Learning through research

If one considers growth as an appropriation of information, learning must be considered as the

main component of any growth process. The designing process must therefore enhance a
research process which endeavors to produce information and training concerning the data to be
used in the designing process as well as the values, aims and goals which it pursues. It must
also generate knowledge about the means to be used in the modelling and structuring of the
education system to be designed

Characteristics of the Designing Community:

1. Network of emerging groups

According to Gestalt Theory, groups emerge into existence through the presence of their
protagonists as well as, to a certain degree, their commitment to the goals which the groups
pursue. In the course of the designing process, as new functions and tasks emerge, specialized
groups will also emerge in order to contribute to the designing process as a whole.

2. Network of relationships and perceptions

According to Gestalt Theory, groups emerge as a network of diadic relationships which form as
the life of the group is born, evolves and disappears. Moreover, in order to help protagonists
experience the relationships that exist in the real life situation of the education system to be
designed, the designers must be provided with different occasions to experience different
networks of relationships which will be planned to work around some designing problem.
 119

These opportunities will also allow them to share their own perceptions and hear about the
perceptions of whoever participates in whatever group they work with.

3. Network of synergistic efforts

In order to make the best possible use of the rich potential present in the group of designers, the
designing process must be conceived as a network of synergistic efforts aimed at pulling
together towards a shared goal.

4. Network of affective, cognitive, psychomotor learnings

In order to be faithful to its holistic characteristics, the process must be focussed on affective,
cognitive, and psychomotor activities which will produce necessary knowledge, skills and
attitudes to be used and taught to other protagonists in the course of the recurrent designing
process. The designing community will take those three dimensions of the learning experience
into account in order to generate systemic learning in which the three types of learning will
occur at the same time. The process must also be broad and open in order to facilitate the
acquisition, by the protagonists, of knowledge or information about themselves, their
colleagues and their work situation. Moreover, it must give them the opportunity to explore
their own prejudices and relationships with other people.

5. Respectful of readiness and learning

If one considers each protagonist's previous experience as a powerful potential for creation and
learning, the designing process may be respectful of each person's rhythm in order to ensure
that the expected emergence occurs at one time or another during the designing process. This
implies that no protagonist is too ignorant or ill-informed to be considered as a valuable asset to
the process of designing a new education system.
In concluding, it will be important to stress that although the process of designing an
education system may be initiated in its beginning by expert facilitators, it must, as soon as
possible, be taken over by the real actors which are committed both to designing and
implementation. It must be owned, manned and steered by the whole school community. One
must also keep in mind that implementation of the system starts with the first planned meeting
and that the attitudes and skills which will be needed in the course of the implementation of the
design will have been acquired and developed through the practice of the designing group.
 120

References

1. Argyris, Chris: (1973). Intervention Theory and Method. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
2. Banathy, Bela H.: (1990). Systems Design of Education: A Journey to Create the Future.
Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
3. Dolbec, Andre: (1989). Towards a Systemic Methodology of Planned Intervention in the
Organised Education/Leaming Process. Ph.D. Thesis, Lancaster University, U.K..
Definition of Education and Meta-Design of
Educational Systems

Nagib Callaos and Belkis de Callaos

Universidad Simon Bolivar, Dpto. de Processos y Sistemas, Apartado Postal 80659, Caracas,
Venezula

Abstract: In this paper a systemic definition of education will be presented and, as an

outgrowth, some educational systems meta-design guidelines will be given.

In order to avoid separating "the intellectual meaning of education from the implementation
of the idea in practice" [19], we will try to make a pragmatic-teleological [18] definition by
means of working out a conceptual definition, and, as an outgrowth, an operational one.
Aristotle's notion of causality will be used as a conceptual structure for organizing different
definitions of education made through history. The definition achieved in this way harmonizes
with Banathy's perspective on educational systems [8,9] This conceptual definition, made
according to Singer-Ackoffs [2] first phase of the defining process, will be made operational,
as stressed by Ackoff [2] and Churchman [17].

Drawing relations with the concept of information, education will be seen as a negentropy
generator and educational systems as a meta-negentropy phenomenon, i.e., a spatial and a
temporal ordering of the educative process, a designing negentropy of the educative
negentropy.

Both educational negentropy and meta-negentropy have a collective source. Consequently,

both the educative process and its respective designing process should be not just participatory.
but also anticipatory. Based on these macro-requirements and on the systemic definition of
education derived as outlined above, we try to work out some educational systems meta-design
guidelines.

Keywords: Definition, Education, Meta-Design, Negentropy

Systemic Definition of Education

A systemic definition of "education" is important for achieving the objective of advancing "our
knowledge about processes and likely products of the comprehensive systems design approach
as a new technology for improving our educational systems" [37].
It is necessary, in a systemic definition, to avoid separating the intellectual meaning of
education from the implementation of the idea in practice [19]. Accordingly, we will try Singer-
Ackoffs comprehensively synthetic operational definition [18], in the context of Singer-
 122

Churchman's pragmatic-teleological epistemology [2]. In other words, we will try to work out:
1) A conceptual definition by means of a historical review or the principal conceptions of
"education", and an identification of a synthetic and integrating conceptual structure [2],
2) An operational definition by means of purposive functional properties and procedures of
measuring them [2],
3) A decision/action oriented definition by means of indicating the way of measuring the
effectiveness of the decision/action in terms of how much the objectives of the decision
maker/actor are achieved [18].

Conceptual Definition of Education

Examining the high diversity of conceptions and studies in the educational area, we can identify
two macro-streams of thoughts: those which center their attention on the education's ends, and
those which emphasize the educational means [28]. Philosophical reflections on the ends did
not exclude considerations about the means, and psychological/pedagogical treatments of the
instructional means presupposed educational ends. Educators such as Pestalozzi [43] and
Kerschensteiner [1], for example, frequently superimposed (or "sub-imposed") teleological
reflections on their methodological studies. And, in the other hand, Herbart [27] and Dewey
[26,24] formulated some methods congruent with the educational ends they identified in their
philosophical enquiries.
Ends/means chaining could be an integrative force for generating a conceptual structure that
would systemize the high diversity of perspectives found in the educational literature. Education
could be thought as an end and as a mean, as a cause and as an effect. So then, as we pointed
out elsewhere [13], it could be adequate to intend a causal definition of the concept; i.e., the
"definiens" would designate the cause that produces the reality designated by the
"definiendum". The causal definition, also called genetic definition, produces the reality
designated by the "definiendum". The causal defmition, is for several authors, such as Hobbes
[30] and Wolf [46], the way of knowing and doing science. It is a kind of analysis, i.e., a way
of going from consequences to principles, from effects to causes.
Furthermore, defining education by means of its cause would be consonant with our aim of
doing operational the definition, in order to point out the actions that could be taken to achieve
an adequate education, in a given situation. A causal definition of education would indicate the
way to generate, to produce education. So, it is an action oriented definition. It is to be noted
that we are far from falling into the known genetic fallacy [21,28] because we are not basing
education's definition on any historical process that generate education, but we are reviewing
the history of education's definitions and organizing them according the frame provided by
Aristotle's notions of cause. Such an organization would provide us with a defining conceptual
 123

structure that could be used as a methodological-causal conceptual instrument for producing

education. The notion of cause is conceived in this paper as actions taken by men "to bring
about or prevent something" [20], "means to ends" [29], "techne" [25], "methods" [15,16].
The teleological nature of the Aristotelian notion of cause, and its comprehensive strength,
provides us with a highly powerful conceptual mechanism for teleologically structuring, hence
for systemizing, the diversity of perspectives found in the area of education. This is a very
important issue if we are going to design (or meta-design) an educational system for users that
will probably have a high degree of differences among their opinions and judgements related to
the objectives of the system.
As we said elsewhere [13], from the diversity of causes' notions, we selected Aristotle's
one, because it is non-reductionist, comprehensive, teleological and, in our opinion, it has a
high synthesizing power. It represents an adequate conceptual frame to intent, at least, a
syncretic defining structure that could comprehend the most fundamental conceptions of
education. Often a syncretic effort was the first step in achieving a comprehensive synthesis
later.
Aristotle distinguished four different kind of causes or explanatory principles. These are the
following:
1) The efficient cause is "the source of change" [3], that by which some change is wrought
[42], "e.g., the man who gave advice in a cause, the father is cause of the child, and
generally what makes of what is made and what causes changes of what is changed" [4].
2) The material cause is the substratum [3],that in which a change is wrought [42], "that out
of which a thing comes to be and which persist...e.g.the bronze of the statue, the silver of
the bowl, and the genera of which the bronze and the silver are species" [4].
3) The formal cause is that into which something is changed, "the form or archetype, i.e., the
statement of the essence, and its genera" [4].
4) The final cause is "the purpose and the good (for this is the end of all generation and
change)" [3], the end or purpose for which a change is produced [42], "that for the sake of
which a thing is done, e.g. health is the cause of walking about" [4]. For Aristotle, the first
cause is the final cause. "For this is the Reason, and the Reason forms the staring-point"
[5].
The causes concerned with the generation of things are more than one [5]. A statue, for
example, is produced by the sculptor (its efficient cause), by his imposing changes upon a piece
of marble (its material cause) for the purpose of possessing or producing a beautiful object (its
final cause), the marble thereby acquiring the form, or distinctive properties, of a statue, as it
was perceived by the mind of the sculptor (formal cause) Aristotle showed how his
predecessors had utilized all these causes as principles of explanation, but criticized them for
emphasizing some to the neglect of others [5]. The same criticism could be done on much of his
successors. The concepts of material and formal causes have frequently been considered
 124

archaic, having little significance outside of aesthetics. "Final causes have likewise long since
been expurgated from physics" [42] and mechanistic-reductionist scientists profess a deep
abhorrence to them, because they insist on modeling their science after physics. Thanks to God
this is out of question in the Systems Approach. A systemic-causal definition of education
should not to be laid down on the procrustean bed of the efficient cause, but it could get the full
support of the Aristotle's fourfold notion of cause. Although Aristotle did not explain education
in terms of his notion of cause, it is feasible to do it, as we resume it as follows.
The final cause of education could be defined as the set of the ends attributed to it by
different philosophers and scholars. This set is afuzzy set [44,36], Le., each member of the
set will have a weigh related to its degree of membership. Theses weighs are to be established
by the education's users, by its stakeholders. This could be achieved with techniques that have
proved to be successful in weighing managerial objectives [40], and/or in supporting collective
judgement and decision making [41,12], as well as with Group Decision Support Systems
(GDSS) [23,11,10], Groupware [32].
The educational ends set should be, in addition to fuzzy, dynamic and open, Le., it should
be possible, for the stakeholders of the educational process, to insert any new end and to
change any weigh at any time. In this way extrinsic ends are transformed into intrinsic ends,
according to the intrinsic needs, requirements, beliefs, aptitudes and attitudes. Several thinkers
stressed the importance of the intrinsic educational ends. Dewey, for example, stressed the
point about the fact that education does not have ends, but persons, parents, teachers, etc., do
have ends [24].
Summarizing, we can say that the final cause of education is an open, dynamic and fuzzy
set defined by the stakeholders, which are supported by:
1) An initial set of the educational ends established by thinkers through history.
2) A Groupware and, a Group Decision Support System, techniques of collective judgement
and decision making, and methods of weighing drawn from the managerial science.
To achieve the educational ends, it is required to generate and direct a process of human
activities oriented to the established ends. This process is to be legislated, "normed" and
planned. Rules are required because education is a soci-cultural process, norms are necessary in
almost any human procedure [38], and planning and curricula is a must, for achieving an
adequate degree of effectiveness and efficiency. Rules, norms and plans shape the form of the
educational process, i.e., represents itsformal cause.
The efficient cause of education is provided by the educators, the methods/procedures they
use and the educational organizations where they are inserted. Frequently, education is defined
in terms of its methods/procedures or the educational organizations that implement them [35]. It
is our opinion that this reductionist view is a consequence of the classical science of reducing
the notion of cause to the efficient cause. This is not the case in the context of the Systems
Science.
 125

The sub-stratum of the educational process are the education's receivers. These are basically
the students and indirectly, but no less effectively, the educators. To educate is one of the way
of being educated. It is a kind of self-education and self-meta-education through self-
realization. In this sense a process of true education, is also a process of meta-education, i.e.,
getting educated on how to educate. It is a process of learning (by doing) the
method/procedures of education. The sub-stratum of the educational process is a sub-set of the
stakeholders of the educational system.

Operational Definition of Education

We can make operational our conceptual definition of education, in a similar way we did it
elsewhere [13], by creating two end-means matrices: an effectiveness matrix and an efficiency
matrix.
1) The first matrix, the effectiveness matrix (figure I), would have as columns the diversity of
education ends (final cause) as they were identified by authors through history and by
stakeholders. It would not matter if some of these ends are in contradiction and exclude
each other. The rows would have the different alternative formal cause options, e.g.:
a) Educational legislations if we are at national (or state) level.
b) Regulations or bylaws if we are at an organizational level, as for example: a university, a
school, etc.
c) Moral norms, at any level, epistemological norms at the discipline level, and methodical
norms at the technical level.
d) Curricula at the career level.
e) Plans at the administrative level.
As we said already, the weighs of the educational ends (the matrix columns) will be
established by the stakeholders of the educational system, i.e., the educators, the students, the
parents, the productive sector, etc. We also said that there are enough hard and soft technology
to make practical the weighing process. On the other hand, each cell of the first matrix would be
fIlled by the people involved in the educational substratum, in two phases:
Phase I: Each cell would be filled by the qualitative opinions about why each means is
effective, or ineffective, for each end. A qualitative Delphi will be applied to this matrix in
order to elevate the level of consensus. The final matrix could have opinions in
contradiction, excluding each other. In this way we will have a matrix which columns
would contain what education is being looked for (ends), its rows would contain how to
achieve what we are looking for, and its cells would show why the "hows" are goods, or
bads, into achieving the "whats". We will denote these matrices as WHW.
 126

Final Cause
Diversity of educational ends as the,
were identified by authors through
history and/or those identified by
educational stakeholders

~ E, EZ ... En i\

Formal Cause The material cause, the

F, human sub-stratum
Educational legislation, or FZ should fill the celds
Regulations or bylaws, or
~biil:i!:: ];

>
Norms (moral,
epistemological, WIDl effective?
methodical), or
Curricula, or
~biil:i!:: 2;
I::IQW !Dy~b effective?
plans Ftn /
~--------~~~-----------'~
What
Why: Qulitative Matrices Techniques such as Delphi.
How Much: Quantitative Matrices Support from collective decision
theory, solution to the voter
paradox, etc.
EEFCT (i) rcEW(k) EFCT(i,k)
k
EEFCT(i): Educational effectively of mean i (Formal Cause i)
EEW(k): Weight of educational and k (Final Cause k)
EFCT(i,k): The effectivity of mean i into achieving end k
" Figure 1: First End-Means Matrix in the Chain:
Effectiveness Matrix

Phase 2: With the qualitative WHW matrices, the education's users would order: (1) the
ends according their jUdgmental preferences, and (2) the means for each one of the ends.
With the help of our mathematical solution to the Voter Paradox [14] we will get the
collective judgmental preferences, which will be used in an ordinal Delphi in order to
increase the consensus. The fmal ordinal WHW collective matrix will be weighed according
to the degree of collective satisfaction or the level of consensus [11] provided by the
quantitative measures of the mentioned mathematical solution to the Voter Paradox, which
is based on the Optimal Hamiltonian Path and on the Generalized Absolute Majority Rule
[14]. The result is a weighed WHW, i.e., a quantitative WHW. This matrix will be the
instrument for measuring the educational effectiveness of a given legislation, norm,
curricula or plan, by means of an adequate composite weigh, as follows:
 127

EEFCT(i) L EEW(k)
k
EFCT(i,k)

where, EEFCT(i) is a measure of the educational effectiveness of mean i, EEW(k) is the

weigh of end k, and EFCT(i,k) is the effectiveness of mean i into achieving the end k.
2) The second matrix, the efficiency matrix (figure 2), is analogous to the first one, but
relating education's efficient cause to its formal cause, i.e., the means to enforce educational
legislation, to accomplish the bylaws, to fulfill the norms, to implement the curricula or to
execute and control the educational plans. So, applying analogously phases 1 and 2
(described above) we will have qualitative collective efficiency WHW matrix and a
quantitative collective efficiency WHW matrix. The second one will be used to measure the
educational efficacy of the efficient cause.

Formal Cause
----------~~r--------~

~ F, F2 .. Fm 1\
The material cause, the
EF,
human sub-stratum
should fill the celds
Efficient Cause EF2
Means to:
Accomplish bylaws, or EbSl:i1i: ];
Why adequate?

Fulfill the norms, or
Implement curricula, or
Execute and control
> EhSl:i1i: 2;
!:lQ~ mu!::b adequate?
EFr
educational plans
......
What --
Why: Qulitative Matrices Techniques such as Delphi.
How Much: Quantitative Matrices Support from collective decision
theory, solution to the voter
paradox etc.
EFCY (i) LEEFCT(k) EFICCi,k)
k
EFCY(i): Educational efficacy Dof mean i (Efficient Cause)
EEFCT(k): Educational effectivity of the formal cause k
(derived in the first matrix)
EFCT(i,k): Efficiency of mean i into achieving formal cause k
\.

Figure 2: Second Ends-Means Matrix in the Chain:

Efficiency Matrix
 128

Education and Information

Up to the present we limited ourselves to a kind of afonnal systemic definition of education.

We focused our attention on the definition's form without taking any stand on the substantive
content of the definition. This is because we are strongly committed to leave the substantive
content to be defined by the educational sub-stratum, i.e., by the respective stakeholders, or
users; and specially by long standing scholars in the area of education. Banathy's works [8,9],
for example, could provide the substantive content that our formal definition is expressly
lacking, in addition to the harmony that we can notice between our ends-means chain definition
based on Aristotle's notion of cause, and Banathy's systemic approach to conceiving
educational systems.
But, since our definition, to be practical, should be supported by an information system
(including hardware, software and groupware), it is important to relate both concepts:
information and education. The relationships between both concepts will be necessary for the
educational system design if it is going to be based on the meta-design guidelines that we will
present in the next section, which, in tum, are based on the systemic definition that we intended
above.
The etymological meaning of the term "to inform" derives from the Latin term
"infomare", which means "to give form to". "Modem sense springs from that of informing the
mind" [45], giving form to the mind, to the spirit [22]. Information is the arrangement of
material or spiritual parts, in some form or order. Information is related to the formal aspect of a
system, rather than to its content; it is related to a system's parts ordering or structuring.
So, the term information has two macro-senses: as a product and as a process. In the
first sense, information means "order", "organization", "form". In the second sense it means
"to give form to", "forming", "ordering", "organizing".
In the other hand, in spite of the diversity found in the different conceptions of education,
there is a consensus in relating the meaning of education to "mental ordering", "spiritual
formation", "cognitive organization". In fact, some authors stress the point noting that in some
languages, education and formation are strongly related, even synonyms. In German "bildung"
means "formation" and the process of education, civilization, or cultural transmission. One of
the senses of the word "formation" in Spanish is highly related to education; "moral formation",
"scientific formation", "technical formation", etc. are terms frequently used in Spanish to
denote different dimensions of education. So, information and education are highly related.
Some thinkers [38] stressed the fact that "mere information" is not education. They seem, in
our opinion, to confuse "data" with "information", which should not be confounded.
Information is data related to other data, and to experience; it is data interpreting. "Mere
information" seems to be data memorized and, if so, "mere information" is not information at
all.
 129

Resuming, we can say that "information ", as a process of ordering, relating, forming and
organizing, is a necessary condition to the process of education. The sufficient condition is to
be given by fitting the informational process to the cultural context where the educational
process is taking place. This is why we were so determined into assigning to the stakeholders
of the educational system the role of weighing the educational ends and of establishing the
qualitative and the quantitative WHW matrices.
Information, or negentropy, is an intrinsic quality of the material and spiritual reality.
Without some kind of organization, reality, as we know it, could not exist. The organization of
the objective reality is transmitted to the subject, and transformed into subjective reality,
through perception. Objective organization affects the subjective one, objective negentropy is
transformed in a subjective one. Some thinkers from the dialectic materialism, even affirm that
objective organization modifies the hereditary information [47,39] In this object-subject
dialectic, there are two kind of informations: (1) the potential information, which is a "dead"
information contained in an object or book; and (2) the actual information, which is "alive" in
the person who perceived the object or who read the book. So, an intrinsic information's
quality in its transmission. Hence, information is a temporal phenomena: it is dynamic, it
changes, it is a flow between receiver and receptor. The same thing happens with education: it
is fundamentally a temporal phenomena, a process, as Dewey stressed it [24].
The educational process can be characterized by a negentropy generation and/or
transmission. The negentropy could be transmitted: (1) from an objective reality to a subjective
one, as it happens in a scientific or philosophical activity; or (2) from a subjective reality to an
objective one, as it happens in technological or engineering activities; or (3) between two
subjective realities as in a teaching activity.
In the negentropy transmission, and in the educational process, the receiver actualize the
information received by selecting and modifying it according to his interests, purposes,
experiences and prior subjective negentropy. The information received, and hence the
education, is the result of a convergence between objective and subjective negentropy or
between two subjective negentropies. A true education is an active reception of cultural
negentropy. not a passive one.
Human being tries to understand the reality, and act on it, modifying it, by means of mental
models, and these are mental negentropies. This is because a model (which derive from the latin
term "modulus" [45], i.e., "little model", "reduced form", "little representation of an object") is
a mental order of form, that represents the relevant aspects of a physical or an imaginary object.
So, we can define a model as a mental negentropy that maintains an homomorphic relation with
the object it represents. Hence, mental modelling, or implicit modelling, as some authors call it
[7], is a negentropy generation activity. In the other hand, explicit modelling, or the
"physicalization" of the mental modelling (through language, diagrams, gestures, etc.) is part of
the activity of negentropy transmission. The other part is the receiving activity. In these terms,
 130

education is cultural models transmission and cultural modelling generation. In the first case
traditional wisdom is preserved, and, in the second case, cultural innovations are made
possible. Education, then, is to generate and to transmit cultural negentropy.
As we said human being receives negentropy from material and spiritual realities, and he
also generates it, he "discharges" negentropy into the material and the spiritual reality that
surrounds him. In order to transmit negentropy to other human being he had to "physicalize"
his mental entropies. Since verbal language is highly volatile, human being created several
ways for storing the "physicalized" negentropy. As a consequence, he had organize the
negentropy stored by physical means, in order to retrieve and access it. This organization, this
ordering of physical negentropy could be called meta-negentropy. Hence human being
generates, not just negentropy, but meta-negentropy also, and meta-meta-negentropy, etc.
A library, for example, is a spatial meta-negentropy, a book is a physical non-volatile
negentropy, a speech is a physical, but volatile, negcntropy, a mental model is a temporal
negentropy, and probably an physical one with some degree of volatility, group techniques for
collective judgement or decision making are temporal meta-negentropy, based on organizing
individual negentropies. Management information systems are physical negentropies. Group
Decision Support Systems are physical negentropies interacting with collective meta-
negentropies, and so on.

Some Guidelines to Educational Systems Meta-Design

1) Meta-design is a design about the designing activity, an implicit or an explicit model on

how to model an imaginary reality to be transformed into a physical one. Hence, meta-
designing is a mental meta-negentropy generation, to be instanced by mental negentropy
generations which, in tum, are to be instanced by physical negentropy. Hence, meta-
modelling should be as formal as possible, i.e., dealing with forms rather than with sub-
stantive content. So, the conceptual and operational definition we derived above could be
taken as an educational system meta-design principle, since: (1) it does not depend on any
culture, or any kind of educational system (university, school, national legislation, etc.);
and (2) any educational system design should start with an operational definition of
education culturally adequate and adaptable to the purpose on hands, be it of organizational,
local, national or global interest.
2) To meta-design educational systems is to generate a mental meta-negentropy about the
ways a system can generate and transmit mental and physical negentropies and meta-
negentropies. Hence, educational system meta-design, as well as its design, is
systematically inserted in the educational system itself. The methodological mapping of this
 131

theoretical recursivity direct us to a second meta-modelling guideline: educational systems

modelling should be an evolutive one.
3) Another methodological consequence of the theoretical recursivity shows that the design
and implementation activities should not be conducted in series, linearly, but in parallel,
non-linearly. The systems design and the designed system would co-exist, they would be
implemented in parallel, interacting with each other in an evolutive way.
4) The theoretical recursiveness implies also, as a methodological consequence, that there
should be designed and implemented a sub-system for educating the stakeholders on
education. Meta-education should be part of the educational process, not limited to
educators, but comprehending other stakeholders as well.
5) We have already set forth that the final cause of education (the educational system's
objectives) should be dynamic and open. Since the meta-modelling is to be systematically
inserted in the educational system, and this is going to have dynamic and open objectives,
and the modelling activity should be open and dynamic. As a consequence, the evolutive
nature of educational systems modelling should not be directed in a priori way, but in a
posteriori one. This means that the evolutive direction of the design should be supported by
both kinds of control: by feedback and by feedforward. Educational expert judgements
would support the feedback mechanisms, and education stakeholders' judgements would
support the feedforward mechanisms. In this way the design activities could be
harmoniously reactive and proactive.
6) As a consequence of guidelines (3) and (5), we could suggest to plan the design
incrementally, i.e., to define clearly only the next increment in the planning horizon, and to
define clearly the second next increment, just after the first next increment had been
executed and evaluated. More details on this kind of planning are given in references [34]
and [33].
7) The practical implementation of the six guidelines gives above requires a computerized
information system that will support design. decisions, as well as decisions in the
educational system being evolutively designed in parallel. This kind of information system
could be similar to the soci-political information system we described elsewhere [11], and
developed for specific and transitory situations.
8) The design of the information system should also have the meta-design guidelines (2), (3),
(4) and (5) given above.
9) As it could be noticed we are pointing toward a participatory educational system, through a
participatory design. We are pretty sure that stakeholders will participate also by
anticipating. Citizens are increasingly interested in participating in soci-political and
economical anticipations. There is an increasing consciousness in participating in future
shaping. Anticipatory Democracy is becoming more and more required [6]. In the same
way, anticipation in education is becoming an issue [31]. So, it would be advisable to
 132

design an information subsystem to support stakeholders anticipation on education, in order

to let them participate in the educational future shaping.

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Assessing the Adequacy of a Social System Design

C. Lynn Jenks and Mary Amsler

Far West Educational Laboratory, 1855 Folsom Ave., San Francisco, CA 93940, U.S.A.

Abstract: Too few organizations are presently able to design themselves in ways that permit
them to meet modem day challenges. There are many reasons for this. Among the most critical
reasons, however, is the inadequate design of our organizations that are largely responsible for
structuring the kinds of systems that can cope with our complex social problems. Too many of
our organizations ignore long-range, systemic design for short-range improvement activities
and similarly substitute surface assessment and shallow quantifiable data for in-depth reflection,
dialogue, and wisdom. The authors contend that it is the basic design of organizations that
often stands as a barrier. This paper utilizes Churchman's "system conditions" to explore an
approach to assessing organizational appropriateness and viability. For each of the nine
conditions a set of questions has been constructed. Because social organizations are dynamic,
these primary questions are of two kinds -- questions concerned with assessing the adequacy of
each component and questions concerned with how the organization can maintain or develop
adequacy.

Keywords: Organizational design, systems design, systemic design, assessment, system

conditions, Churchman.

Introduction

In an age when the speed, intensity, and complexity of change increases constantly, our ability
to shape change rather that become its victims or passive recipients depends on our competence
in using models, approaches, methods, and tools that will empower us to participate in the
design of our social systems. Competent participation is essential for the design process and
this is made possible by organizations that utilize the capacity and vision of its members.
According to Warfield [5], it is the capacity and vision of people working through practitioner
organizations, subject to the organizational environment, carrying out systems learning in that
environment, and translating that learning to action that represents society's primary resources
for solving complex problems. At issue is how to develop that capacity among members of an
organization in a systematic and effective manner.
Too few organizations are presently meeting this challenge and there are probably many
reasons for this. Among the most critical reasons, however, is the inadequate design of our
organizations that are largely responsible for structuring the kinds of systems that can cope with
our complex social problems. Too many of our organizations ignore long-range, systemic
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design for short-range improvement activities and similarly substitute surface assessment and
shallow quantifiable data for in-depth reflection, dialogue, and wisdom.
The authors contend that it is the basic design of organizations that often stands as a barrier.
What is needed are models and methodologies that organizations can use to assess their own
appropriateness and viability as dynamic systems. Most organizations have not been designed
as systems with adequate attention to the principles of systems. In many cases, organizations
simply evolve asa function of changing personnel and conditions in the external environment.
Little attention is paid by organizational members to the system as a whole instead of a
compendium of interrelated parts. Organizational members tend to focus on narrowly defined
systems issues such as the pattern of job definition, authority, and communication
relationships.
Nevertheless, for systems to be systems, certain conditions are inevitably present
(Churchman [3]). Utilizing the nine conditions posed by Churchman, a system can be defined
and at least partially understood by describing how the organization attends to each. The use of
these conditions for describing the organization as a system also facilitates comparison among
alternative organizational designs. The nine conditions are assumed to be present in all systems.
But they are essentially neutral in terms of shaping or influencing the actual design of the
organization. The values, preferences, and realities of the designers relative to each of the nine
components will shape the specifics of the design. Studies indicate that there is no one best way
to organize; the appropriate organizational form depends upon the human and business situation
facing the organization. (Lorsch [4])
The remainder of this paper is focused on the use of Churchman's "system conditions" to
explore an approach to assessing organizational appropriateness and viability. For each of the
nine conditions a set of questions has been constructed. These questions represent inquiry tasks
which an organization must address - if it is concerned with systemic issues. Because social
organizations are dynamic, these primary questions are of two kinds - questions concerned with
assessing the adequacy of each component and questions concerned with how the organization
can maintain or develop adequacy.

System Conditions

1. The System is Telelogical - it exists to serve purposes - allows the system managers to
achieve purposes by calling on functions to be performed. Banathy [1] states that a system
comes into being or is established in response to a need that exists in the environment. Systems
also change or modify their missions and purposes in response to new conditions or demands.
In general, analysis leads to the specification of goals. Goal specification permits the system to
identify the functions that are needed if the system is to serve its environment and meet the
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needs for which it was designed. These functions, according to Churchman possess a cause -
effect relationship with respect to the goals.

1.1 How can the system know whether or not its purposes, goals, and functions are
appropriate?

1.1.1 Is there a strong relationship between the system's purposes and the needs and conditions
of the environment being served (Le., Is there a need, a demand, or a market for the system's
products or capacity to perform; do the system's purposes, goals, and functions produce
outcomes appropriate to the needs and conditions of the environment being served?

1.1.2 Is there a logical-causal relationship that exists among purposes, goals, and functions.
Are there purposes or goals that are not served by functions? Are there functions that are being
performed that are not related to purposes?

1.1.3 Is there a fit between the organizational design, the nature of the task, and an individual's
psychological makeup, so that members of the organization will be motivated to perform the
task effectively?

1.2 How can the system ensure that its purposes, goals and functions are remaining or
becoming appropriate?

1.2.1 Are there formalized procedures and processes used for evaluating the appropriateness of
the system's purposes (e.g., needs assessments, environmental scanning, analysis of societal
conditions and changes, portfolio reviews, system values clarification)?

1.2.2 Are these procedures and processes viewed as both legitimate and precise by members of
the organization?

2. The System has a Measure Of Performance - e.g., goal attainment, client

satisfaction, the system delivers as its design intended.

2.1 What are the key system "performances" for which measurement is to be carried out?

2.1.1 What measures will be responsive to the clients' values and concerns?

2.1.2 What measures will be most useful in evaluating and improving system performance?
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2.1.3 What measures will facilitate system reflection, dialogue, learning, and design-based
change.

3. The System has a Client - whose interests or values are served by the system in such a
way that the higher the measure of performance, the better the client's interests are served. In
general terms, the client is the standard of performance. The client can be described in terms of
his value structure. The client has a set of possible futures. These futures can be described in
terms of a set of properties (goals or objectives) and the clients interests in them can be
described by a trade-off principle that says how much of a preferred objective he would be
willing to relinquish in order to increase an amount of another objective.

3.1 How will the system determine whether it is attempting to serve the appropriate set of
clients?

3.1.1 What guidelines or criteria are available to judge "client appropriateness?"

3.2 How will the system know that its client are being served by the system?

3.2.1 What measures can be used to assess the relationship between system goals and
objectives and clients' values and preferences?

3.2.2 How can the system achieve a reasonable balance between the client's ideal situation and
the feasible?

4. The System has Teleological Components - which co-produce the system

performance. Components also have measures of performance that are related to system
performance. Changing a component or a part of the system will change the performance of the
entire system. Components are selected and employed on the basis of their potential to carry out
the functions that were selected to attain the goals of the system. "Goal - functions -
components sequence is obligatory" (Banathy [1]). A system is more that the sum of its
components - its the relationships and interactions of components - the connections and the
patterns of these connections that defines the system. The components of open systems have
dynamic relationships and it is through dynamic relationships that the system moves from being
a collection of independent entities toward a state of integration and interdependence. System
independence means that a change in a component does not necessarily effect changes in other
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components. A tendency toward independence moves the systems components toward

segregation and isolation and eventually to dissolution or termination of the stem. On the other
hand, the risk of strong system interdependency is system vulnerability (Le., the chain is only
as strong as its weakest link.).

4.1 What components are needed given the functions that the system is to perform?

4.2 How can the system judge the performance of the components and their contribution to the
larger system?

4.3 Is there a way to assess the nature and the strength of the relationships that exist among
components? Between components and functions?

4.4 What criteria can be selected to judge the appropriateness of component integration?

4.5 What state of component integration is necessary for the organization to be effective?

5. The System has an Environment. The system exists in wider systems and or
environments with which it interacts, receives resources, constraints, etc. The system must
satisfy environmental expectations, meet requirements, attain goals, etc. The environment is the
context in which the system operates. The boundaries of the system set it apart from the
environment and the relationships between the system and the environment determine or
strongly influence its goals, functions, and components, Le., its basic design. The boundaries
define the area within which the decision-making process has power to cause action to be taken
(Checkland [2]). Thus boundaries have a significant effect over system control; Le., the greater
the permeability, the less the control that can be exerted over the system.

5.1 What are the current boundaries?

5.2 How can the system determine the appropriateness of its current boundaries?

5.3 What should be the nature of the relationships/interactions between the system and the
larger environment?

5.4 How can mutuality between the system and its environment be established?
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5.5 What factors affect the difficulty of achieving integration among the units of the
organization and the external environment?

6. The System has a Designer. The designer imagines a world in which the client could
change things as he wishes, within the bounds of limited resources. The designer can't create
an ideal future, but instead creates a future which comes as near to what he wishes as his
resources will allow. The designer seeks to find the underlying principle behind the clients
trade-offs by estimating a measure of performance which allows assigning values to possible
futures. The designer is successful if he can accurately measure the client's real preference. The
designers intentions (values) are identical to the client's.

6.1 Who is to be the system designer? Who is authorized to create the design, to represent the
client's interests?

6.2 How are designs to be validated? How will designers ensure that client interests are
represented?

6.3 How are client values and preferences to become known?

7. The System has a Decision-maker. The decision-maker controls the resources and
therefore creates the real future. His primary value is a trade-off policy for alternative futures
and may not be identical to the designer's or client's trade-off.

7.1 How are decisions concerning system development, implementation and system operation
to be made?

7.2 What structures and processes will help ensure trade-offs that are as nearly like those of the
client!designer?

NOTE: According to Churchman, the designer, the decision-maker, and the client mayor may
not be the same person.
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8. The Designer's Intention is to Change the System so as to Maximize the

Value to the Client.

8.1 How can the designer work with/influence the decision-maker to ensure primary attention
to client interests, i.e., bring the operating system design as close as possible to the ideal
design.

8.2 How can the designer prevent gradual erosion of the design, i.e., maintain as much fidelity
as possible between the ideaUpreferred design and the operating design.

9. The System is Stable with Respect to the Designer. There is a built-in guarantee
that the designer's intention is ultimately realizable. According to Checkland ([2]), there is a
guarantee of continuity. The system has stability and will recover after some degree of
disturbance. This might be helped from outside the system, or it might drive internally from
participants' commitment to (1).

9.1 What system characteristics help ensure organizational resilience, staff commitment,
flexibility, so as to retain consistency with the designer'S values and intentions.

9.2 How can the system develop and maintain the capacity to endure under conditions of
environmental stress?

9.3 How can the system insure that organizational design changes are consistent with the
existing culture?

The questions that have been constructed represent a variety of inquiry tasks which an
organization must address if it is committed to systemic change. The questions asked would
change to reflect the concerns raised by a different systems theory, though the general structural
and client concerns would remain the same no matter what theory is in use. The issue that
remains is how to develop a diagnostic instrument which could incorporate these questions into
an accessible format useful to organizations as they continue to evolve in response to
environmental and boundary issues changes. We are especially concerned with developing a
diagnostic tool for school systems which historically have tended to be responsive to
environmental changes in a fragmented rather than a systemic way. Our next step is the
translation of these questions into an approach schools could embrace.
 141

References

1. Banathy, B.H.: Designing a systems view of education. Seaside, CA: INTERSYSTEMS

1973
2. Checkland, P.: Systems thinking systems practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons 1982
3. Churchman, C.W.: The design of inquiring systems. New York: Basic Books 1972
4. Lorsch, J.W.: Developing organizations: Diagnosis and actions. Reading, MA: Addison-
Wesley 1975
5. Warfield, J.W.: Organizations and systems learning (R.K. Ragade, ed.). SGSR Yearbook
Vol. 17. University of Louisville 1982
Section 2 The Systems Design Focus
Design Inquiry as an Intellectual Technology for the
Design of Educational Systems
Harold G. Nelson

Antioch University Seattle, 2607 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98121-1211, U.S.A.

Abstract: This paper explores the emergence of the creative design process based on a
systems perspective as the most appropriate serious intellectual technology for the creation of
new complex purposive systems which serve specific client's desires, expectations and needs.
This includes serving systems like educational institutions which are not in need of just
restructuring but major transformation. The utilization of this new technology requires highly
skilled whole systems designers which in turn depends on the availability of educational
programs in the whole systems design similar to the MA Whole Systems Design at Antioch
University Seattle.

Keywords: Design, systems, educational systems, design inquiry, creativity, whole systems
design, systems approach, design purpose.

The Age of Design

Design is coming into its own as a serious intellectual technology in the service of human
intention. We are at a time in the lives of Western societies when the success of reason's own
scientific method as the dominant and singular strategy for dealing with all forms of human
endeavor has come into question. Research and development are important for attaining and
maintaining quality of life but inquiry and innovation are of equal importance.

Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's
good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you
think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go, unless where you
ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. Creativity,
originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination-"unstuckness," in other words-
are completely outside its domain.
(Robert M. Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

It is difficult but not impossible to imagine a new form of inquiry that builds on the
successful traditions of rationalism and empiricism yet gets beyond the limitations of these 17th
and 18th century designs of inquiry when applied to purposeful human action. Science is
unsurpassed as an epistemologic and ontologic design for describing realities within accepted
frames of reference but is ineffective as a sufficient design of inquiry when dealing with
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teleologic issues of human purpose. Teleology however is the heart of creative inquiry and
innovative action, the basic elements of design.
That design as a formal process of inquiry could match and even exceed the success of
scientized thinking in important intellectual endeavors is possible to take seriously only because
of the advent of systems thinking. The systems approach, as reflected in the work of C. West
Churchman [4] and others, is expansive, inclusive and nonreductionistic. Systems theory
offers a way to describe or imagine complex realities. This perspective provides a world view
in which the traditions of the sciences, arts, and humanities can be interrelated and integrated
into a form of inquiry which more realistically represents the experienced world.
The systems approach offers a perspective on and an approach to complexity and unity or
wholism as descriptive knowledge, knowledge of what is or what was but it does not provide
deontic knowledge, knowledge of what ought to be. Design as a form of inquiry is concerned
with gaining knowledge of what can and ought to be and instrumental skill in making what
ought to be a reality. By bringing together these two very powerful traditions of inquiry a
synthesis is achieved between description and prescription. Both traditions of inquiry have been
used separately or in conjunction with other traditions such as systems science and industrial
design but without the synergy of the conjunction of systems perspective and design action.
Both inform and transform the other. Systems theory provides the foundation for complexity in
design. The tradition of creativity in design moves systems theory from merely being another
form of the positivistic tradition. For instance systems theories presume there is one whole
reality which the inquirer must struggle to see more of in its full complexity. The tradition of
creative thought provides another possibility. Like an artist framing a work of art and creating a
composition within those limits which then becomes real, it is possible to imagine complex
compositions which are created by the designer and which are not part of a larger whole or a
member of a taxonomical set but a unique creation whose meaning and value emerge from
normative and aesthetic values as much as from a coherency of a universal logic.
In recursive fashion, systems design as a creative process can be used as a form of
intellectual technology to design and implement new complex forms of serving systems such as
educational systems (including primary, secondary, undergraduate, graduate, vocational and
continuing education). Systems design also provides the necessary means to create coherency
between form and content in a systemically designed educational system. For instance, the
utilization of a systems design perspective to create a complex integrated design for education
assures that the processes and content of the educational system are equally wholistic, creative,
systemic and rational. For example, the polarized contemporary issue in higher education
concerning the disputed purpose of university education, whether to dispense or create
knowledge, misses the opportunity to create a design of education that does both and more
including education in integration, praxis, creative and critical thinking and life long learning
skills.
 147

In order to effectively use creative design from a systems perspective to create complex
whole systems it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the concept of design as a
legitimate, disciplined intellectual process. Common understanding treats design at its best. as
an instrumental skill and at worse a process of decoration. Its potential is becoming recognized
however and design is gaining greater recognition. The challenge is to utilize its full potential.
Design as a way of working in the world challenges many long held beliefs about how serious
human issues are dealt with and can appear to be in strange and dangerous company. Ignorance
and superstition were suppressed by the sweeping victory of human reason, yet the creative
process has aspects that are mysterious, hidden, and beyond the control of direct disciplined
inquiry. Design is art and science and more. In the tradition of systems thinking, the synthesis
of these components in design result in an emergent quality which transcends the summation of
the individual attributes of these other forms of inquiry.
A full creative design process includes three stages: enthusiasm, creation or recreation, and
innovation. This process of design is not to be confused with the creative processes of the
artist's self expression or the scientist's creative problem solving within a disciplinary field of
knowledge. Their creative work is similar in some ways but different in other significant ways
including the existence of the relationship of the designer to a class of people known as the
client as discussed by Churchman [5].

Stages of Design

Inspiration in this context deals with life long themes which are played out by individual
designers repeatedly in independent design projects as related in the work of Briggs [2] and
with the kind of enthusiasm Singer has referred to as the heroic mood [10] and Campbell has
identified as the call in the hero's quest [3]. This energy is essential to the authentic engagement
and courage identified by May [6] creative design requires of designers. Creative and recreative
processes have been refined through time into formal models which although different have
strong resemblances (for example see fig. 1). These and other models try to describe the
process of bringing into existence new forms; whether concrete or abstract. These steps within
the creative process have been identified by individuals reflecting on their own creative work
which has resulted in artifacts which were not only novel but which embodied attributes which
successfully functioned to serve identifiable purposes.
Finally, innovation deals with the issue ofleadership, entrepreneurship and facilitation; the
processes of giving life to new ideas. This involves the complex social process of introducing
change into the lives of individuals who are most often interested in avoiding change and in
maintaining stability without novelty. The kind of change brought to existing human activity
systems is often dramatic and traumatic. Often the intention of the change agents is not to just
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rearrange but to transform existing organizational or institutional systems totally in order to

better serve a clients purposes. Such activity is full of paradox, opportunity, responsibility and
danger.

First Insight Orientation

Preparation Saturation Preparation
Analysis
Ideation
Incubation Incubation Incubation
illumination Ah-Ha Synthesis
Verification Verification Evaluation

lWallas B.Edwards Osborn

(1926) (1986) (1953)

Figure 1: Models of Creativity

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more
uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things,
because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old
conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
(Machivelli, The Prince)

These three stages of design are complex and require close study preferably from a systems
perspective.

Problem versus Opportunity

To gain an appreciation of the potential of design as an intellectual technology it is important to

challenge some of the predominant assumptions about how to approach intentional change in
human systems. Most significant change is justified only as a response to a significant
'problem'. This is a necessity for two reasons. First this is true because change is much more
acceptable when framed as getting rid of an undesirable condition or state. The difficulty of
imagining and implementing an entirely new creative opportunity for change affecting many
individuals is avoided in a problem context. Secondly this is true because traditional scientism
 149

is accepted as the primary or only basis of serious inquiry and the principles embedded in this
designed inquiry require a problem context. But if design inquiry, which is inclusive of good
science and other ways of knowing, is used it is possible to engage in significant change from a
perspective of opportunity and vision rather than of problem. As Ackoff [1] has argued, when
you try to get rid of a situation you don't like (problem situation) you are not assured that you
will wind up with a situation that you do want but if you move intentionally towards a situation
that you do want (vision) you are assured you will move away from what you don't want and
towards what you do.
This doesn't mean that the process of framing life situations as problematic is never
appropriate. It does mean that it is not necessarily the only or dominant strategy for intentional
change and it does mean that a better understanding of the nature of problem characterizations
must be reached. The typical models of the steps in problem solving do not account for the
complex and interrelated nature of most human situations which attract the attention of change
agents. Churchman has characterized these as 'wicked' problems. Rittel [9] compared problems
solving strategies based on a comparison of these 'wicked' problems with the more common
'tame' problem solving strategies.
The salient point remains that problem solving efforts work within situations which we
have framed negatively and that problem solving necessarily stays within that frame. To break
out of a priori frames and create positive contexts within which to create or recreate systems
requires a whole systems design inquiry process.

Creative Systems Design of Design

Design of the Designer

Design of Innovative Process
Design of Design Contexts
Design of Design Teams
Design of Design Theories and Methods
Design of Crafts and Skills

Figure 2: Design Tasks

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Design is creative inquiry which has application in a variety of tasks (see fig. 2) internal to the
design process and systemically related which must all be attended to in any design process that
can retain utility over time and opportunities.

The Design of the Design Process

The design of the design process using a systems approach can be characterized as a sequence
of episodic stages (see fig. 3) which engage designers and design teams in intellectual and
experiential activities appropriate to the meter of the project. Each stage builds on a synthesis of
the previous stage's work and provides the input for the next stage's work.

I. Seeking Inspiration
II. Seeking Opportunity
III. Seeking Complexity
IV. Seeking Limits
V. Seeking Unity
VI. Seeking Form
VII. Seeking Realization

Figure 3: Episodic Stages in Whole Systems Design

Whole Systems Design

Whole systems design consists of design phases within the above design stages (see Fig. 4).
These stages and phases are not necessarily experienced in distinct, clearly defined sequential
activities during any specific design project but there is an episodic movement which does move
through successive phases even if repeated. This honoring of the arrow of time is necessary
because each phase is dependent in great part on the work done in the previous phase and
whose own work is critical input into the next phase. It is also necessary in the management of
complex design projects to mark milestones and tasks which can be coordinated with large
numbers of actors who provide the resources and information or who utilized the output of the
different phases in other contexts. The reality of the arrow of time distinguishes the difference
 151

between dynamic nonlinear complex systems which best characterize human activity systems
and dynamic linear systems which are not representative of human activity systems.

I. Enthusiasm:
Motivation
Inspiration
II. Creativity:
1 Preparation
2 Immersion
3 Divergence
4 Convergence
5 Incubation
6 Crystallization
7. Design Development
III. Innovation:
8 Design Communication
9 Implementation
1 0 Utilization

Figure 4: Whole Systems Design Process

Design Phases

Each one of these design phases involve tasks and activities specific and appropriate to the
intention of the phase. It often involves different levels of work also so that abstract thinking
may be complimented by techniques and methods which are informed by specialized data bases
or expertise. For instance the motivation phase involves reflecting on the life themes, nuances
and patterns which will pervade the immanent design work. Inspiration involves the response
and connection to the client who holds the ethical, aesthetic and legal justification and
motivation for the design.
Next the preparation phase involves the letting go of old conceptual structures on the part of
the designers and design teams similar to the cleansing rituals of traditional vision quests. It
includes opening up to the assurance of new learning and dramatic cognitive leaps. It involves
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the initiation of the collaboration work between clients and designers. Immersion involves the
total contextualizing of the designers in the environments and metasystems of the client system.
Divergence is the process of seeking complexity by following interests, inspirations, passions
which are not prejudged for utility but valued for perspective and texture. It is the development
of experiences, ideas, variables and other design components in great numbers which seem to
somehow have bearing on the design project at hand. Convergence involves the deliberate
forming of the intellectual crucible within which the creative product is to be forged. It is the
deliberate setting of limits and defining of space within which the design process will be
contained. Incubation is the phase of the design process that is the most difficult for active
critical thinkers to deal with. It is the process of ceasing the direct confrontation with conscious
design tasks and letting unconscious ordering processes form patterns and find resolutions to
the complex issues and information which has been generated. It results in a crystallization or
cognitive leap in the form of a gestalt, unity or parti which holds the seed or germ for a fully
formed designed system which functions and serves in its intended purpose. The design
development phase involves detailing and communicating all aspects of the new system in a
way that makes it possible to include others outside of the design team who are critical to the
implementation phase.
The implementation phase is extremely important in that a design is not a system until it has
been translated from concept to reality. This process requires skilled management,
collaboration, craft and real world accounting to secure success. The realization of a new
system is followed by the utilization phase which involves post utilization evaluation,
refinement, adjustment and other actions which tend to the clients adjustment and adoption of
the new artifact. This quick review of the design phases are not meant to imply that they are
simple concepts. Each is complex and challenging but within pragmatic reach.
This whole systems design process provides the type of intellectual technology which is
capable of the kind of design and redesign of educational systems which is needed. It is not a
problem solving or fixing process but a creative transformative process which offers the
opportunity to do something new which meets the desires, needs and expectations of the
multiple categories of clients which are served by the education systems at all levels of society.
The potential of this technology requires in tum an educated population of whole systems
designers. It requires that an educational systems be developed which prepares designers who
can take full advantage of the power of creative systems design processes from a systems
perspective similar to the design of the Whole Systems Design graduate program at Antioch
University Seattle [7]. The design of educational systems for whole systems designers can
provide templates for the design of other educational systems.
The creation and utilization of educational opportunities for whole systems designers and
the application of whole systems design as an intellectual technology require decision makers to
accept a change in the standard approach to significant change in the development and
 153

refinement of serving systems. Creative thinking and creative thinkers have been considered
dangerous to existing order which is the paradox. Existing systems which need radical
transformation are most often dependent on conservative change agents who themselves are
uncomfortable with the nature of the creative process which to them seems undisciplined and
unstructured. The discomfort is not unfounded because it is the ability of the creative designer
to break old forms and create new ones that gives them value.

One's own free and unfettered volition, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own
fancy, inflamed sometimes to the point of madness - that is the one best and greatest
good, which is never taken into consideration because it will not fit into any classification,
and the omission of which always sends all systems and theories to the devil.
(F. Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864

References

1. Ackoff, Russels: Management in Small Doses, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1986
2. Briggs, John P.: Fire in the Crucible: The self-Creation of Creativity and Genius, Los
Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1990
3. Campbell, Joseph: The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Bollingen Series, Princeton
University Press, 2nd Ed., 1968
4. Churchman, C. W.: The Systems Approach, NY: Dell Publishing, 1968
5. Churchman, C. W.: The Systems Approach and its Enemies, NY: Basic Books, 1979
6. May, Rollo: The Courage to Create, NY: Bantam Books, 1975
7. Nelson, Harold G.: "Critical and Creative Systems Thinking and Systems Education",
ISSS Conference, 1990
8. Pirsig, Robert M.: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, NY: Bantam Books, 1974
9. Rittel, Horst: "On the Planning Crisis: Systems Analysis of the First and Second
Generations", Bedriftsokonomen, NR 8, 1972
10. Singer, Edgar A. Jr.: In Search of a Way of Life, NY: Columbia University Press, 1948
The Evolution of a Design Approach:
A Historical Perspective and its Relevance to
the Design of Educational Systems

W ojciech Gasparski

Polish Academy of Sciences, ul, Nowy Swiat 72 (Palac Staszica), 00 - 330 Warsaw, Poland

Abstract: Designing, as defined in the paper, is a kind of human activity changing in an

evolutionary way. Four types of changes are identified: a) body of knowledge for and/or
design, b) design problematics, c) set of design aims, and d) design methodics. Nowadays we
witness efforts to transform the "design civilization" into a "design culture". It calls for
educational systems redesign.

Keywords: Approach, design, design approach, design civilization, design culture,

education systems engineering.

Introduction

Designing, being a conceptual preparation of changes, particularly of human action, is in itself a

kind of human activity (a set of human actions) changing in a more or less evolutionary way.
The changes are caused by changes in a body of knowledge for design, (i.e. in a knowledge of
applied science and technological knowledge), as well as knowledge on design, (i.e.
designological knowledge), by changes in design problematics (from context ignoring design
tasks to context-dependent design problems), by changes in a set of design aims (from
particular situations to the ecology of practical situations), and by changes in design methodics
(from technics through primitive engineering to advanced system oriented technology).
Nowadays we witness some efforts to transform our design civilization into a design
culture. It calls, among others, for the educational systems redesign in such a way they would
be ready to enable members of the society to participate in social processes of designing. This
question is elaborated and discussed extensively in this paper.

The Concept of Design Approach

According to dictionaries, an approach is, among other irrelevant meanings, "... a method of
doing something or dealing with a problem ... ". The philosophical understanding of the term
offered by philosophy of science is broader and deeper than the lexical one. The most
 155

general and system philosopher Mario Bunge in his Treatise on Basic Philosophy, Vol. 5 [1:
258-262]. He defines an approach A as an ordered quadruple: A =<B, P, A, M>, where: B is
a body of knowledge; P is a set of problems called problematics; A is a set of aims; and M is a
set of methods called methodics.
The definition generalizes concepts of the seven broad approaches: the vulgar, doctrinaire,
mathematical, scientific, applied, technological, and humanistic [1:258]. When the concept of
an approach relates to philosophy, e. g. B, is a body of philosophical knowledge within which
one may differentiate three main types of approaches: atomism, holism, and system ism. The
first one is individualistic or analytic, the second one is synthetic, while the last one is mixed
analytico-synthetic combining realism with rationalism [1:259-260]. The Bunge's concept of
an approach gives a well established foundation for a definition of a design approach concept.
The design approach AD is an ordered quadruple: AD =<BD' PD' AD, MD> where BD is a
body of knowledge serving as a base for grounded design; PD is a set of nontrivial practical
problems to be solved through designing, let us label the set as design problematics; AD is a set
of aims to be achieved through designing characterized generally as a conceptual preparation of
change which is an overall aim of design; MD is a set of design methods called design
methodics (sometimes misnamed as design methodology).

Evolution of the Design Approach

The design background knowledge, the design problematics, the set of aims design serves to
achieve, and the design methodics evolve along the history of mankind. The earliest stages of
history were stages without any consciously undertaken design.
For the earlier part of man's history our knowledge of his culture is almost
entirely restricted to the stone or bone tools that have been preserved. The
fabrication of tools is sometimes regarded as a sign of the achievement of
human status. The logical foundations for making this a landmark are supposed
to be (1) that tool-making involved foresight as to the use of the tool; but all
organisms show "foresight" or prediction in much of what they do. (2) That
tools are made by a technique that is learned from others and involves symbolic
communication, presumably by language. But the manufacture and use of tools
is already seen in other animals. ...
Even if the earliest tools were made by individuals on their own initiative,
there is evidence that traditions as to how it should be done became established
at least by the later Australopithecines (perhaps nearly two million years ago).
These earliest know human artifacts are called pebble tools. They were made
 156

from various lumps and pieces of lava or quartz, crudely flaked by a few
strokes on one side to make a cutting edge....
It may ... be supposed that during the enormous period at least two million
and five hundred thousand years ago, the Australopithecines possessed some
elementary means of communication of detailed facts, such as those about
chipping flints, and a social organization at least somewhat different from that
of apes. [25:499-500]
Being limited in space we are not inclined to elaborate in detail the question of the evolution
of primitive cultures like that in the Upper Paleolithic, see Figure 1. We quote it just for
pointing out the period essential for the emergence of design. It is closely connected with "the
power of communication by symbolic means" [25:515-516], (Le. language and writing).
Although we do not know when man acquired what we should call
'language' it was almost certainly long before 10,000 BC. Language provides
the opportunity for information to be passed between many individuals and not
merely from two parents to their offspring as in the usual method of heredity.
This constitutes what we may call multiparental inheritance, and must have
provided an enormous acceleration in the speed of evolutionary change. ...
The invention of language and writing were presumably the essential tools,
if we may so call them, with which all the others were produced .... [25:516]
The invention of language and writing gave birth to design constituting its multiparental
influence. Therefore the pre-language and pre-writing epoch was at the same time as the pre-
design era, although one may identify some elements of design-like or quasi-design acts
performed by the human beings of those times.
The next epoch, our epoch, is the era of design. The design era consists of many stages
from primitive or vulgar design, through stages of design civilization, up to the stage -or
stages, who knows? of the so-called design culture we are only approaching now.
In the next few paragraphs we will characterize the approaches for the stages of the design
era.

Table 1

Era Stage Design Approach

Pre-design Intuitive Quasidesign
Primitive Design Natural
Craftsman's Experiential
Design OC Engineering Science based Monodisciplinarian
Systems Engineering Science & Arts based Multidisciplinarian
Design Culture 'Designological'
...
DC = Deslgn ClVlhzatlon
 157

Natural Design Approaches

Doing and thinking are two sides of human everyday activity. We sometimes think just for the
sake of thinking, sometimes do for the sake of doing, but in most cases our thinking and our
doing are closely interrelated. It means that in the cases of intertwined thinking and doing, we
thought for the sake of doing what we were thinking about that we would do. Such thinking is
the natural conceptual preparation of action or - more generally - of change, (Le. design in a
way), although it is mostly not given this name.
This natural design approach was characteristic for the primitive - or vulgar - design stage
of the design era. It is still used by all of us when we are involved in our everyday,
nonprofessional, affairs. We are thinking about tomorrow's schedule, designing it in fact. Our
wives think of family breakfasts, lunches, afternoon teas, and dinners being actually
preoccupied with designing them in a natural way, or even with designing a style of family life.
We do the same when we do our shopping, when we plan how we will spend our vacation
time, etc.
Our predecessors did the same all the time, for their lives were not divided into a private
part and a professional part, all was a unified family or tribe life. Peasants in many places of
the contemporary world still do the same.
According to Jose Ortega y Gasset, a man, thanks to his/her ability to get inside
him/herself, what the Spaniard called ensimismarse, becomes a planner, a designer, of his/her
ideas how to change the world around him/her, his/her pragmata according to his/her wants
and wills.
Body of background knowledge used in natural design approach is limited to personal
knowledge of each actor. Problematics is delimited by actor's set of personal problems and
problems of his/her immediate social group. Aims are related to actor's needs, wants, and
wills. A method is the so-called trial and error one, as well as some magic techniques (e.g.
astrology), and techniques based on tradition, rituals, habits, and actor's experience.
In a recently published essay I tried to examine the origin of design. Let me quote a
passage from the study closely related to the natural design approach:
All man's actions which are not reflex or automatic require reflection. The more complex
the action, the more essential is the reflection. Coercive situations require particularly intensive
reflection. In everyday life, and in one-subject actions, reflection is so closely interwoven with
action that it would be difficult for the acting individual to differentiate reflective from
implementational action without additional retrospective effort or self-observation planned
ahead. Things are, however, completely different when more people take part in the action,
(Le. when we are dealing with multi-subject actions). In such cases the organization of action
is essential which in turn requires mutual communication amongst the acting subjects.
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Communication is essential in defining and agreeing upon goals; the same stands for the
method of action.
We should note that in the course of communication amongst the persons engaged in multi-
subject action, an externalization of what has been termed above as reflection preceding an
action to a consultation which forms a separate preparatory stage of the multi-subject action.
Let us further note that the variety of multi-subject action leads to overlapping of one action
with another which gives rise to conflicts. In order to avoid this, prior agreement on intentions
is required. Thus, not only must agreement be reached within the group caring out multi-
subject action, but also between groups, and possible disagreements must be sorted out
Thus, design began to take shape form some phase of intersubject communication,
externalization, separating off, arbitration, etc.. It would seem that the decisive moment in the
development of design can be found in the point at which for the first time the result of the joint
reflection referred to above was preserved in the form of a drawing, iconic image or
description. Preservation of this kind, which was the first design, made it easier to implement
the agreed intention, made it easier to check the conformity of what was realized with what was
intended, and hindered possible prevarication on the part of those who were discontented, or
who had been forced into agreement We shall never know whether these first designs were
drawn on the walls of caves or were descriptions written on papyrus: for the term design
appeared much later that design itself [5:1198-1199].

Design Civilization, its Stages, and Approaches

A Concept of Design Civilization. An advanced stage of human development marked by

a high level of art, religion, science, etc. is called a civilization. Let us call this the sequence of
advanced stages of human development marked by a high level of design a Design Civilization.
It consists of three stages: a Craftsman's Design stage, an Engineering Design stage, and a
Systems Engineering stage, with the following design approaches characteristic for them
respectively: experiential, scientific based on one discipline knowledge, scientific inter- and
multi-disciplinarian.
Design Approach Based on Experience. Vernacular or craft design [13:10-14] is
typical for the first stage of the design civilization era. "The earliest initiator of change in man-
made things is not the maker-of-drawings but the maker-of-things, the skilled craftsman, the
'designer' who takes over where natural evolution leaves off' [10:15]. The skilled craftsman
did not emerge, however, like deus ex machina. It was a long period of time within which craft
design evolved from its embryonic phase and took its mature form. The development of an
igloo is a good example of that kind of design.
 159

Under normal conditions igloos are built in a vernacular manner. For the
Eskimo there is no design problem but rather a traditional form of solution with
variations to suit different circumstances which are selected and constructed
without a thought of the principles involved.
In the past many objects with very sophisticated design have been
consistently made with a similar lack of understanding of the theoretical
background. This procedure is often referred to as "blacksmith design" after
the craftsman who traditionally designed objects as he made them, using
undrawn traditional patterns handed down from generation to generation.
[13:11-12]
J. Christopher Jones, one of the originators of the systematic design in the sixties, adds to
the topic of the craft design the following statement:
... the craft process can produce a beautiful and complicated object that could be
mistaken for the work of a highly skilled designer.
Craft products also appear to have the organic look of plants, animals and
other naturally-evolved forms [see 21: W.G.J. The surprising thing to us is that
the beautifuHy organized complexity of the farm wagon, the rowing boat, the
violin and the axe, should be achieved without the help of trained designers and
also without managers, salesmen, production engineers and the many other
specialists upon whom modern industry depends.
It is equally surprising that an illiterate craftsman, with only his simple tools
to help him, appears to govern an evolutionary process without any equivalent
of genetic coding from which to derive the complex forms that he reproduces.
[10:15]
The body of background knowledge of the craft design is the craftsmen's experience, and it
is why we suggested to call the design approach characteristic for this stage as an experiential
approach. It is important, however, to add after Jones that "Craftsmen do not, and often
cannot, draw their works, and neither can they give adequate reasons for decisions they make"
[10:19].
The problematics and the set of aims are of the same nature as of the natural design
approach. The only difference is that some of them were gradually formulated in a more
precise form.
The design methodics is still the same but thanks to specialization amongst craftsmen the
trial-and-error way produced some local 'invisible lines' of good design [10:19] short cuts
different for different crafts.
Engineering. The experiential approach was the intermediate phase between the natural
design and the scientific one. It allowed the design civilization to emerge. The next stage, the
engineering stage, grounded the design civilization as a foundation of the industrial society.
 160

Differences between natural and experiential design approaches were quantitative while the
difference between pre-engineering and engineering stages is qualitative. Mumford. and Bunge
after him. identify the differences in different bodies of knowledge: the body of knowledge of
the first stage. called technics. is a prescientific technical knowledge. the body of knowledge of
the second stage. called technology. is science-based technical knowledge [2:220].
"It may be argued that design in the light of practical knowledge is the hub of technics.
whereas design in the light of scientific knowledge is the hub of technology." [2:225].
Technology as such is studied by the philosophy of technology. It is surprising.
however. that the concept of design has escaped many philosophers [2:225]. Tadeusz
Kotarbinski. a founding father of Polish praxiology. whom design had not escaped. escaped
Bunge. Nevertheless Mario Bunge writes that the philosophy of technology
... is concerned with the ontological problem of the peculiarities of
technological knowledge and its relation to basic and applied science. with the
pragmatic (or praxiological) problem of defining the concept of rational action.
(i.e. action guided by designs and plans). with the axiological problem of
identifying and analyzing the typical values of technology. such as efficiency
and reliability. with the ethical problem of the moral codes that the various
branches of technology should abide by-and many more problems. [2:219]
Kotarbinski introduced a concept of design as a characteristic feature of any practical
(i.e. applied) discipline as early as in 1929 when he published his Gnosiology [11] in Polish
for the first time. The concept of design has been elaborated by Polish philosophers before
World War II [12] and extensively after the War. especially since the sixties. The very fact was
noticed by Stephen Toulmin who wrote:
In recent years. the philosophy of science has been cultivated intensively. but
the philosophy of technology has been almost totally neglected: a dark. yawning
void explored only by a few Marxists. some social and aesthetic philosophers.
and Polish praxiologists from the school of Kotarbinski. [22]
In the late sixties I established a Design Methodology Unit within the Department of
Praxiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences which gave birth to the design methodology
praxiologically approached [4].
Coming back to the design approach characteristic for the engineering stage. we may
adopt Bunge's definition of technology capturing the essence of the approach. According to
him technology is "... the field of knowledge concerned with designing artifacts and planning
their realization. operation. adjustment. maintenance. and monitoring in the light of scientific
knowledge." [2:231].
Any technology. according to Bunge. is an ordered eleven-tuple T =<C. S. D. G. F. B.
p. K. A. M. v> where: C is the professional community consisting of specially trained persons
involved in design of artifacts of some kind; S is the society or societal context of C; D is the
 161

domain of natural and artificial real entities; G is the general outlook (or philosophical
background) of technology consisting of ontology, epistemology (realistic), and ethos of the
utilization of resources; F is the formal background (logic and mathematics); B is the specific
background (data, theories, designs, etc.); P is the problematics (cognitive and practical
problems of D and other components of 1); K is the fund of knowledge; A is the aims of C; M
is the methodics consisting of the scientific method and the technological method (practical
problem-design-prototype-test correction-reformulation of problem): V is a set of values
[2:231-232].
Classical technologies consist of engineering (which acquired its scientific status in late 18th
century only [2:241]) and technologies of life and mind (i.e. medicine, psychiatry, education
science, etc.). In early stages engineering was mono-disciplinarian. This ethos is still
supported in traditional disciplines by many universities and professional institutions. This
approach is promoted even by newly established journals like Research in Engineering Design
and Journal of Engineering Design.
Systems Engineering. Inter- and multi-disciplinarity or multiple perspective concept
were introduced by system oriented scholars and technologists. The process of introducing this
approach started some three or four decades ago. The new technology was called systems
engineering [3]. It was accompanied by and associated with growing movement towards
establishing design research, design studies, design theory or design science. For the history
of this movement see [6]. The emerging discipline produces the so-called planning and design
approach [17]. Let us summarize the approach.
"Anyone who seeks to create or restructure and implement a system-generalizes Nadler-
is doing planning and design (P&D). The person whose career centers on providing assistance
to specific people and organizations wanting such creation or change is a P&D professional ....
Two ingredients separate the planning and design approach (PDA) ... from other theories of
planning and design. First, PDA has as its conceptual basis a timeline perspective, a purpose-
oriented strategy, and a prescriptive systems outlook. P&D is perceived as a holistic process
with five main factors: pursuing a strategy, specifying the solution framework, involving
people, using knowledge and information, and arranging for continual change and
improvement Successful P&D involves the integrated performance along the timeline of these
factors in a flexible and interactive way.
Second, PDA specifies methodologies and techniques for operationalizing its conceptual
basis. PDA is not a vast array of 'shoulds'; it spells out the 'hows'. A PDA scenario
incorporates the following components:
- A strategy focusing on purposes to be achieved rather than upon details of existing problems.
- Techniques to foster innovation and creativity throughout the process.
- The use of a solution matrix for plan preparation.
- Continual contract between the client's world and the P&D professionals.
 162

- Involvement of all persons necessary to detail and implement a solution, including

administrator, workers, experts and affected groups.
- Techniques to foster commitment throughout the process.
- An initial focus on those conditions that occur most frequently or are most important
- Generation of many alternative solutions, and selection of one to serve as a long-term target
that is ideal and feasible.
- Methods for encouraging multichanneled or pluralistic solutions to fit real-world diversities.
- Arranging for continual review and change.
- Limiting the amount of data collection to satisfy only the needs of the efforts.
- Limiting the use of models and analysis techniques to situations where they are necessary to
achieve purposes. [17:1-2].
Although systems engineering together with systems theory and decision theory are
considered as general technology [2:303-307] they are still programs rather than real practice of
professional design. It is because the prevailing perspective is a technical (in a very narrow
sense) one.
The Linstone's idea of the multiple perspective approach expressed for the first time in late
seventies [16], then elaborated in early eighties [15, and recently revisited [14] regretfully ..
does not enjoy the popularity it deserves.
It is reasonable to accept Hall's statement that systems methodology, identified as
praxiology, is
... only a dream. But it exists amorphously in the aggregate of its parts .... It
is not yet whole, but it is undergoing a process of progressive systematization -
like a star coalescing from cosmic dust. There are counter-forces too: The
continual proliferation of specialists, the determined efforts of academic
departments to protect their turfs, and the devise tactics of special interest. [9]

Towards a Design Culture

One may observe some recent efforts to transform the existing design civilization into a design
culture. Such a culture should be built not only on the bases of knowledge for design, (Le.
knowledge devoted to systems under a design procedure), but also on design, (Le.
'designological' knowledge that comes from different design studies and research).
Contemporary designology does not aspire to be a "... general design method enabling one to
execute designs in the rule-directed manner and without any substantive knowledge" [2:228].
It offers instead a new insight into design activity like epistemological studies offer deeper
understanding of scientific research.
 163

The new synthesis of design studies have been recently formulated by [9,7,24] as well as
by authors of some contributions to the First International Congress on Planning and Design
Theory held in Boston in 1987.
Some of the participants of the Boston Congress and the participants of the Workshop on
the Development of a Design Culture held in Chios in 1988 formulated [Boston] Manifesto and
Chios Declaration challenging the designing and systems studies [5].

Design Approach and Educational Systems Design

Design approach is, as we tried to show it, closely related to knowledge and abilities of
designers whether non-professional or professional.
The first written source of an intellectual content necessary for a designer (an architectus)
was the Vitruvius' De Architectura Libri Decem written some two thousand years ago [23]. It
was really peculiar how close the intellectual menu offered to the ideal system engineer by A.
D. Hall [8] in his first book devoted to systems engineering was to the Vitruvius' one.
Recently Hall acknowledged my praxiological comments [3] to the two specifications [9].
The question now is whether contemporary educational systems are able to introduce a
design culture into their curricula. I am afraid that only some of them are able and ready to do
that. It is caused by many inhibitors described by Donald A. Schon [19, 20]. Some others
were identified by the participants of the Aegean Seminar in Chios mentioned above.
Educational systems need interventions that enable them to respond in a relevant way to the
challenge they face from the sound idea of a design culture. It seems that among other
interventions one is extremely important in the period of a transition from a design civilization
to a design culture era. It is an adaptation of a well established (system) design approach to
design of educational systems.
The main trends in education correspond to differences in psychological,
sociological, and philosophical orientation .... A new type of school is slowly
being designed by a handful of educators under the influence of developmental,
cognitive, and social psychology, as well as of a few philosophers. The new
school rejects the model of the child as a passive vessel to be filled with
information .... The goal of the new school is to help children develop at their
own pace ... , working under guidance on projects of their own choice. [2:258-
259]
The same fits in professionals identified as reflective practitioners [20].
The relevance of design approach to the design of educational systems is apparently of a
three-fold nature: (i) contemporary design approach introduces changes in educational systems,
(ii) changes in educational systems need a conceptual preparation, (i.e. application of design
 164

approach), (iii) teaching and learning offered by educational systems should be based on an on-
going design processes executed by teachers and learners.

References

1. Bunge, M.: Epistemology and Methodology I. In: Treatise on Basic Philosophy,Vol.5.

Dordrecht: Reidel (1983)
2. Bunge, M.: Epistemology and Methodology III. In: Treatise on Basic Philosophy,Vol.
7. Dordrecht: Reidel, (1985)
3. Gasparski, W.: In Two Thousand Years: From Vitruvius to Systems Engineering,
General Systems Yearbook, Vol. XXVI, pp. 135-145 (1981)
4. Gasparski, W.: Design Methodology: A Personal Statement. In: Philosophy of
Technology: Practical, Historical, and Other Dimensiones (P.T. Durbin, ed.) pp. 153-167
Dordrecht: Kluwer (1989)
5. Gasparski, W.: On the General Theory (Praxiology) of Design. Design Methods and
Theories, Vol. 24, No.2, pp. 1195-1215 (1990)
6. Gasparski, W., Gregory, S.A., Foque, R., and Strzalecki, A.: Contemporary History of
Design Science. Praxiology:No. 3, pp. 147-156 (1983)
7. Gasparski, W. and Strzalecki, A, (Eds.): Contributions to Design Science: Praxiological
Perspective. Design Methods and Theories, Vol. 24, Nos 2,3, 4, Vol. 25, Nos 1,2, 3
(1990)
8. Hall, A D.: . A Methodology for Systems Engineering. Princeton: van Nostrand (1962)
9. Hall, A D.: Metasystems Methodology: A New Synthesis and Unification. Oxford:
Pergamon Press (1989)
10. Jones, J. Ch.: Design Methods: Seeds of Human Futures. London: Wiley-Interscience
(1972)
11. Kotarbinski, T.: Gnosiology: The Scientific Approach to the Theory of Knowledge
Oxford: Pergamon Press (1965)
12. Krzeczkowski, K.: On Practical Sciences Position (in Polish), Nauka Polska, Vol. XXI
(1936) (republished in W. Gasparski and D. Miller, Eds., Projektowanie i Systemy
[Design Systems], 1986, Vol. VIII, pp. 11-35).
13. Lawson, Bo.: How Designers Think. London: Architectural Press. (1983)
14. Linstone, H.A: Multiple Perspectives: Concept, Applications, and User Guidelines.
Systems Practice, Vol. 2, No.3, pp. 307-331 (1989)
15. Linstone, H.A, et al.: The Multiple Perspective Concept. Technological Forecasting &
Social Change: An Internationallournal, pp. 275-325 (1981)
16. Linstone, H.A and Simmonds, W.H.C., (Eds.): Futures Research: New Directions.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley (1977)
17. Nadler, G.: The Planning and design Approach. Wiley, New York (1981)
18. Ortega y Gasset, J.: El hombre y fa gente. Madrid (1969)
19. SchOn, D.A: The Reflective Practitioner: How Prefessionals Think in Action. New
York: Basic Books (1983)
20. SchOn, D.A.: Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching
and Learning in the Professions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publications (1987)
21. Steadman, P.: The Evolution of Designs: Biological Analogy in Architecture and the
Applied Arts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1979)
22. Toulmin, S.: Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts,
Princeton: Princeton University Press (1977)
23. Vitruvius: On Architecture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1955)
24. Warfield, J.N.: Science of Generic Design. Intersystems: Salinas, CA (1990)
25. Young, J.Z.: An Introduction to the Study of Man. London: Oxford University Press
(1974)
Surrendering to the Environment in
Educational System Design

Oguz N. Babiiroglu

Bilkent University, P.O. Box 8,06572 Ankara, Turkey, and Clarkson University, U.S.A.

Abstract: Surrendering to the environment changes the focus of design from the educational
system to an environmental adaptive capacity. The objective of surrendering is to produce non-
learning whereby all previous assumptions are shattered. One such environmental capacity is
learner's anonymous (LA) which is a structured environment to facilitate surrendering. In LA
individuals suspend perceived notions of self in the pursuit of access to a larger whole through
a group process methodology.

Keywords: Surrender, vortical environment, turbulent environment, learner's anonymous,

non-learning, educational systems, educapath, stalemate.

Introduction

The starting assumption of this paper is that the environments have evolved into a causal texture
beyond the turbulent one [12, 13]. In the new environmental causal texture that is called
"vortical" [2], the complexity and connectedness are at a threshold level, without further
restructuring no more complexity can be absorbed by the constituent systems and their relevant
environments. Furthermore, attempts to deal with the utmost complexity and connectedness by
constituent systems have resulted in maladaptive responses. Hence, the actions and designs
construed to reduce the uncertainty and the rate of change generated by the turbulent
environments have created a causal texture to which adaptation is next to impossible. As a result
of the maladaptive responses, ultimate degree of complexity is reached when the system and its
relevant environment can not be made more complex. In this medium, there is no more room
for either additional complexity or flexibility and as such the connectedness and interrelatedness
avenues between the parts, the parts and the system and between the system and its relevant
environment have become rigid, clinched and frozen.
The specific maladaptive responses that produce the rigidifying processes are stalemate,
polarization and dogmatism [2]. Stalemate is the process that debilitates the system's ability to
change and find another relevant environment (domain) that is more favorable for survival.
Stalemated social systems are characterized by additional inability to agree upon a shared image
of a future for the system as a whole. At the wake of probable disintegration, the system's
 166

future explicitly or implicitly is reduced to the probable future of the subsystems or more vocal
parts. Polarization is what sustains the stuckness of the stalemated systems through governing
the interaction between the opponents moves. The fabric is polarized when the parts violently
oppose each other and the system. A value system is adopted as would be expected under
turbulent conditions but one that seeks to resolve all the uncertainties of the past, present and
future with definitive and absolutist means which we have labelled dogmatism. The vortical
causal texture therefore is a paradoxical medium. It is generated both by turbulent conditions
and rigidifying responses. On one hand unexpected changes, uncertainities and new
interdependencies are generated and on the other defensive maladaptive responses such as
stalemate, polarization and dogmatism attempt to freeze all the changes and interdependencies,
and impose deterministic certainty. Another paradox is when the system tries to mirror the
variety in the environment through fragmentation, yet that the variety is consumed by the
rigidifying processes. While rigidifying processes develop firm system boundary, turbulent
processes perpetually penetrate the system's boundary to create new instabilities.

Do Such Textures Emerge and Exist in Educational Systems?

Two Cases

A university in Western Pennsylvania that the author has had four years of involvement with
had evolved into a vortical causal texture. Faculty and staff unions, and administration were
formed into exclusive and warring groups. The outcomes of polarization could be seen in the
highest number of grievances filed in 1984 compared to any other year. Other cleavages that
fostered polarization were between the "old guard" conservatives and the "new guard" liberals,
intense inter-departmental rivalry between for instance business administration and public
administration departments that has sometimes resulted in fist fights, bitter memos and shouting
matches, intra-departmental polarization between the tenured and non-tenured faculty members
and even the geographical location of some faculties such as the north and south campuses. The
faculty kept the administration in check for every move that the administration made through the
collective bargaining vehicles, the use of community leaders, the board of trustees or through
the Governor. The administration for its share of the no-win conflict, reorganized the structure
in order to divide perceived power centers, vetoed the elected administrative positions and
obstructed other faculty requests by delaying their approval. Consequently, the university'S
overall image suffered with negative name calling such as "suitcase university that awards K-
Mart degrees." Poor faculty morale, unstable administrative structures, high student attrition
were the results of protracted stalemates and the university was one of the highest in the country
to have received two centures and a threat of one, by the American Association of University
 167

Professors for infringement of faculty freedoms. Another similar context, this time in the
author's native land Turkey, was experienced in the middle and late 1970s. All the universities
were the grounds for political rivalry between the left and right wing political activists. Almost
the entire student body was divided into camps that was organized by armed militants. The best
situation on campus could be described by a class held in a lecture theatre that divided the left
and right wing students by seating the national guard through the middle. The worst was
political violence that resulted in the death of many students particularly towards the end of the
1970s. Boycotting classes that lasted for months was the mild form of protest aimed at either
the Government or the university administration or at some political event.
The above two cases in two different countries justify the further inquiry into this special
context and the relevance of causal texture to educational systems. In both instances the
universities were engaged in many far reaching transitions but were not able to complete their
transition to a more viable state. Instead they got stuck in the middle of their transitions and
created a causal texture that sustained a paradoxical medium of "unstable stability." [6]
description of the fragmentation the American public school system is undergoing represents
another testimony for encountering similar realities. To note some consequences of
maladaptation in public SChDOI systems, the State of Georgia has declared drop-outs, drug
abuse and teenage pregnancies as state emergencies [16]. Many schools in the declining parts of
cities have turned into war zones between rival gangs.

System Age versus Machine Age Education

Ackoff [1] fairly early on identified the challenge of the transition of education systems for the
machine age to the systems age and identified the desirable properties of the systems age
education systems. For instance, Ackoff [1] proposed that systems age education should
individualize students and preserve uniqueness by tailoring itself to fit them, not by requiring
them to fit it; that it should be organized as a continuing if not continuous process; that should
be carried out by educational systems which can and do learn and adapt. Emery & Emery [15]
designed learning and planning communities and Emery and Trist [14] among others designed
how through socio-tech design workers can continue to learn while they are at work. This was
a breakthrough since it emphasized learning as a part of work and work as a part of learning.
Emery [9, 11] introduced a new paradigm of learning based on the ecological principles of
Heider and Gibson that facilitated direct learning as opposed to the indirect and abstract ways
assumed in the Lockean tradition. Ecological paradigm rests on perception of invariants in the
environment as opposed to the transmission of existing knowledge; it depends on the
collaboration of learners and not the teacher-pupil relationships; it occurs in community settings
 168

and is based on reality centred projects as opposed to taking place in the school/classroom and
around textbooks.
Despite many successes around the world and despite the recognition of the continuous
nature of the design process, we are still not satisfied with either our systems or our design
processes. We have not managed to rescue these processes from the machine age realities and
bureaucratic approaches to designing school systems and from curricula that compartmentalize
learning. We still treat the school as a factory. The student is treated like a raw material coming
onto a production line and treated in the work stations called classes. They are seated in rows
and periodically inspected and examined for measuring against some standards. This has come
about because we have disected education into schools, curricula, grades, subjects, courses,
lectures and exercises. Courses are disconnected and instructors take special pride in
emphasizing the separateness of the subjects into what is called disciplines. The above is a
statement regarding the difficulty of the transition to systems age education and an argument for
being stuck in the middle of a transition from machine age to systems age education. Since the
systems age education designs are taking a long time to emerge and to get implemented,
maladaptive responses will become increasingly salient and produce situations that may be as
drastic as outlined in the two cases generated above. This is why we are suggesting that vortical
environments are emerging out of existing turbulent conditions [2]. As such we argue for the
theoretical premise that vortical causal textures depend on turbulent conditions and the
persistence of unsuccessful attempts to adapt to them.

Surrendering as Adaptation to Vortical Environments

Social systems design to cope with vortical environments require at least a three front approach;
developing environmental adaptive capacity, a threshold event and a surrender strategy by
immersed systems [3]. In turbulent environments survival was dependent on a collaborative
approach to developing inter-organizational domains and flexible structures by participating
systems that could help seek ideals for desired futures [19, 20]. In vortical environments,
existing environmental adaptive capacity in terms of latent or realized inter-organizational
networks is very crucial for adaptation. The network/domain provides a temporary safe haven
for the system or individual on the verge of disintegration due to the forces of the vortical
environment. This kind of network serves to suspend the fall of the system caught up in a
vortex and facilitates the system to re-integrate back to the environment.The system surrenders
into this temporal or permanent network and freezes every day demands on it so that it can
engage in reflective activity. The network composed of the stakeholders help in both the
examination and the reconstructive effort. By surrendering the system seeks the experience of
unity or of system ness and belonging to a larger system. Surrender requires an ability to "let
 169

go" of the desire to assert individual desire to control its own destiny. Instead, the social system
by surrendering to the environment opens up the possibility to rely on the requisite variety of
the environment.
For a social system to consider surrender as a strategy of adaptation, a threshold point has
to come about or be brought about by the stakeholders. This point cannot be predicted or
planned in advance. However, a paradoxical intervention [18] or therapeutic double bind [4]
may induce this threshold point. By this approach we mean somehow prescribing the
conditions that produce the vortex or having the social system immersed in a vortex, and
experience the pathological circumstance so that the need to surrender to the environment is
dramatically realized.

Educational Systems Design in Vortical Environments

Educational system design should embody the same principles of a methodology for
intervention if vortical conditions seem to prevail. Some of the symptoms of vortical conditions
may be but not limited to, polarization between the factory-like school system and systems age
education, rapidly advancing educational technology and rapidly advancing and complicated
knowledge, inappropriate and ineffective learning, high failure and high drop out rates,
irrelevant education, warzone-like school environment, polarization between faculty and
administration or between students and administration, and a no-win situation for all
constituents. Let us label this context "education pathology" and the persons caught up in it
"educapaths."
Paradoxical approach has a tremendous relevance for approaching the vortical context and
hence for surrender methodology in educational design. Since surrender in itself is a
paradoxical act: one "let's go" and surrenders to a larger system in order to search for a new
identity or a new configuration. Therefore, educational design must capitalize on the power of
paradox as is implied in the folk wisdom: "The more I know, the more I know that I don't
know." Education must be paradoxical--note that I don't mean educational experiences in small
doses scheduled into a structure that resembles the assembly line. However, the structure if
thought paradoxically be able to negate itself as in the consideration of structure as process.
Search conference like methodologies that embody a process that allows for self-emergent
structures are excellent examples of the experience of education. One paradoxical criteria that
can be met with minor adjustments in the existing educational process is: the more disciplinary
should imply the more inter-disciplinary and the more inter-disciplinary should imply the more
disciplinary. Surrendering occurs in lapsing into a medium where it makes no difference
whether one approaches learning in a disciplinary or inter-disciplinary way. The other
paradoxical criteria is: the more the education is focused in the school the more it should focus
 170

in other settings such as home, work or society; that is within inter-educational domains.
Surrendering occurs in lapsing into a complementary medium where school, home and other
settings reinforce each other in a wholistic way.
Such a complementary medium is called "environmental adaptive capacity." This is the
equivalent of the safe haven where there is no punishment for failing and that evaluation is
undertaken in subjective terms. Such inter-domains designed to deliver pluralistic experiences
of philosophy, epistemology and methodology to facilitate self help, design, and self
government. The mission of surrendering would be to discover a new learner within oneself
and within the learning community to restructure the existing perceptions and presuppositions
about learning in a critical and reflective manner.This medium should be able to produce not
only learning but also "non-learning." Non-learning is a spontaneous occurrence at a threshold
point where access to a larger whole is conceived or experienced. Non-learning is not no-
learning because it enables the individual to reconstruct access to larger wholes, that is to
transcend the existing institutional or self imposed boundaries for a period of time. This is the
type of learning that Bateson [4] has labelled "Learning III" which he warns may be totally
beyond the reach of language. It is the degree that someone learns to perceive and act in terms
of contexts of contexts. Bateson [4] argues that "the concept of "self' will no longer function as
a nodal argument in the punctuation of experience. He suggests that learning III is about
resolving contraries so that what has been learned at level II reveals a "simplicity in which
hunger leads to eating, and the identified self is no longer in charge of organizing the behavior."
Another possibility of an outcome of learning III according to Bateson [4] is when "the
resolution of contraries reveals a world in which personal identity merges into all the processes
of relationship in some vast ecology or aesthetics of cosmic reaction ... Every detail of the
universe is seen as proposing a view of the whole."

Learners Anonymous

A design analogous to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) which will be called Learners Anonymous
(LA) is suggested to serve as the environmental adaptive capacity. LA is a group that could be
set up by any two or three persons and could meet in any convenient place. The group can meet
in any educational medium, be at work, school or in the neighborhood and no agenda is
dictated to pre-determine a disciplinary or an inter-disciplinary orientation. According to the
needs of the learners the focus can change between one mode or another. It is a safe haven
where people who are in some despair about the state of education and of educational
institutions and/or who are dissatisfied with their learning can resort to. The purpose of LA is to
continue learning and to facilitate others' learning; that is community learning and learning in a
community.
 171

The first step is to admit that the learner is powerless over the educapathological situation.
Slhe is unable to change the situation by self control or by self assertion and that there has to be
an implicit experience of defeat. This serves as Bateson [4] argues as a move away from a
Cartesian dualism between self or "conscious will" and the remainder of personality. Therefore,
in the philosophical perspective it is not a surrender but a change in epistemology to facilitate
non-learning. It is a change regarding how one gets to know about the personality/system-in-
the-whole. It is what is akin to ecological learning that Emery [11] refers to where the
individual is viewed within the environment (indeed this is how the vortical environment is
conceptualized in [2]). Hence, change of epistemology is a way of re-integrating the learner into
a relevant environment in which learning can continue. What was ruptured, disconnected and
alienated now forms a new way of belonging to the same or different wholes.
Whereas an educapath views relationships in a symmetrical way, in surrender the mode of
relationship is complementary. An educapath tends to foster a polarization process between
various dualities and as we described above, this is one of the fundamental maladaptive
responses that causes a vortical environment to take hold. Polarization or contraries embodies a
symmetrical relationship so that a given behavior in A stimulates more of it in B. In educational
system design for instance more insistence on a systems paradigm would stimulate a demand to
stiffen up and regulate the compartmentalized education by the current administrators. In
complementary relationship that surrender invokes, more of a given behavior of A stimulates a
fitting behavior by B. Therefore, in educational system design one way to intervene is to create
an environmental adaptive capacity that facilitates more fitting behavior. Such adaptive capacity
is imminent in the LA and it is conceived to facilitate fitting behavior between any kind of
schism.
A threshold point however needs to be reached so that surrendering self-control and
assertion is possible. This threshold point is called "hitting bottom" in alcoholics anonymous.
Bateson [4] defines bottom "as a spell of panic which provides a favorable moment for change,
but not a moment at which change is inevitable." There are many ways of hitting bottom and the
experience of hitting bottom is different for different types of educapaths; an administrator may
feel that everything in the school system is falling out of control, a drop-out may be thrown out
of every school s/he tries, or a gang member may come very close to being killed.
Anonymity serves as a vehicle for easier focus on the learners' community than on the
learner herlhimself. Anonymity strategy implies a figure ground reversal in teaching a different
epistemology and re-integrational process. The larger context or the whole becomes the figure
to be appreciated as opposed to the identity of the person which now shifts to the background.
It should also serve as a reminder that personal ambition and assertiveness are counter to the
philosophy of learners anonymous.
We pointed out above that the LA can be set up anywhere by two or three people wanting a
safe haven. The meetings, to be held as frequently as it is felt to be necessary, is the core
 172

building block of the LA The meetings constitute an autonomous and self governing learning
unit and should be conducted with minimum critical specifications [7, 8]. A more experienced
sponsor should facilitate the meeting so long as they are aware that they will fade into the
background as soon as the group is able to self manage. The meetings should proceed in a
search conference [7, 13] like process or an agendaless group [5] consistent with the principles
of democratic dialogue [17]. Search conference is a learning and design methodology that has
been implemented for many contexts (including formal educational institutions) that integrates
systems thinking principles in its conduct. Since search for new knowledge is in LA's purpose,
the search conference methodology is specially suited as a working practice for LA However,
these methodologies have to be adapted for producing non-learning within individuals or within
the structure of the environment.

References

1. Ackoff, R.L., (1974) Redesigning The Future, New York: John Wiley.
2. Baburoglu, O.N., (1988), The vOltical environment: The fifth in the Emery-Trist levels of
organizational environments. Human Relations, 41,3, 181-210.
3. Baburoglu, O.N., (1991), Is the end of free fall, free fall? The focus of adaptation in
vortical environments, (Geyes, F. eds.), The Cybernetics of Complex Systems: Self
Organization, Evolution, Social Change, p. 209-221. Salinas, CA: InterSystems
Publications.
4. Bateson, G., (1972), Steps to an Ecology of Mind, New York: Balantine.
5. Beer, S., (1990), On suicidal rabbits, Systems Practice Vol 3, No 3.
6. Christiansen, S., (1990) Are we in Abilene yet? Helping a systemic inquiry and redesign
process to survive in school, Comprehensive Education Design Workshop, Asilomar,
Monterey, CA
7. Crombie, A, (1984), The nature and types of search conferences, International Journal of
Lifelong Education, 4, 1, 3-33.
8. Emery, F.E., (1989), The jury system and participative democracy, in (Emery, M. ed.),
Participative Design For Participative Democracy, ANU, Canberra.
9. Emery, F.E., (1989), Educational paradigms: An epistemological revolution, in
(M.Emery, ed.), Participative Design For Participative Democracy, ANU, Canberra.
10. Emery, F.E., (1989), The light on the hill--skill formation or democratization of work, in
(M.Emery, ed.) Participative Design For Participative Democracy, ANU, Canberra.
11. Emery, F.E., (1982), New Perspectives on the world of work: Sociotechnical foundations
for a new social order, Human Relations, 35, 12, 1095-1122.
12. Emery, F.E. & Trist, E., (1973), Towards A Social Ecology, New York.:Plenum.
13. Emery, F.E. & Trist, E., (1965), Causal texture of organizational environments, Human
Relations, 18,1,21-32.
14. Emery, M. (1982), Searching, Centre for Continuing Education, ANU, Canberra.
15. Emery, M. & Emery, F.E., (1978), Searching: For new direction, in new ways-for new
times, (J.W. Sutherland, ed.), Management Handbook for Public Administrators, New
York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
16. Garr, A, & Baburoglu, 0., (1987) Governor's commision on children and youth:
Conference Summary, St. Simons, Georgia.
17. Gustavson, B. & Engelstad P., (1987) Conferences and Democratic Dialogue, Human
Relations.
18. Palazzoli, M.S., Boscolo, L., Cecchin, G., & Prata, G., (1978) Paradox & Counter-
paradox, Aronson.
 173

19. Trist, E.L., (1981), The evolution of Socio-technical systems: A conceptual framework
and an action research program, (A. Van de Ven & W. Joyce, eds.), Perspectives on
Organizational Design and Behavior, New York:Wiley Interscience.
20. Trist, E.L., (1977), A concept of organizational ecology, Australian Journal of
Management, 2,162-175.
'Jumping Out' of the Existing System During Design
Genesis: Penetrating the Anxiety Barrier

Tad Gougen Frantz

California Family Study Center, 5433 Laurel Canyon Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91607,
U.S.A.

Abstract: Banathy's generic architecture for design is modified into a model for idealized
systems design. A community of fourth-generation designers is added to the model as a
container for design activities. Some cultural characteristics of design communities are
suggested. Added to design genesis are the activities of penetrating an anxiety barrier to "jump"
conceptually outside of existing reality in order to allow dreaming and "heartstorming."
Suggestions are offered for facilitating these activities.

Keywords: Idealized systems design, design culture, design community, fourth generation
designer, generic architecture" for design.

Introduction: A Rationale for 'Jumping Out' of the Existing System During

Design Genesis

When circumstances in any system of human activity [10] become such that change is deemed
desirable, it is common to refer to those circumstances as "problems" and for persons affected
by the problems to attempt to solve them. They often being with qualitative and quantitative
studies of the problems. When sufficient understanding has been achieved, they design
solutions which are then tried and tested, preferably by rigorous empirical measures of
effectiveness. Effectiveness is determined by the extent to which the problems are solved and or
by the extent to which the designed changes have been instituted. Ideally, the entire undertaking
is then evaluated for its effectiveness in addressing the initial set of problems and its likelihood
of being effective elsewhere.
Without denying the usefulness of this approach, Ackoff [1] and Banathy [7] have noted
that it significantly constrains design options. Framing initial circumstances as "problems" and
design as "problem solving" limits designers' purview to the existing systems which contain
the "problems." This type of design inquiry asks, "What changes (within the existing system)
would eliminate or bypass the identified problems? Would those changes create any additional
problems (for/given the existing system)? What resources are available (from existing
systems)?" Parentheses around the phrase "in the existing system" suggest this to be an
 175

unacknowledged assumption made by inquirers. The "problem-solving" approach limits

creative imaginings about "what could be" to that which "could be" given "what is." Though
quite profound changes are possible with this approach, it commits designers to maintaining
existing systems in some form or another.
When a system's fundamental structures or premises have lost viability, such an approach
is contraindicated. Banathy [7] has argued that education finds itself in such circumstances at
the current time. Problem solving, he maintains, is analogous to rearranging chairs on the deck
of a sinking ship. He calls designers of educational systems, instead, to begin by becoming
familiar enough with existing systems to recognize the wisdom of jumping conceptually outside
them. Then, unconstrained by the exigencies of "what is," they may consider a wider range of
possibilities about what "could be." This has led him to prefer the term "possibility situation"
to the term "problem situation."
This paper suggests some refinements to Banathy's [3,4] approach to design, particularly
the activities of the initial or "genesis" phase of idealized design inquiry. In so doing it identifies
some predictable hindrances to the conceptual task of "jumping out" of existing reality and
offers suggestions for dealing with these difficulties.

Idealized Design Inquiry

Definition of Design

Design has been defined by Banathy [3] as "a disciplined inquiry aimed to conceive the idea for
a proposed system and to prepare a description of it" (p.I-2) and by Matchett [32] as an
optimum resolution to the collective needs of a given situation. Design as it will be used in this
paper refers to a disciplined inquiry that produces the idea for and description of a proposed
system, which represents an optimum resolution to the collective needs of a given situation.
Furthermore, the notions offered here refer to what Banathy calls "fourth generation
designers". 1 First generation designers give a completed design to clients for implementation.
Second generation designers offer a design to clients and receive some feedback from them
before the design is implemented. Third generation designers elicit up-front input from clients
for the design and feedback about it as it becomes ready for implementation. They may also
assist clients with implementation. In contrast, fourth generation designers help clients learn to
design for themselves.

1Personal Communication
 176

8anathy's Generic Design Architecture

Figure 1 offers a useful framework for conceptualizing and organizing design efforts,
Banathy's [3,4] generic architecture for design inquiry. Its five process components freely
interact and their general chronological sequence flows left to right.
The task in its first domain, design genesis, is to set the stage for design. The reasons for
engaging in design must be synthesized into a vision which inspires, shapes and "drives" the
design project. If such a generative vision is to emerge, designers must:
identify the values, basic assumptions and organizing perspectives that will guide their
thinking and action;
develop a rich picture of the existing "possibility situation" and
identify key persons and systems to be involved and assess their readiness for design
[4,18].

The Contextual
and Design
Genesis Space

"Setting the stage

for design"

formulate
organizing
perspectives to (Formulating the Image of the Future System)
system
guide design designed
thinking and explore and reexplore in spiralic mode the
and its
action spaces surrounding design solution
environ
-ment)
develop a rich integrate information, knowledge and
picture of the experience into the emerging image of the
design possibility future system
situation --~--~--~--~

continous infusion of information and

knowledge pertinent to design inquiry

organization of pertinent information

and knowledge to inform design in a timely
fashion and provide substance to the generation
alternatives

Figure 1: Banathy's generic architecture for design inquiry, showing relationships among
and activities within its five components
 177

Designers make use of the organized knowledge base to inform the emerging design and to
help generate valid design alternatives. The experience domain is also created (designed) to
inform the emerging design and to reality test it for goodness-of-fit with the larger systems it
will serve and by which it will be served. During design solution designers interact with all four
surrounding domains to formulate and reformulate models of the future system until consensus
is reached that the design is satisfactory and complete according to criteria formulated during
design genesis. The final domain, that of the future system, contains the model of the new
system and its environment [4,8].

Model of Idealized Design Inquiry

Designing, unconstrained by "what is," has also been advocated by Ackoff [1], who calls it
"idealized system design." In idealized design, the most important specifications and
constraints are the aspirations and values of a system's stakeholders. Discovering them requires
creating conditions that invite and stimulate unconstrained dreaming about "what might be."
As dreams converge, a shared vision of "what ought to be" [44] emerges, which pulls
designers forward in time and into pragmatic reality as they wrestle to discover "what could
be." Ideals are projected forward into the emerging image of the future system. During the later
stages designers seek increasing amounts of feedback from reality about the design's
feasibility, desirability and "fit" with the larger society,
In Figure 2 these notions are modeled onto Banathy's generic architecture, resulting in a
variety of modifications. First, the social context required for idealized design has been
identified as a community of designers committed to creation and enhancement of relationships
with each other which optimize:
participation by each person,
cooperation among persons and integration of their efforts,
emergence of relevant insights, ideas and values, and
effectiveness of design decisions.
Creating this context occurs during design genesis and is shown to embrace activities during
design experience and solution. Attention to enhancing or maintaining such relationships
continues throughout the inquiry, and failure to do so constitutes a rich source of hindrances to
design progress, particularly during design genesis. Designers must allow sufficient time,
effort and resources to build and maintain their design community and its culture.
Second, in Figure 2 the genesis domain had increased in complexity and is shown to
overlap into the design solution, experience and organized knowledge domains. It culminates in
the designers' first glimpse of the new system toward which their dreams and values point. Its
location within the genesis domain signifies its seminal role, and its placement at the model's
 178

center highlights its pivotal role in idealized design. Circumstantial problems push
designerstoward change, but it is the power and attractiveness of their shared inspiration about
the future possibilities that draws them purposefully into design, focusing and organizing their
efforts. The power of this glimpse to shape subsequent efforts is usually belied by its lack of
clarity, precision and complexity. It may take the form of a pithy phrase, a symbolic image or,
initially, merely a strong "felt-sense" of purpose. It often has little attraction, power or meaning
to outsiders; yet when successfully achieved it proves to be:
attractive enough to draw designers into the inquiry and sustain their commitment to it,
powerful enough to draw them through its challenges and
clear enough to organize design activities.
Third, it can be seen in the figure that two initial genesis activities, (1) realizing the
desirability of change in circumstances which are complex, unclear and resistant to traditional
redesign approaches and (2) exploring relevant existing activity systems, focus on existing
reality. Following this, designers separate themselves sufficiently from existing reality to allow
imaginative ideas, meaningful values and deeply experienced passions to emerge:
in the experience domain as a set of values to be embodied by the new system, and
in the solution domain as the dreams described above.
Designers are likely to draw upon relevant theories and attractive philosophical ideals from
the organized knowledge base at this phase.
These activities can be seen to be highly subjective, affective and value-laden. Educators
and scholars, especially those with traditional research backgrounds, usually find these
activities unfamiliar in the context of disciplined inquiry and may object to them as threatening
the validity of their design efforts. Nevertheless, fourth generation designers must understand
and accept the premise that the design of a human activity system is valid, attractive and relevant
to its stakeholders to the extent that it is informed and constrained by their subjective wisdom
and urgings as well as by more objective, rational information and procedures.
"Heartstorming" was the term coined to refer to generating subjective, value-laden
aspirations at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on educational redesign held in
December, 1990, at Asilomar Conference Center in Monterey, California. Used at the opening
meeting it had immediate appeal and was incorporated by several small groups as they designed
their contributions to the overall task. It is used here, as well, to refer to activities that generate
the values and dreams unconstrained by existing reality, which eventually converge into a
shared dream. The three criteria by which heartstorming is assessed for effectiveness
(attractiveness, power and clarity) have been specified above.
After the dream emerges, the predominantly subjective process of heartstorming is
complemented by brainstorming. Design solution activities become increasingly cognitive and
objective, as designers seek to give their dream viability in the real world while preserving its
compatibility with their values and its ability to actualize them. During and after brainstorming
 179

Community of designers committed to creation and enhancement of

relationships with each other which optimize:
participation by each person
.cooperation and purposeful integration among persons
emergence of insights, ideas and values
effectiveness of de=s::ig~n:..d:e::c:::is::i.::o:.::ns;:...._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Experience
Brainstorming

Existing reality:
change is deemed Image of what
desirable in could be that
circumstances is
which are complex,
unclear and attractive
resistant to enough to
traditional Dream overcome
GLIMPSE
approaches to Dream becomes hindrances to
impr1ement uocoo- of increas- its
strained Dream that ingly con- actualization
Explore relevant by strained ...-t--P-
could come
existing activity existing by clear enough
true
systems reality existing for stake
reality holders to see
creai a design ...--t-..p. the whole
community and system &

.
define its culture their part in
and values it

Leap conceptually consensually

out of existing agreed to be
system in order to desirable

Organized Knowledge
Relevant theory, Pertinent empirical
attractive ... ~ knowledge systems
philosophical ideals and methodolo ies

Figure 2: Banathy's generic architecture modified for idealized design inquiry showing:
(1) design activities occurring in the context of a community and "culture" of designers and
(2) further elaboration of activities in the other domains.
 180

designers are likely to draw upon empirical knowledge systems and methodologies from the
organized knowledge base. Inquiry in the experience domain becomes increasingly more
pragmatic and reality-oriented, yet also remains highly value driven.
Ideally, it culminates in a description and image of a new system, embedded in its
environment, to which stakeholders are ready to commit themselves and which promises to be
realizable in the real world. Without detracting from the importance of designing a system to be
practical, it is a central premise of this paper that the quality of idealized design inquiry is most
strongly determined by the quality of what emerges during heartstorming.
The remainder of this paper focuses on the jumping out process, which has been argued to
be a necessary condition for productive heartstorming and creative brainstorming. Predictable
difficulties in jumping out will be identified and suggestions offered for addressing them,
drawn from the author's experience with such designs in a variety of applications.

Predictable Obstacles to 'Jumping Out' of Existing Reality during Design

Genesis

Over the past five years I have been closely involved with nearly two dozen idealized design
inquiries in the various capacities of principal design inquirer, design participant and faculty
advisor to graduate students undertaking design inquiries. I have become increasingly
impressed with the power of idealized design to bring about satisfying changes in complex
social systems and the decisive importance of the initial (genesis) phase to a satisfying outcome.
My first experience with the difficulties involved in conceptually "jumping out" of an
existing social system occurred during my participation with 22 systems scholars, representing
12 countries, in the Fifth Biennial Fuschl Conversation, held at Fuschl Am See, Austria in
April, 1990. The four-day task suggested to the small group in which I participated was to use
ourselves as a laboratory to address the question, "What is a design culture?" Separating
ourselves from existing reality in order to clarify our purpose by sharing our aspirations for the
conversation presented us with a challenge that occupied us for three and a half days and
occasioned no small amount of anxiety and frustration for us.
The earliest efforts involved getting acquainted with each other socially and intellectually.
Because the system the group aspired to become was identified as purpose-seeking [6] in
nature, a high degree of uncertainty, ambiguity, complexity and dynamic, even discontinuous,
change was to be expected. The challenge became how to embrace these conditions and use
them creatively and productively. The somewhat aimless early discussions led each participant
to identify their individual purposes for having chosen this particular small group and what each
desired from the five-day conversation as a whole. These were synthesized into a mission
statement.
 181

Eventu~ly, the suggestion was made that participants reflect on their subjective experience
in the group to identify any anxiety that might be present. The suggestion was based on a
previous design inquiry [17,18] in which participants designed an idealized system for
transforming experienced anxiety into information that enhanced their professional effectiveness
and facilitated both organizational and personal development
That inquiry supported the following related notions suggested by various evolutionary
systems theorists [9,23,24,25,26,39,45,50,51], existential scholars and psychotherapists
[19,33,37,47], developmental stage theorists [11,13,14,20,22,29,31,36,38,40] and literature
pertaining to corporate culture [2,27,28,43]. First, anxiety is a predictable byproduct of
discontinuous change in evolving human systems. Second, this anxiety often hinders
transformative development and emergence. Third, reflecting on anxiety experiences in certain
types of interpersonal situations is likely to render insights that foster development and
progressive emergence. Fourth, individuals and social systems develop repertoires of
automatic, habitual strategies to avoid attending to anxiety-arousing realities.
Four group' participants subsequently described to the group personal concerns related to
their professional interest in system design and/or their participation in the group's task. Two of
these participants had come from Eastern European countries, which had recently emerged from
behind the iron curtain. The instruction to separate from existing reality in order to dream had
elicited special discomfort for them. One stated that it had been many years since she had
dreamed, because it had been too unpleasant to do so given the discrepancy from her yearnings
and the opportunities available to her in reality. Both indicated some reluctance and
embarrassment about sharing their dreams with westerners. They dreamed, they said, about
things that those of us from the west take for granted. They dreamed of collaborating with us
on an equal footing and with a sense of nationalistic pride, unencumbered by what they
perceived to be shameful and frustrating economic, technological and logistical disadvantages.
Such equipment as word processors, modems and FAX machines were simply not available to
them.
The other two described frustrating and anxiety arousing professional and scholarly
dilemmas in which they were currently involved that placed them in conflict with their interest
and belief in the value of system design approaches to complex global problems. A
wholehearted commitment to systems design could well present them personally, they said,
with serious practical problems in their "real world" lives. The effect of these disclosures was
profound and transformative. Group cohesion deepened and creative ideas began to flow.
My next encounter with the difficulties of jumping out of existing reality during design
genesis came within two months as I began to advise sixteen graduate students with their fourth
generation idealized systems design projects. Fifteen of the sixteen inquiries involved idealized
design of an aspect of the students' own family life or their work groups. Students had elected
the idealized systems design option with considerable enthusiasm, sensing in it, they said,
 182

practical relevance to their professional goal of becoming competent marriage, family and child
counselors.
However, as they began to formulate their designs in consultation with me and each other,
one by one they became noticeably anxious and blocked when it came time to jump
conceptually outside of their existing reality to dream. Their sudden shifts from enthusiastic
idea generation to momentary anxiety and stasis surprised them. However, I recognized in
these moments what I had so recently experienced at Fuschl, so I related that experience to the
students and suggested they befriend their anxiety and reflect upon it to discover its message. In
each instance, doing so revealed an aspect of reality that seemed:
subjectively unpleasant for the student,
to the student to be an unchangeable given,
in conflict with important values held by the student, and, therefore
tinged with subjective shame.
Fifteen years of practicing family systems-based psychotherapy and facilitating clinical
training groups has convinced me that this type of experience emerges only when individuals
experience sufficient psychosocial safety (from criticism, shaming or rejection from others),
interest on the part of others and/or personal motivation and expectation of benefit. Unless
designers have created an adequate design culture, about which more will be said in the next
section, participants will not hazard the personal emotional vulnerability required to reflect on
and report their anxiety about conceptually letting go of existing reality in order to dream.
Students willingness to do so suggested strongly that we had created such a culture among
ourselves.
Telling the stories of what the four Fuschl participants reported as they reflected on their
anxiety and the courage it had taken for them to do so and of the powerful effect it had on
everyone seemed to encourage the students to do likewise. Without exception, doing so drew
them into valuable insights which then enabled them to separate conceptually from existing
reality. This enabled them once again to dream productively about what could be.
As an example, one student in her 40's wanted to design with her fiance a marriage free of
the harsh defensiveness that had characterized of each of their parents, their childhood
relationships with parents and siblings, and their own previous unhappy marriages. He had
tentatively agreed to participate, requesting more specifics; and she requested consultation from
me and the four other systems design students in her design learning group.
As she was invited to let past and existing reality fade from her awareness, and dream aloud
about the future, she enthusiastically described her attraction to idealized system design.
However as she began to dream about her future, she abruptly stopped, lost color in her face
and appeared perplexed and anxious. Asked to tell us what she was experiencing, she said she
doubted she could undertake the task. Her mind was a blank, she said, insisting that she
 183

suddenly found herself unable to dream about any aspect of a desirable future for she and her
fiance or to imagine that it was possible for them to do so together.
I commented that her experience seemed very similar to that of the Fuschl participants, and I
told the stories related by the eastern Europeans as they reflected on their subjectively-
experienced anxiety. I tried to convey the affect they expressed and the impact it had on the rest
of us as people and as designers. The students, all of whom identified with their momentarily
stalemated peer, were all visibly moved. "So stay with your inner difficulties," I urged, "and
put them into words as best you can. Something useful will emerge."
She responded immediately that her fears and shame were similar to those of the Fuschl
participants. She was afraid her dreams were impossible, because she could not imagine
realistic means for making them come true. Why create unnecessary disappointment by
dreaming unrealistic dreams? For someone studying to become a marriage and family expert,
she said, admitting this fear, even to herself, brought a humiliating sense of shame and a strong
reluctance to let go of the existing reality to which she believed she had to adjust.
"You have faced the reality of the risk you take and the courage required to dream such
dreams," I responded. "You have demonstrated what to do when anxiety prevents creative
dreaming and illustrated how delicate design inquiry is at this stage. It must be protected so it
can develop. The rest of us are relatively calm, quite interested and grounded in reality. We will
help with our ideas about what you seem to be striving toward. Do you want to stay with this?"
She did.
In the subsequent interchange the group told her it sounded to them as if she dreamed of
designing a childhood defense bypass system. With the articulation of this simple phrase her
anxiety transformed into enthusiasm again, as she caught a clear glimpse of her dream. She
readily committed herself to designing the design that would enable she and her fiance to learn
their way into relationship habits that would attract them more strongly then the old defensive
habits learned in childhood and practiced so frequently in adulthood. During their subsequent
design efforts, they noticed themselves becoming the new system in the process of designing it.
Implementation and design activities were virtually synonymous.

A New Concept Emerges: The "Anxiety Barrier"

From these experiences I have postulated the existence of what I call an anxiety barrier, through
which designers must inevitably jump if they are to engage in idealized design. It has been
added to the conceptual model of idealized design in Figure 3. In reflecting on its nature, I think
of it as a sort of creative void. Individuals become separated from the familiar, experiencing
thereby both its loss and the burden of unlimited freedom of choice. Existentialists [33,47,53]
 184

Community of designers committed to creation and enhancement of

relationships with each other which optimize:
participation by each person
cooperation and purposeful integration among persons
emergence of insights, ideas and values
effectiveness of de,,,s,i~g~n..:d:e:.::c::;is:!.:io~n.:.:s:..-_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Experience
Brainstorming

Existing reality:
change is deemed Image of what
,desirable in could be that
circumstances is
which are complex,
unclear and attractive
resistant to enough to
traditional Dream overcome
GLIMPSE
approaches to Dream becomes hindrances to
improvement ~ uncon- increas- its
of
strained Dream that ingly con- actualization
Explore relevant by strained 4--+-'-'
could come
existing activity by clear enough
existing true
systems ~"'-4--1r~eality existing
reality
for stake
holders to see
Create a design the whole
community and system &
define its culture their part in
and values it

consensually
agreed to be
Leap conceptually desirable
out of existing
system in order to

Relevant theory, Pertinent empirical

attractive "'~I----~~ knowledge systems
philosophical ideals and methodologies

Figure 3: Conceptual model of idealized design inquiry that shows and anxiety barrier though
which designers must penetrate in order to leap conceptually outside of existing reality in order
to dream.
 185

assert that responsibility for choosing what one's life shall be in the face of the freedom to do
so is intensely anxiety arousing. Helmuth Kaiser [15] theorized that this was so because such
choices heighten awareness of our ultimate aloneness, since such choices must ultimately be
made alone. Existential aloneness, he believed, occasions intolerable anxiety, prompting us to
connect with our fellow human beings. Making person-to-person contact alleviates the anxiety
but is potentially problematic. Togetherness puts individuals at risk to loose the autonomy of
thought, feeling and action, which are necessary for creative undertakings. The anxiety barrier
is a paradoxical space in which existential aloneness creates a bifurcation [39] opportunity for
either psychosocial alienation or cohesion.
The implications of all this for creating effective design cultures are, first that anxiety in
individuals is to be expected and utilized as a resource. Second, anxiety predictably
accompanies and potentially blocks the "jumping out" task. Third, as I have observed in every
instance, anxiety initially gives individuals a feeling of isolation or alienation from the group,
but if shared with the group, creates bonds among group members that make both learning and
dreaming possible. Dreaming is very personal. To admit our dreams to ourselves or each other
risks disappointment if the dream is unattainable or derision if it appears foolish or strange to
others. We rarely tell our dreams to strangers. A certain interpersonal climate or "culture," if
you will, has to be established first. Groups of persons who decide to undertake design inquiry
must first become friends. They must experience commonalities at a personal level and have a
reasonable basis for expecting themselves and their dreams to be respected, taken seriously and
regarded as significant by others. When dreams first emerge into personal or group awareness,
they should be regarded as extensions of our most sensitive selves, potentially quite powerful,
but, initially, remarkably fragile.
I do not believe that idealized design cultures can be created rapidly or on demand. They
develop gradually. However, their development is assisted by:
structuring interpersonal contact among all participants that becomes gradually more
personal,
discovery of core values, shared by other participants,
personal kindness and genuine interest in each other,
personal risk-taking, that is, revealing subjectively-valued experiences or ideas that, if
ignored or criticized, would result in feeling personally threatened,
a courageous leader who is willing to do so first,
discovery of common purpose,
establishment of a group norm that values reflecting on anxiety experiences as they occur in
order to learn from them.
 186

In the absence of a sufficiently strong, well-established or effective design culture, "jumping

out," or as I have come to say, "jumping through the anxiety barrier to get conceptually outside
of existing reality' becomes highly problematic, if not impossible.
Carl Rogers [42] identified both outer contextual or cultural (among persons and their
environments) factors and inner (within persons) factors which he believed fostered creativity
and insight. His contextual factors, delineated by Harman and Rheingold [21], are:

1. psychological safely, in which persons experience themselves as being valued and

empathically understood, and
2. psychological freedom in which persons feel free to think, to feel, to express themselves
symbolically, to be whatever is most authentic and in a manner responsible to the group.

I have attempted above to elaborate some of the factors which I believe create these
conditions in purpose-seeking design groups.
Rogers's inner conditions for constructive creativity are:

1. openness to .experience. meaning a willingness to let be what is and a tolerance for

ambiguity and conflicting information,
2. intemallocus of evaluation, meaning that value is subjectively assessed autonomously
within the individual, based of what feels satisfying and authentic, and
3. the ability to toy with elements and concepts, that is, to playfully arrange elements in new
ways and place them in new contexts, consider the wild and the ridiculous, explore the
improbable and conceptually transform what is into what might be.

This section has described the notion of an anxiety which designers must leap if they are to
dream unconstrained by existing reality. Two conditions that favor successful penetration of the
barrier and subsequent dreaming have been described as:
establishment of an effective design culture among design participants and
existence within participants of certain predispositions and abilities that favor creativity.
The next section suggests that certain stories may also help designers penetrate their anxiety by
instructing them at more intuitive levels about how to proceed creatively and productively with
their conceptual journey into the unknown.

Stories and Creativity in Systems for Idealized Design Learning

The previous section described how beginning designers seemingly drew both instruction and
encouragement for penetrating their anxiety during design genesis from stories of other
 187

designers successfully doing so. At the Fuschl Conversation mentioned earlier a mythical story
was told to participants that may have played a similar role. The American Indian teaching story
of "Jumping Mouse" [46] seemed to instruct participants in some inner way that enabled them
to "jump out" and begin to dream. Indian tribes of the American plains appear to have had two
primary means of educating their young: direct experience, in which one learned by doing, and
story-telling, in which one learned by identifying with a character in a story and learned by
vicarious, symbolic doing. Stories are understood by psychotherapists [8,12,16,30,35,41,49,
52] to be effective means by which children and adults learn to structure meaning from
complex, bewildering experience and develop new strategies to deal with it. Stories, they
believe, help us formulate and add complexity to our personal epistemologies.
If a teacher/therapist/designer listens carefully and empathically to the personal experience
of others at impasse, discerns accurately the general structure of the impasse and then selects or
constructs a story about characters in isomorphic circumstances, those persons are likely to
identify unconsciously with the story's characters and their situation. If so, the resolution
achieved by the characters in the story serves as a powerful unconscious suggestion to listeners;
and they seem to generate "spontaneous" new strategies for resolving their dilemmas.
Such a concep~ualization fits well with Harman and Rheingold's [21] four-phase
description of the creative process. In the first phase,called "preparation" or "input," a problem
is recognized as significant and consciously examined and "worked on." Information and ideas
are liberally and intensively brought to bear on it until the conscious mind reaches impasse. In
the second phase, called "incubation," conscious effort ceases and the mental ingredients are
left to "cook" in the unconscious realms, while conscious attention shifts elsewhere. In the third
phase, called "illumination," a new insight or creative solution flashes suddenly into conscious
awareness. The [mal phase, called "verification" involves reality- testing the new idea.
Stories can powerfully facilitate creativity during the incubation phase by bringing elements
of a "possibility situation" into new arrangements, placing them in new conceptual frames or
transforming them in imaginative ways. Stories are most useful at the moment designers reach
impasse (incubation), and may well hasten the moment of illumination and structure its content.
They also help shift conscious attention away from the task, so that elements may incubate and
so that unconscious effort may be brought to bear on them. This involves a shift in
consciousness that is often difficult for persons intensely engaged in conscious work on a
personally significant situation. It takes wisdom to discern the optimal moment and skill to
attract group attention to a story. This aspect of story-telling is best regarded as belonging to the
art. rather than the science, of fourth generation designers.
 188

Summary

Banathy's generic architecture for design has been elaborated above into a model for idealized
design inquiry for fourth generation designers. The social context required for idealized design
was added to the model and described as a community of designers committed to creating and
fostering relationships among themselves which optimize psychological safety and freedom,
participation by all, cooperation, emergence of relevant insights, and personal risk-taking. The
genesis domain was extended into the design solution, experience and organized knowledge
domains. Its complexity has also been increased with the addition of an anxiety barrier through
which designers must "jump" in order to free themselves of existing reality. Such a leap enables
them to dream unconstrained by existing reality, clarify their motivating values and, when
successful, to catch a glimpse of the dream that will organize their design inquiry. Predictable
difficulties that accompany these tasks were discussed and illustrated. Finally, some
speculations have been offered about the nature of design cultures or communities which help
designers transform their predictable anxiety into useful insights and about the role stories
might play during design genesis.

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Designing Value-Based Educational .systems

Thorbjorn Meyer and Peter Pruzan

Institute of Computer and Systems Sciences, Copenhagen Business School, Julius Thomsens
Plads 10, DK-1925 Frederiksberg C, Denmark

Abstract: To be effective in serving its own purposes as well as the purposes of the society it
performs in, an educational system should purposefully develop its capacity for redesigning
itself. This redesigning capability can be enhanced by implementing an ethical process. The
process recursively identifies the stakeholders, the systemically relevant value-sets as well as
the system as a whole including its vision, strategies and goals. The goal of the process is to
bring the educational system and its stakeholders into a state of dynamic attunement. The paper
describes methods for implementing the ethical process and focuses in particular on the
establishment of a dialogue culture.

Keywords: Educational systems, educational systems design, ethical process, value-based

educational systems, dialogue culture.

Introduction

There are four key everyday concepts in the title. We will employ them in the following rather
specific way:
Design as an intentional form.
Values as the intrinsic desires underlying choices, the labels used to provide rational
explanations of preferences.
Education as the purposeful communication of skills and knowledge as well as the
development of discrimination enabling skills and knowledge to be applied with wisdom.
the underlying goal of education is character formation, i.e. the ability to integrate thoughts,
words, and deeds.
Systems as conceptual wholes having emergent qualities which cannot be identified in any
of their constituent parts or subgroups of these parts. I

1 For example, although a school may be said to consist of students, teachers, administrators and teaching
facilities, no student, teacher, administrator or facility nor any groups of these display the characteristics of the
school as a whole. Nor can the goals and visions of any of these groups be said to represent the goals and
visions of the system as a whole. And no single school or subgroup of schools characterizes the workings of a
whole school system. What constitutes a system, a subsystem, an part of the system's environment and the
relationships between these depends upon the context as well as the purposes and perception of the observer.
 192

Therefore, when we speak of designing value-based educational systems, we are at a meta-

formative level where the intention is to form preferred character forming wholes.

Design and self-design of educational systems

In contrast to the design of teapots and automobiles, an educational system cannot be identified
by simply considering the artefacts employed (buildings, furniture, books, computers etc.).
Without students, teachers, and other stakeholders, i.e. the more or less homogeneous groups
of people who affect and who are affected by the educational process, it would be rather
meaningless to speak of an educational system. 2
It follows as well, that in contrast to teapots and automobiles, there is no readily identifiable
designer(s) of such a system. Quite likely at their inception there was a group of educational
planners who conceived of some major, overall strategies, goals and principles. Nevertheless,
once the educational process functions, the synergy between the stakeholders results in what
they conceive of as a self-reflexive and self-regulating system with an evolving identity. Such a
system can fruitfully be conceived of as self-designing; it is argued that this perspective leads to
new insights which would not otherwise be available. 3
It should be noted that this concept of self-design is not chosen to simply reflect the fact that
students graduate, teachers retire or get new jobs, and new students and teachers arrive, i.e ..
that members of the system are replaced; the cells in our bodies are continually "dying" and
being replaced yet this does not lead to either our experiencing ourselves as being continually
existentially renewed, nor to others having to reidentify us every time such a cellular
replacement takes place. Rather, the characterization of an educational system as self-designing
is chosen to reflect the postulate that its ability to meet its own overall goal of contributing to
character formation depends upon its ability to contribute to its stakeholders' values at any time
- and that the stakeholders' values in relation to the system depend upon the design of the
system. In other words, the development of both the educational system and its stakeholders

2We note that we will throughout employ the singular term "stakeholder" to collectively represent a group
whose members share a value-set with a system they affect and are affected by. We note too, that a stakeholder
may also represent non-humans, e.g. nature could be a stakeholder in a situation where the local biotope may he
affected by a finn's activities. In this the determination of the stakeholder's values will of necessity require the
detennination of a surrogate stakeholder, see e.g. (Hansen, et.al., 1990) and (chapter 11 in Bogetoft & Pruzan,
1991).

3This concept is inspired by the theory of autopoiesis which originated in the study of the self-organization of
cells; see e.g. (Maturana and Varela, 1980; Zeleny 1981). A central theme of the theory is that a self organizing
system does not consist of elements but that elements get their distinctive characteristics in the self-organizing
process itself. The progenitors Maturana and Varela therefore denied that the theory could be extended to social
systems, since according to them, these systems consist of already existing human beings. This biological
perspective has been extended by (Luhmann, 1984) who argues that a social system creates its own reality as a
system of communication between its stakeholders.
 193

are contextually codependent. For this development to promote the overall educational goal of
contributing to character formation it is required that the system has the capability of
redesigning itself so as to maintain a dynamic attunement between its actions and the values of
its stakeholders.
This concept of self-design is also relevant when considering the evaluation of an
educational system. The criteria which an educational system can choose to evaluate its
contributions to character development will in general be qualitative, subjective, conflicting and
context-dependent. It is therefore only possible to meaningfully discuss the values, vision and
goals or the effectiveness of such systems at a very abstract level, although external
stakeholders (e.g. politicians or regulatory boards) can at any time establish more or less
arbitrary operational goals and measures of performance for the system. 4
Furthermore, educational systems are characterized by the relatively long time span between
their "inputs", e.g. of new students, and their "outputs", e.g. of graduates. Therefore, even
though an educational program can at any time be characterized by explicitly proclaimed aims
such as of developing certain skills, and even though the contents of such a program may be
described in brochures and regulations via its formal requirements and curricula, there is a very
unclear and time-lagged relationship between the overall goal of character formation which is
intended by the system and the observable results.
In other words, the design of an educational system cannot simply be defined via its
progenitors, its participants, its administrators or its products. Instead we argue that the design
can best be conceived of as a dynamic, value-based, self-reflexive and context-dependent
development process.
For all these reasons, the successful formation of preferred character forming systems
requires that they be designed so as to be capable of redesigning themselves in a manner which
suits the purposes of the environments. And this presumes that their leaders are motivated to
dynamically and explicitly identify, serve and balance the multiple purposes of their multiple
stakeholders.
Based upon these assumptions, postulates and deductions, the remainder of the paper
presents a multiple-criteria, multiple-stakeholder framework (Bogetoft and Pruzan, 1991) for
the formation of such character formation systems. In particular, it emphasizes the central role
played by ethical considerations and introduces the notions of dialogue culture and ethical
process as key concepts in the design process.

4To make the everyday terms "goal" and "vision" more precise, we will define them as follows: By a goal we
mean what we intend to accomplish when we actively plan, e.g. an enterprise may consider it to be a goal to
improve its profitability or its product qUality. This notion can be made more precise by contrasting it to the
notion of "value" introduced earlier; values are more fundamental, expressing desired end-states that guide and
determine both goals and vision. Goals may be considered to be the means for achieving the more fundamental
values (Bogetoft and Pruzan, 1991). By a system's "vision" we mean the depiction of a desirable future state of
the system, i.e. a state reflecting values pursued.
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Stakeholders, values and the self-design of educational systems

Traditionally literature on planning and organizational design is from a decision maker

perspective. In the sequel we temporarily reorient this vantage point 180 degrees and consider
the values of those parties who are affected by decisions as to the design of educational
systems. We do this by focusing on the system's decision receivers. These include the more-
or-less homogeneous groups of students, teachers and administrators, as well as the potential
employers of the graduates, the higher level educational systems they may enter, the local
society, etc. We have previously referred to such parties as the system's stakeholders. We
underscore however that our usage of this perspective deviates significantly from the way that
the notion of "stakeholder" is employed in most of the planning and management literature. In
that literature, it almost exclusively reflects a top-down, decision maker perspective, i.e. how
can top management utilize the stakeholder concept to develop its vocabulary and tool-kit so as
to better achieve classical goals of effectiveness, profitability and growth; see e.g. (Freeman
and Gilbert, 1988). In contrast, our approach leads to a qualitatively distinct perspective which
is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but self-reflexive, leading to the concepts of self-design and
ethical process. We consider communication as to the stakeholders' values to be a necessary
condition for - as well as a result of - an educational system's self-designing capability.5 What
the "system" is an which vision and goals it has, is determined not by hierarchical power or by
political decree but via an ongoing value-based dialogue simultaneously leads as well to their
own identity as members of the system. We will refer to this process of dynamic stakeholder
attunement as the ethical process.
We commence a series of postulates as to the relevance of such a perspective for the design
of educational systems.

Postulate 1. From an individual perspective the value-based dialogue is a prerequisite for the
individual, e.g. student or teacher, to be able to integrate his personal values with the
educational system as a whole.
Unless individuals experience that their personal values are promoted and developed by the
educational system, it will not be capable of performing its character formation task optimally,
although it may be quite effective in disseminating skills and knOWledge.
It is common experience that both students and teachers feel compelled to suppress many of
the values that shape their attitudes and behavior outside of the educational system and to
replace them by a far more restricted effectiveness orientation when at school. The demands of
the market (higher level educational institutions or potential employers) as well as of

5We have previously defined values as the labels we use when we attempt to provide rational explanations of our
preferences, i.e. the intrinsic beliefs underlying our choices and attitudes (Rokeach, 1973); see also (Freeman and
Gilbert 1988) for an elaboration on this definition within the context of a stakeholder view of an enterprise.
 195

administrators, peers and parents emphasize a myopic orientation towards classical, tangible
results, e.g. in the form of test scores and the percentage of students who graduate. A teacher
must have firm convictions and a persuasive tongue to be able to deviate from a traditional
curriculum and in so doing to receive the approval of students, parents, and administrators. An
a student must have considerable self-confidence and maturity to challenge his teachers'
parents' and peers attitudes and expectations.
Unless the educational system is designed so as to contribute to each participants awareness
of, and respect for, stakeholders' values, they will have considerable difficulty in integrating
their personal values to the system as a whole. They will experience that the system is
"external" and that they have little to say in shaping its development. A result will be a lesser
degree of identification with the whole, reduced feelings of responsibility for its operations, and
a concommitant reduction in the system's effectiveness in contributing to character formation.

Postulate 2. From a systemic perspective identifying and attuning stakeholder values is a

prerequisite for the successful self-designing capability of an educational system.
Industrialization and the information society have gone hand in hand with the division of
labor. A result is a pluralistic, fragmentized and highly specialized society with a pluralistic,
fragmentized and highly specialized educational system. In fact, such educational systems are
both prime causes and effects of this development.
Specialization and fragmentation lead to conflicts between stakeholders having different
values, perspectives and vocabularies. In such environments, a condition for a system to
successfully achieve its goals is that it must contribute to its stakeholders' capabilities of
achieving their goals. This is what we have referred to as value-based design.
Within our framework of the design of educational systems, this view of success leads to a
far broader evaluation perspective than provided by traditional measures of operational
effectiveness. Central to this new perspective is the identification of the stakeholders and their
relevant values. From this vantage point, students are not value-less sponges eager to absorb
teachers' presentation of truths; their enthusiasm, creativity and participation are a prerequisite
for the character formation process to succeed. Similarly, teachers are not simply functions
which present standard, approved, objective truths leading to skills and knowledge; they are the
sensitive nurturers of character formation whose personal sense of integrity and quality are vital
for the formation process. And since, as all teachers know from their own experience, the best
way to learn something is to try to teach it to others, a well-functioning character formation
process leads to amorphous boundaries between those who teach and those who learn.
It follows that unless the students, teachers, administrators, parents etc. participate in an
ongoing value-based dialogue which leads to mutually acceptable visions and strategies, the
system will not develop a collective identity and the overall goal of character formation will
suffer.
 196

Postulate 3. Finally, from a societal perspective, consideration of the multiple-stakeholder,

multiple-criteria nature of the design process is a prerequisite for an educational system to form
character in accordance with societal needs.
The higher up we go in the hierarchy of educational institutions (kindergartens, grade
school, junior high schools, high schools, colleges, graduate schools, etc.) the more
specialized the teachers and the more disciplinary the teachingllearning processes. This has led
to - and is a result of - an increased focus on specialized knowledge and skills. In their
enthusiasm for developing their disciplinary values, teachers and students tend to ignore - and
to be inconsiderate of - other values related to the system as a whole. At this stage, the
fundamental purpose of the educational process, character formation, is virtually lost from
sight. There may be little connection between a course in the humanities and the humane
behavior of teachers and students. The increased emphasis upon specialization has therefore not
only contributed to formulating and solving well-defined problems, but to creating new, more
complex problems as well- both for the individual stakeholder, for the educational system, and
for society.
Since no leader in an organization can possibly master all the special knowledge possessed
by the specialists, a condition for an organization to achieve specific goals is that the specialists
themselves (including those who specialize in leadership) are able to communicate their
knowledge and perspectives across the implicit boundaries erected by their disciplinary
orientations. Which again presupposes awareness of the whole and respect for the language,
traditions and values of other stakeholder~ in the system. Therefore, the design of educational
systems must supplement the present tendency to increased disciplinary specialization with
systemic awareness leading to an acceptance of social responsibility. This means as well that at
all levels the leadership of such systems will have to orient themselves towards the values of all
the relevant stakeholders.
Common to the individual, systemic and societal perspectives is the notion that systemic
identification and responsibility are the result of open value-based dialogues between
stakeholders. These dialogues presume the existence of values which are strong enough to
serve as the basis for visions and goals. And if these visions and goals are to have systemic
validity, i.e. if they are to be capable of motivating and dynamically attuning the stakeholders,
then they must be shared by the system's stakeholders. We will refer to such value-based
discussions as constituting a dialogue culture. As we shall see, the development of such a
dialogue culture and of the ensuing capability of self-design is the domain of a modem concept
of ethics.
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Morals, ethics and design

The movement towards increased specialization has been paralleled by the development of a
pluralistic society with many moral points of view. Earlier, one could presume a reasonable
degree of societal agreement as to right and wrong, even amongst those who broke the law or
deviated from the widely accepted norms. In today's pluralistic society with a myriad of
subcultures, moral rules are no longer a source of agreement and community but of conflict and
fragmentation. Each group or subculture has its own morals and no group can prove that its
view of right and wrong is right. When there are many opinions as to right and wrong, it is not
sufficient to defme what is legitimate by what is legal.
In everyday speech, morals and ethics are used as synonyms. Many consider them to be
personal, intuitive matters. Others consider them to be rules or commandments. Both
viewpoints inhibit reflection and communication. And unwittingly lead to the employment of
morals and ethics as vetoes to prohibit proposed actions rather than as constructive perspectives
which can contribute to the creation of new, desirable actions. By far the most common usage
of these terms is in their negative forms, where the implicit goal is to stop a conversation when
rational arguments fail; it is difficult to rationally argue against a claim that one's proposals are
immoral or unethical.
In contrast to the everyday usage of the terms, philosophers traditionally have distinguished
between morals and and ethics. They consider nwrals to be a group's concrete rules for how its
members should behave, while they consider ethics to be the study of such standards for
behavior and moral judgements. We propose a new distinction such that ethics can be
constructively employed in a pluralistic social system and fill the vacuum created when morals
lose their social "we" When many groups have their own morals, shared goals and visions
cannot be based on the values within anyone of them but must be sought between them. Ethics
is therefore not just yet another set of moral rules. It contributes to a holistic perspective by
focusing on shared visions and goals based on the identification of stakeholder values. From
this vantage point, ethics is not intuitive or definitive - it is a matter of public concern which can
and must be discussed. In this way it can integrate differences between the narrow vistas
characterizing specialist and subcultural perspectives.
Ideally then, a decision is ethical is all parties affected by it with good reasons agree to it.
Therefore ethics deals with those values which are shared by a system and its stakeholders and
with conflict resolution via value-based dialogue between the system's stakeholders. 6 It
follows that a design process is ethical if it actively attempts to obtain approval for its creation

60ur perspective is that conflict is experienced when stakeholder-values and systemic goals are in disaccord. For
example, conflict may arise between teachers desiring longer vacations and politicians wanting increased teaching
hours and reduced costs. Since the vision and strategy of an educational system represent a holistic synthesis of
its stakeholders' values, it is meaningful to speak both of conflict between a stakeholder (e.g. teachers) and an
educational system and of conflict between stakeholders (e.g. between teachers and administrators). This theme is
further developed in the section on "The ethical process".
 198

from the relevant stakeholders. It follows as well that many different decisions can be ethical -
what is ethical is contextually dependent and varies with time and place.
It is not however sufficient to argue that design behavior is ethical if it is "holistic" or
"systemic". What matters here is what is meant by the "whole" or "system" - and who means it.
If ethics is only unfolded within a group, while the relationships of the group to its external
stakeholders are ruthless then it will be misleading to use the term "ethics".? The "whole" must
encompass all the parties who are affected by the design - or who themselves affect the design.
In this way, ethics and wholeness are closely related; they combine the right to be different with
the duty to respect others' differences. No one part can impose its values and preferences on
others. There is no party outside the dialogue which can be appealed to as an authority and there
is no single stakeholder participant in the dialogue that has the right to determine what is shared
and what is preferred.
Therefore, in order to legitimize the design process, decision makers and decision receivers
must participate in a value-based dialogue which identifies both the whole and its stakeholders.
Such a dialogue must also determine the criteria which can be employed to represent and
operationalize the values so that they can provide the foundation for developing the system's
vision and goals. If the stakeholders are not actively involved in this process, they will find it
difficult to speak of "our" system, "our" vision, "our" goals. It follows that what really matters
in such a dialogue is not just its content but also is form.
We conclude that a design process which aims at attuning and operationalizing decision
makers' and decision receivers' values will be "good design", both from a traditional
effectiveness point of view as well as in an ethical sense.

The ethical process

We will now consider how such "good design" of an educational system - for example a
particular educational institution - can be initiated via an ethical process. The arguments
presented are based upon our own experiences in initiating such ethical processes in both public
and private organizations (Hansen et.al., 1990; Meyer, 1990; Pruzan, 1990).
We will assume that without loss of generality the stakeholders will include teachers,
administrators and students. In addition, it is likely that various sub-groups from the society
such as parents, potential "consumers" of the graduates (including higher-level educational
institutions and employers) and politicians will be important external stakeholders. A
prerequisite for initiating the process is that the parties most directly involved and accessible,

7An example can be conjured forth by referring to the film Godfather where a group of mafiosa agree upon
using murder, extortion, and the sale of narcotics, but who have not considered the values of those affected by
their brutality - to call such agreement "ethical" would be a perversion of the concept developed here.
 199

the administrators and teachers, have been introduced to the conceptual background and are
reasonably motivated. In addition, that the student body and the external stakeholders have a
basic understanding of the demands and potential advantages of the ethical process.
We will also assume that a facilitator is available to instigate the process and to coordinate
and carry out many of the tasks, particularly those dealing with identifying stakeholders and
their values and establishing the dialogue culture. To remove doubts among the participants as
to his neutrality,the facilitator should preferably not be a member of one of the stakeholders
involved in a specific situation. Above all, in a system whose overall goal is character
formation, it is vital for the success of the process that the person is respected for his integrity;
unethical behavior on his part can immediately sabotage the ethical process and lead to
destructive cynicism.
The establishment of a dialogue culture is a main key to the ethical process. To initiate such
a process in an existing system some self-appointed group, typically a group of leaders, must
identify relatively homogeneous groups of stakeholders. Then, via dialogues within such
groups, the stakeholder-values which the system is to promote must be identified. The ensuing
ongoing value-based dialogue within and between the system's stakeholders constitutes the
recursive process of holistic attunement and self-design we call a dialogue culture. The
dialogues criss-cross the organisation chart of the educational institution and involve its external
stakeholders as well.
The stakeholders' relevant value-sets constitute the values of the system. Of course different
stakeholders will have different values in common with the system, and this is the basic
explanation of systemic conflicts. By identifying the values of all the relevant stakeholders an
operational basis is created for what we previously referred to as "the right to be different
combined with the duty to respect others' differences".
The ethical process leads not only to visions and goals that are based on the stakeholders'
values. Ideally, it can also provide the rationale for solving major decision problems. From this
perspective, solutions are concrete expressions of consensus between all the stakeholders
affected. However, such an ideal is not practically operational in a social system such as an
educational institution; the time and effort required to obtain agreement between all the relevant
parties each time a major decision is to be made would prohibit such an approach to decision
making. Instead, these values can provide the system's representatives, e.g. its political and/or
administrative leadership, with fundamental measuring rods for evaluating alternative actions.
In addition, they provide a frame of reference for communicating with the stakeholders about
what has been decided and why.
The shared vision and goals and the mutual awareness of the value-sets of the system's
stakeholders will therefore affect the system's strategic planning, its organizational structure,
the design of its information systems etc. This shared basis and the ongoing dialogue will
therefore also lessen the need for control and support an organizational structure with
 200

decentralized functions. The system's decision-making ability will be enhanced at all levels and
individual decisions will be attuned when hierarchical power gradually metamorphoses into
value-based dialogue and attunement

We summarize: An educational system with the capacity for self-design presumes the existence
of a dialogue culture which supports:

a. The codependent and ongoing identification of the system and its constituent stakeholders,

b. The stakeholder-values which the system is to promote as well as the operational criteria
which are sufficient for representing these values, and

c. A shared vision and goals which together with the stakeholders' values serve as the basis for
evaluating choices, dissolving conflicts and for the ongoing communication with and between
stakeholders.

Starting from scratch: Creating hypotheses

The first task to be carried out by the facilitator is to gather a group of change-motivated
persons from the major, accessible stakeholders, i.e. the teachers and administrators. The
purpose is to discuss the problems and shortcomings of the system in question. Let us assume
that there is general agreement that character formation is the ultimate aim of education and that
to meet this aim, the task should be to help the students to acquire relevant knowledge and
skills. This might well trigger a discussion on whether the acquisition of skills and knowledge
is sufficient for the development of character. Such a discussion will give the facilitator an
opportunity to emphasize the systemic nature of the institution. For example, he can point out
that considering the overall aim from the point of the community might lead to different
operational goals than would be obtained by considering it from the perspective of the students.
Such a discussion could be a catalyst for coming to grips with the question just what is the
"whole", the "system" being considered? At this point the facilitator could introduce the notion
of stakeholders and values, defining the former as all those more-or-Iess homogeneous groups
which have something at stake in a system and the latter as the ultimate rationale underlying the
stakeholders' actions and attitudes. He could then try to communicate the notion of self-design
and that "the system" is defined/defines itself via its identification of stakeholders and their
values. He could continue by suggesting that the vision and strategic goals of the system must
be based on and represent a selective synthesis of its stakeholders' values. Consequently it
would be wise to put off further discussions on the operational aims of the educational
 201

institution until further progress has been made in identifying the stakeholders and their relevant
values.
The next step is to explain and to operationalize the concept of values in more detail. This
may for example be instigated by discussing the guidelines and tasks that an institution may be
assigned by the political system representing e.g. the community. The discussions may then
become more specific and deal with how to identify both the values of the stakeholders
represented at the meeting and the criteria which can operationalize these values.
These first steps thus provide a platform for formulating initial hypotheses and for
identifying participants in an Ethical Design Committee. With the assistance of the groups
themselves 1 or 2 highly motivated individuals from each of the stakeholders are selected to
form this committee. It has the task of refining the preliminary hypotheses as to who are the
relevant stakeholders, which values each of them shares with the educational institution in
question, and which criteria can be employed to measure how well the system promotes the
values. Based upon these investigations, the committee is responsible for drafting a series of
questionnaires to be discussed within the groups representing the stakeholders; see below.

Extending the dialogue

Representative groups of the stakeholders identified up till now are then called in for in-depth
interviews. Consider for example the students. They most certainly have been identified as a
stakeholder. Representative groups of students are formed, each consisting ideally of g
persons. Depending on the size of the educational institution, 2 - 3 such groups should suffice.
If we are dealing with a primary school, special facilitators - for example psychologists - may
be necessary in order to help formulate the ideas of the young students. Similar groups are
formed representing the teachers and administrators as well as the major, external stakeholders.
We usually start with an identification of personal values, using a tentative list of values for
inspiration. The participants are asked individually to list their 5 most important personal values
(personal means in relation to family and close friends) and to rank these in order of priority.
Then the individual results are discussed in the group and an attempt is made to achieve
consensus - or at least a clarification as to which personal values are shared by the group.
Following this, the group is then asked to perform the same activities, only this time to list the 5
most important values they have experienced the educational institution as having. It should be
emphasized, that these values are not what they would like the system to have, but what they
experience it as having via the decisions which are made, the atmosphere which exists, etc.
Once again a group discussion alms at obtaining consensus as to these systemic values.
The two sets of values - personal and systemic - provide the starting point for a discussion
of the differences and similarities between these value-sets.
 202

It is now time for the facilitator to start operationalizing the stakeholder values by presenting
the questionnaire specifically designed for the group by the Ethical Design Committee. It
focuses upon those value-sets which the stakeholders appear to share with the educational
system. After the questionnaire is filled out by the participants it should be discussed so that it
can be improved so as to cover all aspects of the values shared between the stakeholder group
in question and the institution Each question highlights a criterion (or value-aspect) which is
considered important to describe the particular value being considered. For example, if a value
is "Human respect", a criterion might be "I am treated by my peers as a person of integrity."
The participants' replies may be rated by using a simple Likert scale, the respondent answering
either "Fully agree; Partly agree; Unclear; Partly disagree; Fully disagree or No knowledge".
The discussion in the group continues until a group-consensus has been achieved both on
values and criteria. By this we mean that there is general agreement as to which value-set is
relevant for the stakeholder in relation to the system and that the set of criteria employed to
operationalize each value fully covers what the group understands by the value in question, for
example "Human respect".

Collection of data and The Ethical Status

Based upon these group interviews the Ethical Design Committee meets again and finalizes the
questionnaires. These are then distributed to the stakeholders, ideally to all administrators,
teachers and students and to a representative sample of the external stakeholders. The survey
should be heavily promoted by the members of the committee as being-in the interest of all
stakeholders. If feasible, a CAT! technique (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews) can be
employed with advantage to facilitate collecting the replies. It can be used together with a data-
base and report generator. which can produce the reports needed. The questionnaires will
typically include relevant demographic criteria which permit a more detailed analysis of the
ratings obtained, e.g. according to gender, seniority, etc. After data processing and relevant
statistical analyses, the results are finally presented in tables and figures in what we call "The
Ethical Status". This is an instantaneous picture of the value-based relations between the
educational institution in question and its stakeholders and will inevitably uncover areas with
poor attunement (Hansen et.al., 1990).

Dialogue-circles and Strategic Work.Shop

The Ethical Status can now be discussed in the Ethical Design Committee and in what we refer
to as Dialogue-circles. Such a circle will be created for each stakeholder and consists ideally of
 203

12-15 members as well as a facilitator. The task of the circle is to make suggestions on how to
improve areas with poor attunement, i.e. how the institution can instigate activities in areas
where the results of the Ethical Status appear to be unsatisfactory. We have applied a method
where the circle starts with a critical phase, e.g. by brain-storming on what is wrong in relation
to the specific areas with poor attunement. Everything is immediately put on large sheets of
paper displayed on the walls of the meeting-room. Now the circle-members create a sort of
"utopia". They discuss what could be done to bring the problem areas identified into an ideal
state. During this phase, restrictions due to the existing realities are ignored. Once again
brainstorming is applied and everything is recorded on wall-papers.
When this phase is completed, a third phase is introduced by the facilitator. This is a phase
aimed at reconciling what the stakeholders want with what they believe they can and are willing
to do. First the utopian suggestions are arranged in themes and ranked by the circle-members
according to priority. Then the circle is divided into subgroups each of which is to develop
realistic action-plans in relation to the utopian themes. Finally the suggestions are discussed by
all circle-members in relation to the stakeholder value-sets identified. All the proceedings are
registered in a report.
The Ethical Design Committee edits the reports from each of the dialogue-circles into a
suggestion-catalogue. At this point representatives of the various stakeholders are brought
together in what we refer to as a Strategic Work-Shop. This work-shop consists of roughly 25
members drawn from the Dialogue-circles in such a way that all stakeholders are represented.
The task of the work-shop is to contribute to the formation of a shared vision as well as to
strategic and tactical plans based on the suggestion-catalogues. The plans are generated via a
dialogue which seeks consensus as to solutions which can be accepted by all parties involved.
The proposals from the Strategic Work-Shop are then brought to the attention of the Ethical
Design Committee which has the responsibility for detailed planning and bud getting.
The Ethical Design Committee, Dialogue-circles and Strategic Work-Shop are all aimed at
facilitating a state of high involvement (Lawler, 1986) with a concomitant high degree of
motivation and identification for all parties participating in the dialogue-culture. 8

8The method applied in the Dialogue-circles is inspired from the socalled "Future Work-Shops" (Junk &
Miillert, 1981). Another approach to The Ethical Process may be to replace the dialogue-circles with genuine
"Future Work-Shops". Here the brain-storming is not based on specific areas shown in The Ethical Status as
having poor attunement. Rather the Work-Shop itself defines such areas. In some cases it may prove
advantageous to accelerate The Ethical Process in this way by focusing on problems without first having to
develop an Ethical Status.
 204

Concluding Remarks

The ethical process and its focus on a value-based dialogue culture leads to an expanded
perception of education and educational systems. The Ethical Status, Ethical Design Committee,
Dialogue-circles and Strategic Work-Shop are practical channels for establishing and
maintaining such a dialogue-culture.
We should emphasize that we are really investigating rather virgin territory here and that our
observations and prescriptions are supported by action research in only a few major
organizational settings. 9 In an application the parties involved may decide to substitute some of
the approaches with others, the group interviews may even be carried out as part of the work-
shops and The Ethical Status may be a result of the work shops instead of preceding them.
They are all so many tools aiming at establishing a dialogue culture - what really matters is
initiating the ethical process leading to this end, not the tools. It may be decided to use some of
the tools more or less continually whereas others, e.g. the Ethical Status, may be used on a
more periodic basis. There is no ultimate substantive goal, what is important is the process and
the ongoing, value-based self-design of the system.
The results of a pilot project at a particular educational institution may well lead to the
initiation of similar undertakings in other educational institutions in the local region and thus
lead to a much more dynamic and stakeholder-oriented educational system. It is also our belief
that the awareness of the systemic nature of the vision and strategic goals of an educational
institution will create a favorable attitude for a more conscious effort to attune educational
institutions to high human values. We anticipate that explicitly focusing upon the ethical process
will lead many educational institutions which today contribute to short-sighted egocentricity to
undergo a metamorphosis. They will reorient themselves towards more universal and higher
human values when they actively seek to provide education which promotes character formation
via the integration of thoughts, words and deeds.

References

1. P. Bogetoft and P. Pruzan, Planning with Multiple Criteria: Investigation, Communication

and Choice, North-Holland Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1991.
2. R.E. Freeman and D.R. Gilbert, Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics, Prentice
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1988.
3. F. Hansen, T. Meyer and.P. Pruzan, "1)1e Ethical Process and the Ethical Accounting
Statement", in proceedings of 3rd EMACIESOMAR symposium New Ways in Marketing
and Marketing Research, Athens (Greece), 1990.

9In particular we can refer to empirical evidence from two major sources: a large bank (the 6th largest in
Demnark) where the ftrst Ethical Status was developed in 1989 and where various channels for establishing and
maintaining the dialogue culture have been developed, and a Danish local government. In addition, we have
developed the approaches presented here in a close cooperation with a number of Danish and Swedish top leaders.
 205

4. R. Junk and N. Mullert, Zukunftwerkstatten, Wege zur Wiederbelebung der Demokratie,

1981, Danish edition, Fremtidsvrerksteder, Politisk Revy, Copenhagen, 1984.
5. N. Luhmann, "Autopoiesis and Social Systems" in (F. Geyer and 1. van der Zoueven,
eds.) Sociocybernetics: Observation, Control and Evolution of Self Steering Systems,
Sage Publications, 1986.
6. H.R. Maturana and F.G. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the
Living, D. Reidel, Boston, MA, 1980.
7. T. Meyer, "The Ethical Process and the Ethical Accounting Statement", Inspi 8', Yngre
Revisorer, Copenhagen 1990 pp 3 -12 (in Danish).
8. P. Pruzan, "The Ethical Accounting Statement - Theory and Practice" in (B.H. Banathy &
B. A Banathy, eds.) Toward a Just Society for Future Generations, Proceedings of
International Society for the Systems Sciences, 1990, pp 984 - 990.
9. M. Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values, The Free Press, New York, NY, 1973.
10. M. Zelleny (ed.), Autopoiesis: A Theory of Living Organization, North-Holland
Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1981.
Retrospective Design Analysis:
A New Educational Technology

Ian Macnaughton

Discovery Design, Inc., #330-1200 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2C7, Canada

Abstract: Educational systems operate in an environment that is in a process of continual

change. This change is occurring at an increasing rate, and generates much uncertainty. These
systems must learn how to be effective in this context. Systems design can show the way for
educational systems to become involved in organizational learning to develop as proactive, self-
reflective systems. Educational systems can utilize systems design to discern whether their
current design is adequate, given the current needs of society.
This paper proposes a generic technology, retrospective design analysis, which can be used
to analyze the planning or design efforts of a specific educational system, so as to generate new
input for design learning. This information can then be utilized to improve the ability of the
system to manage effectively by developing an improved model for its own on-going (re)design
inquiry.

Keywords: Abstract, systems, systems design, educational systems, retrospective design

analysis.

1. Introduction

Educational systems exist in a socioeconomic and political environment of uncertainty which is

increasingly turbulent. These systems are searching for ways to increase their capacity to
manage and be relevant to societal needs in this context. Theories of design can help educational
systems in this learning process. This presentation describes a methodology which can
assisting educational systems to benefit from a process of organizational learning to enhance an
iterative, systemic process of continuous redesign
Educational systems are a particular type of human activity system (HAS). In exploring
design in the context of human activity systems, the literature does not indicate the use of a
retrospective design analysis (RDA) in human activity systems to aid in the development of a
design inquiry model appropriate for a particular HAS. This presentation asserts that
retrospective design analysis fills a need not covered by previous research. This presentation
creates a framework for the development of an RDA to provide input to design inquiry and
organizational learning in educational systems.
 207

The framework for conducting the RDA is described in five sections. First, the need to
describe the system of interest, a particular educational system (PES) is introduced, and the
type of system the PES represents is identified. Secondly, a set of organizing perspectives for
conducting the RDA is developed. Thirdly, criteria are established to determine the appropriate
design methods for the PES. Fourthly, The Architecture of Design [4] is selected to provide a
framework to organize and synthesize the various models selected. Fifthly, an internally
consistent model is described that will serve as the design inquiry model to conduct the RDA.
The need for an historical account of the PES's previous attempts to engage in planning or
design will be given. This case study history will then be used to conduct an RDA, matching
the frameworks developed previously to the actual process followed by the educational systems
in question, the PES.
The RDA will generate a perception of the strengths and weaknesses of the PES's planning
or design attempts. Utilizing the design input information provided by the RDA, a new design
process for the PES can be created. This is done by including the design framework used for
the RDA analysis.
The summary and conclusions of this presentation suggest that this process is both
generalizable to, and useful for, other human activity systems in their attempts to manage
change effectively in an increasingly complex and turbulent world.

2. Design Inquiry and Organizational Learning

Design inquiry and organizational learning are of central significance in the context of HAS.
Our world is undergoing rapid change in its social, economic and political activities. Thus, each
of us is faced with the challenge of making appropriate adjustments to maintain some degree of
stability It is through our institutions and our organizations that we strive for such needed
continuity.
Systems design provides an approach with the necessary perspective and tools to enable us
to design and maintain effective organizations that can operate successfully in this turbulent
environment.
As individuals, we need to find new ways of coping with this rate of change and to develop
collectively through our organizations methods for transforming the challenges which the rate
of change presents into opportunities for improving the human condition, locally, nationally
and globally.
Educational organizations are systems that can be viewed fruitfully as human activity
systems. Human activity systems are those human systems which organize themselves to carry
out some specified purpose or purposes [4]. It is within these purposeful educational systems
that our concepts of work and social activity are taught. Hence, if we are to address the issue of
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coping in an increasingly complex world with an increasing rate of change, we need both to
understand the nature of human activity systems and to learn ways to become more adept at
designing educational systems to manage and be relevant in this context.
Most educational planning has centred on forecasting what will happen by projecting
historical trends into the future, using some probability function to deal with uncertainty. This
traditional approach to the problem of future educational needs by utilizing social planning and
forecasting proceeds "by reducing it into manageable pieces or sub-problems. We believed
solving the sub-problems ultimately would correct the longer problem. Cause and effect
relationships were a cornerstone of analytical thinking" [11] (p. 160).
Systems design views HAS as complex systems requiring a process of inquiry beyond
utilizing the simple cause-effect relationships of traditional planning. Systems design postulates
that HAS can be best understood through a systemic perspective.
The idea that complex: systems are best understood by looking at their properties as a
whole, with parts that interact, is central to understanding the systemic view of phenomena The
systems approach believes that when the part is isolated from its whole in order to be examined,
this examination is something different from that which involves studying parts and wholes
together. It is not possible to separate out ,Parts without losing the essential quality of that part
and its relationship to the whole, for it must be studied from the perspective of the whole. This
requires a nondeductive logic. What is needed is a dialectic logic and process of inquiry if we
are to study these qualities of the whole being more than the arithmetic sum of the parts, and
move beyond simplistic, linear, cause-effect relationships.
Some theorists assert that the classic use of reductionistic thinking in our planning process
creates worse problems. In many cases, interventions in organizations and social systems
produce unexpected and dysfunctional results. For example, Ackoff [1] suggests that we are
facing today a series of "messes," a "complex of interacting problems" (p. 21)
The distinctions between planning and design are of central importance. In design we set
forth a system that has the capacity to attain the stated purpose or mission of the human activity
system. The major outcome of the design inquiry is the generation of that system. Traditional
planning usually generates a "static snapshot" [12] (p. 117) that is reviewed on some periodic
basis. The concept of a dynamic changing educational system and environment is not truly
addressed. The need for a continuous, iterative process of ongoing organizational learning,
supported and orchestrated by the design system itself, is lacking.
A further key difference between design and traditional planning is in the treatment of the
desired state of the organization. In design, the ideal system is actually designed and the ideal
future system is fully articulated. In traditional planning, goals are established and a plan is
developed to reach these goals. The actual ideal system is not delineated; hence the gaps
between the ideal and the present cannot be thoroughly articulated, and strategies, ways and
means to close those gaps cannot be developed.
 209

Faced with a world that is becoming increasingly complex and uncertain, we need a
different approach to "design the future," one that can move beyond the limitations of ordinary
planning methods. The following is a presentation of a framework for designing alternative and
more appropriate futures.
The need for "shaping change rather than becoming its victims" [5] has led to an emerging
field of disciplined inquiry, systems design.
The concept of design within the context of human activity systems has been carried further
by viewing the system from an evolutionary and consciously participatory perspective.
Specifically, Banathy [4] notes:

Our ability to shape change depends a great deal upon whether we are competent and
willing to participate in the design of the systems of which we are a part. Through our
participation, we can give direction to the evolution of those systems. (p. 1)

It is through this capacity to guide their own evolution that human activity systems become
self-referential, self-renewing, self-regulating and evolving. Design can support this capacity
and ensure that the purposes of the system will be actualized. In order for human activity
systems to organize and manage themselves to carry out their purposes, they need a dynamic
structure that attends to both the internal needs of the system and the external needs of the
environment in which the system finds itself. Design also needs to provide the system with the
ability to carry out current operations and the flexibility to respond to new threats and
opportunities as they arise.
In this world of increasing complexity, both human activity systems and the environment
within which they operate are in an increasing state of flux. The intensity and frequency of the
problems facing these systems requires a high degree of managerial innovation and a view that
includes an understanding of the many issues facing the system.
Goldberg [10] presents his views on management's responsibility in this vein:

Management involves considerably more than the application of powerful techniques to

well specified problems. It requires an ability to specify fuzzy problems in sufficient
detail so that they can be faced. Rarely are managers confronted with neat and tidy
problems. Management is as much an art as it is a science and requires a diversity of
approaches. (p. 31)

Good design is (and could be said to be analogous to) good management, and good
management is continuous design. Design that is effective is both created by, and supportive
of, the type of management that is needed. Management of a human activity system needs to
redesign its system in order to respond effectively to the present and predictable future needs of
its environment.
Design learning is a central issue to all who aspire to shape effectively the future of HAS.
Banathy [8] emphasizes the need to develop a match between the type of system under review
 210

and the design methods being used. Thus, designers first must determine the characteristics of a
particular human activity system before selecting the appropriate design model and method(s).
A single method or a hybrid combination of methods may be chosen. Banathy [7] suggests:

Designers should consider the nature of the design problem situation, the context of the
design, and capacity of the system to engage in design, including resources available by
which we design the design inquiry itself. (p. 81)

3. Creating the Framework for the Retrospective Design Analysis

In this section, a framework is created to evaluate the specific planning and design activities of a
PES. This framework is used as a basis of a retrospective design analysis (RDA).
The first step is to develop a framework that can he utilized to conduct the RDA. This
framework will be developed through designing the design inquiry system that is appropriate to
the PES, and by drawing on the viewpoints of design theorists and discerning what kind of
design inquiry is appropriate to the PES. The RDA will allow for a comparison of how the
planning or design. activities of the PES correspond with the design framework that is
appropriate to the PES. The task of selecting a design model for a human activity system such
as the PES requires that the appropriateness of the model chosen be addressed. To implement
this process, it is necessary to involve the PES "actors" in the design/redesign and the evolution
of the system. Each system and its stakeholders will have particular perspectives, values and
beliefs and their own way of utilizing the knowledge bases of systems inquiry. Banathy [8] has
presented the need to organize and synthesize various design models for systems redesign. His
process of designing the design inquiry [6] describes the need for a framework to conduct
design inquiry, and to find the appropriate design model(s) for any specific human activity
system. To determine this "goodness of fit" is of central importance in any design/redesign
activity. Banathy [8] makes this point:

When engaging in design in the context of human activity systems, the design methods
chosen should match the type and characteristics of the system we are designing the
need to select design methods that are appropriate to the type of system we are
designing. (p. 27)

This design will consider the type of system the PES is, the nature of the problem situation,
the organizational capacity to engage in ongoing organizational design learning, and the
resources available to carry out these steps [7]. In developing this framework, the first
requirement is to identify the type of system the PES represents. Suitable organizing
perspectives are developed, and criteria are established to evaluate various models. The
Architecture for Design model [8] is adopted as suitable to organize these models, and these
models are described as an internally consistent set of methodologies.
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3.1 Type of System

For the purposes of illustrating how the RDA framework would be developed, a previous
framework that was developed for a particular HAS will be used as a "pro forma" of the
methodology and adapted to an imagined educational system. This PES is a purpose-seeking
educational system which is nested in larger systems and exists in a highly complex
environment. The PES is a high school of 3300 students. It has been concerned with
envisioning its own future, allowing itself to lessen the constraints to its thinking which it had
previously accepted. With a new principal appointed, a new perspective was introduced, that of
looking to an ideal vision for the school. This orientation has been to create increased openness,
considering new possibilities for the PES's improved existence, attempting to involve as many
people as possible in this activity through a more systemic and proactive perspective.
The PES also has other system types embedded within it. Its standardized intake process
and reporting forms have some aspects of the rigidly controlled type, while the functional areas
they are embedded within (administration) would operate as a purposive system type [8].
The administration function has more flexibility and is more self-directing about the ways
and means availabl!! for achieving its goals than the more codified intake and reporting
processes. It lacks the more complete scope of purpose-seeking systems in that it cannot be
self-directing; its purpose is prescribed.

3.2 Organizing Perspectives

Every system type has different design implications. Banathy [8] has elaborated on this theme
and developed what he terms "generic perspectives" for heuristic and purpose-seeking systems
that can be used to "guide the framing of criteria for the selection of methods in a specific
design situation of heuristic and purpose-seeking systems." [p.. 31] These generic perspectives
are suggested by Banathy [8] as four tentative categories from which to view the essential needs
of heuristic and purpose-seeking systems. These perspectives are organized around the
following themes:

1. Heuristic and purpose-seeking systems have to learn to cope with the explosive increase of
relevant knowledge, environmental complexity, and turbulence.
2. In view of the interactive nature of the open, complex, systemic, and pluralist
characteristics... the central issue is not how to organize to produce more efficiency ... but
how to organize to make decisions ...
3. The design implications of the characteristics described above include ... the boundaries of
the decision system will become fuzzier and more permeable ... the heterogeneity of the
 212

design group will increase ... effective design decision methods that have built into them
techniques of computing and communication ... use of consensus-building methods and
techniques.
4. By their nature, heuristic and purpose-seeking systems are adaptive to their environment
and purpose-seeking systems at the same time are also environment-shaping ...
Organizational learning becomes the genesis of continuous organizational design. (pp. 31-
32)

These perspectives can be utilized to establish criteria for selecting various design models.
Those developed by Banathy [8] are presented in the next section. His criteria will be utilized in
constructing an appropriate design model for the PES.

3.3 Criteria

Two principle viewpoints for selecting appropriate criteria are the external and the internal.
Utilizing Banathy's [8] criteria provides us with a framework to select a design program. His
external criteria include: intellectual integrity, evidence of testing, successful use in
organizations similar to the PES, articulated theoretical bases and internal consistency.
Internal criteria allow for the "goodness of fit" with the redesign of the PES with general
design models. Banathy [5] suggests three main areas to address: (a) methodological power,
such as extending beyond the system boundaries, design experimentation or continuous
iterative redesign; (b) systemic match, in that it is aligned with the type of system the PES
wants to become; and (c) participation and organizational enhancement, which provides for
involvement and exploration. and encourages organizational learning and continuous design.
The development of criteria assists us in choosing design models for the PES. The models
of Ackoff [2] and Checkland [9], together with the consensus-building methods of Warfield
[13], seem appropriate to the needs of the PES design system. It is necessary to develop a
framework within which these various design models can operate. The Architecture for Design
model of Banathy [8] provides such a framework with its ability to organize the design activity
within the five spaces -- the contextual space, the organized knowledge space, the
experimentation space, the future system space and the design solution space.
In designing the design system of the PES, it is important to consider a fundamental issue.
What constitutes the system that designs the design inquiry? The models chosen for the purpose
of this retrospective design analysis would usually be chosen differently. Ideally these models
would be considered by design boards of the PES. They would design the design inquiry itself
utilizing Banathy's [5] Architecture for Design model.
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3.4 Organizing Framework

Design architecture [8] provides a framework for mapping the design of the design inquiry
process (Figure 1). The following discussion illustrates how the model can be used, drawing
from Banathy [5, 8].

Figure 1: The Design Architecture (Banathy, 1987a)

The contextual space determines who are the "key players" in this design of the design, and
which systems it spans. Here, the key players are the Executive Director and the PES. The
system is the PES, which is itself embedded in other systems. These embedded systems are
interactive [3] and integrated with each other. In this study the design function addresses all
levels of the PES and its environment. The attention to design is directed primarily at the PES
itself and those systems embedded within it.
The contextual space also contains the design genesis, the "system of the reasons for
engaging in the design." In this inquiry the reasons came from a perceived need to create a new
vision of the organization, to rethink "what business are we in?" and, perhaps more important,
the implied statement, "what business do we want to be in?"
The space of organized knowledge involves that focus on the PES, such as the capacity to
develop organizational learning, creating shared values around a common vision, and the
opportunity to develop increased skills in managing differences. These are all values that
support certain types of organizing principles. The organized knowledge space explores the
domain of knowledge about design theory and the models that have been developed by design
scholars for use in the context of human activity systems. The type of systems involved and the
necessity to match models to system types are explored.
 214

In the experience space, design experimentation is carried out to decide which design
models are particularly appropriate for the PES system. This may prove to be a particular model
or models in combination, or a variation of each, or a number of them.
The central space is the design solution space where the image of the future system is
developed. The design inquiry spirals through the spaces to develop the future system,
developing a progressively informed characterization of the system being designed. Banathy [4]
describes this process:
As design proceeds, it repeatedly re-enters the contextual, knowledge, and experience
spaces and integrates information and knowledge derived from these spaces into the design
solution space. Thus, an emerging model of the future system is shaped through the interactive
integration of the perceptions, insights, and the information coming from the knowledge, the
contextual, and the experience spaces. (pp. 4-8)
As the members responsible for the redesign begin to formulate their concepts of what the
new "image" of the system is, they are working within the design solution space. From this
space, they test the emerging future design by experimenting in the experience space, feeding
back to the other spaces information gleaned in testing the redesign, and ma:king appropriate
adjustments.
From this process, the future system begins to evolve through a process of iteration
between the various spaces of the model.
At any time in this process, information may be discovered that adjusts the information in
the contextual, organized knowledge, and experience space. This automatically affects the
design solution space and the space of the future system.
The Architecture for Design provides a framework for the design process within which
various models appropriate to the PES could be formulated This approach serves two functions:
(a) to utilize one framework for the overall process, and (b) to indicate which models are more
relevant to the design demands of the system.
Using the Architecture for Design as a background framework to project the completeness
of different models, it was decided to use Ackoffs [3] and Checkland's models [9] in concert.
Warfield's [13] consensus methods could be utilized at particular places in the redesign
process.
Ackoffs [3] five-stage model provides a detailed framework in which to carry out the
redesign, moving through his five stages of planning in an iterative manner.
Checkland's [9] seven stage model can be useful in terms of developing root defmitions and
testing them. In particular, this method of developing root definitions would be useful in terms
of exploring the appropriateness and impact of the mission statement of the PES. Also, it can be
useful in assessing the different functional areas of the PES.
 215

The models of Ackoff [3], Checkland [9], and Warfield [13] satisfy the criteria that have
been established previously. They represent an internally consistent set of background
methodologies for conducting the RDA.
Various aspects of these methodologies then can be drawn from in developing the design
model for the design inquiry, the RDA. It is necessary to develop process stages for the design
model. Banathy [6] has developed his own synthesis of various design models into a three-
stage model which later evolves into four stages (1988). The model developed. for the PES is a
variation on Banathy's [8] synthesis.
The design model itself must also meet certain other criteria to ensure its viability i'n the
context of the PES. While these are inherent in the criteria mentioned previously, the context of
any particular human activity system, such as the PES, encourages the specificity of criteria
development. The first of these is the ability to define the problem situation. Secondly, the
method must be process-oriented. Specifically, it must be open-ended and iterative, capable of
learning from itself. It also must be purposeful, in that it is oriented to outcomes. Finally, it
must be practical, recognizing the resources and constraints of the human activity system.
Human, financial, political and environmental resources need to be addressed realistically.

3.5 Formulation of the Design Model

The design inquiry that is suggested here is a synthesis of the work of various design scholars.
The source of the various items is indicated by the initial of the author of the method: Ackoff:
(A); Banathy: (B); Checkland: (C); and Warfield: (Wa). In the following description, the source
from which the method has been drawn is indicated in capital letters. The design inquiry is
structured in five stages.

Stage 1 Formulating the Scope and Nature of the Design Problem. The present state of the PES
is addressed in this stage. How is it performing? What do its social system, external
environment, marketing, and assessment functions actually look like in operation? The
following items are included in this stage:

1. Conduct an analysis of the current internal needs and situation (A) and (B),
2. Articulate the organizational culture (A) and (B).
3. Define the larger societal\ contexts within which the PES is embedded.
4. Environmental scan of external stakeholders (A).
5. Formulate the organizing perspectives that will guide design (B).
6. System analysis: what does it do and how (A)?
 216

7. Explore limitations that would impair or limit problem solution (A).

8. Develop a rich picture of the problem situation (C).

Stage 2: The Ideal System Design. In this stage the desired outcome is determined, the desired
future system. It is important at this stage to think not just in terms of what is desired, but to
actually design that system. Similarly to stage 1, what would its structure, environment and
operating processes be like? Items to be addressed in this stage are:

1. Articulate the ideal vision; the goals, objectives and ideal ends (A) and (yVa).
2. Explore alternative root definition(s) of the ideal system (C), and select the most
appropriate.
3. Specify type of system the ideal vision would require (B).
4. Describe the characteristics of desired system (A).
5. Design the ideal system (I.S.) (B).
6. Test the I.S.

Stage 3: Gap Analysis and Means Planning. The incongruencies of the ideal system and the
present system are identified This determines the "gaps" which are obstructions to enacting the
desired ends found in stage 2. Means are specified that will close these gaps. In this stage
attention is also given to determining what resources are needed, and how they will be
available. The following are particular themes that need to be considered in this stage:

1. Gap analysis between present system and desired system (A).

2. Design the vehicle, the managing system, that will ensure the strategies developed to close
those gaps are implemented (A), (Wa) and (B).
3. Develop the strategies that will close these gaps: the acts, processes and procedures (A).
4. Planning the resources necessary to carry out the implementation (A) and (B).

Stage 4: Enacting the Design. This stage is concerned with developing ways and means to
implement the desired future system. The following are key elements of this stage:

1. Design the enabling systems to carry out the enactment of the feasible and attainable
representations of the ideal system (B).
2. Design the change delivery system (B).
 217

Stage 5: Continual Design. The necessity to be involved in continuous design, a process of

continually learning, is basic to the viability of the design process. Attention to these steps is
necessary in this stage.

1. Develop a process of monitoring the quality and type of organizational learning.

2. Utilize the feedback from the monitoring process as design input, supporting a process of
ongoing design.

This model meets the criteria set out in Section 3.3 above for guiding the selection of
methods. The capacity to define the problem is dealt with in stage 1, where the scope and nature
of the problem are formulated. The necessity to develop a process-oriented method is
demonstrated in a number of ways. This process is open-ended and ensures that the
organization has a vehicle to learn from itself, and its environment. The model also contains an
outcome-oriented perspective in designing for an ideal vision. The practical considerations of
the model ensure that the design inquiry is grounded in the real and attainable world. In stage 3,
the means and resources to close the gaps between the present and the ideal system are
determined These would include human, financial and political resources. If the resources to
close the gaps are not available, that would involve a reassessment of the desired system's
feasibility within the constraints of the organization. The fifth stage supports continual
organizational learning.

4. The PES: Matching Design Theory and Practice

This section sets the framework for understanding the PES system and its process of redesign.
This is done in four phases. The first phase describes the PES system as it is presently, and
describes current trends in the organization. The second phase addresses the process which the
PES has been undergoing in its own evolution as a human activity system. The third describes
the planning or design process which the PES has been carrying out. The last phase analyzes
the PES's efforts in planning or design, using the framework developed for conducting the
RDA.
The summary RDA is developed in two parts: (a) overall assessment, and (b) strength and
weakness of the current planning and design activities.
 218

Proposing a New Design Inquiry Model for the PES

The RDA has generated insights into a number of shortcomings, as well as strengths, in the
design activities of the PES. The design inquiry model outlined here and displayed as Figure 2
is suggested as an alternative to their current process. Stage five in that model, Continual
Design, is seen as crucial in the process of providing ongoing design input information.

Stage Five

Continual Design
Design Boards
Monitoring
Organizational
Learning
Gap Analysis

Stage Four

Figure 2: Retrospective Design Analysis

Recommended Design Approach,
Based on Retrospective Design Analysis

The following is a summary of how the design inquiry would operate in a continual process
of design inquiry.
 219

The PES would use a set of continuous, overlapping and iterative design boards [2].
Ackoff describes a system of design teams and design boards. These design teams and boards
offer a framework and process for various units of the educational system, i.e. government,
school board, administrators, teachers, students, to be involved in the design inquiry.
The design teams would be made up of members of a unit who wished to participate in
planning. They could join or leave the team as they wished. The team would be organized by
the manager of that unit. The team would have the authority to decide anything that is in its
control, and where its decision would not affect other units. The teams also need to have
sufficient resources to carry out the inquiry. They can make recommendations to other design
teams and boards.
Each unit of the PES would have a design board. The only exceptions would be those units
with no subordinate units. These boards would comprise the manager of that unit, the managers
that report to him and the immediate superior to whom the manager reports. The top level board
would have external stakeholders and members of the Board of Directors on it. Thus each of
the boards (with the exception of the top and bottom levels of the PES) would have three levels
of management Bach design board would synthesize the plans prepared by the planning team
for their unit The multilevel nature of the planning boards allows for up-and-down flow of
design information and integration and coordination of design inquiry throughout the
organization. A further advantage of this method is that it could be instituted as the management
structure of the PES.
Any decisions that might affect another unit at the same or a higher level would need to be
approved by the lowest level design board to which all these units report. This means that all
decisions that would affect lower level units would require their review and their viewpoints
should be considered.
This method would allow the opportunity for full participation of all those who wished to
be involved. Membership would be voluntary and open to all members of the unit
This method would appear to offer the fullest degree of participation and input into the
process of ongoing organizational redesign. This would provide a process structure to iterate in
a continuous design mode.
The design boards could address themselves to the five design stages in the manner set out
above. The design boards would operate in all the organizational levels in the PES. These levels
would then comprise the system of ongoing overlapping (continuous) design boards for
interactive design involvement.
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5. Summary and Conclusions

Educational systems, a particular type of human activity system, operate in an environment that
is in a state of continual change. This change is occurring at an increasing rate, which requires
that HAS must learn how to manage effectively in this type of context. Educational systems
must design educational processes and content that are relevant to the larger societal systems
within which they are embedded.
Systems design offers an approach to assist HAS in continuous ongoing organizational
learning. The PES used as an example was deemed to have been involved in planning or
redesign in an attempt to articulate and operationalize a new and expanded vision of its purpose.
This study was intended to determine whether new design input information to support its
attempts could be generated through a retrospective design analysis.
The framework for RDA was created by synthesizing the models of design scholars into an
integrative model appropriate to the characteristics of the PES. The framework was formulated
through a number of steps. The type of system the PES represents was determined first.
Suitable organizing perspectives to guide the design inquiry were developed next and criteria
were established to select the design methods that were appropriate for the PES system. A
design model was established through a synthesis of various design models appropriate to the
PES. This model was used to conduct a retrospective design analysis of the planning efforts of
the PES.
The need for an historical and contextual background for the study was given. The past
planning or design efforts of the PES were reported by identifying significant events in their
planning or redesign process. These events were then interpreted through the framework of the
RDA.
The output of the retrospective design analysis led to the development of a proposed design
model for the PES.
The RDA process is of sufficient credibility to be a generalizable process for generating
design input information for other human activity systems.
This presentation suggests that HAS can generate design input (organizational learning)
information through a retrospective design analysis.

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 221

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13. Nadler, G.: Work Systems & Designs: The IDEALS Concept. Homewood, IL: R.D.
Irwin 1967
14. Warfield, J.N.: Organizations and systems learning. In General Systems Yearbook,
Society for General Systems Research (eds.) 27, pp. 5-74 (1982)
Section 3 A Systems View of Designing
Educational Systems
The Application of Systems Thinking to the Design of
Educational Systems
Rafael Rodriguez Delgado

Instituto Nacional de Administaci6n Publica, Spain, Spanish Society for General Systems, Dr.
G6mez Ulla 4-28028 Madrid, Spain

Abstract: Designing new educational systems adapted to our emerging information and
electronics societies needs to experiment with new ideas and perceptions sensitive to different
cultural perspectives. General methodologies open to the unbiased use of induction, deduction,
experimentation, analysis, synthesis and complementary static, dynamic and dialectic (or better
"multilectic") perspectives appear as promising instruments for designing educational systems
and redesigning schools and school systems.

Keywords: Education, Educational Systems, Educational Systems design,

Transdisciplinarity, Systems methodology, Systems theory, Systems thinking.

Introduction

It is widely recognized that present educational systems are inadequate for the emerging
societies, based on electronics and information. Friedrichs and Schaff (1982) compiled a book
that shows how microelectronics, telematics and other revolutionary technologies have changed
all kinds of social relations. However, there is not a single chapter in this compilation about
their impact in education.
One year before, an international report (UNESCO, 1981) was dealing with the application
of the systems approach to the analysis of the educational systems, its constraints,
interrelations, innovation, transformation possibilities and more efficient utilization of resources
- especially for the Third World.
Since then a great amount of literature and many international meetings have dealt with the
subject. Under the direction of Bela H. Banathy, several "Fuschl Conversations" (two in
Spain) have obtained valuable conclusions related to the application of Systems Thinking to
education. The problem of "Education' for Development" was studied from different
perspectives in an international meeting (SISBER-82) addressed specifically to Latin America.
Until now, these efforts have not found enough echo, The educational systems, in
developed and underdeveloped countries alike, have been deteriorating. Higher costs,
massification, inadequate relations with modern science and technology, obsolete concepts,
 226

lack of motivation, methodological stagnation, and other ills, have produced a threatening
situation for the learning future of the upcoming generations.
At present, however, the situation is changing. A desire to experiment with new ideas is
arising. The time seems ripe to test, in depth and in different social environments, the
possibilities that systems thinking may offer to educational renewal.
The main merits of the systems approach are its flexibility, lack of dogmatism,
complementarity of global and analytical approaches, integrative conceptions,
creative/innovative potential, transdisciplinarity, and experience in producing change in
individual and social systems. This approach appears as the most efficient way to design
educational systems "with minimal turmoil, resistance and expense".
This paper tries to offer a way to a macroscopic perception of some principles,
methodologies and main applications of systemic thinking for the design of educational
systems. Hopefully, this kind of design will lead to orient a creative/innovative redesigning of
schools and school systems.

The Cultural Perspectives

Educational systems are cultural products. They have shown until now analogous flaws in
design and application that the societies to which they belong. Educational systems do not
depend only on available economic and technological resources but also of ideological or
religious assumptions. Freedom of thought permitted the classic Greeks to develop excellent
educational systems. Tolerance and communication among Arab, Christian and Jewish
communities produced in the eleventh century in Toledo, Spain, a short-lived educational and
cultural revival. There are elements, in all present cultures, for learning to live in brotherhood
and peace.
Unfortunately, educational systems, in many countries, stick to old dogmas or are bad
copies of the obsolete systems of the industrialized countries.
When I was visiting the famous Al-Azahar University in EI Cairo, a few years ago, one
islamic integrist teacher explained to his pupils that the Earth is plane, ignoring the teachings of
his wise medieval predecessors. Young people are educated, in many places, for "holy" and
"unholy" wars, for terrorism and destruction.
If we design systemic educational systems only for the most developed countries, we face
the problem of widening the cultural and technological gap with the countries that represent 80
per cent of mankind. Therefore, it is necessary - for social, economic and political reasons - to
design educational systems adapted to different cultures and levels of development, interrelated
by a web of converging ideas! aiming to the consecution of global goals necessary for the
survival of our human race. The common objective of innovative educational systems should be
 227

to reach, at some future time, a similar level of basic knowledge for the world population as a
whole, as a platform for mutual understanding and cooperative action.
The collapse of the rigid communist ideology offers new possibilities for collaboration. The
dichotomic ideological assumptions that divided the Marxist and the Western countries,
influencing strongly their educational systems, is disappearing. Global problems can be
attacked now with common principles and methodologies.
The microelectronics and telematics revolutions promote the interrelation of all educational
systems. Strong synergies and knowledge transferences appear. The nervous system of
mankind is developing.

A Systems Approach to Design

The design of educational systems for a complex world cannot be based in preestablished rigid
formulas. However, some wide scope principles, likethe following, could be generally
accepted.
(a) Lack of dogmatism. Closed cultures tend to reject all other ideologies, showing
themselves as the ultimate truth. Systems thinking, on the contrary, should be open. Criticism
of the systems approach should be stimulated. System theory should be liberated of any
shackles, as Flood (1989) advises.
(b) Design flexibility should be maximized. Design should be adapted to cultural varieties;
increase participation; allow for a global conception in which similarities, differences and
conflicts could be studied; represent a planetary vision versus chauvinistic thinking.
(c) Design should take into account the complexity of systems, conceiving their elements as
pervasive and their limits as fuzzy.
(d) Integrated design of educational systems is important. But it is convenient to see that
there many possibilities of synthesis and integration, and that some of them are preferably to
others.
(e) Experimentation is vital in designing educational systems. A design that appears
intellectually flawless could fail totally when implemented. Failures, however, are ways of
learning to make better designs.

The Scale of Scientific Perception

Systems design should be disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, at different

levels.
 228

The systems approach can be applied to any discipline, showing its general framework. The
discovery of the linkages of a discipline with all the others is of foremost importance to prepare
the way to a global vision.
Each discipline has a growing number of specialities or subdisciplines, because, given our
limitations, it is necessary to divide our knowledge analytically into many fields, in order to
conquer a deeper understanding of the structure, functions and relationships of complex
systems.
Interdisciplinarity, on the other hand, is equally necessary.
When two or more disciplines coalesce (e.g. physico-chemistry, bio-chemistry, ecology,
etc.) emergent viewpoints are revealed, that were not implicit in the isolated disciplines.
Transdisciplinarity is a global perception of the ultimate connection of all or many
disciplines. From this perspectives, not only science, but all human activities appear as an
unitary whole, part and parcel of the unity of the universe. Unity and diversity do not appear as
opposite concepts, but as complementary perspectives.
This conception has been developed historically by the oriental intuitive holistic
philosophies. It has been presented as contradictory with the analytical rationalist thinking of
the Western scientists. This means that human groups have developed mainly the faculties of
one of our two brain hemispheres. But now we begin to understand that we need both halves -
our full brain-mind - to survive in the next century.

A Transdisciplinary Theory

A transdisciplinary theory should have a very reduced number of concepts obtained as

generalizations of the main ideas accepted by modem science.
This is a difficult task that needs the cooperation of many minds. I would offer only some
examples that indicate that it is not impossible.
Modem physics, for instance, shows this image of "natural systems". Natural systems are
composed of mass-energy, that evolves and transforms itselfin space-time. Mass-energy has
wave-corpuscular complementary aspects. Systems present a contradictory tendency to disorder
(entropy) and to order (negentropy) in an universe that oscillates between equilibrium and
disequilibrium. New systems may appear in conditions far away from equilibrium.
A theory of knowledge - that has not been built yet - would be a synthesis - at least - of
physics, biology, neurophysiology, psychoiogy and sociology. Our knowledge, in any case, is
very limited, being submitted to the principle of uncertainty. The observation of systems does
not represent "reality". It is conditioned by our physio-psychological structures and by our
cultures. However, through our intellectual refined instruments, we advance asymptotically
 229

towards a better understanding of our external and internal worlds, increasing our capability of
transfotnling both.
Modem biology shows the unity and the diversity of the living codes; the non-discernable
limit between non living and living systems; the multiplicity of biological levels, from protists
to mankind, and the appearance in each level of emergent structures, functions and relations,
together with growing variety, are universal principles whose isomorphisms appear in all
sciences.
Modern sociology reveals the importance of communication, information and values.
Axiology is being ignored frequently, but if science is not a cold empty exercise, values are
important. A science without values is the slave of autocrats and corrupt decision makers.
Systems theory tries to understand complexity, pervasivity, fuzziness, emergency,
organization, isomorphisms and other fundamental concepts, in order to build-up mental
instruments to penetrate the mysteries of the existence of Man and his Universe, and to act
intelligently upon them.
From the viewpoint of systems theory, an unified vision of universe and man can be
attained, compatible with the differences among levels and individuals.
A representation of the main components or subsystems of this unified vision is
shown in Figure 1.

"Real" world
univ(rse
Atoms
Molecules
Protists
I
SYSTEMS THEORY

,)osmOlo
gy
Physics
Chemistry
Sciences

Microbiology
Organisms ___- - - _ _ Biology
Psychology
MAN-ANTHROPOLOGY
Theory of Knowledge
Languages

HUMAN SCIENCES

Figure 1: Unified vision of universe and man

 230

General Methodologies

The design of educational systems has two main aspects: the theoretical - there is no good
practice without a good theory - and the methodological. Both are closely interlinked. Both are
necessary for designing new educational programs in which the leamer, the teacher, the
administrator and the government - from local to universal - have complementary roles to fulfil.

Induction, Deduction, Experiment

In respect to general methods (induction, deduction, experiment) a systemic design would offer
complete freedom of choice to researchers and learners alike. It is useless to proclaim the
primacy of one over the others. The three of them are valid. The question of using each one
depend of which appears as more appropriate to the instruments available and the goals
searched. The user should decide the convenience of applying one method, or the three of
them, to any subject or problem, taking into account which is the most useful for his/her
purposes, and which is the most desirable sequence.
The double-headed arrows in Figure 2 mean that any direction is permitted.

..--------11....
Induction ..... Deduction

~ Experiment /

Figure 2: General methods

We may consider the interrelation of these methods as a cybernetic interactive circuit. If we

begin with induction, the result would be a set of empirical data from which a physical or
logical principle (law) could be established. Usually this principle could be applied through
deduction to different sets of empirical data, in order to test its validity. The induction-deduction
cycle may be submitted to experimental validation in many cases. In other instances, the best
way would be to begin with an experiment to test a vague idea or to see what happens, and
follow with inductive and deductive processes.
 231

Analysis and Synthesis. Globality-Analysis Circuit

The relationship among general systems theory, system snalysis and system synthesis is
represented in Figure 3, showing the complementarity of the analytic and synthetic methods
from the global perspective of GST, that embraces both.

General Systems Theory

Analysis .... - ---- -------- ------.- Synthesis

Figure 3: Global perspective of general systems theory

The methods of analysis and synthesis may be applied to any system. In some experiments,
white light is decomposed in a series of colours; the analysis of insulin permits its synthesis; the
analysis of a business would offer several possibilities of operative synthesis, etc.
In addition, general systems sheory would profit of iterative processes of analysis and
synthesis in order to obtain generalizations applicable to different domains. From the
global perspective of general systems theory, analysis and synthesis would be considered as
complementary methods, applicable to concrete natural and social systems.

Open, Closed and Open-Closed Systems

Systems should not be considered as divided in the dichotomic categories of "open" and
"closed", taken as objective properties of two different classes of "real" things. The same
system can be considered as closed, open or open-closed, from different perspectives. An atom
appears as closed when its "mass" aspect is isolated from its "energy" aspect. From the
energetic viewpoint it is open, interacting with other atoms of the same or different class. An
organism is "closed" from the viewpoint of its autopoietic characteristics, as Maturana and
Varela (1980) see it. Our conscient mind - as our eyes - are closed during sleep, open when
awake, and open-closed in somnolence situations. An enterprise is open-closed from the
perspectives of its building and of its functions. Therefore, the concepts of open, closed and
 232

open-closed define different situations of a system in the external world, as perceived by our
minds.

Static, Dynamic and Dialectic Perspectives

Another systemic approach would consider immobility, movement and change as

complementary aspects of the behaviour of any system, revealed by the use of different time
scales.
System statics would consider the reference system in Time = O. Two consecutive
photograms of the jump of an animal taken at 10.000 images/sec. would show no appreciable
difference, seen one by one. The amount of money deposited in a bank account, the organigram
of an institution, a map, a frontier, do not change if there is not an external action. The
structural constants of any system - its anatomy - are considered as not changing during a given
period of time.
System dynamics focus on closed cybernetic processes. The main example is homeostasis -
the dynamic maintenance of systems structure and functions by means of a limited variety of
responses. Physiology of living beings an ecological cycles are instances of this perspective.
System dialectics focus on open non previsible processes. Biological mutations, social or
scientific revolutions, ideological "conversions", belong to this class. A systemic theory of
transformation would be more than "dialectical", "multilectical", meaning that in processes of
change there are usually more than two elements or actors involved in complex interrelations.
This transformation theory would embrace ontogenetic and philogenetic processes emerging
from many diverging or converging sources.
The limits between systems statics, system dynamics and system dialectics would be
necessarily fuzzy.
The design of educational systems would use these three approaches in different ways,
taken into account that none of them is more important than the others. The sequence static
dynamic-dialectic appear as more convenient, for instance, in elementary biology teaching,
beginning with anatomy, followed by physiology and ending with genetics (ontogenetics and
philo genetics). The sequence dialectic-dynamic-static appears more logical and advanced,
because it starts with ever present change and reproduction processes, more close to the "real"
world.
The problems of stability and change have been treated recently by The Society for General
Systems Research (now International Society for Systems Science), in European Congresses.
In London, (1979) the focus was in: "Improving the Human Condition: Quality and stability in
social systems". The second one met in Budapest (1987) under the title: "Problems of
Constancy and Change: the complementarity of systems approaches to complexity". It would
 233

be desirable to organize a Congress on "Transformation theory". Research on sudden global

changes could throw some light in non foreseeable processes, like the collapse of the
communist regimes in the Europe of the 1990s. The knowledge obtained would be
fundamental, among other things, for the design of new educational systems as well as for
orienting the creation of cognitive maps that could be understood - and perhaps in certain extent
shared - by persons of different cultural backgrounds.

Design of Educational Systems

Bela H. Banathy (1990) has given recently a brilliant account of the application of systems
thinking to design new systems of education.
Here, I am limiting myself to express a reduced number of general principles that could be
used to facilitate the design of preliminary models of new systems of education based on
systemic ideas. I am proposing also a tentative plan of action.
Among the general principles, appear to me as most relevant the consideration of as many
perspectives as would be necessary in each case to conceive a human action system, its
interrelationships, its adequacy to different environments, and the possibilities of applying the
generalized principle of complementarity to problems that at ftrst view appear as antagonistic or
conflictive. As Bertalanffy asserts (1968, 239-248), the perspectivist view is fundamental for
systems theory.
It is very useful to establish systems types and to match design methods to them, as Bela
Banathy (1987) proposes. It would be also convenient to find some general principles -
especially epistemological- to discover the subjacent unity in the observed diversity.
In our complex world, education should cover all the main ftelds of human thinking and
acting. Philosophy, natural and human sciences, arts, axiology, methodology, technology,
manual skills, physical fttness and Ludic activities. These different ftelds should be conceived
as parts of a network structure that envelops human existence. This network is in perpetual
change, extended in time through the whole life of the leamer.
Design of educational systems should take into account not only systems specialized in
education - schools, universities, research centres, etc. - but also the whole society. The family,
the working place, the political institutions, the labour, unions, the churches, the sports
installations, the communications networks - telephone, radio, television, video - are sources of
constant leaming, that frequently is noxious. A new educational system should try to influence
the redesigning of these leaming sites.
The global systemic approach would be based on a common core of fundamental ideas,
methods and holistic perspectives, to be applied in learning institutions without surcharging the
physical and intellectual capacity of the learner. This common core should constitute ascientiftc
 234

metalanguage in order to permit mutual understanding among specialized disciplines that in this
way would not be isolated, but constitute part of the knowledge whole.
The adequate mixng of theory and practice, of intense effort, rest and play, should
produced the joy of learning, not as a painful obligation, but as a fascinating exploration of the
inner and outer worlds, useful for the individual and the society.
The intervention of "generalists" is necessary, specially in the first orientation stage. They
do not need to be "teachers" in the common sense of the word, but "resource persons" that
could advice about the materials in which systemic concept are better expressed, explain
difficult subjects, and act as "conciliators" trying to find complementarity in concepts apparently
opposed. They should try to unveil the causes of "real" conflicts of interests and ideas.
Applications of different methods to concrete situations and problems, like global perception,
analysis, transformation processes, simulations, decision taking, etc. should be encouraged.
Serious criticism of the system approach - together with the exploration of how to avoid the
flaws signalled - is an useful exercise. It is convenient to train the learners for finding, by
themselves, common sets of interlinked general concepts related to natural and human sciences,
demonstrating their unity and diversity.
Research into vertical integration methods for global societal learning is important in order
to establish a scale of growing complexity in the advancement from pre-primary to post
graduate levels. Research into differential methods for slow and quick learners is equally
important.
Early stimulation has demonstrated its importance in the physical and conceptual
development of infants. Global societal learning should use well tested procedures in this as in
other decisive fields.
Ecology is an interdisciplinary subject-matter to which systemic methodology is been
applied. A. J. Hernandez (1989), in Spain, has written an useful book trying to integrate
ecology and pedagogy.
Human integrated development is a new field of research and action, closely related to
global societal learning.
These are only a few examples that indicate the need for experimenting.

Applications to Redesigning Schools and School Systems

The design of new educational systems should be in close relationship with the designing (or
redesigning) of new types of schools and schools systems.
From the viewpoint of global societal learning it would be advisable to explore questions
like the following:
 235

How to devise methods for quick adaptation of the school to changes in societal needs or
desires.
How to redesign schools and school systems in order to use communications, informatics,
video, compact discs, robotics and other advanced technologies for global societal learning.
How to redesign the school to implement, among other things, the functions of an
information centre, serving not only the school, but also the community.
How to redesign schools and school systems in order that they could contribute to
integrated community development.
How to make available to the learners free space - or computer software - in order to design
new types of school in accordance with their wishes.
How design could contribute to increase innovation and creativity among learners.

Suggestions for an Action Plan

To design a tentative action plan it would be necessary to define some focal points and to have
the support of a coordinating institution to begin the implementation efforts. Some suggestions
follow:
(a) Financing. Funding is, unavoidably, the fulcrum of any collective task of great scope.
International organizations, foundations, universities, government departments, research
institutes, public and private enterprises, among others, should be contacted, exploring their
willingness to contribute to the financing of a well organized plan of action in the field of
redesigning education. Some pilot projects could begin with very limited economic means.
(b) Documentation. International conferences, seminars, workshops, and "Conversations"
on systems theory and practice offer a great amount of materials to be used in design projects.
A considerable amount of valuable materials may be found not only in English, but also in
French, Russian and Spanish. Bibliographies, data bases and knowledge bases about systems,
in different languages, should be established. The elaboration of lists of reading materials for
different language areas would be very useful.
(c) Handbooks. A short, clear, handbook that would answer the basic question: What is
systems theory?, should be written by an international group of theorists and practitioners in
systems. It should be addressed to the general public in order to contribute to the creation of an
atmosphere of acceptance of the systemic ideas. Different - or diverging - opinions and
perspectives could be expressed. However, the complementarity of the different viewpoints
should be looked for by the editors.
A first attempt has been made at present to write such a book. The origin was in proposals
made in several Fuschl Conversations. One of the groups participating in the 1990 Fuschl
Conversation at Fuschl decided to realize a preliminary feasibility test. The test has been
 236

positive. A preliminary table of contents has been drafted and many authors have expressed
their willingness to contribute. The first version of the handbook will be in English. Versions in
other languages would follow shortly afterwards. The project is fully open to worthwhile
suggestions and contributions.
The redaction of other handbooks, for primary to postgraduate education levels would be
desirable.
(d) Pilot experimental learning projects. The international handbook and the selected
literature would base the initial curriculum for seminars and workshops addressed to the general
public, and specifically to professors and teachers of public or private schools and universities.
The main goals would be to learn from practice - teachers and students alike -, to evaluate
the materials used, to criticise the design and methods applied, and to propose changes for
reaching better results in future projects.
(e) The pilot experiments should be compared and evaluated by an international group of
experts that would draft a document of conclusions and recommendations to be presented
educational authorities, foundations, professional associations and other interested groups.
The goal would be to amplify the scope of the initial experiences trying to test them in pups of
schools or whole school districts. The fnal aim would be to transform the educational systems,
designing new systems tested in real situations.
(f) Timetable. The first experimental International Systems Handbook was drafted and
tested in 1991-1992. Several experimental learning projects were launched in the 1990s. Copies
of the Handbook were distributed among the participants in the learning projects. Reports were
drafted for distribution among financial supporters and interested institutions. Positive reactions
are expected.

References
1. Banathy, B.H.: Choosing Design Methods and The Design of Evolutionary Guidance
Systems. Unedited papers. International Society for General Systems Research, Budapest,
June 1987.
2. Banathy, B.H.: Systems Inquiry in Education. Systems Practice, June 1988, I (2), 193-
212.
3. Banathy, B.H.: Condensed version of Systems Design in Education: A Journey to Create
the Future, Educational Technology Publications, 1991.
4. Bertalanffy, L.: General System Theory. George Braziller, New York 1968.
5. Collen, A.: Evolutionary Guidance systems and Global Societal Learning. Think Paper,
The Fuschl Conversation at Lake Fuschl, Austria, 1990.
6. Friedrichs, G., and Schaff, A. (eds .. ): Microelectronics and Society, for Better or for
Worse. The Club of Rome, Pergamon Press, 1982.
7. Fuschl Group: "Report" and "Declaration" on the Murcia Conversation. Revista
Internacional de Sistemas, Vol. 1, Nos. 1 to 3, Madrid, 1989, and Vol. 2, Nos. 1 and 2,
Madrid, 1990.
8. Hernandez, A. J.: Metodologfa Sistematica en la Ensefianza Universitaria, Un proyecto de
integraci6n ecol6gica y pedag6gica. Narcea, Madrid, 1989.
9. Maturana, H.R., and Varela, FJ.: Autopoiesis and cognition, Reidel, Holland, 1980.
 237

10. Reigeluth, C.M.: Principles of Educational Systems Design. Paper presented at the 1990
AECT Convention (Separata), 1990. In this volume.
11. UNESCO, L'educateur et l'approche systemique. Manuel pour ameliorer la practique de
l'education. Unesco, Paris, 1981.
A Systems Approach Knowledge Base for Education

Hilda J. Blanco

Department of Urban Mfairs and Planning, Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, W 1611, NY,
NY 10021 USA

Abstract: The paper argues that the real failure of our school systems is their failure to
educate us for citizenship in a complex and interrelated world where institutions and technology
increasingly permeate modem life. Mter arguing that the reaching of limits in resources use will
make public education on the technological-institutional systems that support modem life
necessary, the author identifies a number of features of a systems approach knowledge base to
meet this challenge. Two illustrations of how a curriculum based on these features could be
developed are provided.

Keywords: systems approach, curriculum development, education for citizenship, systems

design, knowledge base for education, curriculum focus on technology and institutions, urban
affairs, education in policy and planning.

Part 1. Introduction

The Fundamental Failure of Our Educational Systems

In the United States today, there is nearly universal agreement that our educational systems fail
us. The primary standard to measure this failure is student performance in standardized tests in
reading and mathematics. Beyond their general failure to teach reading and mathematics, our
schools are also blamed for failing to train students for a changed economy, an information
economy, where even manufacturing jobs are being transformed from the traditional assembly
line requiring few skills, to jobs requiring complex and flexible skills, carried out in teams
where roles are frequently interchanged, and where computer-aided tasks are routine. Our
schools are also faulted for not inspiring enough young people to choose scientific and
engineering careers, leaving our economy vulnerable to other societies where science and
technology are more strongly emphasized in the curricula.
I believe these criticisms could be addressed by developing more effective educational
systems, with greater emphasis on science and mathematics, better teaching, more incentives
for all participants in the system. I want to stress a more fundamental failure, underlying the
ones just discussed, and not so easily addressed.
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Our schools fail to educate us for citizenship in a complex and interrelated world where
institutions and technology increasingly permeate modem life. Our educational systems fail to
provide an understanding of the processes and instruments (both technological and
organizational) that make our way of life possible. Their failure to do this is absolute: the
schools do not recognize it as part of their mission. Knowledge of the fundamental institutions
of modem life is not taught in school. We know our health care system, our water supply
system, our transportation system, our energy system, our tax system only as patients, as
consumers, as taxpayers. We lack the comprehensive understanding of these systems and their
interrelations that make possible informed, public decision-making and change. In the same
way, we know the technology of daily life--automobiles, computers, television--as consumers.
We do not know the resources they require, the institutions and processes that make them
possible, the consequences they have on the greater environment and our ways of life.
A major feature of modem life is its increasing organization--the majority of us work in
large private or public organizations. We function as part of teams. And yet, in our schools,
teamwork is learned at best in extracurricular activities. Rewards and punishments in our
schools are aimed at the individual. Teamwork, essential for the world of work, is not
conceived as a core skill to be imparted. Elementary and secondary schools still imitate the
teaching model of higher education, where the expert/teacher imparts his knowledge through
lectures to a classroom of passive students.
Our schools are intent on passing on information, not understanding, and certainly not
learning skills. Yet, methods for learning how to learn, from scientific method, to problem-
solving, policy analysis, planning, and systems design exist. These methods provide guidelines
for individual and group learning, and they can be taught. In a world of rapid change, where
information often becomes obsolete by the time it is printed, it becomes vital to teach learning
skills.
Most important, our schools pass on the disciplinary bias of higher education. The
knowledge disseminated in our schools is the one-dimensional knowledge of the academic
disciplines. And yet the great lesson Nature is teaching us today, through the environmental
problems that we face, is that things are intricately interrelated. We can no longer seek to
understand events in simple cause-effect relations, but in terms of interactive systems where
context, history, and agency are primary.
Our collective intervention in the world through social organization and technologies has
brought about fundamental changes in nature and in the scope of human responsibility. Our
triumph in the modem world is the triumph of homo jaber, man, the maker of tools. The
environmental problems that we face today cannot be addressed by turning back the clock and
embracing a hunter-gatherer way of life. Instead they will require more coordination, planning,
and design than we can conceive today. Yet our schools, accepting the model of contemplative
knowledge from higher education, instill a passive relation to the world. The focus of the
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classroom lesson is not on the problems of our day and how we could respond to them. The
classroom lesson instead is too often focused on watered-down generalities handed down from
the disciplinary sciences that shed little light on the events of daily life or that fail to engage
students' interest.
The mind of modem man as shaped by our educational systems is little different from that
of 17th century man or even from that of the Roman mind, 2,000 years ago. We are
fundamentally aliens in our culture. The institutions we work in, the tools we use, the
technological-institutional systems that support our lives are black boxes to most of us. We
learn the behavior expected of us to obtain desirable outcomes, but we are fundamentally
ignorant of their structure and operations, their interconnections, their histories; we lack critical
awareness to evaluate them or change them. We are worse than primitives when it comes to the
modem environment, because primitive man was master of the vital functions needed to survive
in his environment. We are helpless children.
It is as if all the forces in our culture conspire to keep the great masses of the world's
population ignorant about the institutional structures and processes and the technological
environment that shape our lives. This fundamental failure in our educational systems makes us
all, even those of us with the best educations, incapable of judging, from an informed
standpoint, the merits of institutions and technology. These issues are most often left to expert
judgment and elected officials. Without an informed public to act as a check on the judgment of
elected officials, these issues are often decided outside the public arena, where they are subject
to greater manipulation by dominant interest groups. This narrows the scope of democratic
decision making and action.
This ignorance of the modem conditions of life is fostered by one of the major tents of
modem civilization--specialization, ostensibly responsible for our civilization's great feats of
technology and organization. I am not challenging here the need for specialization in production
and management, but only its necessity in culture. Indeed, I question whether modem man has
a genuinely modem culture. Instead, I believe that, today, man is a barbarian among things and
processes that move him but which he does not understand.
As a trained scholar, I believe in the many uses of history, but it is a sad travesty that the
raging debate in higher education today is whether the core of university studies should
continue to be the white European classics or whether such studies should be opened to
alternative ethnic and gender realities. This controversy, however, fails to grapple with the
fundamental issue. Education has abdicated its central role in culture--making understandable
the world in which we live and our place in it. Although Western classics or those of diverse
ethnic groups may hold perennial insights for us, especially with respect to interpersonal
relations, the unquestioned assumption on which this debate rests--that the human condition, in
terms of both the nature of man and of the world in which we live, is unchanged and adequately
expressed by these works--is false. The reach and extension of modem technology in our lives
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confront us with basic collective decisions on issues we have assumed as givens in the human
condition--life, death, and with surrogacy of various kinds, even motherhood. Beyond that,
our technology has altered nature to such an extent that the assumptions of Western culture and
of other cultures about Nature as immutable and outside the range of human responsibility no
longer hold.

Domestic Stability in the Future Will Depend on Such an Education

A population educated to understand modem institutional and technological processes,

imbued with an action-oriented, long-range, and comprehensive perspective, and skilled in
group processes could effectively demand fundamental changes in our institutions and power
structure. The new knowledge focus I propose could pose substantial threats to existing
economic and political forces. Why should such forces support this change in our educational
institutions? I believe, because, short of fascism, we do not have a choice.
The environmental problems that we face give evidence of thresholds we have reached in
exploiting the world's resources. First, we have no new land frontiers with their fresh supplies
of natural resources. Although many resources are still abundant, extracting them or bringing
them to market will be more expensive in the future. And thus, since we have already exploited
the most accessible resources, just using resources at the same rates will be more expensive.
Agricultural products, the major portion of the world's food supplies, are likely to become
more expensive. Much of the increase in agricultural productivity in the past is due to increases
in the amount of land under irrigation. World-wide, since 1980 the expansion of irrigated area
has slowed dramatically, and world net irrigated area per capita has been decreasing since then
[44, 3]. In addition, much agricultural land already under irrigation is threatened by
salinization, and soil erosion. Recent estimates, for example, indicate that salinization is
reducing yields on 24% of irrigated land world-wide [44, 3]. And world-wide population
continues to increase. Food has been heavily subsidized in many countries, but with no net
increase and even losses in agricultural lands, food prices are likely to increase substantially
even in the developed countries.
The costs for maintaining the current standard of living in many developed countries in
?ther areas is also likely to increase. In the United States, for example, we have been living off
the infrastructure constructed from the tum of the century through the 1960s. Due to age and
lack of maintenance much of it is crumbling. Replacing it will be an incredible drain in our
economy--even if the current levels of defense spending were to be directly transferred to
improving or replacing infrastructure, it might not be enough. And of course, we have
enormous social problems--crime, drugs, lack of affordable housing, daycare, elderly services,
and so on--that will also be competing for public investment.
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All this suggests that even just to maintain or replace the physical infrastructure, taxes will
have to increase significantly, and that basic goods and services, such as food, water, electricity
will also increase. This likely increase in the rates of taxation, will be accompanied not by an
increase, but a likely decrease in the standard of living for most people in the developed world.
In the United States, we are experiencing this already. In the area of housing, for example,
home ownership is becoming more and more difficult to achieve for the children of middle-
income suburban families. In the space of a generation, expectations of home ownership have
been shattered for many younger, middle income families.
These types of changes will require people to act more responsibly and, even, to make
sacrifices. Let me illustrate this point with two examples in the area of urban services.
In the United States, garbage disposal has reached crisis proportions in many
municipalities. In the past we relied on two methods for disposing of garbage, burning it in
incinerators, and dumping it in landfills. Recent environmental regUlations geared to protect our
groundwater resources have led to the closing of landfills. In the past ten years, 50% of the
nation's landfills have closed. New regulations governing the siting of new landfills and
incinerators have made it difficult to construct new ones. These new facilities are much more
expensive to construct and operate, and property taxes in some municipalities have soared just
to address the garbage problem.
Many municipalities around the country are facing the problem of increasing garbage
production and shrinking disposal capacity. This has led to a reconceptualization of the
problem. Instead of a simple disposal problem, the problem is seen as one of managing the
production of garbage. landfills and incinerators, because of their financial and environmental
costs, are no longer the preferred alternatives. States and municipalities are turning to garbage
reduction and recycling as primary strategies. These strategies require individuals to understand
the system of garbage production, from the extracting of primary materials, production
processes, packaging, use, and disposal. Successful reduction and recycling programs require
public understanding of the effects of purchase and disposal decisions on broader economic
forces and markets. Beyond that, it requires changes in the daily habits of using and disposing
of products. Short of strict policing, the success of these strategies depend on the
understanding and cooperation of broad masses of people. These programs do not work
without strong public education campaigns.
In the case of water supply, the pollution of water resources is reaching critical proportions
in many areas in the United States. To safeguard supplies against organic threats, 1986
amendments to the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act has mandated the filtration of all water supply
systems that rely on surface water sources. Such filtration will exact a tremendous cost from
municipalities around the country. New York City estimates that it will cost about $4 billion to
construct a plant to comply with this new regulation [5]. But our problems with water do not
end with safeguarding water quality. In urban areas, up to 80% of the water leaves the system
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as waste water, and must be treated. The treatment of waste water is expensive, much more so
than the cost of supplying fresh water in the first place. In NYC, for example, sewer rates are
double the water rates. And thus the cost of treating waste water and not the cost of finding new
sources will be the real constraint on water supply in many parts of the country. A likely future
scenario in the United States is that municipalities will be forced to develop plans that include
conservation measures in addition to increases in water and sewer rates. Again, here, citizens
will be faced with greater taxes, and cuts in use. To avoid taxpayer revolts, and gain
understanding and cooperation for conservation programs, public education will be key.
These two examples indicate that educating everyone on the systems and processes that
support daily life will be essential to confront changes in economic and public service
conditions in the years to come. Beyond its importance to the culture of an informed public, an
education focused on the understanding of systems that impact daily life has built-in advantages
for learning. It has relevance and immediacy. It invites discussion and debate. It directly
engages individual action and public policy.

Part 2. A Systems Approach Knowledge Base for Education

Features of A Systems Approach Knowledge Base for Education

The knowledge base I propose for a new educational system has the following features:
l. Concreteness. It is focused on concrete elements of our environment, immediately
accessible and vital to daily life, e.g., a year-long focus on the weather, rather than on earth
science, on radio rather than on physical science.
2. Hands-on. It has a hands-on orientation, if the subject studied does not lend itself to
production,then it should be stimulated.
3. Methods-Oriented. Instead of a focus on learning facts or theories, it is focused on learning
methods, i.e., critical thinking, scientific method, logic, policy analysis, planning, systems
analysis and design.
4. Normative. It has an explicit critical focus on norms and values.
5. Systems-Oriented. It emphasizes the understanding of three sets of systems, the natural
world; man-made systems, both social and physical, such as health care and education; and the
self and community, including e.g., the human body and its requirements for health or family
life. In particular, in the study of man-made systems, there is an explicit emphasis on
organizations, including government, private corporations, public agencies, non-profit
agencies, and others.
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6. Situated within the Local Community. It achieves understanding of the interaction among
these systems by situating them within the local community, where the interaction among these
systems is evident and accessible.
7. Future and Change-Oriented. Instead of a focus on description and explanation, it is future
and change-oriented and emphasizes problem-solving, policy, planning, design, and action.
8 . Focused on the Material and Social Conditions of Life. It highlights the domains of work,
money, lifestyle, and their relations in each study sitUation.
9. Practical Context for the Sciences and Humanities. It weaves the knowledge or insights of
the humanities and sciences into production, operation, planning and design contexts.
In order to support this new system, the organization of the schools will require changes
along these lines:
a. The lecture classroom, which has been the primary setting in our schools, should be
replaced by workshop/studios that facilitate small group interaction and hands-on production,
operation, and simulation.
b. The role of the instructor should change from that of lecturer and examiner, to that of small
group facilitator, research resource-cc, community liaison.
c. Instead of primary reliance on printed texts, learning should be facilitated by production,
operation, simulation techniques, computer-aided learning, and the use of other electronic
media.
d. The work of student teams should result, as much as possible, in products that are useful
and used by government community organizations, or even the private sector. That is,
cooperative arrangement between schools and social institutions should be established on an
ongoing basis where the schools provide research, analysis, planning, design services, and
even some products or substantive services for the community, while the institutions provide
access to processes and information, and become active resources for the curriculum.
My proposal fits within the context of an educational system agenda developed by Banathy
[1] where the learning experience is held to be primary. Under such a system our new learning
agenda calls for: developing competence for the technological age through an emphasis on
higher order learning; acquiring competence in cooperation; and acquiring competence in
systems thinking and action. The features developed above, in particular, expand the meaning
of higher order knowledge.

How Could the Curricula of Schools Be Changed to Meet these Objectives?

In order to meet the objectives outlined above, the content of school curricula from K-college
requires overall changes. These changes should be guided by findings from careful
investigations that identify the most important features of our modern environment, how best to
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sequence their understanding and mastery, and how best to match developmental abilities at
different ages with curriculum content.
Without such studies, any suggestions can only be tentative. Tentative though they may be,
some suggestions regarding the content of a curriculum that incorporates these objectives must
be made. I will develop these in the rest of this paper.

A. The Focus of Early School Education. The focus of early school education should
be on learning natural systems, man-made systems, and the self and community. I envision that
each year the curriculum would be centered on the learning of a system from each of these three
domains in depth. I offer the following examples for illustrative purposes only. Greater thought
is needed to establish the best way to subdivide, present, and sequence the subjects in these
domains. These examples are not meant to be exhaustive.

Natural Systems Man-Made Systems Self & Community

air communication the human body

land food production, perception &
energy storage and thinking
water preparation behavior and
plant life the built environment action
animal life transportation family life
finance school
community

These domains are meant to be broad subject areas that need to be developed in a more
concrete way the younger the child. For example, for eight or nine year olds, the study of air
and the atmosphere could be more concretely focused on the weather; the subject of a more
concrete focus in communications could be a study of the radio; a more concrete study of the
human body could focus on nutrition and exercise for health maintainence.
Let me illustrate how a focus on radio, for example, could be developed to incorporate the
objectives proposed above.
The first objective is met by focusing on a concrete medium for communication--radio--
which is part of our daily lives. Radio is an ideal technology for the early years because it is
relatively simple, and lends itself to hands-on production, and operation. I envisage the first
focus of the course on the radio as a technological product. The students could first learn how
radios work and how to build a radio. ~his would require an understanding of the basic
principles of mechanics and electronics that explain radio operations. The history of the
development of the physical theory and technology would also be introduced at this point.
Then the focus of learning could reach backwards to the materials used to make radios, both
natural and man-made. Where do they come from? How are they obtained or manufactured?
Are some materials rare? How are they transported to manufacturing sites? What is cost of
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materials compared to overall production costs? What is the cost of transporting materials to
manufacturing sites? Are radio manufacturing sites concentrated in some parts of the country or
the world? If so, why? Are there local manufacturers?
From there, radio productuion in the near-by region could be studied. How is a radio
factory organized for work? What is its physical layout? Students could conduct their own
experiments testing the efficiency and other effects of various work organizations, e.g., each
student making a complete radio versus organizing themselves into an assembly line. What is
the occupational structure of the workforce in radio manufacturing plants? What kind of salaries
do different type of workers make? What kind of education is required for the different types of
work? What kind of lifestyles do these different workers have? What are the major problems in
the workplace? How have these problems been addressed so far? How else could these
problems be addressed? Who is responsible for planning in this plant? To what extent are the
workers involved in planning? Who is responsible for design innovations? What are the main
directions for innovation in radio technology? Case studies on past management, planning, and
design issues could be the focus for learning management, planning, and design processes and
their critical assessment.
Then the focus could shift to radios as economic commodities. What are the various costs
involved in the production of radios? What is current range of prices for radios? What are the
features that account for the range in prices? What are the trends in radio sales? What are the
factors that account for these trends? What are the major problems that this industry faces? How
is the competition organized in this industry--i.e., is it highly competitive or monopolistic; does
it face threats from mainly national or international competition? How profitable is this industry
as compared to other communication production industries, such as TV manufacturers, or other
industries, such as food industries? Once made, how are radios transported and sold? How
much do retailers stand to make from their sales? What is the role and cost of advertising in the
sale of radios? Again the use of case studies in economic competition for market sales should be
used.
The focus could then broaden to study radio as a communication medium. Here the radio
station would become the subject of attention. Visits to local radio stations would be arranged.
A major workshop task might be setting up a student radio station or preparing programming
for local stations. How does a radio station operate (technical setting as well as management)?
What is the role of the government in allocating air space or in monitoring the content of
programming? Issues of government regulations, fairness, standards of morality could be
introduced here. How are radio stations financed? The role of advertising in commercial radio
would come under study. The format and content of radio programs could then be highlighted.
The study of the various formats--talk shows, music shows, news, radio plays, storytelling--
could follow. What are the fe~tures of the radio station as a work setting, e.g., the physical
layout, the types of workers, the education required, the salaries, the lifestyles? What are the
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major problems that radio broadcasters face? How have these problems been addressed thus
far? What other means are there to address these problems?
Then an examination of the radios from the user perspective could follow. When and why
do people use radios as opposed to other communications/entertainment media? A workshop
task could be the design and administration of a survey of local users. Are people satisfied with
the choices of radio programming they have? What are the psychological and social effects of
listening to radio programming of different types for long periods of time--that is, what are the
opportunity costs of such listening? What are the effects of advertising on consumers? Do these
effects vary with age?
Then the scope could be expanded beyond commercial/public radio. What are the non-
commercial uses of radio? Who are the major non-commercial radio users in the region? How is
such use allocated? How important is radio use for these users?
The development of a curriculum that addresses the areas outlined above would respond to
the objectives for a systems approach knowledge base. First, the foil of the year-long course of
studies is an element of our contemporary environment that is important and accessible to all
The radio as a focus is used as a foil to sweep in various natural and man-made systems--
systems that require basic scientific knowledge in the areas of mechanics, electronics, the
atmosphere. It requires mathematics for measurement, for economics, for survey results. The
work settings in both production and broadcasting provide fertile ground for discussions of
organization and management issues of fairness and efficiency, health and safety. It conveys a
clear view of how education is connected with work opportunities, how work is connected with
income, and how income and education m connected to lifestyles. It provides a realistic sense
of the functions performed in different work-settings and the peculiar satisfactions and
dissatisfactions of each. Participation in such a curriculum would generate more mature career
choices.
In itself, it is systemic, beginning with a technological product, it .sweeps backwards and
forwards encompassing the natural and man-made materials that make up the product, the
production process itself, the distribution and sale of an economic good, the programming
process, its licensing, its financing, the use of the product and its effects daily life.
In its highlighting of problems in the materials, production, economics, workplaces, etc., in
its raising of legal and ethical issues, this curriculum fosters critical thinking. The explicit focus
on problems calling for changes in management planning, and design contexts develops skills
that could be applied in other contexts. Beyond this, specific analytic techniques could also be
introduced, e.g., survey methods, queueing theory.
Issues of licensing, free speech, the conditions of the work place, salaries and profit levels,
censoring would be fertile ground for discussions of our legal system and ethical values.
The relevant sciences could be easily integrated into such studies. I suggest that the
scientific content could be organized in small modules, as self-contained as possible. For
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example, enough electronic theory to understand the operations of the technology, enough
psychology to understand the effect of advertising on people. The humanities could also be
integrated in a similar way. Storytelling, radio plays, news reporting, music, poetry,
commercials, public service announcements, all these provide rich ground for reading, writing,
listening and oral skills. Even architecture and interior design could be integrated in this
curriculum through an examination of workplaces from aesthetic and broader psychological,
safety and health, as well as functional perspectives.

B. The Focus of Adolescent Education. In adolescence, the focus of education should

be on learning the structure and operations of government, with a primary emphasis on local
government In devising a new curriculum for adolescents, the experience of professional social
inquiry (psi) should be most useful. The term, professional social inquiry, was coined by
Lindblom and Cohen in their book, Usable Knowledge [6]. It refers to the various communities
of problem-solvers, policy analysts, systems analysts, economic planners, management
scientists, urban and regional planners, functional system planners (e.g., transportation
planners, health planners), and systems designers. Psi, as contrasted with traditional scientific
inquiry is problem or situation-focused, decision and action-oriented. The various communities
that comprise psi, although there is little communication among them, share a method or
process, which I characterize as the process of practical reasoning [2]. This method, with many
variations and various degrees of formalization, is essentially a feedback learning process that
begins with an analysis of the situation leading to the articulation of the problem or the objective
that will organize the inquiry; goals, values, or visions are formulated and agreed upon;
strategies or ways of achieving values are explored and then assessed based on their potential
consequences; decisions are arrived at based on findings of the inquiry; actions are carried out
based on decisions taken; and finally decisions, designs, plans, are evaluated based on actual
results. This evaluation of decisions or plans executed is then fed back on an ongoing learning
spiral to inform future analyses of situations, problems, or designs.
Some of the psi communities, in particular, public policy and city and regional planning,
since their practice is on public policy and planning, have established a fund of case studies,
and policy and planning areas that could be developed into meaningful curricula for educating
adolescents as responsible citizens. My own current experience in developing an undergraduate
course in the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College entitled, "The
Structure of the Urban Region," I believe, could be used as a model for developing such a
curriculum.
Urban Affairs is one among several interdisciplinary fields found in many U.S. colleges
where the course of studies remains solidly centered on disciplinary fields. As such, it
represents the best we can expect from the hegemony of the one-dimensional disciplines in
higher education. The normal approach in urban affairs courses also demonstrates the
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limitations of inter-disciplinary studies in a predominantly disciplinary context They are often

little more than a smorgasbord of interesting findings and models/theories from the different
disciplines applied to the same subject--urban life and environment. The city may become a
more richly textured subject for students after being exposed to such courses. But the linkages
among the divergent perspectives, and the practical knowledge and the perspective needed to
assume full citizenship in the local community are still missing.
My objectives in developing this course have been the following:
a. To provide an understanding and appreciation of the complex organizations and problems in
contemporary metropolitan regions through the development of fundamental aspects of the local
community, and a study of its major urban systems;
b. To expose students to major urban systems--e.g., transportation, education, criminal
justice--their features and interelations;
c. To provide an understanding of the student's local community, its characteristics and
problems;
d. To gain practice in applying the method of practical reason to public problems;
e. To foster more intelligent, responsible and participatory citizenship.
The course uses three basic strategies to achieve these objectives:
1. A set of readings, lectures, and discussions;
2. A simulation game, the Community Land Use Game [4];
3. A semester-long assignment which calls for the students to prepare profile of the student's
community district, an assessment of urban services in the district and of major problems; and a
plan of action directed at one of the problems identified.
1. The Set of Readings and lectures. The lectures and readings are divided into two parts.
The first part covers topics normally found in urban affairs courses, except for the rational
model:
* The rational model of planning or policy-making;
* The historical context--urbanization trends in the past 200 years;
* Government in a fragmented metropolis--municipal government organization, mismatch
between political jurisdiction and economic functions;
* Public finance-taxation; the relation of taxes to urban services; the budget process;
* Demographics-population growth and decline, and its relation to economics and finance;
age and family composition and their relation to urban services; ethnicity and issues of
racism, conflict, community, and politics
* The Local Economy--the economic profile of the region; its employment base; trends.
To make the learning more concrete, immediate, and systems-oriented, I have added a study
of the individual urban services that municipal governments typically provide. Thus, the rest of
the readings and lectures focus on a set of urban services:
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* Education;
* Health and Hospitals;
* Welfare services;
* Housing;
* Criminal Justice (Police/Courts/Jails);
* Transportation;
* Land Use and Development;
* Water and Sewage
* Garbage Disposal
For each of the urban services, I try to cover the following:
a. its historical development--in terms of organization, technology, major programs or
processes;
b. its organization, including institutions and major processes and programs;
c. its fmancing;
d. major organizing concepts, e.g., in transportation, the concept of street hierarchy;
e. indicators of performance, e.g., in transportation, the concept of Level of Service (LOS)
used to measure traffic flow on highways or street intersections;
f. major strategies used to deal with problems.
The primary objective of the readings, lectures and discussions is to instill a systemic,
planning and action-oriented perspective with regard to public issues and problems. Also, to
make these issues come alive, it is important to. situate these discussions within the local
community. Thus, this part of the course weaves back and forth between an overview of
conditions around the country, and current conditions in our own metropolitan area.
2. The Simulation Game. The objectives of the simulation game are to provide the students
with a realistic sense of the process of land development, how this is connected to the provision
of public services, and their relation to municipal financing. The students form development
teams of four or five. Each student has a specific task on the team, subject to rotation--planner,
contract negotiator, city councilperson, accountant. Each development team starts out with the
same amount of money. With this money, they can bid on parcels of land and develop land for
specific uses in a hypothetical new communit. They must also negotiate and enter into contracts
for workers and services, as well as participate in the local community council, and pay taxes.
Through this simulation, the students are simultaneously exposed to two major processes--the
private development process that is subject to individual team objectives, and the community
development process with its collective objectives, i.e., low taxes, adequate services, and low
or no deficits. The group interaction in the simulation game is very stimulating to students, and
reinforces in a concrete way many of the findings covered in the lectures, readings,
anddiscussions. I have taught this course with and without the simulation game and the results
are clear. Without the simulation game, only the bright minority understand the connections,
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e.g., between land development and transportation. With the simulation game, the broad
majority understand these links.
3. The Semester Assignment. The assignment has four parts:
a. Preparation of a Community Profile. This calls for the student to prepare a profile of their
community district, including statistics and trends on population, age, race/ethnic composition,
educational achievement income, unemployment poverty, and welfare. It also calls for the
mapping of the district's major roads, commercial and industrial activities, and ethnic enclaves.
b. Identification and Assessment of Urban Services. This calls for the identification and
assessment of the following urban services for their district: educational facilities; police and
fire; housing; transportation and parking; health and hospitals; land use regulations and
planning; social services; recreational facilities; water, sewage, and garbage.
c. Identification of Major Problems. This part requires an identification of the major problems
of the community district, including their priority.
d. Devising a Plan. The last part asks the student to devise a plan to address one of the
problems identified in the previous part.
This assignment gets students to inquire into the conditions of the urban service systems in
their local community. It requires them to link and interpret published statistics about the
community they live in, as well as conduct interviews with community activists, attend
community organization meetings, and observe their community systematically.
As it is, this course, with its reinforcing components, provides a richer learning experience
than most undergraduate courses. But if this course is used as a model for the curriculum of
adolescent education, there are a number of additions that could be made to meet more fully the
objectives for the new knowledge base presented above. More experiential elements could be
incorporated. A natural follow-up, for example, would be to establish internships for students
in community or local government agencies. Case studies of communities with diverse
conditions around the country or the world could give the curriculum a comparative dimension.
legal and ethical issues that are raised could be more fully discussed. With more time, study of
work settings in the public sector could also be included.
Because of its immediacy and greater accessibility, I believe local government should be the
focus of education for citizenship. However, adolescents must also understand the work of
federal and state governments, and curricula for these two should be similarly developed.
The specific suggestions I have made concerning the content of early and adolescent
education are exploratory in nature. But their intent--to instill in all our citizens an
understanding of the complex technological and organizational environment of modem life--and
the objectives outlined in this paper, I believe, are essential to ensure a viable and democratic
future.
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3. Conclusion

The content and focus of our educational efforts fail to engage the interest and understanding
needed for young people to participate in an increasingly complex and interrelated world. The
main focus and concern of our schools is still to teach humanities, sciences, engineering, and to
staff the various professions. These concerns are valid. Humanities enrich individual
experience; the sciences provide a theoretical understanding of our world; engineering trains
people to create and manage technology; the various professions enable our societies to sustain
institutions of various types. But for the most part, the best educated of our students fail to
understand the interrelatedness of the systems that support modern life in their technical,
institutional, social, political, and philosophical aspects. They also fail to attain a future, action-
oriented approach to deal with societal problems. Yet, in our world today, simple ordinary
actions, such as opening a water faucet or discarding garbage, have significant impacts on our
common environment. The cumulative impacts of decisions we all make in the marketplace or at
the voting booth have consequences that are felt worldwide. Our educational efforts need to
focus on creating an understanding of natural and man-made systems and how they impact
daily, ordinary actions. In this paper I have developed some exploratory suggestions on how
such an understanding could be achieved by redesigning the content of school curricula. This
understanding is vital to our future. Without such an understanding, our societies will lack
popular support and cooperation for rational policies regarding the management and use of
natural and social resources in the years ahead.

References
1. Banathy, B.H .. : System Design of Education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational
Technology Publications 1990.
2. Blanco, H.J.: Pragmatism: Conceptual Framework for Planning. Ann Arbor, MI:
University Microftlms International 1989.
3. Brown, L. et al.: State of the World 1990. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. 1990.
4. Feld, A. G.: Player's Manual CLUG Community Land Use Game. New York: Free Press
1972.
5. Gold, A. R.: Drinking Water Will be Purer, But at What Price? New York Times, October
7, 1990.
6. Lindblom, C.E. and D.K. Cohen: Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem
Solving. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1979.
Approaches and Methods of Systems Design:
Critical Pedagogy

Wendy Gregory
Hull University, Cottingham Road, Hull HU6 7RX, United Kingdom

Abstract: This paper focuses on the processes of systems design. Several approaches have
been witnessed over the last few decades, which can be classified as "doing to", "doing for",
and more lately as "doing with". It will be argued that this latest participative style of systems
design is ethically the most sound. Various systems approaches will be loosely classified
within the three categories, and the question will be raised as to whether systems science does
offer any coherent and rigorous "doing with" design methodologies.

Keywords: Critical systems theory, cognitive emancipation, critical pedagogy, education

systems design, commitments, knowledge constitutive interests.

Introduction

Education systems have evolved in a somewhat piecemeal fashion with the design expertise of
teachers and politicians impacting at different levels within the said systems. Currently
academics, politicians, the business community, students and growing numbers of parents are
expressing dissatisfaction with extant teaching practices (see for example [28]). the extent of
this dissatisfaction is reflected in the increasing efforts to design some kind of radically different
educative system: a system that provides for sometimes conflicting views of what it ought to be
like. This paper advocates the use of critical systems thinking in the development of ethically
sound education systems.
In drawing out the utility of a critical systems approach for tackling this task it will be
necessary to elucidate the nature of critical systems thinking. Furthermore, the limitations of
other systems approaches will be highlighted in order to clarify the need for a critical systems
perspective.

Critical Systems Thinking

In a paper that was published in 1991, Jackson [23] details five 'commitments' central to
critical systems thinking - namely: 'critical awareness, social awareness, complementarism at
 254

the methodological level, complementarism at the theoretical level, and a dedication to human
emancipation'. In seeking to design an educative system, it can be argued that there is a need to
be critically aware (of any vested interests), a need to be socially aware (oflikely impacts of the
proposed design), a need to identify complementary theories and methodologies, and finally,
the requirement to orient the design effort towards emancipation of repressed individuals and
communities.
Insofar as a critical perspective may serve to provide systems thinkers with a different
understanding of an already perceived problem, a form of emancipation occurs automatically,
and it is this form of cognitive emancipation that will be propounded within this paper.
Before I proceed further, it is necessary to sidestep for a short time to elaborate on the
necessity for "emancipation". The term emancipation itself has come to be associated with
radical, even anarchical events, behaviours and situations. This is unfortunate, as many social
scientists and political scientists "switch off' to critical systems thinking the moment that
emancipation is mentioned. As Lynda Davies [10] rightly states, 'It is a word which takes an
ethical stance .. .' The understanding of emancipation which many critical systems thinkers
espouse is one which recognises our social setting as a product of our thoughts and actions: to
quote Davies again

We have developed different traps which are our social constrictions, differentiated by
our cultural symbolic creations. We have created them; they are not inevitable products
of our evolutionary positions. If we are to understand how we are trapped by them (and
hence, to be emancipated from them), then we need to investigate the process by which
we create and maintain them rather than just treat them as products of our social life.
The trap is not inevitable; to think that it is leads to the ultimate trap. Without this belief
critical (systems) thinking would be redundant.
[10:385]

Furthermore, Fay [12] explained that a critical

theory is not a moralistic or utopian one which attempts to get people to simply adopt a
new set of ideas which are foreign and threatening to them, but rather is one which
seeks to articulate the felt grievances of a specific group of actors, to provide a
vocabulary in virtue of which they and their situation can be conceptualised, to explain
why the conditions in which they find themselves are frustrating to them, and to offer a
programme of action which is intended to end with the satisfaction of these desires.
[12:98]

It should be clear from this that a critical awareness can by itself, and of itself, bring about a
form of emancipation from the societal structures which ensnare us.
Given that a critical systems perspective seeks to provide this form of cognitive
emancipation, it seems clear that any attempts to design an education system ought to take on
board the commitments outlined above. A natural question to ask might be "What
methods/approaches are availitble within systems that facilitate such commitments by the
designer(s)?". One approach involves the critical use of Jackson & Keys [17] 'system of
 255

systems methodologies', but proposing users need to be aware of their own purpose in using
this powerful tool. Jackson [23] indicates a number of uses of the 'system of system
methodologies' as a systematic framework (as opposed to an ideal) which inevitably builds in a
positivistic bias that makes the use of interpretive and emancipatory methods contradictory.
Furthermore, Jackson depicts this functionalist use of the 'system of systems methodologies'
as lending itself 'to authoritarian usage by powerful decision-makers.' As he would have it, the
critical essence of the 'system of systems methodologies' derives from the fact that 'it draws
upon the strengths of all versions of the systems approach whatever the assumptions on which
they rest and paradigm within which they are located'.
The focus so far has been on the emancipatory commitment of critical systems thinking, yet
this in tum hinges on a commitment to developing critical awareness. For Jackson this means
critical awareness of means of interrogation of methods and/or examination of values and
assumptions which enter any systems designs - extant or proposed. Thus, in avoiding the meta-
theoretical consideration (interrogation) of methods a single rationality gains prominence, and
dominant ideologies may be promoted thus reinforcing the status quo.

Critical Awareness of Systems Design Methodologies

It has been suggested above that one commitment required in systems designing processes is a
commitment to critical awareness of the theoretical assumptions contained within various
systems methodologies with a view to ensuring the appropriate methodology is utilised. Oliga
[26], drawing upon the works of Jackson and Keys [17], Jackson [18, 19] and Banathy [4],
presents an indepth classification of systems approaches in terms of the six contexts identified
in the 'system of systems methodologies'. Such a classification serves to highlight the
theoretical assumptions of the various systems approaches, whilst the forthcoming work by
Flood and Jackson [13] links the contexts with metaphors, extending the framework's utility
beyond a purely theoretical usage.
Oliga's classification of systems methodologies emphasises the underlying objectives of
each. Based on Habermas' [16] 'knowledge constitutive interests', Oliga expands Jackson's
[18, 19] earlier work which related a number of systems approaches to Habermas' three
interests: 'technical', 'practical' and 'emancipatory'. Habermas proposed a social theory of
knowledge which recommends social scientists use two particular methodological procedures -
causal explanation and interpretation. These reflect two of man's basic interests in the social
arena: namely the 'technical' (man's relation to nature) and the 'practical' interest (man's
relation to man, through communication and language). The third interest, 'emancipatory', is
the special concern of the social sciences according to Habermas. Whilst it is recognised that
both 'technical' and 'practical' interests are, in a general sense, emancipatory, the need to
 256

explicitly consider 'emancipatory' interests arises because of the possible uses to which both
'technical' and 'practical' interests may be put i.e. they are subject to ideological manipulation
and sUbjugation. It is only through consideration of means to achieve the cognitive
emancipation described earlier that one can truly be said to be conducting critical research.
The technical interest was shown by Jackson to be similar in nature to those systems
approaches which have as their objective the prediction and control of natural and social
systems. Examples of these include the 'hard systems' approaches of Operational Research,
systems engineering and systems analysis, as well as some variants of the cybernetics approach
(e.g. Beer's [5, 6, 7] Viable Systems Model).
The practical interest in turn was related to systems methods with a concern for the
interactions of human actors. Churchman's approach, designed to facilitate a 'synthesis' among
participants, is one such method; others include the 'soft systems methodology' of Checkland
[8], along with the work of Ackoff [1], Mason and Mitroff [24], and Eden et at. [11].
The emancipatory interest was described by Oliga [26] as reflecting a concern with
managing coercion or the analysis of power relations in the organizational setting. The seminal
work of Werner Ulrich [30] falls into this category. Not only do such critical systems
approaches help us to decide what we ought to do in any given situation, but Oliga argues that
they enable 'critical reflection to take place about the goals taken for granted in "hard" and
"cybernetic" systems thinking, and about whatever synthesis or accommodation is achieved
through the operation of soft systems approaches.' [26:208]. This particular view which relates
emancipatory interests to coercive contexts is called into question in light of the argumentation
contained in this paper that emancipatory interests relate to cognitive power relations, a theme
which requires further exploration. l

Critical Systems Thinking in Education Design Practice

Despite this difficulty with Oliga's classification of systems approaches, it is possible to go on

to consider how the three interests might be addressed in an education systems design process.
When considering education systems, it is possible to identify three distinctive approaches to its
provision. The first of these is the traditional approach, which views the teacher as a bank of
knowledge which has to be transferred into the (passive recipient) student (as noted by Freire
[14]). This method can be equated with 'doing education to' some group, and reflects a
technical interest.
The second approach reflects a desire to respond to the perceived needs of various
stakeholders or participants of the system (see, for example, Tones [29]). This is synonymous

1Discussion with my colleague Gerald Midgley has helped clarify my thoughts on the nature of
emancipation when used in a "critical" sense.
 257

with several interpretivistic approaches to design, reflects a practical interest, and may be
described as 'doing education for' a specific group. Such: approach would be concerned to
introduce issues and to allow exploration of feelings amongst a group of students without
necessarily questioning the legitimacies or "rightness" of those issues or feelings in any deep
way. The educatees might not be provided with opportunities to raise questions concerning
espoused values - whether those values emanate from the teacher or the peer-group. An
example can be seen in Tones' [29] espoused ethic of "anything goes as long as you don't hurt
anyone else". Put simply, it does not seek to challenge the assumptions underpinning the use of
a specific method.
The third type again involves stakeholders in the process of designing the system, but takes
on board the fact that stakeholders may be opemting in a misinformed way or that some hidden
forces have served to provide the stakeholders with a particular view of their situation and its
constraints. By employing a critical systems perspective the underlying assumptions and
antecedent conditions can be revealed, thus facilitating a situation in which a truly participatory
democratic process can thrive. This type of educative provision may be termed "doing with"
and relates to the work of Paolo Freire [15] in South America in which he initially sought to
provide participants with a different perception of their role as participants. Such an approach
seeks to libemte the educatee from the dominant belief that the educator not only knows what is
needed and how to provide for that need. but also that the educator has some right to decide the
most appropriate learning context. 'They are not sure of their own ability. They are influenced
by the myth of their own ignorance.' [15:119]. In this approach the designed educative method
becomes an 'instrument of the learner as well as the educator.. .' [15:48].
In order to visualise how an emancipatory design method differs from: interpretivistic
approach i.e. how 'doing for' differs from idoing with', it is necessary to consider the actors
involved within the problem scenario in more detail.
When designing an education system it seems common-sense to list participants as teachers,
students, parents, business/industry and government agencies. Yet the inclusion of some of
these as participants seems to imply: acceptance of the current assumptions about the
"rightness" of our education system. We include businesses/industrial representatives as they
will ultimately "consume" the product - an educated person. Teachers are included as they are
the operators; the manufacturers, the processors and a vital component in the transformation
process. We include government officials as education is a major political issue. Parents - well,
they have an interest in how their offspring are 'shaped' to fit the moulds available in a pre-
structured society. Students are often included as little more than passive recipients of
knowledge - the 'banking' method of teaching described by Freire [14] in which the teacher is
viewed as a source of knowledge which has to be 'deposited' in the student (see Midgley, [25],
for a more detailed discussion of teaching methods and models).
 258

In the 'doing for' mode of education, the difficulty of the facilitator (educator) being
directive during the educating process is never addressed explicitly, although many advocates
of this approach seem to rely on the skill of the educator as a non-directive participant-facilitator
(see, for example, Tones [30]). In contrast, the 'doing with' approach provides a setting in
which participants explore aspects of their context, whilst the facilitator/educator is concerned
largely with guiding the process of learning and extending their own knowledge and
understanding at the same time. Eventually, participants can begin to explore questions of a
more complex nature, though still in this guided process of critique and critical reflection which
the educator also contributes to and learns from.
A critical perspective thus challenges the utility of the above classification of stakeholders
and also seeks to reveal the assumptions underpinning the characterisation of participants
together with any weights that are attributed to their roles in the education system. The student-
teacher ("banking") relationship described above would be directly challenged with a form of
'oppositional thinking' (Jackson, [18, 19]).
A further issue is that curricular design per se assumes that it is desirable to design an
education system in a systematic fashion, with disciplinary boundaries being accepted and
advocated, whereas work by Postman and Weingartner [27] indicates that an alternative
approach would be to work with students on a day-to-day basis where teachers act as
facilitators and may introduce subjects for discussion, but ultimately allow the students'
interests to determine the direction of the education process. In order to design an educative
system which does not simply build on the status quo, but challenges the assumptions
underlying current education practice, we need to employ a critical perspective. Such a
complementarist perspective would not preclude the use of other design methods once the
various stakeholders' assumptions had been subjected to critical analysis.

Conclusion

The foregoing represents a brief consideration of the role of critical systems thinking in the
design of education systems. Given the inherently political nature of education systems as belief
and value-building systems, it seems vital to me that a critical perspective be employed in
evaluating the intended design as well as the proposed design process. Without such a critical
view, designers are in danger of representing a (perhaps misinformed) single viewpoint
Furthermore, designs which have not been subjected to such a critical analysis will be of a
regulative and status quo enhancing nature. Given the essence of the problems that education
systems designers are trying to resolve, it is imperative that we utilise the critical systems
approaches in all stages of the ~esign process.
 259

References

1. Ackoff, R.L: Creating the corporate future. New York: John Wiley, 1981
2. Banathy, B.H.: Systems design in the context of human activity systems. San Francisco:
International Systems Institute, 1984
3. Banathy, B.H.: Systems inquiry in education. Systems Practice 1(2), 193-212, 1988
4. Banathy, B.H.: Matching design methods to system type. Syst Res. 5, 27-34, 1988
5. Beer, S.: The heart of enterprise. Chichester: John Wiley, 1979
6. Beer, S.: Brain of the firm, 2nd edn. Chichester: John Wiley, 1981
7. Beer, S.: Diagnosing the system for organisations. Chichester: John Wiley, 1985
8. Checkland, P.B.: Systems thinking, systems practice. Chichester: John Wiley, 1981
9. Churchman, e.W.: The design of inquiring systems New York: Basic Books, 1971
10. Davies, L.: The seduction of systems: A response to R.L. Flood's Editorial, "From
positivism to critique". Syst. Practice, 3 (4),383-388, 1990
11. Eden,e., Jones, S., Sims, D.: Messing about in problems. Oxford: Pergamon, 1983
12. Fay, B.: Social theory and political practice. London: Unwin Hyman, 1975
13. Flood, R,L. & Jackson, M.e.: Total systems intervention. Systems Practice, 4(3), 197-
214, 1991
14. Freire, P.: Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin, 1972
15. Freire, P.: Education: The practice of freedom. London: Winters & Readers Publishing
Cooperative, 1974
16. Habermas, J.: Knowledge and human interests. London: Heinemann, 1972
17. Jackson, M.e. and Keys, P.: Towards a system of systems methodologies. J. Opl. Res.
Soc., 35, 473-83, 1984
18. Jackson, M.e.: Social systems theory and practice: The need for a critical approach. Int J.
of General Systems, 10 135-151, 1985
19. Jackson, M.C.: Systems inquiring competence and organizational analysis. Proceedings
of the 1985 Meeting of ISGSR, 1985
20. Jackson, M.C.: Systems methods for organizational analysis and design. Sys Res, 5(3),
201-210, 1988
21. Jackson, M.e.:The critical kernal in modem systems methodologies. Proceedings of the
33rd ISSS Meeting, 1989
22. Jackson, M.C.: Beyond a system of systems methodologies. J. Opl. Res. Soc., 41(8),
657-668, 1990
23. Jackson, M.e.: The origins and nature of critical systems thinking. Systems Practice,
4(2), 1991
24. Mason, R.O., Mitroff, 1.1.: Challenging strategic planning assumptions. New York: John
Wiley, 1981
25. Midgley, G.R.: Flexibility as a promotable value in health education: Theoretical
background. Working paper prepared for the Institute of Education, University of London,
1983
26. Oliga, J.e.: Methodological foundations of systems methodologies. Syst. Practice 1, 87-
112, 1988
27. Postman, N., Weingartner, e.: Teaching as a subversive activity. London: Penguin, 1969
28. Reigeluth, e.: Principles of educational systems design, 1990 AECT Convention, 1990
29. Tones, K.: Affective education and health. In: Crawley, D. & Williams (eds.) Health
education in schools. London: Harper & Row, 1981
30. Ulrich, W.: Critical heuristics of social planning. Berne: Haupt, 1983
A Systems View of Restructuring Education

Theodore W. Frick

Department of Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, Indiana University,

Bloomington, Indiana 47405, U.S.A.

Abstract: Education is viewed more broadly than schools only. An educational system
consists of four basic kinds of components: teachers, students, content and contexts. Six types
of diadic relationships exist among these four components, as well as those between an
educational system and its environment. To restructure an educational system is to change one
or more of these seven basic relationships. Extant examples of these relationships are
described, which are followed by examples of how they might be changed. Since form follows
function and function follows aim, communities should begin by addressing the content
component. Once content aims are clarified, then each community should ask: Who are the
teachers, who are the students, and what are the contexts needed to bring about those aims?

Keywords: educational system, general systems theory, educational relationships,

community

Should We Restructure Schools or Educational Systems?

Schools are one way that education can occur, but not necessarily the only way or even the best
way. To limit ourselves to making changes in the structure of schooling will not solve current
problems in education if those problems are due in part to conditions beyond the schools
themselves. It makes more sense to consider education, and more specifically educational
systems.
Education consists of teachers, students, content and contexts [1, 2]. Simply, for it to be
education there must be a teacher who intends to guide, a student who intends to learn, content-
-that which is to be learned, and a context--the immediate setting necessary to support the
guidance and learning. Education does not occur in a vacuum, however. It occurs in an
environment that consists of a surrounding community and its culture. Nowadays communities
exist within states and nations. The reasoning behind this notion of education is as follows:
1. Education does not occur without a teacher. The teacher is the one who guides
or leads. To guide does not necessarily mean to instruct directly (e.g., to present information,
give feedback, demonstrate, evaluate student learning). For example, in a Montessori
classroom students often interact with, and learn by means of, the curriculum materials and
context. Direct instruction from a Montessori teacher occurs relatively infrequently [3].
 261

2. Education cannot occur without a student, one who intends to learn, to follow a
guide. According to Steiner, if a student does not intend to learn, but nonetheless follows
unwillingly, it is not education [1]. Furthermore, students should not be confused with
learners. Learning can occur without guidance, such as trial-and-error learning. Learning can
occur by accident as well. Such learners are not students. Rather, in education students try to
learn under the guidance of a teacher.
3. Education cannot occur without content. The content is what is to be learned,
that with which students interact as they construct their personal understandings, values and
beliefs in their attempts to learn. The content is that which is shared between successive
generations of conscious beings, which cannot be shared by physical procreation. The content
is the substance of psychical procreation. The content need not be constrained to typical
subjects such as reading, writing and arithmetic, or history, physics and geography.
4. Education cannot occur without a context that supports teaching and
learning activities. Education is bound in time and space. It occurs in a setting that may
include persons other than teachers and students, as well as places and things. The context need
not be schools or school districts, however. Education can occur at home, for example, where
parents teach their children how to cook. Education can also occur in the streets where a gang
leader instructs a member on how to hot-wire a car in order to steal it. Education can occur in a
church, for example, where a pastor attempts to bring a person to believe certain religious
tenets.
5. Finally, education normally occurs within an environment that is beyond
the immediate context for guidance and learning. There is a surrounding society and
culture, of which education is one vital enterprise, but not the only one. A local community
normally constitutes part of the environment of education, and that community exists within a
state or nation.
Thus, education is not viewed narrowly as the which occurs in public or private schools,
but in its most fundamental sense. This is the epitome of education. This view of education is
essentially that put forth by Elizabeth Steiner and George Maccia [1, 2].

Structure of Educational Systems

From general systems theory, a system is defined by Ludwig von Bertalanffy [4] as "elements
standing in interaction," or more precisely as a group of two or more components with at least
one affect relation that has information [2].
When we refer to the organization or structure of something we are concerned with the
nature of the parts or elements and how they are connected to each other, or fit together to make
a whole. Given the epitome of education, it follows that an educational system consists of four
 262

basic kinds of elements or components (A-F). The seventh kind of relationship is that between
the educational system and its environment (G). See Figure 1.

I
Educational System Environment

EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
Coptext
I
D
I
Student
====== G ====== j( 'B
Teach~r -- C -- dmtent
I I
E F
I I
Context Context

Figure 1: The Seven Fundamental Relationships in an Educational System

Therefore, when we refer to restructuring education, we should be concerned with changes

in properties of one or more types of components and one or more of the seven basic
relationships in every educational system. This is the guiding conceptual model that I propose
for thinking about restructuring education. It is important to note that when I refer to an
educational system, I mean it in terms of the essence of education, not necessarily in the sense
of existing school systems, such as those typical in the U.S. today. A school district consisting
of school buildings containing classrooms with teachers and students is merely one way that an
educational system can be physically structured and organized.

Some Examples of the Seven Basic Relationships in Education

If we adopt the systems model proposed in Figure I, this can serve as a conceptual framework
for organizing our thinking about typical examples of relationships in current educational
systems. In the subsequent section we will consider examples of significant changes in these
relationships--i. e., restructuring.
 263

A. Teacher ~ Student Relationships. Typical kinds of current relationships between

teachers and students include:
teachers present infonnation aurally and visually to groups of students;
teachers often assign the same readings and exercises to an entire group of students;
teachers grade student homework and tests, and provide feedback on their learning
progress;
teachers supervise student seat work when not directing group activities in the classroom;
teachers verbally answer student questions;
teachers seldom individualize instruction because it is impractical under current conditions;
teachers discipline students who misbehave;
students ask teachers questions when they do not understand or they get stuck on some
learning task;
students listen to and watch teacher lectures and demonstrations;
teachers frequently decide when and how long students are to learn various parts of the
curriculum;
most communication between students and teachers is face-to-face and to a lesser extent by
writing on paper;
teachers and students typically spend a limited amount of time together in a teaching-leaning
relationship, usually an academic year (9 - 10 months) in most public schools.

B. Student ~ Content Relationships. Examples include:

students too often find subject matter to be meaningless, apparently disconnected with real
purpose in life;
student interaction with content is often passive (e.g., reading, watching and listening);
students frequently deal with content which is in abstract or symbolic form (i.e.,
written/spoken words), and less often with content which is in iconic, representational or
concrete fonn;
students typically encounter content that is a static representation of knowledge, not
dynamic or changing as knowledge or events change;
students often do not choose what content to learn, when to try to learn it, how long to
spend on it, or how deeply to delve into it;
since the rate at which learning objectives are undertaken is externally paced much of the
time, many students do not solidly master those objectives;
many students are not enthusiastic the subject matter they are expected to learn--too often
they are bored and alienated.
 264

C. Teacher ~ Content Relationships. Some typical examples:

teachers themselves have previously learned most subject matter during their own formal
education, including college or university study; afterwards they are mostly on their own
for further learning;
teachers themselves have had past relationships with content similar to those described for
students immediately above (B);
teachers have little control over what content is to be covered and when; commercial
publishers, state and local textbook adoption agencies, school boards and school
administrators make most of the choices;
teachers often use learning materials produced externally, such as textbooks, workbooks,
films, videotapes and computer courseware;

D. Student ~ Context Relationships. Typical examples:

students attend class in rooms, usually in a large school building with literally hundreds of
other students;
students spend much of their time as a member of a group of other students who are in the
same grade and are about the same age;
schedules, bells and the calendar govern teaching-learning activities--students attend class
beginning in the morning and ending in mid-afternoon, five days a week, and seldom
during the summer or weekends;
students read considerable amounts of printed material;
students write/draw with pencils and paper;
students often sit at desks oriented to the front of the room;
there is typically little private storage space for student personal effects, textbooks,
notebooks, and the like except for a student's desk or hallway locker;
students are mostly isolated from the rest of the world while in school (Le., from the
community and from telephones, televisions and computer networks).

E. Teacher ~ Context Relationships. Some examples:

teachers work in a classroom, typically one teacher to a room with about 20-30 students at
any given time;
teachers are isolated by and large from the rest of the world while at work;
teachers are hired, supervised and fired by principals, superintendents and/or school
boards;
teachers have limited opportunities to discuss their work with other teachers;
teachers often present information using chalkboards and overhead projection;
teachers grade student work with "red ink" on paper;
 265

teachers often spend additional time at home--outside of regular school hours-preparing for
class and grading student homework and tests;
teachers seldom work with students outside the school setting--e.g., at home or in the
community;
there is typically little private storage space beyond a desk for keeping a teacher's
professional materials in a classroom--yet a teacher's "office" is her classroom.

F. Content ~ Context Relationships. Some examples:

much content is embodied in print format on paper (in texts, workbooks, dictionaries,
encyclopedias and periodicals);
most content is static, not dynamic in form;
educational content is slow to change, even after knowledge changes;
much content is in a verbal, abstract form--content is less often embodied in iconic,
representational or concrete format;
much content is visual in nature, less often auditory, and seldom engages touch, smell, taste
or kinesthetic senses.

G. Educational System ~ Environment Relationships. Typical kinds of current

relationships between educational systems and their environments:
there is little communication with or participation by parents or other community members
during formal teaching-learning experiences (in school);
students and teachers have to physically go to school to be there;
students only attend for a limited time period (not in evenings, on weekends, during
summers), many are bussed, and all basically come and go at the same times;
students only attend elementary and secondary schools between 5 and 18 years of age (K-
12); most community members are excluded from participation in formal education (not
only as students, but also as guests or teacher helpers);
teachers are certified and licensed by state agencies or governmental ministries of education;
most formal educational activities occur in schools, not out in the community itself;
a school board, elected from and by the local community, monitors the administration and
operation of the educational system;
curriculum materials are selected primarily from those made available by commercial
publishers or manufacturers (text books, laboratory equipment);
educational systems have few communication channels with the rest of the world--e.g., few
telephones, radios or televisions, little or no computer network access nor TV cable or
satellite access;
educational systems are highly centralized--it is difficult for community members to exert
much direct influence over what their educational system becomes; the channel between
 266

parents and teachers is weak, since teachers must march to the tune of their administration's
drummer.

Examples of How Educational Systems Could Be Restructured

There are many possible ways that educational systems could be restructured. In order to bring
some order and rigor to the issue of restructuring, I have attempted thus far to show the value
of using basic concepts from general systems theory (system, components, component
relationships, system environment) and from educational theory (teacher, student, content,
context). Seven fundamental kinds relationships were identified (see Figure 1). I then listed
above a number of typical extant relationships in these seven categories, which exemplify those
basic concepts from systems theory and educational theory. Now I will list a few examples of
significant changes in those relationships--i.e., educational restructuring. This discussion is
meant only to be illustrative, and not necessarily an argument that we should make such
changes. The manner in which I believe we should go about restructuring is discussed in the
final section.

A.Examples of changes in teacher ~ student relationships. If technology is used

to deliver instruction to students (e.g., computer-based tutorials, simulations, guided-practice
exercises, tests, interactive video, hypermedia), then several basic changes could take place.
First, a student would have a multitude of teachers, not just one or a few at some point in time.
Each of those teachers would be communicating with students via the technology as authors of
computer-based learning materials in which information is presented, practice with feedback is
provided, and learning achievement is assessed. Thus, this kind of interaction between teachers
and students would be indirect, not face-to-face.

On the other hand, a student's "executive" teacher could establish a different kind of
relationship with the student, since the teacher would be freed from spending so much time in
the role of an information provider to groups of students. The executive teacher would then
have more time to establish with each student an individual plan of instruction and learning.
Instruction would then be truly individualized, since not all students in a group would be doing
basically the same activities at the same time. The executive teacher would be more like a
manager or supervisor of a student's learning experiences. The executive teacher would also
need to be available to answer student questions and deal with learning difficulties that were not
anticipated or handled sufficiently in the technologically-mediated learning experiences. The
executive teacher might also have more time to get to know students personally and listen to
what is on their minds.
 267

B. Examples of changes in student ~ content relationships. Students could

become more actively engaged in learning, if they were to interact with the technologically-
mediated learning materials. Well-designed materials would provide students with numerous
opportunities to respond and provide immediate, corrective and informative feedback. Student
learning would be less passive, compared to reading a textbook or writing with pencil and
paper. Students could have more control over the pace of their learning experiences, since
group pacing would be less frequent. In addition, students could spend as much or little time as
needed to master particular learning objectives. The criterion of when to move on to subsequent
objectives would not be the average rate at which a group of students can learn, but rather
individual student learning achievement. Students who are actively engaged and who
experience success more often might also be more enthusiastic towards subject matter. Finally,
if the content is technologically mediated, then it becomes possible to present it in aural as well
as visual modalities; content could be embodied more often in iconic and representational forms
(e.g., by interactive video); and content could be represented dynamically--compared to reading
static print or viewing still pictures of some process or procedure in a textbook.

c. Examples of changes in teacher ~ content relationships. Teachers themselves

would be able to further their own learning (as students) while professionally employed as
teachers, if they have the time to learn and the opportunity. There is no reason why teachers
could not learn by the same kinds of technologically-mediated materials as would students, as
discussed above. Teachers' learning would not essentially end when they graduate from a
college or university. Teachers might also design and produce instructional materials
themselves. With today's computer-based authoring systems, desk-top publishing, video
technology, and so forth, teachers could be developing some of the content for their educational
system--rather than relying almost exclusively on external commercial publishers.

D. Examples of changes in student ~ context relationships. One major change that

could occur, particularly with older students beyond the primary level, might be that students
would not have to go to school as much in order to get an education. By this, I do not mean
they would not be spending as much time learning, but that learning could occur elsewhere. For
example, if a student had access to computer technology at home through which relevant
learning experiences were provided, then why would he or she need to go to school to do
essentially the same thing? Lord Walter Perry, former vice-chancellor and one of the founders
of the Open University in Great Britain, predicts that in the twenty-first century we will be
forced into this kind of learning pattern at home [5]. The reason is simple according to Perry: it
will become too expensive to transport students to school on a regular basis because of oil
shortages.
 268

E. Examples of changes in teacher ~ context relationships. One significant change

that could occur is that teachers could become technologically linked to the rest of the world.
They need not be as isolated as they typically are in classrooms. Teachers could access
information electronically. They could not only communicate with each other, using electronic
mail, but with students and parents as well.
It is currently possible that teachers could teach from their own homes. If teachers and their
students have computers and telephones at home, then audio-graphic technology would allow
live interaction between teachers and students. The sound would come through the telephone
speakers, and students would see text and graphics on their computer screens--the teacher's
electronic chalkboard, so to speak, during a conference call.

F. Examples of changes in content ~ context relationships. As alluded to earlier,

content can be presented in a variety of formats via multi-media. Dynamic processes can be
illustrated, since content is not temporally bound as it is in static print, illustrations and pictures
in a textbook. Generally speaking, content--whether text, pictures, video, sound, graphics or
animations--can be digitally or analogically encoded and stored in electronic, magnetic and
optical technologies~ This encoded information can be transmitted literally around the world in a
matter of seconds. The electronic global village that Marshall McLuhan envisioned is now a
reality. A recent example dramatically reminded us of this: CNN brought "live" to the rest of the
world the bombing of Baghdad, Iraq, when the war in the Persian Gulf began in January,
1991.

G. Examples of changes in educational system ~ environment relationships.

Finally, telecommunications technologies may significantly change the kinds of relationships
between educational systems and their environments. Previously, educational systems have
typically isolated themselves from their surrounding communities rather effectively. School
districts in the U. S. became rather large and centralized during consolidation efforts in the mid-
twentieth century. Consequently, most students have since been bussed to and from school
during well-specified periods of time. Telecommunications technologies could change this,
making educational systems much more open and flexible. Some aspects of formal education
could be carried out in the home setting or possibly other non-school settings in the community,
as discussed above. Moreover, even when students and their teachers are in school settings,
matters of the community and persons can be "brought in" to the classroom by
telecommunications.
There could be a greater variety of teachers and students in a restructured educational
system, as it becomes more integrated with its environment. For example, the same educational
resources that normal K-12 students use could also be used by other community members
 269

during "off hours"--i.e., they could be students (and teachers) during evenings and on
weekends.
I have discussed only a few possible changes in the seven kinds of relationships in an
educational system. This discussion was only meant to be illustrative, not a forecast. I next
discuss where I believe educational restructuring should begin.

Form Follows Function, Function Follows Aim

It makes little sense to consider changing the structure of educational system components and
component relations before clarifying the aims or purposes of such an organization. Structural
changes should not dictate the goals of an educational system, rather the goals should drive the
kinds of changes made. Moreover, any changes that are made should always be evaluated with
respect to whether they lead to the intended goals.
I believe that the primary aim of an educational system should be to help students succeed in
their attempts to learn. If this premise is accepted, then the next question is: To learn what?
What content do we want students to come to know, to feel, and to value, and how can we tell
that they do? Therefore, we should begin by first addressing the content component of an
educational system.
In order to help break bounds with traditional subject matter distinctions such as reading,
mathematics, physics, social studies, and the like, I propose to address cognitive content from
an epistemological perspective--by looking at the kinds of knowledge we hold in
consciousness. From an epistemological perspective, there are four kinds of knowing [6,7]:

knowing that one (qualitative knowing):

recognitive
acquaintive
appreciative
knowing that (quantitative knowing):
conceptual
theoretical
criterial
knowing how to do (praxiological knowing):
procedural
performative
knowing what to do (inventive knowing):
innovative
creative
 270

I. Knowing that one. Qualitative knowing is cognition of uniques, of particulars, of

one-of-a-kind. For example, we can recognize the Washington Monument, the current mayor
of our city, the house or dwelling we live in, the principal of our school, etc. We can be
acquainted with the layout of the streets and roads where we live, with the Bill of Rights, with
particular people we know, with particular problems in our environment such as the huge oil
spill in 1991 during the War in the Persian Gulf. We can appreciate particular persons, places
or things. We can appreciate the Declaration of Independence, the quality of a particular
performance of Mozart's Symphony #41, the design of a particular building, and so on.

2. Knowing that. Quantitative knowing is cognition of generalizations, of that which is

true of many persons, places, things, events, relations, and the like. We hold concepts, theories
and criteria. Conceptual knowing (Maccia's instantia1 knowing) involves being able to
categorize or classify things. We hold concepts such as eats, dogs, animals, people, oxygen,
water, life, death, property, money, food, etc. We hold theories such as Mendelian genetics,
democratic governance, Newton's laws of gravitation, natural selection and evolution, and the
like. We hold criteria such as truth, beauty, goodness, effectiveness, parsimony, well-being,
justice, and benevolence towards humankind.

3. Knowing how. Praxiological knowing is cognition of means to achieve ends. We can

know procedures and we can carry them out. We can solve quadratic equations, read a book,
decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen, construct a house, build a superhighway, playa
clarinet, play tennis, perform open-heart surgery, repair electronic circuit boards, or know how
to bring about leaming--i.e., how to teach.

4. Knowing what to do. We can innovate and we can create. We can express
ourselves in writing, we can paint a picture, we can invent a car that tuns on water and
electricity, we can make a movie, and we can create a new kind of educational system.
In summary, instead of thinking of subject matter as reading, writing and arithmetic, I
propose that content be structured epistemologically. That is, students should learn to specify
(qualitatively), to generalize, to peiform, and to invent--and that there should be balance among
these four areas. Furthermore, I believe that the particular emphases in each of these four areas
should be decided by those in, around, and who are served by a particular educational system--
i.e., by its community.
As a community specifies the particular content aims in these four areas, then it becomes
possible to consider the remaining three components of the educational system. Who are the
students, who are the teachers, and what are the contexts needed to bring about those content
aims?
 271

Rejuvenation of Communities

One of the things James Coleman has noted is that in modem times we have lost our sense of
community [8]. One of the social functions our new educational systems must encourage is to
bring people together again on a regular basis--the young, the old, the people who constitute a
community--notjust the parents of children in school, their teachers and administrators, but
everybody in a community. Communities of people should not be conflated with geographic
groupings necessarily. A city or town may have many communities. And so can rural areas.
Since one of the primary aims of education is to prepare students to participate in a
community, then it only makes sense that we involve each community in consideration of what
its educational system becomes. This is where we should begin.

Notes

1. Steiner, E.: A Description of Tutorial knowledge Acquisition. Paper presented at the Fourth
International Conference on Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics, Baden-
Baden, West Germany, Aug. 1988.
2. Maccia, E. Steiner and Maccia, G.: Development of educational theory derived from three
educational theory models. Final Report, Project No. 5-0638, U.S. Office of Education,
Washington, D.C., 1966.
3. Montessori, M.: Spontaneous activity in education. New York: Schocken Books, 1965
(original English edition first published in 1917).
4. Bertalanffy, L. von: General System Theory. General Systems ,1, 1956.
5. These remarks were made by Walter Perry, as an invited speaker, during a Symposium on
School Restructuring, Indiana University, Bloomington, Oct. 1990.
6. Maccia, G.: Genetic Epistemology of Intelligent Natural Systems. Systems Research, 4(3),
213-218, 1987
7. Maccia, G.: Genetic Epistemology of Intelligent Systems: Propositional, Procedural, and
Performative Intelligence. Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on
Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics, Baden-Baden, West Germany, Aug.
1988.
8. James Coleman presented his thesis about social capital during an invited address, The
Family and the Schools, at the annual conference of the American Educational Research
Association, Washington, D.C., April 1987.
Openness in a General Process Model
for Systems Design in Education

Arne Collen 1 and Gianfranco Minati2

ISaybrook Institute, 1550 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94109, U.S.A.

2Italian Association for Research on Systems, Milan, Italy

Abstract: This paper explores 0l?enness-and a central concept in the theory of human
activity systems-and applies this concept to the design of educational systems. After
describing a hierarchy which includes five levels of openness, the authors present an argument
for more open models of education which are necessary to match the complexities of
contemporary life.

Keywords: Boundary, education, hierarchy, human activity systems, model, openness,

systems design, systems theory.

Introduction

Openness is a central concept in systems theory. Any model one constructs for the design of an
education system must include this concept.
The initial formulation of this concept consisted of a dichotomy, defining an open system in
contrast to a closed system [1,2]. An open system is characteristically negentropic, where a
closed system is characteristically entropic. An open system is dynamic and a closed system is
static.
A closed educational system is one in which the boundary of the system is rigid and fixed It
does not allow an exchange of ideas, resources, and information. Thus, the system cannot be
active in the pursuit of means to adjust and change in response to changes in other systems with
which it interacts and the larger system of which it is a part. There are levels or degrees of
openness. Openness is one means a system has to manage its activity and creativity.
 273

Levels of openness

We propose the introduction of a hierarchy of openness. Five levels of openness can be

distinguished in regard to the design of an education system: factual, active, flexible, creative,
and reflexive openness.
Factual openness concerns the permeability of the boundary which Separates the system
from its environment Matter, energy, and information cross this boundary. They flow into,
through, and out of the system. This is openness in the classical sense [1,5]. An open system at
the factual level can become closed, if the environment becomes included in the system itself.
Active openness appears when one system communicates with another. It is assumed that
communication will require a language that is common to both systems. Furthermore, it is
usually the aim of one system to influence the other in order to obtain a result that has been
defined by the system a priori.
Flexible openness occurs when one system constructs a model of the behavior of the other
system with which it interacts. Adaptation of the system to the other system is required. The
system possesses the mechanisms for action and reaction that permit it to adapt itself and to
work effectively with the other system.
Creative openness exists when a system constructs the context in which it must work, or it
radically changes the rules of the game in a known context. At this level a system acts on not
only another system, but also the context.
Reflexive openness is manifest when a system can develop strategies for action on other
systems. It is able to use self-referencing in order to analyze and modify its own behaviors.
Where these five levels form a hierarchical organization that has been applied in the field of
logic [4], they are also very applicable to systems design in education. In the latter case, the
basic organizing principles of the hierarchy appear to be complexity and potentiality. A more
open system, such as reflexive, functions at a higher order of complexity than a less open
systems, such as creative. Also, a more open system is capable of becoming less open, but a
less open system, such as active, may not necessarily have the capability of becoming a more
open system, such as flexible.

Openness in education

When an education system is closed, the teacher has the only strategy to reproduce the system
(Figure 1).
 274

Teacher

Figure 1: A closed education system.

At the factua1level, the teacher sends messages and controls the student's answers through the
use of natura1language, under the presupposition by both teacher and student that they share a
common language (Figure 2).

Figure 2: An open education system at the factua1level.

Regarding ap active education system, the teacher uses only the tools available in order to apply
tactics for learning. The teacher takes into account the context, but the context is considered
fixed (Figure 3).

Figure 3: An open education system at the active level.

At the flexible level, the teacher formulates a model of the student, which the teacher can
develop and change through the learning process. The teacher uses games and tools in order to
apply the model (Figure 4). Both the student and the teacher develop models of each other.
Furthermore, each has perceptions of their relationship during the learning process, and each
formulates a model of the interactions between them.
 275

Model of the Teacher-

Student Intera~ I
Teacher ~

Figure 4: An open education system at the flexible level.

With creative openness, the teacher invents tools and games in order to apply a strategy with
awareness. The teacher acts on the leamer's context (Figure 5).

:~::~~~;~;~.I::::::::::: Model of the /

-:-
--
Student :-:-:-:-:-:-
------ Teacher /
.. -- ........ /
-; ;;~=""
' // / / / / / / / / / / / /
Model of the Teacher- I-':
Student Interaction

Teacher

---- .. ----------------------------------------

Figure 5: An open education system at tbe creative level.

At the reflexive level (Figure 6), the teacher is able to develop many strategies for educational
activities. However, he does not just apply strategies, but also designs them. At this point in an
open education system, design becomes a central activity. The teacher becomes involved in the
design of the education system itself.
 276

......................................................................................................... _.....................
................................................................................................................... _.... __ ..................................
_.............. _.... .....
........................................ _-_ .................... _....................... _.... __ .......... _....___......................................
.......... _...........................................
........................................................................................................................................................

................................................................................................................................................ _-_ ...... _-_ ........

Figure 6: An open education system at the reflexive level.

Openness in systems design in education

There are several major considerations in applying openness as a systems concept to the design
of education systems. The hierarchy of openness described above is central to human beings
and their schooling in educational institutions. Both the student and teacher are learners.
Learners form an open system which coevolves during the process of learning. The more open
the design system for learning in an education context, the higher the level of openness that can
be achieved. The context of learning is part of the system in which learners communicate.
Continuous feedback among learners and the context is essential to maintaining openness.
Inductive reasoning is necessary to allow the social system to develop a hierarchy of openness
[3,6].
In education we need to create the hierarchy for the kind of openness shown in Figure 7.
This can be carried out on factual openness, then extended by the use of culture to other levels
of opennenss. This is no matter of technology, but of will.
Only human beings can organize information, then transform it into knowledge.
Knowledge is organizition of information, not just information. To produce information we
need only technology; however, to produce knowledge we need both technology and human
beings.
Education is one kind of organization for open systems in the hierarchy. Its purpose in
society is to more people to higher levels of cognitive functioning, so that they, in turn, can be
active and contributing members of society.
 277

I . ... Reflexive
--C Creative
~exible
~ ~

Active
r-- ---
1 Factual 1
- - - - - - __ I

Closed
.. ..

For Non Living Systems

r- -,
1 1
'- ___ J.
For Living and Non Living Systems
r-----,'
1 1
For Human Beings and Human Activity Systems

Figure 7: From openness in non-living systems to openness

in human activity systems.

Openness in a general process model

Any general process model for the design of an education system needs to incorporate the major
considerations stated above. Where the chief emphasis of our paper has been on the importance
of openness th constructing such a model, it is instructive to include the various levels of
openness (Figure 7) in order to design a sufficiently sophisticated model that will consider the
many reflexive, creative, flexible, and active qualities inherent in learning.

Implications

Open systems are the "software" for the human activity systems of the post-industrial era to
manage processes rather than objects. Values generating social systems are crucial for the
creation of the hierarchy of openness that is for not only education, but also social activities.
The issue of humanness and the use of technology will be a major theme of the next years in all
post-industrial societies.
Any cursory examination of education today will reveal that the emerging post-industrial
societies are ill-equipped to provide for the education of their coming generations with the
conceptual, theoretical foundations still in current use, which served to support the education of
 278

the people of industrialized societies. Innovative more open models of education are needed to
match the complexities of contemporary life. It is our view that a general process model which
possesses the levels of openness will build into the process of education a more self-reflective,
purposive-seeking, systemic perspective that will enable design and evolution of education
systems to coevolve within their societal systems.

References

1. von Bertalanffy, L: General systems theory. New York: Braziller Press 1968.
2. von Bertalanffy, L: Perspectives on general system theory. New York: Braziller Press
1975.
3. Holland, I.H. et al.: Induction: processes of inference, learning and discovery. Boston:
MIT Press 1986.
4. Maes, P. and Nardi, D.: Meta-level architecture and reflection. Amsterdam: North-Holland
1987.
5. Miller, I.G.: Living systems. New York: McGraw-Hill 1978.
6. Rescher, N.: Induction: an essay on the justification of inductive reasoning. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press 1980.
Section 4 The Educational Context of
Systems Design
School Reform Movements:
Tinkering with the System1

Dwight W. Allen

Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, U.S.A.

Abstract: American education must redefine standards of excellence to make quality and
equality of opportunity compatible. Past reform efforts have failed because of the lack of a
cohesive structure. Reform efforts have tended to gyrate between calls for more basics and
focus on the learner. Basic skills for the twenty-first century need redefmition. The focus must
shift from knowledge to process, from acquisition to the access of information. Until we
decide what to learn we cannot decide how to teach it. Technology can help. Staffing,
organization, and curriculum all need transformation, not simple reform. A national curriculum
and a national system of experimental schools provide new opportunities.

Keywords: Reform, transformation, standards, excellence, quality, equality of opportunity,

basic skills, differentiated staffing, teachers, technology, national curriculum, experimental
schools.

The American mass education system, designed in the early part of the century for a mass
production economy, will not succeed unless it not only raises but redefines the essential
standards of excellence and strives to make quality and equality of opportunity compatible with
each other.

The Perennial Call for Change

This century of non-stop visions of progress has found both educators and the American
society preoccupied with the idea of reform and change in education, although our system has
remained virtually unchanged. Usually, reform has meant the widespread but unsystematic
pursuit of what could best be called "educational fads". Parents and teachers can name them all,
from "back to basics" to "educating the whole child", traditional math to "new" math, phonics
to Dick and Jane. Past attempts have addressed legitimate issues, but have failed because of the

1 This chapter was originally written for Schools for a New Century: A Conservative Approach to Radical
School Reform, (praeger Publishers, New York, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. November
1991. by Dwight W. Allen. Reprinted with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
 282

larger system's lack of a cohesive structure and experimental mandate which would make
meaningful change possible.
Instead, competing fads come and go in different places at different times. Several might
even be found operating concurrently within commuting distance from one another. We need
only visit three schools in three consecutive communities to see that, as a nation, we don't have
a method of systematically evaluating either our successes or our failures in education.
Because Johnny still can't read or write or handle basic arithmetic and because Johnny can't
meet acceptable standards on national and local achievement tests--that is, whatever standards
are informally in vogue at any given time--we keep tinkering with the system. We adjust a small
curriculum component here, and streamline class scheduling there. But never have we given
serious consideration to transforming the entire system. That is, until now. Johnny's
weaknesses and shortcomings have begun to threaten the future of our society and have
prompted us to take a step back and consider completely new ways of doing things. What is
needed in education is a transformation as dramatic as the change from the horse and buggy to
the automobile.
The time has come to consider a completely new framework for education, a national
framework which allows us to examine--at a nationallevel--what really does and does not make
educational sense from among the many reform movements, as well as to provide for
systematic investigation of new options. We must consider the possibility of a new framework
which challenges all of our current practices, while recognizing that many elements should be
retained. But how did we get here in the first place? And what is worth keeping? "The Fable of
the Roasted Pig" may be a way to help us focus on the fundamental issue of school reform
today.

The Fable of the Roasted Pig

Once upon a time, a forest where some pigs lived caught on fire and all the pigs were
roasted. People, who at that time were in the habit of eating raw meat only, tasted the
roasted pigs and found them delicious. From that time on, whenever men wanted roasted
pork they set a forest on fire.
However,for a long time things had not been as they should be: often the pigs were
burned almost to a crisp, sometimes they were practically raw, and at other times they were
completely damaged so that it was hardly possible to make use of them at all.
Many believed the System needed change. Complaints about the System grew at an
increasing rate as it expanded to involve more and more people; it was the general desire
that The System should be drastically changed. Thus every year there were any number of
conventions, congresses, and a considerable amount of time and effort was spent
 283

researching a solution. But apparently no way of improving The System was ever found,
for the next year and the year after and the year after that there were once more conventions
and congresses and conferences. This went on continuously.
Those who were experts on the subject put down the failure of the System to a lack of
discipline on the part of the pigs, who would not stay where they should in the forests; or to
the inconstant nature of fire, which was hard to control; or to the trees, which were too
green to bum well; or the dampness of the earth; or the official method of setting the woods
on fire; or to the Roast Pork Weather Service, which did not accurately predict the time,
place and amount of rain; or... or...
There were men who worked at setting the woods on fire (firemen). They specialized in
setting different zones on fire; some were specialists in firing the northern zones, others the
western zones, and so on. Some were specialists in setting fires by night, other by day; the
latter were divided into morning and evening specialists (who had jurisdiction disputes in
the spring and autumn). There were also the wind specialists, the anemotechnicians.
There were huge buildings made to hold the pigs until the fire broke out in the forest,
and various methods were being tested on how to let the pigs out at just the right moment.
There were technicians in pig feeding, experts in building pig pens, professors in charge of
training experts in pig pen construction, universities that prepared professors to be in charge
of training experts in pig pen construction, research specialists who bequeathed their
discoveries to the universities that prepared professors to be in charge of training experts in
pig pen construction, and ...
One day a fireman in Category SWIDMRS (southwest specialty, daily morning,
licensed for rainy summers), named John Commonsense said that the problem was really
very simple and easily solved. He said that in order to solve the problem with ease only
four steps need be followed: (1) the chosen pig had to be killed, (2) cleaned, (3) placed in
the proper utensil, and (4) placed over the fire so that it would be cooked by the effect of the
heat and not by the effect of the flames.
""People kill pigs?" exclaimed the Director of Forestation. "The fire is the one to kill!
We kill?"
The Director General of Roasting himself heard of this Commonsense proposal, and
sent for him. He asked what Commonsense had to say about the problem, and after hearing
the Four Point idea he said:
"What you say is absolutely right--in theory--but it won't work in practice. It's
impossible What would we do with our anemotechnicians, for instance?"
"I don't know," answered John.
"Or the specialists in seeds, in timber? And the builders of seven-story pig pens, now
equipped with new cleaning machines and automatic scenter?"
"I don't know."
 284

"And what is to be done with the men and women specialized in organizing and
directing our annual Conference for the reform and improvement of the System? If your
system solves everything, then what do'we do with them?"
"I don't know."
"Can't you see that yours is not the solution we need? Don't you think that if everything
is as simple as all that, then the problem would have been solved long before this by our
specialists? Tell me, where are the authorities who support your suggestion? Who are the
authors who say what you say? Do you think I can tell the engineers in the Anemotechnical
Division that it is only a question of using embers without a flame? And what shall be done
with the forests that are ready to be burned-forests of the right kind of trees needed to
produce the right kind of fire, trees that have neither fruit nor leaves enough for shade so
that they are good only for burning? What shall be done with them? Tell me!"
"I don't know."
"You know the Chief Engineer of Pork Pyrotechnics, Mr. J.C. Wellknown, don't you?
Isn't he an extraordinary scientific personality?"
"Yes. He looks like it."
"Well, then, do you see that the plain fact of having such valuable and extraordinary
engineers in pyrotechnics shows that the present System is good? And just what would I do
with such valuable individuals if your system were adopted?"
"I don't know."
"What you must bring, as a solution, is a method on how to make better
anemotechnicians; how to solve the shortage of western firemen; how to make pig sties
eight stories high or more, instead of the seven stories we now have. We have to improve
what we have. So bring me a plan that will show me how to design the crucial experiment
which will yield a solution to the problem of Roast reform. That is what we need. You are
lacking in good judgement, Commonsense! Tell me, for example, what would I do with my
good friend (and relative), the President of the Committee to Study the Integral Use of the
Remnants of the Ex-Forests?"
"I'm really perplexed," said John.
"Well, since you now know what the problem is, don't go around telling everybody
you can fix everything. Now you realize the problem is serious and complicated; it is not so
simple as you had supposed it to be. An outsider says, 'I can fix everything.' But you have
to be inside to know the problems and the difficulties."
"But, I am ... "
"Now, just between you and me, my advice is not to mention your idea to anyone--not
to anyone, because it might bring about, er, ah, difficulties with your job! Not because of
me, understand! I tell you this for your own good, because I understand your plan, but,
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you know, you may come across another boss not so capable of understanding as I am.
You know what that's like, don't you, eh?"
Poor John Commonsense didn't utter a word. Without so much as saying goodbye,
stupefied and puzzled by the barriers put in front of him, he went away and was never seen
again.
It was never known where he went. That is why it is often said that in those tasks of
reforming the system, Commonsense is missing.

In American education we are still burning down the forests in order to roast the pigs.
Teachers and educators with commonsense notions of how to improve the teaching and
learning in our schools are frustrated with a system which is only able to tinker with the latest
educational fads. The teachers of America want to explore new alternatives with a
commonsense approach; many in the front lines of education believe only an entirely new
framework will enable our schools to make the most necessary changes.
Unfortunately, reforming American education is more complicated than roast pork in a pot.
The challenges of the system are intertwined and complex. To be effective, any reform must
provide answers that are not only based on commonsense but also address that level of
complexity.

Attempts to Reform the Education System

The educational fads of this century have tinkered with the system. None have succeeded in
radically altering the basic structure established in the beginnings of our public system; none
have successfully reevaluated the very basis of our system. This is not to say that reforms
attempted have all been ill-conceived or poorly implemented. On the contrary, many have
identified valid concerns. Mostly we don't have conclusive answers to the questions the
reforms posed. Without a systematic, wholehearted research and development process, we
have been left to swing between extremes, never fully exploring the potentials of any of these
reforms.
In considering a substantive re-organization of American education, we will do well to
review what has been tried to date and place the current calls for sweeping change in historical
perspective.

Learning by Doing. John Dewey noted early in the century that students do not learn very well
as passive observers of the teaching process. The premises of Dewey are still as valid -- and as
rarely implemented -- as when they were advanced early in the century:

If we can discover a child's urgent needs and powers, and if we can supply an
environment of materials, appliances, and resources --- physical, social, and intellectual
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-- to direct their adequate operation, we shall not have to think about interest. It will
take care of itself. For mind will have met with what it needs in order to be mind. The
problem of educators, teachers, parents, the state, is to provide the environment that
induces educative or developing activities, and where these are found the one thing
needful in education is secured.

The starting point for Dewey's reforms was the design and operation of the educational
environment. The keynote of his reforms was "involvement" - the involvement of teachers,
parents, and students in the definition and implementation of their learning. Learning by doing
was dramatically successful when it was well understood and practiced by effectively trained
teachers.
But the observation of effective "Dewey" classrooms was deceptive. They gave the
impression of almost random activity as individual students worked on their own projects with
little obvious direct supervision from teachers. The systematic objectives which were always a
part of Dewey's philosophy were lost in an enthusiasm for "doing your own thing," and
eventually became symbolic of permissiveness as they were widely implemented by
enthusiastic but poorly informed teachers.
Many educators believed that "learning by doing" approaches neglected the need for a
rigorous foundation of skills for all students. The permissiveness of unsuccessful "Dewey
Clones" eventually led to the first of many calls for "back to the basics."

Back to the Basics. The "basics" have become the Holy Grail of educational reform in the
twentieth century. As a succession of reform movements have failed to produce their touted
advantages, the clarion call for "back to the basics" is raised.

Basically Limited

Two issues are involved in the back to the basics movements: the need for mastery of
fundamentals; and the definition of what is fundamental. The conventional definition of the 3
R's as fundamentals may be a good starting point, but teaching kids to read is not a simplistic,
easily agreed upon task. Even putting methodology aside, other questions remain. Is oral
reading a fundamental? Is there an arbitrary vocabulary which must be memorized? How fast
must a fundamental reader be able to read? What is an acceptable level of comprehension? If the
study of literature is fundamental, what literature should be studied? What is "classic?" How
much controversy should be allowed or encouraged in the study of literature. Who should
decide these issues - the state, the school district, the teacher, the parents, the student himself or
herself?
Arithmetic is equally hard to pin down as a basic. Most would agree that rote learning of
number facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables) is fundamental. But in
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some schools the tables go only to "IO's" and in others it is "12's." It is hard to understand
what is so special about the" 11 's" and" 12's" to make them more fundamental than the "13's."
Arguments rage on about the role of hand held calculators in relation to math fundamentals.
And there is little agreement about the fundamental value of compound fractions and the level of
complexity of word problems. What is fundamental in one school is optional in another.
Effective local school districts, with good leadership, will develop shared definitions of
fundamentals, while their ineffective neighbors are left adrift. Effective individual teachers
develop their own sense of what is fundamental and teach it with reasonable success focusing
the attention of students selectively on "important" concepts. Less effective teachers may
blindly use the same teaching materials without ever thinking of priorities and never be aware of
their deficiency. When children move or textbooks change, so do the basics, and often to the
detriment of the individual student who finds himself or herself held to an unfamiliar standard.
The enthusiasm for the fundamentals of school-taught skills is well-founded, but the basic
reformers have been as myopic as any "permissive" zealot. Even the most systematic exposure
to the basics does not insure their mastery by a given student. There is substantial evidence
from countless reading studies that about 70% of the students will learn to read effectively
regardless of the method used. The resilience of the human organism is often confused with the
effectiveness of instruction.
As a society we are not content with the 3 R's as our only fundamentals. For example, a
recent call for the return to the basics has centered on geography. We are becoming conscious
of the interdependence of our world, and can see with increasing clarity that we are ill prepared
to deal with its complexity. But there is no agreement as to what issues of interdependence are
fundamental. When the cry goes up for more emphasis on geography, is it physical geography,
or cultural geography, or both? Is it fundamental to know the capital of Botswana, or is it
fundamental to know where and how to find the capital of Botswana when you need to know?
And what do informed citizens need to know of different religious beliefs - their commonalities
and their differences? Religion has always been central to the evolution of cultures. Which
religious traditions should be studied, and how should they be presented?
As we re-define basic skills for the 21st century, schools will contend with a host of such
issues. For instance, is it more fundamental to relate to our past or to our future? Our past is
rooted in Western traditions, our future is widely believed to be even more closely linked with
the Pacific Rim and other non-Western cultures. Is it more important to study cultures similar to
our own, or as different as possible in order to gain perspective?
Art and music were basics in Greek education, but are widely viewed in contemporary
terms as "frills." Their relegation to the status of frills is coming into question, however, with
research evidence from the study of the brain demonstrating synergism between the arts and the
sciences in stimulating creativity in both.
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Looking Back to the Basics

Teaching methodology in the "basics" has usually centered on the presentation of factual
material, to be "learned" and given back as required on tests. "Rigor" has been a watchword,
and by rigor is meant systematic presentation, drill, repetition, review, and testing of the basics,
however they have been defined. From time to time, however, we insert the need for
cooperative learning into the repertoire of basics.
Just as one genre of reforms and reformers often neglected the need for a rigorous
foundation of basic information and skills, the basics movements neglected to take into account
the essential nature of more complex, less precise objectives of learning - often referred to as
"critical thinking," or "problem solving" skills. Equally important, a significant number of
children became alienated from the educational process by the generally passive teaching and
learning processes of the back to basics movements.
Once we can decide what is basic for our children to learn, we may be able to decide how to
go about accomplishing that task, and realistically hold ourselves accountable for the success of
our results. Until we do, our enthusiasm for the basics will share more in common with Ponce
de Leon's search for the fountain of youth than with the development of a sound health and
fitness program.
Perhaps many American educators still truly believe that our current system can be salvaged
or repaired -- that we can return to some level of excellence -- if our children could only master
"the fundamentals." But the fundamentals have changed, and continue top change rapidly. We
can no longer afford to look backward, blinding ourselves to the new social, cultural and, yes,
economic realities. In the words of the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy:

Much of the rhetoric of the recent education reform movement has been couched in the
language of decline, suggesting that standards have slipped, that the education system
has grown lax and needs to return to some earlier performance standard to succeed. Our
view is very different. We do not believe the educational system needs repairing; we
believe it must be rebuilt to match the drastic change needed in our economy if we are to
prepare our children for productive lives in the 21st century.

The Whole Child. When there has been dissatisfaction with the narrowness of any definition of
the basics or fundamentals, the answer to these concerns has often been to develop curricula for
the whole child, and broader methodologies of instruction.
There are hosts of whole-child curriculum concerns: life skills - ranging from cooking to
sex education; interpersonal skills - with family, friends and society; self-awareness - the
psycho/social dimensions of understanding motivation and behavior; and values - defming the
range of permitted beliefs and actions among individuals, and subgroups of the society. There
is also the struggle to define the permitted values in the society as a whole, and how they
change.
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The resistance to the Whole Child movement is based, in part, on the belief that many of the
educational issues with which it has been concerned, such as the study of values and
interpersonal communication, belong in the family. However true that may be ideally, for
increasing numbers of children the family is not a viable support system for any purpose, and
expectations that fundamental, constructive views of human behavior can be counted on to be
learned in a family environment are simply unrealistic at present, however committed we may
be to neutrality in any well functioning society.
There is substantial liability to the society as a whole when large numbers of children grow
up without adequate instruction in life-skills areas. If they are not dealt with in schools, then
our society must identify alternatives. Out-of-school approaches are generally thought to be
more expensive. This is why the schools, by default, have been asked to spend increasing time
and resources on life skills instruction from year to year.

Confusion and Competition

Teaching and learning methodologies of the whole child education movements have tended to
be more varied, designed to "meet individual needs." Most of these methodologies, properly
implemented, are sound. But a major weakness in testing the merit of the whole child
approaches has been the lack of an effective cadre of teachers to implement these programs.
Because whole child methodologies are more subjective, more open-ended, and more
individually focused, they are much more difficult to use, and more difficult to evaluate with
confidence. The result has been confusion. Poor teachers and poor teaching are hard to
identify. For lack of a frame of reference, mediocrity and even incompetence have frequently
gone unchallenged or even undetected, and once again, we still do not know how valid the
approach is -- or could be, given sufficient resources and time.
Unfortunately, the whole child reform movements have tended to be in competition with
back to the basics. The reason for this has little to do with a debate of the merits of either
curriculum. It is a matter of time and attention. When education attempts to do too much it is
done less well, and the resulting frustration triggers a response to narrow the focus of
education. Once the focus becomes narrowed, an inevitable, growing concern arises for those
issues which are really "fundamental" in a larger, human sense, and which have been left out of
the picture. There is never enough time or sufficient resources to accomplish all the worthy
objectives of education, and so compatible, equally essential elements have been pitted against
each other as opponents, with no mechanism for resolution, as the pendulum of change swings
predictably back and forth between equally legitimate educational needs.
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Structural Reforms. Without ever resolving what should be taught, endless layers of structural
reform have come and gone. There is no denying the arbitrary structure of education, and at
least three elements have seen considerable tinketing in the past few decades.

Dimensions of Time

First, learning has been divided into "semester" chunks with fixed, daily petiods of instruction?
This hasn't always been the case. Flexible scheduling had its day - and teachers were hard-
pressed to know what to do with the flexibility it provided. It was easier to go back to a cookie-
cutter schedule. Treating individual schedules like interchangeable parts made the structure
easier to defme and administer.
Next, there is increasing public awareness of the arbitrary and irrelevant definition of the
school year. Summer recesses are anachronisms of an agricultural past, but the 180-day school
year remains, after periodic flirtations with year-round schools. And of course with ever larger
percentages of working mothers, the daily school schedule which has created latch-key children
could also change to make it more synchronous with the life-rhythms of the society around it.
Today, however, 3:00 PM remains the bench-mark time for school dismissal, around which
busing conflicts must be resolved.

Shapes and Sizes

Class size is another of the structural standards with which reformers periodically tinker. The
size of class is endlessly studied and periodically changed by grouping classes together or
dividing them for specific purposes, but remains durably centered on thirty students for
virtually all subjects and grade levels. Research findings show a greater positive effect on
learning from a lower adult-child ratio rather than a reduced teacher-pupil ratio. But these
findings are largely ignored because there is no tradition of hiring large numbers of support
staff and there is little understanding of how to use them. Moreover, many of the facilities
which were made more flexible to accommodate larger and smaller groups of students a
generation ago have since been restored to cubical neatness for interchangeable thirty student
classes.
The strongest continuing pressure is for a systematic reduction in class size. If thirty is
good, twenty-five is better, and twenty better yet. Many private schools tout their small classes
as prima facie evidence of quality. But would knowledgeable parents rather have their sons and
daughters in the classrooms of outstanding teachers with fifty students, or in the classrooms of
a marginal teacher with ten? There are better options than either of these two extremes.
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Biding and Dividing Time

Grade levels are periodically challenged as being arbitrary and dysfunctional, but remain
constant, as if etched in stone. The school year is the unit of success or failure, though there is
strong evidence that a whole year is far too long to wait to remediate any substantial learning
failure. And it may be an even greater problem, certainly a waste, to have the brightest students
marking time for varying periods at the end of each school year while waiting for their less able
or lower performing peers.
Periodically school districts have redefined the boundaries between elementary and
secondary education, most recently junior high schools (typically grades 7, 8, and 9) have been
changed into middle schools (typically grades 6,7, and 8) a change which has usually been
more cosmetic than substantial. A recent study concluded that only a minority of middle schools
had substantially changed their educational programs after abandoning their junior high school
identification. At the beginning of the century, the eighth grade was the end point of elementary
education. The junior high school movement was largely a response to overcrowding of the
four year high schools in the fifties and sixties, which delayed if not precluded the need for
additional high schools in districts with expanding student populations by reducing high school
to three years. The educational rationale for junior high schools as "transition" institutions was
in many instances simply convenient.
A quarter century later we innovate by returning high schools to their four year programs -
not coincidentally at the time of declining high school enrollments. And the innovation for
middle schools, when it is successful, is to restore them to their nineteenth century roots nearer
to elementary education. Rather than looking for the "right year" for transition, would it not be
better to have a progression where school structures reflect in an incremental way, the growing
maturity of students as they progress?

Optional (Open) Learning Sites

Student initiative and responsibility have also been recurring issues of structural reform. From
time to time proposals have been made to allow students more freedom to choose their learning
sites and to have "open laboratories" available for their study and participation, to learn at their
own pace. But open laboratory and individual study options are harder to administer. Teachers
became frustrated and complaints that students were not using "free time" constructively began
to attract public attention, often for the wrong reasons. Students were returned to their time-
bound cubicles.
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Transition to New Structures

Many of those involved in structural reforms believe that they were not successful because they
did not go far enough. The new structures always had to accommodate the old and never
became truly independent. In some year round school experiments, for example, the same
family would find its children on different vacation schedules. Their son in a"progressive"
elementary school district would be on a four quarter schedule, while their daughter in the
separate high school district still had summers off, and shorter midterm breaks. When
individual schools attempt new patterns of scheduling in isolation from nearby schools, the
positive effects sought can be tainted simply by incompatible expectations.
Once again the pendulum of change is moving in the direction of structural reform. The
precedents of structural reform are already present; the issue is whether we can implement them
this time with enough consistency and with enough patience to work through their transitional
problems and study their effects systematically.

Differentiated Staffing. Parents, students, and teachers themselves can readily distinguish
among the attributes of various teachers. Yet the school system almost universally treats them
as if they are interchangeable parts. Parents are not allowed the choice of teachers. Officially, all
sixth grade teachers are equal, as are all algebra teachers, football coaches, and English
teachers. This is nonsense, of course. But if schools admit to differences, they must deal with
them, and that they have not been prepared to do. The alternative is obvious, if difficult to
administer. More effective teachers should have greater responsibilities and should supervise
less able or less experienced teachers.

Can We Compensate?

Differentiated staffing and merit pay have often been lumped together. It is quite different,
however, to propose that teachers be paid differently to perform the same tasks with special
status and compensation, and to propose that the assignment and responsibilities of teachers
should vary according to their competence and experience.
Teachers have been very reluctant to endorse any system of differentiation. Some of their
fears are legitimate, given the almost universal history of schools' placing substantial premiums
on conformity rather than innovation and initiative. But often teachers are prisoners of their
defensive psychology, with an almost unconscious belief that teaching is a second-rate
profession. It is true that those who choose teaching as a "first choice" career do so in spite of
the system rather than because of it. Many teachers fear that if differentiations are made, they
will find themselves at the bottom. And often it is the most effective teachers who have the
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greatest fears. as unfounded as they may be. They are the ones who care. and who know just
how much more can be done if only they had the training. time and resources to do more. They
often see the failure of the system as their failure. and have nothing with which to compare their
efforts.
Most of the efforts at differentiated staffing have been cosmetic - using the term
"differentiated staffing" to glamorize extra pay for extra work. or to rename an already existing
department head. Experiments with the fundamental restructuring of the profession have been
too rare to gain a reasonable body of experience with which to evaluate them.

Ups and Downs

There is need for both vertical and horizontal differentiation in American schooling. Vertical
differentiation refers to specialization and differentiation of assignment among equals. An
example of horizontal differentiation has been to make (in very few instances) pay and status of
the top teachers and the top administrators equivalent. Examples of vertical differentiation are
"master teachers" or "executive teachers" who are responsible for some or all of the activities of
other teachers or direct the activities of less trained. support staff.
In the sixties a number of school districts tried team teaching which sought to capitalize on
the parallel strengths of teachers working together (horizontal differentiation). There were
substantial successes with team teaching. when teachers worked together well. but
mechanisms were never developed to group teachers with predictable compatibility. or to
reassign or replace weak teachers who were not able to contribute as equals. The default
alternative was always to return teachers to their self-contained classes. which more
successfully disguised the problems and made schools easier to administer.
The first systematic efforts at differentiated staffing. almost a quarter of a century ago. were
universally condemned by teachers organizations and eventually failed to achieve any
substantial effect. Now teachers unions are supportive of differentiated staffing efforts in
recognition of the fact that teachers will not gain the professional status and compensation they
deserve if all teachers. good and bad must be considered as equals.

Behavioral Objectives and Competency Based Education. At the height of the reform movement
of the sixties there was a cry for better ways to compare and evaluate the myriad of reform
initiatives. By their nature the effects of education are hard to measure. Learning is so complex
it is difficult to sort out what has been learned in the classroom from that which has been
learned as a part of life experience. The effects of education are cumulative and it is difficult to
attribute specific strengths or weaknesses to the efforts of a particular teacher or classroom.
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New Yardsticks

In the search for criteria, it became fashionable to make learning goals very specific by defming
behavioral objectives so the learning status of students before and after instruction could be
more precisely measured. This had both successful and unsuccessful aspects. Enthusiasts
attempted to define all learning tasks with equal precision which had the effect of trivializing if
not eliminating many important educational objectives. Opponents, on the other hand, resisted
all efforts to specify objectives as an insult to the gestalt of learning.
By dividing complex learning processes such as creative writing into highly specified
behavioral measures, supporters of competency-based education, it was argued, reduced the
most important educational objectives to their component parts and thereby deprived students of
an appreciation for the whole learning process. A balance has yet to be achieved. Any objective
which can be measured, should be, while it is recognized that many of the important objectives
of education are too general and abstract to be precisely measured.

Who's to Say?

The greater American public, ultimately represented in state legislatures, demanded to know
how well the schools were doing. Educators resisted any comparisons or judgments of
effectiveness. As a result legislatures mandated the development of independent testing
programs to measure success. Results have been mixed. Certainly more attention has been
focused on accountability and that has been good. But the tests have effectively placed much
more emphasis on minimum standards than providing an index of excellence as had been
hoped. In general minimum standards lend themselves to measurement more than higher levels
of mastery, which become increasingly divergent and difficult to evaluate precisely.
Ways to incorporate professional judgments into the evaluative process have been missing,
at least in part because of a pervasive lack of trust. The issue of whose judgement we trust to
make crucial decisions and lead our schools into the next century is thrust further to the
forefront as the stakes of educational reform grow higher each year. There are clearly no simple
answers. However, collective judgments are much more likely to be even-handed and
trustworthy. Indeed, a coherent vision of schools for today and tomorrow must grow out of
collaborative decision-making processes. Unfortunately, they have not had widespread
popularity to date.

Technology and Education. Early in the century there was a push to brighten up classrooms
with attractive bulletin boards and classroom displays. In the forties it was educational films
which captured the attention of educators.. In the fifties overhead projectors and programmed
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learning were the new technological toys. The sixties brought television, and the seventies,
computers. None of these has made a systematic difference in what has been taught or how it
has been taught to the generality of students. Technology in education has always been and
remains an optional frill, much to the detriment of society.

Large Scale Advantages

Each of the technologies has been used with success. The issue is not the technology, but how
it is used and integrated into the overall system of education. Even the hardware, the projectors,
television sets and computers necessary for systematic reliance on technology as a regular
component of instruction, is beyond the financial ability of the schools most needing them. But
hardware costs are only the beginning. The advantage of any mediated instruction is that once
development costs have been invested, delivery costs per pupil are low. The larger the student
base (audience), the lower the per pupil costs both for development and delivery. If schools
could be "wired for technology" in any systematic way, the potential savings are enormous, a
common conclusion of the many experimental efforts over past decades.
No one has succeeded in establishing technological standards for schools or in providing
the resources for equipment and program support needed for systematic use. 16,000 school
districts are free to make 16,000 separate decisions to expend funds, the overall inadequacy of
which is agreed, however they are allocated. The impact of technology with more than
relatively small student populations, has been minimal.

The Grass Can Be Greener

Sesame Street has captivated a pre-school television audience for a quarter of a century. Fourth
graders have been taught to type, and some fortunate elementary and high school students have
gained computer and word processing skills. Walt Disney demonstrated in his Life Adventure
series over forty years ago that the study of biology can be made so entertaining that he could
charge admission. Instnlctional television has come and gone along with the grants to support
it, always outside of the educational mainstream. These few startling exceptions stand as
testaments to what is possible.
Technology cannot become a major factor in American education however, until systematic
mechanisms are established for the procurement, implementation and coordination of resources
on a scale that is orders of magnitude beyond what we have today. With a substantial
investment to provide resources for educational technology, it may still be possible to reduce
the total per pupil cost of education, but only if we develop a comprehensive national
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framework for its specification, development and use and the patience to appreciate the need for
an extensive and pervasive trial and error learning process.

Magnet, Model and Award Schools. Schools of specialization have been successful
components of American education for all of the twentieth century. Their relation to the
mainstream of education has changed as we adopted comprehensive high school education as a
universal goal.

Freedom of Choice

Specialty schools, be they vocational, schools of fine arts or academies of science, have always
been more successful than their comprehensive counterparts for one simple reason: choice. If a
school is limited to those who want to be there it is bound to be more successful. One common
problem is that the students left behind are often even more difficult to educate. They are the
students with little initiative, and increasingly with minimal family support Any solution to the
problems of American education which leads to a more divided society, a more polarized
distinction between success and failure, does not serve the society well.
One attractive option for specialized schools in the future would be a full complement of
alternatives from which all students will choose. This would require an infrastructure of
transportation, and the means for establishing attendance priorities and numerical balance of
students which have not been successfully addressed to date. It's wonderful to have different
criteria and approaches to successful education - beyond the basics - but until there is a common
perception of the success of all the alternatives, and relatively equal enthusiasm of all students
involved, magnet schools and all specialized schools can only represent islands of success in a
sea of difficulty.
It has always been popular to give awards for outstanding performance, to individuals and
institutions. It is constructive to call attention to successes, and even more important to try to
understand the source and cause of their success if they are to become useful models. But the
record of educational reform has not been good when it comes to applying what has been
learned in "award" schools and programs.
Rationalizations abound. There are always good reasons why the programs cannot be
transplanted to other settings. The facilities won't allow it. The staff is not trained or willing to
take on the new roles required. There are disabling regulations. The size or location prevent its
consideration. The reason for the rationalizations is easily understood. Educators tend to be
defensive about why they weren't "first." Or they defend their current practice out of a fear of
uncertainty if they undertook a new program. Leaders and administrators may fear the
consequences of "rocking the boat." They know there is little need to defend the status quo.
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The current problems are well understood and well accepted. The new problems of model
programs will always require explanation and produce vulnerability.
While award programs may be constructive, they cannot be viewed as an alternative to more
systematic reform. Indeed, they may simply disguise the need for fundamental reform by
creating points of brilliance which distract the attention of the public from its more basic
fundamental problems.

Major Curriculum Reforms. We have had "major" curriculum reform, but always one school
district at a time. Despite increasing calls for improvement, our approach to change has
remained largely the same in the last twenty years.

The Brains Race

The successful launch of the Soviet Sputnik in the late fifties triggered concern about the
effectiveness of science education. A wave of national curriculum efforts in science and math,
followed by less well-funded and less extensive efforts in foreign language, English and social
studies spanned the sixties; the first systematic national curriculum efforts in the history of the
nation. Their legacy has been positive, however uncertain. It has taken two decades to
assimilate their effects into the mainstream of education, with much dilution in the process. In
addition, our inconsistency and lack of vision at the national level created substantial barriers
for these "major" reforms.
For example, the greatest success was achieved in "process curriculums," which placed
emphasis on higher order skills and inquiry methods of learning. Ironically, the effects of this
achievement have been most thoroughly eroded by state testing programs with their emphasis
on precisely measured educational outcomes.
During this time much effort was expended in selling 16,000 individual school districts on
the value of curriculum reform. Almost all efforts were directed at making existing curricula
more effective. A notable exception was the Harvard Project in Physics which sought to make
physics a ninth grade subject rather than a twelfth grade subject by eliminating advanced
mathematics from its problem sets. Some said we had fmally invested substantial time, money
and resources to improve science education. Yet even this modest proposal for curriculum
change was ultimately discarded, not because of any fault in its theory, but because existing
patterns of instruction into which it had to fit were too well ingrained. In this case, a significant
investment in curriculum improvement was scrapped because of the inertia of preexisting
instructional patterns.
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Curriculum by Default

Of all reform considerations, evaluating the success of curriculum reform is most difficult.
"New math" provides an example. As mentioned previously, the objectives of new math went
substantially beyond traditional mathematics instruction. Yet students studying new math were
evaluated almost exclusively by tests of traditional mathematics. No one was willing (or
perhaps able) to say how new math objectives were different or to evaluate whether some of the
traditional objectives were not applicable. And no one proposed that traditional math students
should be tested on new math objectives.
To date, our country has never undertaken major curriculum reforms in any broad, realistic
or scientific way. The system of education has not found any reasonable way to challenge our
outdated, obsolete, whimsical, inconsistent, or even unanalyzed judgments about what students
should learn and how.
Decisions of what to teach -- the subjects, topics and individual concepts and their balance,
sequence, and expense -- are all value judgments. It is a sad truth in American education that we
cannot even decide how best to decide. For this reason our system will continue to penalize
students, teachers, parents and, ultimately, the entire nation. In the last decade of the twentieth
century we will teach our curriculum because it is there, not because of any judgment of its
relative importance, relevance, or ease of learning.

The 1980s. The last ten years have been characterized by numerous calls for reform, yet the
1980s saw no real exception to our tradition of tinkering with the system. As the quality of our
schools continues to decline and the needs of our society continue to grow, we are forced to
confront the underlying reasons for the failure of our system. We have not made truly
fundamental changes.
It is increasingly clear that American education is now moving unavoidably into a phase of
radical transformation. In the book, The Educational Reform Movement of the 1980s an
excellent review, categorization and rationalization of the myriads of reforms and reform
proposals in American Education, Joseph Murphy, the editor of the volume, identifies three
recent waves of reform in his introduction. These "waves" are summarized in Table 1.
Murphy describes Wave 3 reforms as both more fundamental and more comprehensive in
nature, while noting that this wave is so new that we have limited means for evaluating its
merits. He defends reform focussed on repairing the existing system and building on existing
organizational structures to improve the schools we have (wave I reforms) by suggesting that
recent successes in school reform can be attributed to the fact that they did not call for a major
transformation of today's system. Reforms emphasizing curriculum requirements and a
tightening of existing school stt:ucture are lauded with this caveat: "Critics have argued that the
overall yield available from these types of reform is not likely to be significant. ... Although
 299

Table 1.

Comparing the Different Waves of Educational Reform in the 1980s

Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3

Metaphor Fix the old clunker Get a new car Rethink view of
(repair) (restructure) transportation
(redesign)
Philosophy Expand centralized Empower Empower
controls professionals students
and parents
Assumptions Problems traceable Problems Problems
to low standards traceable to traceable to
for workers and low systems failure fragmented,
quality of production uncoordinated
tools approaches for
taking care of
children
Change model Top-down Bottom up Inter
(bureaucratic model) (market model); organizational
lateral (professional (inter-professional
model) model)
Policy Prescription (rule Power
mechanisms making and distribution
incentives);
performance
measurement
Focus The system; The people The child;
incremental (professionals revolutionary
improvement and parents); change
radical change
Areas Specific pieces of Governance Delivery
quantitative and work structure
requirements - Structures
standards

attacks on the likely success of [these reform] measures are quite well developed, empirical
evidence on the yield from more fundamental reforms is conspicuous by its absence."
 300

The refonn movement of the 80s has helped in small ways to improve the substance of the
system. But the issues addressed are trivial compared to what is needed. As Jordan and
McKeown (in Murphy, Chapter 4) point out: "Thirteen states allocated $67.3 million [in 1985]
for programs to serve 'at risk' youth, and twenty-three states allocated $131 million for
programs to serve gifted and talented youth."
First of all, it is nonsense to pit "at risk" and "talented" youth against each other, in
competition for funding. The funding of both are needed. But it is obvious that the balance is
inappropriate and the funding inconsiciously trivial compared to the need.; This is made even
more transparent when the same chapter continues "Over 80 percent of the dollars for "at risk"
students was in a single state." In analyzing education refonn of the 1980s, this book does not
even have a chapter dealing with refonns targeting "at risk" students, which is further evidence
of how the basic refonn movement failed to reach the most needy students.
The work of Comer in New Haven, where he was successful in systematically raising
reading scores of inner city youth was not mentioned in any chapter. However, Comer's
seminal efforts are a good example of the impotence of refonn within the present system to
solve our problems. His widely touted and praised experimentation (with ample justification)
only made a small dent into this problem. If his methods were replicated successfully, they
would make a significant difference in achievement, but still leave the targeted students too far
behind to give any credibility to claims of "solving" the educational problem for disadvantaged
youth.
More and more there is a call for national structures in future educational refonn efforts,
"Third Wave" efforts in the paradigm of Murphy. "One candidate might be even more
pronounced 'nationalizing' and centralizing forces. Certainly, the momentum behind the
curriculum alignment and state- and national-level testing movement is growing. Some see us
evolving toward a de facto national curriculum."
This discussion is followed by Caldwell's observation:

In general, governments in many countries are adopting a more powerful and focused
role in terms of setting goals, establishing priorities and building frameworks for
accountability -- all constituting a centralizing trend in the centralization-decentralization
continuum -- at the same time as authority and responsibility for key functions are being
shifted to the schoollevel-- a decentralizing trend. Much uncertainty arises because
these trends, almost paradoxically, are occurring simultaneously or in rapid succession.

What we need to realize is that there is, in fact, need for both and that they need not compete.
We need to centralize the "what" and de-centralize the "how," to liberate individual teachers in
their classrooms to decide how to help their students achieve common objectives and provide
them with the resources to do so.
 301

Conclusion

School refonn movements have continued to dot the landscape of education, but they have been
unsystematic, and the success or failure of reforms often had tittle to do with their evaluated
success. The local governance structure of schools gave refonners 16,000 places to "sell" their
innovations. A willing school district could be found for almost any refonn. But school boards
could be voted in or out of office, sometimes based on the popularity or unpopularity of a
particularly visible refonn, and the winds of educational change would blow again before
systematic evidence of success or failure could be documented. Many fads have come and gone
with still unknown effects.
The nature of refonn and experimentation makes early efforts unlikely to be completely
successful. Yet expectations have always been that the first trials of refonn should demonstrate
superiority to the well-refined alternatives they seek to replace. Both logic and experience
suggest that in the early stages of experimentation, success might be claimed with results of
equal quality to the traditional way, with the expectation that future refinements would produce
superior results. And it would not be unreasonable to expect that early results might not even
achieve parity with the old. Certainly the first airplane flight was not a very effective means of
transport.
Somehow we have to redefme our expectations of educational refonn. We must create more
effective environments for experimentation, allowing new ideas and alternatives sufficient time
with sufficient resources to gain more confident evidence of their effectiveness - or failure. As
we look back over the twentieth century, we see almost endless examples of experimentation
and refonn, many have been cyclical, leaving little definitive evidence to either support their
adoption or to encourage their abandonment. They leave only sufficient intrigue to encourage
new generations to try again. We have only tinkered with our system of education to bring
about change.
But as the society has changed and knowledge continues to mUltiply, the urgency of
educational reform becomes more pressing, and the negative consequences of retaining the
status quo have long since passed any reasonable level of tolerance. Like John Commonsense,
teachers and parents alike are beginning to see the forest for the trees. They are no longer
willing to waste valuable resources, to set expensive fires with no assurance of getting roast
pork. They are seeking practical solutions which call much of the status quo into question.
It is not new reforms which are needed, but an entirely new design and framework for
educational refonn. Many of its supporting elements are already known but will remain
insignificant until a new framework is put into place. An effective place to begin development
of a new, coordinated national framework for education would be to establish a network of
experimental schools.
Characteristics of Educational Systems and Their
Development: A Contribution to Understanding
Differences in Systems in Europe and the United
States
Theo M. E. Liket

University of Amsterdam

A bstract: This paper describes some indicators. that can be used to compare educational
systems, such as the general aims of education, factors influencing school systems, and
different levels of educational decision-making. It also discusses the failure of centrally
introduced changes and the success of changes introduced at the level of individual schools.

Keywords: Global educational change, site-based management, stakeholder approach.

Introduction

In this paper I will try to describe some indicators that can be used to compare national and
state educational systems. Some of them characterize how school systems in different nations
are influenced by different variables. Other, more process-based indicators, are fundamental
for examining the developments of these systems during the seventies and eighties as well as
during this new decade of rather revolutionary world-wide changes.
One of the most remarkable aspects of this moment in history is the internationalization of
education; therefore, a comparison of educational systems is relevant for all of us. More than
ever, educational issues are international and concern each of us in the same way.
Finally, I will try to describe the practice of change management for the near future in
relation to the impact of European unity in 1992 and the international trends which influence the
educational systems all over the western world. I especially note the trend towards more
autonomy for the individual educational institution.
 303

Fundamental Aims of Systems

To describe the differences among the attitudes of inhabitants of some European nations we
sometimes say:

In England everything is permitted, that naught is forbidden.

In the Netherlands everything is forbidden, that naught is permitted.
In Germany everything is forbidden, also the things that are permitted.
In France everything is permitted, also the things that are forbidden.

This kind of generalization might have had some relevance in a time when national borders
meant something. However, now these global notions function as biases and take us far away
from a serious, reliable analysis. Nevertheless, we should be alert to the subconscious
presence of these biases in the scientific effort to characterize and analyze.
Mter studying many educational systems from all around the world, one can conclude that
four general aims are fundamental to every national system.
They are:
A. The transfer of the cultural heritage of former generations, including the philosophy of life,
which is laid down in values, norms, and attitudes.
B. The transfer of the body of knowledge developed by generations of scientists, from the so-
called basics to the specific scientific know-how.
C. The allocation of students for the labour-market as responsible participants in an open
democratic society.
D. The personal development of talents and abilities of the individual, leading to identity and
responsibility as an unique person.
Although all four of these aims belong to the fundaments of every society, there are
significant differences in national educational systems because of:
the variations in the way these aims are balanced;
the importance assigned to aims other than the four listed here.
It is clear that different options exist in different national educational systems. For example, let
us consider countries like Indonesia and France. Indonesia is characterized by a population of
170 million inhabitants, of which more than half are younger than age 15. It is also a country
with a very short period of national identity. Whereas France is characterized by a long historic
tradition, and it has a school system that has not changed significantly since the time of
Napoleon. Thus, although the overall aims listed earlier are the same for both countries, the
balance between the importance of each of the aims is quite different. If we place the four aims
in a square, we can say that in Indonesia greater emphasis is placed on aims A and C , while
French systems focus on aims Band D. (See Figure 1.)
 304

A B
Heritage Knowledge

Personal
Allocation Development

c D
Figure 1: Four fundamental aims in national educational systems

Factors Influencing School Systems

Analysis of school systems and the development of these systems leads to the conclusion that
as far as national governments are involved in the formulation of aims and objectives, there is a
hierarchy of importance with regard to the factore used by the decision-makers.
One can say that in the western world, political factors have the greatest influence on
school systems. EconomicaVbudgetary factors are the next most influential, and very often,
educational considerations seem to be the least influential.
People working in the field of education, who are mainly engaged in educational problem-
solving and living in what sometimes is called the "educational province", are hardly interested
in and lack insight into the decisions which governments must make and in which political
considerations playa dominant role. Some of the choices that have to be made are :
the proportion of national resources to be allocated to education in relation to other areas of
national responsibility (health care, ecology, social care, defense, etc.)
the extension of essential basic education for all citizens.
the essential amount of scientific research in relation to international standards.
 305

the relation between the contribution to education and training by government and by the
persons involved (parents, students).
the extent to which the quality of education (qualifications, curricula, evaluation) is
influenced and controlled by (central or local) government.
the level of decision-making and the autonomy of the individual school (board).
the mechanisms used by the government to stimulate developments of importance in the
national educational reality.
The political decisions related to these choices influence the way that the fundamental aims
mentioned earlier are balanced. Analysis of national and state educational systems should
therefore also include awareness and understanding of these political and economic issues.
There are numerous examples to prove the statement that universally accepted educational
givens seldom count enough in governmental decision-making. Consequently, the ideal balance
of the aims and objectives for school systems is disturbed.

Decision-making in the Development of the Educational System

In principle, there are three levels of management that shape the educational system in most
countries.
National Government. The first level is the national government level. It is my
conviction, after years of studying national school systems, that if we compare European
school systems to systems in the United States, we should compare European countries with
American states, since the influence on the state systems from the federal level in the U.S.A.
seems minimal. The national aims are very global and also according to such publications as
"A Nation at Risk" the responsibility for change appears to be a state responsibility. The
federal government also exerts limited influence on individual states' school financing
formulas.
So in this paper when I refer to the national level for European countries, I will compare
that level with the American state level.
Local Authority. The second level is the level of the local authority. For example, this
would be the municipality in Holland, the local educational authority in England, and the district
level in the United States.
School Leader and His or Her Staff. The third level is the level of the school leader
and his or her immediate staff which includes: deputy principal(s), other central institutional
officers, on the management level. Depending on the size of the institution, one may be able to
distinguish between the levels 3a (heads of departments) and level 3b (individual teachers), if
there is a difference between who has responsibility for the management of the learning
process and who has direct contact with students.
 306

Part of the analysis of school systems includes detennining the level at which decisions are
made and which participants are responsible for which aspects of the educational organisation
and process. For instance, it is important to know that a French or Spanish school leader (chef
d' etablissement") does not have any responsibility for the content of the curriculum nor for the
individual perfonnance of teachers, in contrast to other countries in western Europe.
When we characterize school systems with regard to the level of decision-making, we speak
of centrally governed countries where not only global aims are fonnulated on the national level,
but also where appointment of staff, detailed curricula, and organisational aspects are regulated
centrally, and school management and teachers have a very limited space for their own
initiatives and school-based decisions. Most South-European states fall into this category.
There are countries where the most crucial detailed decisions are made at the local level.
Those countries can be characterized as relatively decentralized. For example, England has
Local Educational Authorities and the United States has school districts that are responsible for
making most of these crucial decisions. Germany can be best described as having a mix of
centralized and relatively decentralized characteristics, because the "Lander" are highly
autonomous, but local authorities and individual schools are directed centrally.
Finally, there are countries where global aims are national, but where the individual school
has many opportunities for detailed regulations without interference of local authorities. Such
a system can be called autonomous. The Netherlands is one example. In this country, state
and private schools are subsidized equally by the national government and both have a great
deal of freedom in detennining curricula and appointing the teaching staff.
Of course, there are hundreds of different situations; what is important to know is which
kind of decisions are made at which level in order to characterize a nation's system. In addition
to curricular and appointment regulations, there are also regulations of working conditions for
teachers, on examinations, on qualifications and so on, so that a system is a result of various
aspects, mostly effected by history and tradition, by the political situation, and by the balance of
power between practitioners in the classroom and public opinion.

Trends in European Education

Before discussing the ways that necessary and desired changes within schools and other
educational institutions can be inspired and implemented, I will describe some trends in
European education. The first important catalyst for educational change is the movement
toward greater European cooperation in what one might call "The United States of Europe"
starting in 1992. This cooperation provides an incentive for comparing educational situations.
With the free exchange of goods, money, of services and of persons within the twelve
 307

participating countries of Europe, they face the challenge of figuring out what impact greater
cooperation will have on their educational systems.
The second catalyst is the revolutionary development and political change in the countries of
Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union. After more than seventy years of isolation, there
is much greater motivation to exchange educational ideas. This exchange is of crucial
importance for the future of Europe.
There are four major trends in all European countries and that appear to lead to far more
cooperation in the field of education and training. Expressed very globally, these four trends
are:

A. Autonomy of schools and other educational institutions

- lump-sum financing
- planning
- profiling
- client centered
The crucial question here is: "What limits has autonomy?"

B. Accountability
- quality-care
- quality-assessment
- self-evaluation
- external evaluation
The crucial question here is: "What do we evaluate and how?"

C. Internationalisation
- preparation of the student on a supra-national labour market
- cooperation between educational institutes
- comparison of diplomas and grades
The crucial question here is: "How should the admission of foreign students be regulated?"

D. Study and use offoreign languages

- expectations
- pluriformity in cultures
The crucial question here is: "Who needs to know what in a foreign language?"

The most impressive trend everywhere seems to be the move to greater autonomy for
schools and universities, which is evident in all European countries, although sometimes for
different reasons.
 308

This development seems to lead to a situation comparable with the United States: an
European government that respects the different national educational systems and only
interferes with arrangements on a project-basis, similar to the way in which the federal
government in Washington operates with regard to each of states in the U.S.A.. Therefore, it
is important to study the developments on both sides of the Atlantic OCean since we can learn a
lot from each other's successes and failures.

The Management of Change

Since further analyses of the educational systems in Europe and the U.S.A. can be found in my
1980 article, "Educational developments in the European Community towards 1992 in relation
to trends in other countries in and outside Europe", now I would like to address the ways
necessary and desired changes within schools and other educational institutions can be inspired
and implemented.
I agree with those educationalists, who are skeptical about the implementation of change on
a national level. In Europe we have learned that the Research-Development-Dissemination
(RDD) model of educational change, which was used in the sixties and seventies, has failed.
There is enough research to explain what is wrong in the RDD model. Schools involved in
nationally organized projects differed in their ways of implementation; the evaluation of the
projects was denied or unprofessionally organised; facilities for experimental schools were not
available at the moment of national implementation; and the transfer of products of the
experiment failed because other schools had no experience with the processes of the
experimental schools. The practice in countries with a strong centralized educational system
also leads to the conclusion that there is a wide gap between the ideal of equalness in schools
regulated by the same national rules and the educational reality within the different schools.
The failure of centrally introduced changes led to the conviction that implementation of new
educational ideas could be better organised along three ways:
1. introduction of new elements in education and change of attitudes on a smaller scale;
2. using the assistance of experienced change agents from outside the school during the first
period of implementation;
3. changes in the organisation and the content of teacher training.
It is important to use the results and effects of different kinds of implementation during the
last decades. It is striking that all experiments in Europe, and in the Netherlands in particular,
show that the most significant effects over the long run are achieved in the individual
institutions. Recently, the results of using IMTEC's Institutional Development Programme
(LD.P.) model and the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory's A+ programme in
the Netherlands show that durable changes in convictions, skills, and attitudes only occur in
 309

relation to the individual school and that a petiod of three to five years is needed to internalize
the changes in the institution.
Real, fundamental change in education is necessary in the upcoming decade because of the
quickly changing environment, the complex new challenges which mankind has to face, and the
dramatic revolutionary developments in nearly all aspects of modem life.
Such changes are not easy to make in educational institutions, where the task of ensuting
the transfer of the human hetitage sometimes leads to resistance to change and erects barriers to
addressing the issues of the day. However, we are now at a point where it is not only the
politicians and educationalists who are calling for change; teachers are also convinced of the
need for a new educational philosophy that will address all of the complex questions that arise
in a more and more plutiform society.
Therefore, it is crucial for those who are responsible for the development of other ways to
transfer knowledge, skills, and attitudes to realize that the ideal of the uniform school, which
was regulated by central rules all the way down to the capillaties of the system, definitely
belongs to the past.
The environment of the individual school, the specific input of pupils in the school, the
plutiform views of education by the parents and the teachers, and the research results which
indicate that there is not just one good way to reach the aims of education, lead to the
conclusion that on the state level and on the district level the identity of the individual
educational institution should be supported and developed.
We also know that real change only occurs when the school management and the teachers
have gone through a process of change themselves. The intake of ready-made products of
other schools does not work. This does not mean that the wheel has to be invented everywhere
again, but it means that professionals from outside the school should respect that schools may
differ and that more than ever we should use the most expensive and unique instrument in the
school: the personality of the individual teacher.
In the Netherlands all of this has led to a revolutionary change in the national organisation
of the school system, a system that already gave a lot of freedom to individual schools. The
changes now are more fundamental and cover the pedagogical area, as well as the budget and
the area of accountability. I will not go into detail now, but rather say that this has been
described in different Dutch publications and also in my English summary called "Institutional
autonomy in relation to internal and external evaluation" (1990). The diagramme in Figure 2
shows the relation between deregulation and autonomy on the one side and internal and external
evaluation on the other.
The effects of these changes in the educational system in the Netherlands and in other
European countties are spectacular. Because of the fact that schools get their money as a lump
sum, they have the opportunity to continue the execution of their tasks in the way they have
done it before. However, this system also gives schools (management, teachers, parents) room
 310

to change their working-style. For instance, changes can be made if the philosophy of
education collectively accepted in the school inspires them to do so, or if internal or external
reasons bring them to the conviction such changes are necessary to fulfill the mission of the
school.

Autonomy relation External evaluation

condition condition

I.D.P. relation Internal evaluation

school-management
development

Figure 2

The policy is to bring decisions to the lowest level possible, limited only by large and global
national and local aims and objectives. Decisions on the management level are made by the
school leader and his/her staff in dialogue with all the participants involved. Curricula are
based on insights of the teaching staff and the process of teaching, training and evaluation is the
responsibility of the school itself. Of course this system can only exist by the obligation to
produce public school-based planning documents and by the organisation of a fair, public
system of internal and external evaluation. If these conditions are met. the practice leads to a
pluriform school system of responsible. autonomous institutions. ready for the challenge of a
modern, open democratic society.
 311

In the United States similar developments are occurring. Many recent publications show
the tendency to move more decision-making to lower levels is evident allover the western
world. However, in my eyes, most districts do not make the right decision if they stop the
trend toward autonomy at the district level. Until now I do not see that the stakeholder
approach, which of course is in line with the requirement of greater involvement of the
participants in the school, is intended to develop individual schools. The idea of the relatively
uniform schools within a district lead, in fact, to the same problems I mentioned for national
regulations and centralistic governance. If the stakeholder approach also works for the
individual school (and until now there is no reason for me to doubt that this is the case), then it
might be one of the best, and, at the least, one of the most sophisticated paths to educational
change.

A Summary of the Process of Change

1. Real, necessary change in skills and attitudes toward an educational system that faces the
challenges of the future is best guaranteed by the acceptance of a pluriform school system with
a great deal of autonomy for the individual educational institution.
2. One of the conditions for the development of such a school system is the intensification
of site-based management.
3. Genuine fundamental changes in schools require professional support from outside, if
the school accepts this support, and if the outside professionals take the needs of the individual
school seriously and as a starting point for their activities.
4. The process of change is a three to five year process as described in the LD.P. model or
similar process models.
5. Crucial for the process of change is the ability of outside professionals to translate
educational research results into practical, operational skills. The gap between theory and
practice should alarm educationalists in our countries more than it sometimes seems to do.
6. The process of change, leading to internationalisation of new skills and attitudes,
requires at the very least, that the steps described within the I.D.P. development programme be
followed using a tailor-made arrangement with the individual school project-team. Figure 3
shows an overview of the necessary steps and Figure 4 diagrams the phases in the LD.P.
model.
 312

/ Actual Situation
1

2
Needs for change

Relation consultant - school (contract)

'"
3 Diagnosis

4 Problem - solving

5 Development with revisions

6 Generalization of changed
attitudes and skills

7 Withdrawal

/
'"
Desired Situation

Figure 3
 313

Data-
collection

Data - Diagnosis
"Problem - Action -
analysis plan
Statement"

School- Network/
Development Evaluation
Dissemination

Figure 4: LD.P. Phases

Applying Systems Theory Through the Lens of
Learning: What Does Learning Research Say?

Beau Fly Jones, Randy A. Knuth, and Steve Baxendale

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1900 Spring Road, Oakbrook, IL 60521,
U.S.A.

Abstract: Two areas of learning research, research about the learning process and views
about the learner, need to be considered to guide educational stakeholders in the task of
successfully redesigning schools to promote learning. The most meaningful learning results
from an instructional design based on learning research. Research in the application of systems
theory in education has profound implications for curriculum, instruction, and assessment in
schools.

Keywords: Affective education, cognitive theory, creative thinking, critical thinking,

educational research, intelligence, IQ, learner, learning processes, learning strategies, learning
theories, metacognition, multiple intelligences, schema theories, school restructuring.

Introduction

In considering the task of restructuring schools to promote learning, two major questions come
to mind. First, what are the most relevant areas of educational research that relate to learning?
Second, what principles or findings can he derived to guide educational stakeholders in the task
of redesigning schools? In addressing these questions, it is important to note that we have a
broad understanding of learning. In particular, we believe that learning is an interaction of many
factors related to schooling. Most directly, learning is a function of the characteristics of the
learner, the characteristics of the text or materials to be learned, and the characteristics of the
teachingllearning context. Thus, it is very difficult to differentiate findings related to instruction
from findings related to learning or characteristics of the learner. Moreover, to preserve the
integrity of each knowledge base, we will report our findings in terms of specific strands of
research.
We have identified eight main knowledge bases that relate to learning: (1) learning research
which deals with learning processes as well as learner characteristics; (2) research in the content
areas, (3) research on effective teaching and on expert teaching, (4) instructional technology,
(5) cognitive designs which includes cognitive science and philosophy, (6) multicultural, (7)
effective schools research including outcomes-based education; and (8) early childhood
 315

education. This paper is a report on one of the most significant databases: research on learning
and the learner. Work is in progress on the other seven databases.

Learning Research

The design of instruction that results in meaningful learning must be based on learning
research. Otherwise, instruction becomes a trial and error affair, or worse, retains the status
quo of teacher delivery, instructional strategies, and teacher-student and peer-peer relationships.
learning research can he divided into two major categories: research about the learning process,
that is, about the factors that are involved when leaning occurs. In general, these can be
discussed in terms of cognitive, metacognitive, affective, and social theories. The other area is
concerned with views, or metaphors, about the learner. In other words how do we
conceptualize the learner? This includes perspectives from cognitive, philosophical, and
metacognitive views in addition to new ideas about intelligence, brain research, and aptitudes.
This paper is divided into two major sections, Learning Process Research and Characteristics of
the Learner.

Learning Process Research

As research on learning from psychology has progressed over the past half century, issues have
unfolded from a particularly narrow view of the learner tn one that is beginning to describe the
multi-faceted nature of human cognition. The beginning paradigm in learning research,
behaviorism, was essentially interested in describing human behavior from the viewpoint of
stimulus-response bonds, that is, on how stimuli in the environment caused responses in the
human organism without any consideration at all about the cognitive mechanisms, processes,
and structures involved.
In the early 1960s scientists started a cognitive research program aimed at looking into the
cognitive "black box" sidelined by behaviorism. Cognitive theories started to emerge about the
structures (for example, schemata) and processes (for example, information processing) that
could be used to explain cognition.
As powerful as cognitive theories have proven to be in yielding knowledge about learning,
it became obvious that there were other aspects of learning that were not receiving attention yet
were vital elements of the learning process. First, notions of metacognition, or "thinking about
thinking" were developed. Initially metacognition dealt exclusively with the self-regulation,
monitoring aspects, and meta-knowledge that a person uses during learning. Recently, two
other areas dealing with affective and social aspects are becoming recognized as integral to the
 316

learning process. These two areas have an intimate connection with and or often considered an
extension of metacognition.
This section describes salient research in four areas related to learning research: cognitive,
metacognitive, affective, and social.

Cognitive Research. Since the decline of behaviorism in the late 1960's, increasing
attention has been given to the notion that learners actively construct knowledge. Because
constructivism has a such wide range of meanings depending on philosophical orientation, we
will defer a discussion of this debate and simply report on the salient theories.
What is learning? According to Shuell (1986) an operational definition of learning involves
three criteria: (1) task related change in behavior or ability; (2) change that is a result of practice
or experience; and (3) change that is relatively permanent. Whereas behaviorists focused on
changes in behavior not related to maturation (e.g., see Skinner, 1961), cognitive theorists
focus on changes in knowledge structures (i.e., what one knows) and cognitive processes (Le.,
how one processes information). In designing instruction behaviorists modify the environment
in order to shape changes in the learner through careful reinforcement. Those employing a
cognitive approach embed the learner in informationally rich environments and encourage the
learner to use appropriate learning strategies. However, within the cognitive approach, there are
significant differences in understanding about how learning takes place that gives rise to details
in instruction. Six different strands oflearning research are discussed below: (1) early theories
of learning, (2) information processing, (3) schema-based theories, (4) production systems (5)
connectionism, and (6) semiotics.
1. Early Theories of Learning. The Subsumption Theory of Meaningful Verbal Learning
(Ausubel, 1962) described how logical information is subsumed into existing cognitive
structures which are hierarchically organized, that is, from more to less inclusive concepts
within a given knowledge domain. Although Ausubel developed instructional strategies from
this idea, in particular the use of advance organizers to help the learner develop an appropriate
cognitive structure before instruction, this theory did not develop to any significant depth
concepts relating to the five issues described above.
Similarly, Wittrock (1974; 1979) developed a generative learning model based on the notion
that learners form meaningful relationships between new and prior knowledge. Learning,
according to this model, "consists of the learner making inferences about potential relationships
and then actively seeking feedback on the adequacy of these relationships" (Shuell, 1986, p.
420). Again, not very much detail was offered regarding the processes and mechanisms of
cognition.

2. Information Processing. Models of learning are most often based on a paradigm of

cognition known as information processing. Two of the most important models, Rumelhart &
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Nonnans' (1978) schema theory and Anderson's (1982) production system (discussed below)
view the mind as system which receives input from the environment, processes it, and then
outputs some response. This is not a model of learning, per se, but a description of the
mechanisms and structures used to process information. Many of these mechanisms and
structures are used as components in learning models.
The basic structures of information processing models are long tenn memory, short tenn
memory, working memory, sensory registers, and an executive. Infonnation processing
theories assume that information enters into the system (i.e., the mind), is subsequently
processed (added to, modified, etc.) and then passed to another 'place' in the system until it
reaches a resting state. Even though recent views of infonnation processing theories describe
the processing of infonnation as its change from one state to another, each state is typically
thought to he equivalent to a 'place' such as short or long tenn memory.
The advent of the computer has made information processing models attractive to learning
theorists. Here, we have a more concrete model of a system that takes in infonnation (sensory
register and places it into short-tenn memory (buffers and RAM), manipulates it with prior
knowledge and strategies (data and programs found in ROM), and finally stores it in long tenn
memory (magnetic storage). Data stored can be recalled at a later date, pulled back into short
tenn memory, and manipUlated once again for various reasons.
3. Schema Theories. Piaget (1972), while developing a theory of intellectual development
of children, re-introduced ideas of schemata and their relationship to learning. According to
Piaget, people represent their knowledge in structures called schemata, that is, mental
representations which refer to "the way in which infonnation is recorded or expressed" (Glass
& Holyoak, 1986, p. 5). A child's intellectual development is a constant struggle to reach what
Piaget calls equilibrium. A state of disequilibrium occurs when the child encounters new
infonnation. If the infonnation is an elaboration or is congruent with what the child already
knows, she simply assimilates it into her current schema. For example, if she has previously
encountered a brown cow she will already have a "cow schema." Upon encountering a black
cow, this new infonnation will he readily assimilated into the existing schema. If however, she
encounters a brown rhinoceros, very little of this new infonnation is congruent with existing
schemata and therefore she will accommodate it either by creating a new "rhinoceros" schema
or significantly modify an existing one. Thus, intellectual growth is characterized by employing
these processes to move from disequilibrium to equilibrium. Although discussing schema and
associative processes, details of a learning model were not extensively developed. Piaget
thought that learning was the internalization of action and recommended the direct manipulation
of concrete objects for students in the early grades.
Bruner (1966) built a theory of learning on Piaget's work. He was an advocate of discovery
learning andthought that learning involved three phases: (1) enactive, where the learner directly
manipulates materials; (2) iconic, where the learner fonns mental images of the materials but
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does not physically manipulate them; and (3) symbolic, where the learner manipulates mental
symbols andnot mental images or physical objects. Similar to the Socratic notion of learning,
Bruner felt that learning was a matter of reorganizing what a person knows. This notion of
knowledge reorganization is a central theme of all schema-based learning theories.
Several decades after Piaget's work, Rumelhart & Norman (1978) proposed the first
comprehensive schema-based learning theory. Here, schema refers to the notion of long term
memory. Three types of learning are involved in schema theory: (1) accretion, similar to
Piaget's notion of assimilation, in which new information is simply mapped onto existing
schema without changing their structure, typically in the acquisition of facts; (2) restructuring,
in which new schemata are produced without the addition of new knowledge. This
reorganization occurs as a result of encountering examples, analogies, metaphors, as well as by
engaging in Socratic dialogue; and (3) tuning, in which existing schemata are gradually refined
through practice and experience.
4. Production Systems. Cognitive scientists often distinguish between two kinds of
knowledge: declarative (knowing what) and procedural (knowing how). This distinction was
used extensively in John Anderson's ACT* model of learning. This model is a computer
program which models the solving of geometry proofs. ACT* stores its declarative knowledge
(for example, 10 * 2 = 20) in a network of propositions, while procedural knowledge is
represented by a series of if-then productions. A production contains two parts: a statement of
the circumstances under which an action should he carried out (the "if' part), and the action
statement itself (the "then" part). Not every production that has the same "if' condition will fire
when its condition is met. Each production has a probability associated with it based on its
successful use in prior experience. A production with a high probability index will be selected
from the pool of productions before one with a low index. Then, the index is modified for the
production depending on its relative success.
According to this model, all learning is seen as a goal-directed, problem solving process,
which always begins as declarative knowledge. Then, by employing general problem-solving
processes, inferences are made from the facts contained within the declarative knowledge and it
is interpreted to fit the existing context. Knowledge then becomes compiled into productions
which may fire without the explicit control of the learner. The three stages of this model are: (1)
the declarative stage; (2) the compilation stage; and (3) the procedural stage.
Procedures are refined over time through practice by a mechanism similar to tuning in
schema-based models. Three types of mechanisms are postulated: (1) generalization, in which
productions are modified to act in a wide set of circumstances; (2) discrimination, in which a
production's applicability becomes narrower in scope; and (3) strengthening, in which good
rules are strengthened and poor ones are weakened.
5. Connectionist Models. ~onnectionist networks of cognition and learning are currently
being developed by many cognitive scientists due to the belief that models that deal at the level
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of symbols, concepts, and independent structures, such as memory and the executive, are
focusing on the wrong level. Connectionist models use the neurological structure of the brain as
a metaphor for the mind rather than the traditional serial computer. However, connectionists are
careful to point out that these models are not models of the brain. In general, the distinction
between information processing type models and connectionist models is that the former is
driven by explicit, conceptual level tules while the later is driven by internal, activation rules
that have no direct correspondence to propositional statements.
Rumelhart and McClelland (1986) describe connectionist models (or neural networks) as a
set of interconnected processing units. The network receives input from the external world by
detecting micro-features, for example the bright and dark areas, and edges and bars on a
photograph. In contrast, information processing models detect whole features like eyes and
ears. The input is collected from many micro-feature detectors that subsequently pass an
activation to one or more other units within the complex network. The network "learns" by
readjusting connection strengths between units. Mter a while the network settles to some state.
Typically, a network is presented an input pattern which causes the network to pass
activations and adjust connection strengths between inputs such that the output of the network
matches the input. The network is trained many times on a set of several input patterns (for
example, digitized photographs of faces). The test of how well the network has "learned"
occurs when a new pattern is input, for example a new instance or incomplete instance of a
face. If the output produces a face then the network has successfully learned how to complete
and respond to patterns. The network should not produce a face pattern on its output if a non
face, for example a photo of a house, was input.
The common theme that runs through connectionist models is that the local, non-symbolic
processing of each unit in the network yields a global result (for example, the production of a
whole face pattern). The processing power of each unit is relatively weak, especially when
compared to the computational mechanisms required in systems such as Anderson's ACT*.
Instead of employing machines that use complex rules to manipulate symbols, connectionist
networks only employ simple mathematical rules at the level to manipulate activations. The
importance of this is that the networks are not driven by explicit rules. Rather rule-like behavior
is an emergent property. Connectionist networks, whose complexity arises out of the shear
number of units, are showing that they can model complex, rule-like behavior as well as
account for errors and anomalies.
Connectionist models are currently being used to model visual pattern recognition, speech
production, voice recognition, as well as other psychological phenomena. Connectionist
models of learning have as yet had little influence on designing instruction. Memories and
schema are global terms that we can use metaphorically to explain of cognitive phenomena and
so models that employ these terms are relatively useful. Connectionist networks, on the other
band, have no such constructs because they are phenomena that emerge out of the network's
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activity. In an indirect way, these networks may influence instruction in the future to the extent
that instruction is based on a learning theory such as semiotics. It appears that the semiotic
viewpoint of cognition and learning can be modelled by connection networks.
6. Semiotics. Though technically not a theory of learning, a semiotic perspective centers
around the notion that, in order to learn, all of experience and therefore learning is mediated
through sign systems. In other words it is not enough to simply have contact with the world but
rather we engage in a cognitive process called semiosis in order to learn and develop
intellectually. The basic ideas of semiotics in relation to learning are sketched below.
A theory of signs was most thoroughly developed by Charles S. Peirce who defines a sign
as "anything which is on the one hand so determined ... by a object and on the other hand so
determines the mind of an interpreter" (cited in Houser, 1987, p. 257). Or in more general
terms a sign is anything that can stand for something else. Our contact with an object is via a
sign which causes an interpretation in the mind of the observer. Thus, all significations are
composed of three relations: a sign, its object, and the interpretant (Houser, 1987).
Things that may serve as signs include tokens, badges, signals, symbols, animals, persons,
proposition, arguments, books, seas, and so on (Ph aries, 1985). For example, a flag at half
mast is a sign that some important national figure has died. A sign is not the object itself
because the object cannot reveal itself in entirety to us. For example, when we observe a globe
we can only see one side of it at anyone time, yet we believe that the entire globe represents the
entire world. Thus the sign, though incomplete, stands for the whole object.
Interpretants are generally thought to produce thoughts in the mind of the observer although
they may also produce feelings or actions. Interpretants may themselves signs and thus produce
further interpretants giving rise to reflective thought. Objects may be anything whatsoever
including actions and events.
Peirce described three classes of signs: (1) icon, in which the sign bears some resemblance
to its object. A photograph of a pe~son has a high degree of iconicity; (2) index, in which the
sign is related to the object in some existential way, for example, tracks in the snow are a sign
that a deer passed through the forest; and (3) symbol, in which the sign represents its object
through consensus or convention. For example, the symbol "3" represents the quantity of
"three" because "we" have all agreed that it should.
In general, semiosis is the process by which people make:e sense of their world through the
mediation of sign systems. People only have access to objects through signs of the objects
which produce interpretants, or thoughts, in the mind of the observer. Through this process,
learning is thought to be a "complex interplay of ideas and experience" (Houser, 1987, p. 270).
What interpretants are constructed are dependent on the learner's prior experience and those
semiotics stresses the importance of background knowledge in education. Further, semiotics
stresses the importance of analogies and metaphors.
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Semiotics does not present a learning model which deals with knowledge representation but
rather posits a process in which sign systems are the fundamental commodity. Semiotics also
has value in the design of instructional materials, for example, in constructing sign systems in
video, audio, interactive video, hypermedia databases, and so on.
Five assumptions about learning, taken from cognitive psychology, have each influenced
(to some extent) the development of the above cognitive learning models: (1) learning is seen as
an active, constructive, goal-oriented process; (2) higher level processes which monitor and
control learning play an important role in learning; (3) learners bring prior knowledge to bear on
the learning task; (4) knowledge takes the form of cognitive representations; and (5) the
analysis of tasks and performance leads to an understanding of cognitive processes.

Metacognitive Research. Metacognition refers to that aspect of learning and thinking,

which is involved in monitoring and evaluating cognitive progress as well as in choosing
strategies to achieve cognitive goals. Thus, metacognition is "cognition about cognition," or
thinking about one's perceiving, understanding, and memory (Gamer, 1987). Whereas
cognitive strategies are invoked to make cognitive progress, metacognitive strategies are
involved to monitor it (Flavell, 1979).
The regulation function of metacognition occurs in two stages. First, control processes such
as planning take place before the task. Planning is goal oriented, requires task and self
knowledge, and results in the selection of initial cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Second,
during the task, monitoring occurs. This entails checking and evaluating the strategies currently
being used. Monitoring determines if their is a problem, what its cause is, and selects an
appropriate 'fix-up' strategy. Brown (1981) refers to the metacognitive knowledge that we have
about our cognitive processes and abilities as "knowing what" while referring to our ability to
employ appropriate strategies as "knowing how". Several factors appear to affect the degree to
which a person will engage in self-monitoring activities: task domain, task demands, and task
expertise (Brown, 1981, 1982; Brown, Campione, and Day, 1981), as well as the perceived
purpose for undertaking the task.
Much of what we know about metacognition comes from reading research. Research has
shown that younger and poor readers simply decode when they read and aren't aware that they
are to get meaning from the text (Baker & Brown, 1984). These same learners also fail to notice
when they don't understand (Gamer & Reis, 1981). In other words, these children do not have
good metacognitive abilities. It has also been shown that learning disabled children may often
have roughly the same cognitive knowledge and abilities as regular children, but lack
metacognitive skills and the awareness to know that they have these abilities (Slife, 1987).
There is evidence that metacognitive skills improve with age but that the specific mechanisms
for moving novices to experts is not well established at this time (Garner, 1987). An initial
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suggestion is that a learner (child) can develop metacognitive strategies by interacting with an
expert (parent)who leads the child through a task that is slightly harder than the child can solve
individually (Vygotsky, 1978). Some of the issues concerning metacognitive instruction are
outlined below.
Features of successful metacognitive strategy instruction include simple to complex
activities, guided practice, systematic use of thought-provoking questions, and prolonged
interventions. Also, it is suggested that the instructional should be explicit because it has been
shown that schools spend very little time (Durkin, 1979) teaching how use metacognition to
learn, for example in the comprehension of text. It is also suggested that this explicit instruction
teach "why use it", "what it is", "how to use it", "when to use it", and how to evaluate the
success of the strategy. Goetz (1984) postulates two reasons why explicit metacognitive
instruction does not occur in school: (1) it is assumed that metacognitive strategies will emerge
without instruction, and (2) teacher's have a lack of knowledge about how to teach them.
Metacognitive training has also been called "teaching learning how to learn" and focuses
mainly self-regulatory skills. In current training programs, Pace (1982) also found several
characteristics that successful programs have in common: (1) the task is carefully analyzed to
identify metacognitive aspects, (2) explicit instructions are given on how to do the strategy
accompanied with modelling, (3) the learner receives frequent feedback, and (4) explanations
include reasons why the strategies are being taught. When these skills are taught according to
these guidelines, they are often transferable to other domains and problems.
Lipson (1982) found that, with appropriate metacognitive instruction, 9-10 year olds can
learn the procedures and apply them successfully several months after the training program. It
has been found, however, that many learners who have been trained in metacognitive strategies
revert to old behaviors if training is not gradually removed because, unless the strategies
become habit, when students no longer have to be compliant to the instructor they revert back to
no or inappropriate strategies (Belmont & Butterfield, 1977). Methods such as Palincsar and
Browns' (1984) reciprocal teaching have proven to be effective in helping students internalize
metacognitive strategies through the gradual lessening of explicit support.
Metacognitive training may not always be beneficial, however, especially for good learners.
For example, it has been found that when asked to use a new metacognitive strategy, good
readers usually score higher than poor readers, but do not improve their performance (Andre'
and Anderson, 1979). This indicated that good readers already have a good repertoire of
strategies that are equal or better than the intervention approach.

Affective Research. Most models of the learning process do not account for the
affective aspects of learning, for example how mood, self-concept, motivation interest,
expectations, and so on influence the learning process. Lately, however, a broader picture of
the whole person's role in learning is being painted.
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One of the most comprehensive models for developing instruction with strategies for
increasing student motivation was introduced by Keller (1983). Keller describes four
motivational components of instruction: interest, relevance, expectancy, and outcomes, which
are vital for learning to occur. Interest is the natural curiosity learners have of their world and
can be exploited in instruction by using "novel, incongruous, confictual, and paradoxical
events" to satisfy a need, motive, or value. Instructional strategies which increase relevancy
include providing opportunity for choice, responsibility, and interpersonal influence and by
establishing trust though noncompetitive activities.
What one expects of oneself and of others, that is, expectancy, has an impact on learning.
Therefore, instruction should explicitly indicate what constitutes success, allow students to
experience success both individual and in groups, and provide for personal control over setting
standards. Finally, the outcomes component deals with what the learner "gets" out of the
experience. These may be either intrinsic or extrinsic and are similar to the notion of rewards.
Keller recommends that instruction should attempt to capitalize on intrinsic rewards through the
use of unexpected, noncontingent rewards as well as verbal praise and other types of
informative feedback.
Barbara McCombs (1991) has take a unique perspective on the affective aspects oflearning
by typing together two aspects of the self and learning -- motivation and metacognition -- into a
powerful concept she calls agency. Agency is defined as competence in reflective self-
awareness of interests and goals which "aids students in self-regulation and control of their
thinking, motivational, and learning processes" (McCombs, 1991, p. 2). In other words,
learners can become increasingly self-directed if we can foster in them a sense of agency. The
promotion of agency has implications for the role of the teacher. According to McCombs, the
teacher should establish a climate of socio-emotional support by (1) demonstrating real interest,
caring, and concern for each student's need, interests, and goals; (2) challenging students to
take responsibility in their learning; (3) relating instruction to personal needs and interests; (4)
allowing learners to achieve success; (5) allowing students opportunities for self-direction; (6)
emphasizing noncompetitive activities; (7) underscoring the value of accomplishment and
unique student characteristics; and (8) rewarding accomplishment
Keller's theory is eclectic, based on research findings from many research paradigms, but
the influence of behaviorism is especially evident. McCombs discussion, on the other hand,
arises out of a cognitive orientation. However, most theories of motivation, regardless of their
specific mechanisms, assumptions or paradigmatic orientation, provide common suggestions
about characteristics of instruction that enhance or encourage motivation: (1) instruction should
be relevant to the learner, (2) students should be given responsibility and control for their
learning, (3) the instructional environment should be non-competitive, (4) accomplishment
should be rewarded, (5) individual characteristics should be positively highlighted, (6) and
learning should be a successful experience.
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Social Research. Recent attention has been given to the social aspects of learning. Many
researchers are revisiting Vygotsky's (1978) ideas which suggest two fundamental principles of
learning. The first is the idea of internalization in which the learner first sees ( and hears, etc.)
an action achieved by another, and then later, though imitation and practice, develops the skill
internally. An important ability achieved through internalization is the notion of internal speech.
Inner speech, which eventually takes on a primary role in self-regulation, is developed by
children in stages as they interact in a social context: children talk to themselves initially about
past experiences, then while performing a task, and finally about forming a plan. With respect
to planning, learning, and self-regulation, communication for social purposes eventually takes
the form of a dialogue with the self. In other words, social speech becomes internalized as inner
speech.
The second idea is that what individuals can do with the help of an expert is greater than
what the learner can do alone. This range of ability achieved with the help of others is called the
zone of proximal development (ZPD). As one works in a group, that is, works within his or
her ZPD, he or she develops the ability to do individually what was only possible just a short
time earlier with the help of the group. In other words, the learner internalizes new skills as
others help by scaffolding, that is, supporting the learner through the parts of the task that he or
she cannot yet accomplish. When taken together, the development of self-regulation through the
internalization of social speech, as well as the achievement of new skills and abilities, can be
accomplished through teachers (and other students) helping learners to work within their ZPD's
through social interaction. These principles suggest that one of the most important instructional
configurations is collaborative novice-expert relationships.
Luis Moll (in press), after studying Mexican-American households, has discovered that the
social groups that households contain act as "banks" of information and other resources. He
describes these household clusters as having containing "funds of knowledge", each participant
possessing unique knowledge and skills from which other members may draw to accomplish
goals. Like Vygotsky, Moll shows how children learn from adults by participating
collaboratively with them in real tasks. Adults consciously monitor interactions with their
children for clues which point to the child's areas of interest. Adults, then capitalize on these
opportunities and let the child do manageable parts of tasks related to the child's interests. The
implications for schooling are to allow students to fulfill their own interests and to design their
learning tasks supported by the teacher who facilitates and mediates the learning process and
fulfills curricular goals.
The development of self-regulation in students has been the concern of Palincsar & Brown
(1985). They developed a form of teacher-student collaboration known as reciprocal teaching.
This strategy involves a joint dialogue with a group of students in which teachers model
effective thinking strategies, that is, the teacher thinks aloud while performing a cognitive task
such as reading. While reading, the teacher predicts, forms questions about the text,
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summarizes about what was read, and clarifies passages, in order to show students how to
effectively read. Students are free to stop the teacher at any time when they don't comprehend
either the text or the strategy. As the group progresses, each student is asked to take more
responsibility for leading the group in modelling effective strategies. When the student leader
encounters difficulties the teacher and/or other students provide support through scaffolding (as
described above) to ensure that the student successfully achieves the task.
The reciprocal teaching strategy offers promise especially in disciplines where explicit
cognitive processes can be identified. Examples of cognitive processes and their respective
disciplines in which reciprocal teaching could be employed include defining problems in
mathematics, judging the reliability of resources in social studies, and seeking empirical
evidence in science.
Collaboration has been broadly defined here to include any form of teacher-student or
student-student groupings that occur within the walls of the school. When participants are in
small collaborative groups working together to achieve a common goal, it is often referred to as
cooperative learning. The research shows that cooperative activities, when contrasted with
competitive activities, lead to higher group and individual achievement, higher-quality
reasoning strategies, more frequent transfer of these strategies from the group to individual
members, more metacognition, and more new ideas and solutions to problems. Students in
cooperative groups are often more intrinsically motivated as well.
Johnson & Johnson (1989) suggest three conditions that must exist for students to
successfully engage in cooperative activities. First, students must believe that they play an
integral role is achieving the group's goals. When this condition is met, students will be more
willing to take on responsibilities. Second, students must interact with each other face-to-face to
share resources, exchange ideas, critique each other, and to build trust within the group. Third,
group must learn effective group process skills including summarizing, consensus taking,
brainstorming, etc., so the group can "self-regulate" itself.
Increasingly, collaborative/cooperative strategies are becoming central themes of many
schools. This, however, is not to suggest that competition is always bad. On the contrary,
competition should be encouraged in situations where there can be only one winner and when
individualistic effort has no detrimental effect on the goals of others.
Although the above discussion is only a small view of the work that is being done in the
area of collaboration, it is becoming apparent that embedding instruction and learners within
collaborative groups is essential. This is true not only because "two heads are better than one,"
as the old proverb suggests, but also because we now firmly believe that learning is inextricably
tied to social interaction. The implications, then, for individualized instruction (which has been
promoted by many for several decades) is that it should occur within the context of social tasks
and responsibilities. When planning instruction, an integration of and balance between
individual and social activities should be the goal.
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Characteristics of the Learner

Jones and Idol (1990) recently invited reports from scholars conducting research on the
following various dimensions of the thinking identified by Marzano and his colleagues (1988):
metacognition
Cognitive processes (conceptualizing, comprehending, composing, communicating,
problem solving, enquiry research and teaching)
the role of domain-specific knowledge
learning strategies and skills such as summarizing, representation, and elaboration
creative thinking
critical thinking
Jones and Idol conclude that this broad array of research strands represents a greatly
expanded view of thinking, one which accepts multiple sources of knowledge and multiple
aspects of learner. The multiple sources of knowledge include: (1) general knowledge such as a
general problem solving strategy of frame as well as specific knowledge such as knowledge of
dinosaurs; (2) metacognitive knowledge which includes judgements, beliefs, and values; (3)
knowledge of work and study environments such as how to use technology as a tool; (4)
knowledge of the self and individual dispositions; and (5) declarative and procedural
knowledge. The research provides "a holistic perspective of the learner as a complex whole
operating within multiple knowledge bases and environments, each of which influences and is
influenced by, the learner as well as others." (p. 517)
Jones and Idol further note that there is a general consensus about the attributes of the
successful learner as oriented to constructing meaning and self-regulated learning, organized,
and strategic. At the same time, it is important to highlight some of the rich elaborations that are
specific to particular fields of research, namely cognitive psychology, philosophy, and
metacognitive.

Cognitive Views of the Learner. Much of the vision of the successful learner derives
from research on experts and novices (citations). This research emphasize that proficient
learners have extensive subject matter knowledge. They use this knowledge to interpret new
situations, define and solve problems, make judgements, classify information, and reason.
Further, they represent and organize what they know in terms of patterns and principles. They
are aware when disciplinary knowledge conflicts with their prior knowledge and they strive for
conceptual change. These and other behaviors make their knowledge accessible so that they can
apply their knowledge to new situations. Others emphasize that proficient learners develop a
repertoire of thinking and learning strategies for thinking and metacognitive strategies for
motivating their own learning.
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Self regulated learning form the cognitive perspective involves not only setting leaming
goals but also monitoring the process of learning, thinking strategically about how to
accomplish a task, assessing what is leamed, and determining the next steps for learning. Even
young children are capable of self regulated learning. Children in the Perry Preschool Project,
for example, begin their days making decisions about what they would like to accomplish
during the day, monitor how well they implement plans, make appropriate modifications, and
assess their learning at the end of the day. Proficient learners also develop a repertoire of
leaming strategies such as elaborating and summarizing, as well as strategies for creative and
critical thinking.
Cognitively demanding leaming requires more than recalling facts, reciting definitions, or
performing rote calculations. According to cognitive perspectives, the essence of learning is
linking new information to prior knowledge and making connections to real-world situations or
contexts. In fact, cognitive psychologists increasingly emphasize this contextual aspect of
successfulleaming, arguing that learning must be "situated" in authentic tasks such as having
real audiences for one's writing and applying a concept or process to solve a real-world
problem. Where possible, tasks in school should be aligned with tasks and experiences that
students encounter out of school. In this regard, dialogue, including self-questioning and
collaboration with others, is critical in the process of meaningfulleaming.

Philosophy. Philosophers have a vision of the learner that parallels the expert/novice
research in cognitive psychology. In particular, philosophical perspectives focus on
constructing beliefs about the self, the world we live in, and, indeed, the nature of the universe
-- beliefs about what to be or do (Kennedy, Fisher, and Ennis, 1991). Toward these ends, they
have developed notions from Aristotle about the "virtuous" person. Thus verifying the validity
of the available information and developing criteria for making judgements are essential for
philosophical thinking.
Philosophers have long posited dispositions as key attributes of the leamer, a concept that is
gaining increasing acceptance among educators and cognitive psychologists. Dispositions
appear to fall into several categories: dispositions of self regulation which includes constantly
challenging the foundations of one's own thinking, dispositions toward critical thinking such as
a passion for being fair minded, and dispositions toward creative thinking such as pushing the
limits of one's knowledge.
Philosophical reflection engages many higher order thinking skills or strategies in the
successfulleamer or virtuous person. Indeed, much effort in the thinking skills movement
focuses on defining terms of logic and fallacies of reasoning such as making generalizations
without adequate information or biased information. Accordingly, philosophers tend to develop
extensive taxonomies of strategies and fallacies. It is this aspect of philosophical thinking that
many educators refer to as critical thinking. Yet this is only one aspect of philosophy.
 328

Philosophers increasingly stress the importance of creative thinking such as defining a problem
in a new way or changing the problem, or looking at an issue from an unusual perspective.
Characteristics of critical and creative thinkers identified by Brookfield (1988) include (pp.
115-116);

rejection of standardized formats for problem solving

interests in a wide range of related and divergent fields
take multiple perspectives on a problem
view the world as relative and contextual rather than universal and absolute
use trial and error methods in their experimentation with alternative approaches
have future orientation and embrace change optimistically as a valuable development
possibility
have self-confidence and trust in their own judgement

Finally, a philosophical perspective on learning also stresses the importance of creating a

community of inquiry in the classroom. Therefore, successful students in a community of
inquiry expect each other to be thoughtful and reflective, listen to each other with respect,
reflect and build on one another's ideas, demand evidence to support opinions, assist each other
in drawing out the implications of what has been said, identify and challenge the assumptions
of arguments and question one another's definitions. Indeed, philosophers such as Lipman et al
(1980) argue that such inquiry is a moral imperative in a democratic society; without it, we are
prisoners of our own beliefs, unable to judge right and wrong with integrity, unable to make
informed judgements. Philosophers want learners to be philosophical in the strong sense with a
passion for reflection and inquiry pervading their thoughts and their lives (Paul, 1990).

Metacognitive. The trend for metacognitive to include both thinking about thinking
concepts as well as concepts about the self and social aspects of learning can be seen in recent
depictions of successful and less successful learning. Paris & Winograd (1990), for example,
envision the competent learner as a craftsman using strategies such as self questioning,
skimming, paraphrasing, and summarizing as tools to achieve self appraisal and self
management of their own thinking. Additionally, they posit that this self appraisal and self
management have affective and motivational characteristics as well as social interactions as
children make various judgements, choices and actions in the process of learning.
This view is consistent with those of Borkowski et al. (1990) who compared 150 and 110
underachievers and achievers respectively. They found that achievers, in contrast to
underachievers, "had high self esteem, a belief in the utility of effort, enhanced reading
awareness, better academic performance, and were more intrinsically motivated" (p. 71).
Borkowski and his colleagues believe that the underlying causal difference between the two
 329

groups lies primarily in the failure of underachievers to connect their efforts and ability with the
causes of the success and failure; i.e. they tended to attribute both success and failure to luck
rather than effort or lack of effort.
Building on these and other arguments McCombs (1991) argues that "higher level and
consciousness involves an understanding of the self as agent. For students to be self regulatory
and able to draw upon their inherent motivation to learn, they must understand their basic
psychological nature and how it functions" (p.S). That is, recent research on metacognition and
motivation suggests that students have an inherent desire or motivation to learn that stems from
individual interests and inherent needs for self determination and self worth. Gaining
competence in reflective self awareness aids students in self regulation and control of their
thinking, motivation, and learning processes (p.l).

New Notions of IQ. Additionally, research on the nature of intelligence yields new
understandings about the capacity of the human mind. In the past, we thought that a child's
intelligence consisted mainly of cognitive skills, that cognitive capacity was limited to learning a
few discrete items, and that innate intelligence was essentially unchangeable after the first years
of life (e.g., Jenson, 1969). These views were consistent with behavioral psychology and the
assembly-line model of schooling.
Today, many researchers and practitioners believe that intelligence is multi-faceted. For
example, Howard Gardner, a cognitive psychologist from Harvard University, has been
developing a theory of multiple abilities, talents and skills. Gardner argues that traditional
schooling emphasizes only two abilities, verbal-linguistic (especially in written form) and
logical-mathematical. Yet there are many other kinds of knowledge or talents that enrich our
lives and help us respond effectively to out environment. He lists the following, while
emphasizing that there are many others as well.

Visual-spatial Capacity to perceive the visual-spatial world accurately and to modify or

manipulate one's initial perceptions
Bodily-kinesthetic Abilities to control one's body movements and to handle objects
skillfully
Musical-rhythmical Abilities to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch, and timbre, and
appreciation of the forms of musical expressiveness
Interpersonal Capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods.
temperaments, motivations, and desires of other people
Intrapersonal Knowledge of one's own feelings, strengths, weaknesses, desires, and the
ability to draw upon this knowledge to guide behavior
Logical-mathematical The abilities to discern logical or numerical patterns and to handle
long chains of reasoning
 330

Verbal-linguistic Sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, and meanings of words, sensitivity to

the different functions of language

There is also increasing consensus that intelligence is dynamic and modifiable. Indeed, it is
possible to alter significantly the achievement of low achieving students, and, in many cases,
those with special problems, when such students are exposed t'i optimal learning environments
with rich opportunities to engage in thinking and problem solving (Borkowski, Carr, Rellinger,
& Pressley, 1990; Brown, Palincsar, & Purcell, 1986; Derry, 1990; Derry & Murphy, 1988;
Dyasi, 1989; Feurstein, Rand, Hoffman, Epozi, & Kaiwel, 1990; Figueroa & Amato, 1989;
Palincsar & Brown, 1984; PineH, Lyons, Young, & Deford, 1987; Weinstein, Goetz, &
Alexander, 1988). These new understandings about learning and the nature of intelligence have
profound implications for curriculum, instruction, and assessment in schools.

Brain Research. Research on the operations and function of the brain recognize distinct
differences in the ways in which each of the two halves process information. The left mode is
systematic and solves problems through planning, breaking them down into parts, and
emphasizing the sequence of events in analysis. The right mode is holistic; solving problems
from the "big picture" perspective, constantly searching for patterns and connections using
intuition, beliefs, and individual biases (McCarthy, 1990). However, even though individuals
may be right or left hemisphere dominant, they approach learning from a whole brain
perspective and both hemispheres are equally important to whole brain functioning (McCarthy,
1990; Bogen 1969, 1975).
The brain does not process information one step at a time, rather it performs many functions
simultaneously (Ornstein and Thompson, 1984). Caine and Caine (1990) describe the brain as
being a parallel processor, with though, emotion, imagination, and predisposition operations
being processed concurrently. In their twelve principles for brain-based learning, they present
the acquisition and processing of information as occurring in a holistic environment, involving
both the emotional and physical. They identify an atmosphere of relaxed alertness which is non-
threatening but at the same time challenging, as the most conducive to learning.
According to Caine and Caine (1990), learning changes the structure of the brain causing
the individual to become more unique as learning progresses. As a result, there is no one model
for teaching which incorporates the differences among individuals. Teachers need to be flexible
and develop a repertoire of strategies to allow for these differences in order to increase the
opportunities for learning in their classroom.
Sylwester (1990) believes that the problem solving mechanisms are located in the frontal
lobe portion of the brain which has a greater capacity than normally required because the brain
must have sufficient capacity t~ meet crises. To keep the brain alert, we have created social and
 331

cultural problems (games, the arts, and social organizations) and these have important
developmental roles. Thus play becomes an important part of development and education.
As research increases our understanding of how students learn, questions arise about what
they are required to learn. Sylwester (1990) compares the brain to a computer; the brain's
strength is its ability to conceptualize ambiguous problems while a computer's strength is its
ability to quickly and accurately process complex sequences of clearly defines facts. He argues
that we should therefore teach students to use the tools technology has provided and free them
from the drudgery of learning tasks which a machine can do more effectively. This use of
technology would free students from tasks limiting the speed at which their minds function and
allow them to concentrate on those things they enjoy and do well such as; exploring concepts,
estimating and predicting, creating metaphors, cooperating, and discussing moral/ethical issues
(1990).
As the brain processes new information, continual judgements are made as to the value of
the material. Information for which the brain is unable to assign meaning is resisted. The brain
continually searches for patterns in the new material as well as creating patterns of its own
(Rosenfield 1988; Numela and Rosengren, 1986; Hart 1983). However, by creating its own
patterns, the brain is able to assimilate vast amounts of seemingly random and unrelated
information (Caine and Caine 1990). The results of this research argues against the separation
of skills and information into lower level thinking activities and for an integrated, cross
disciplinary approach to education concentrating on higher order thinking.

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The Next Step in Educational Systems Design:
Some Contributions From Learning Systems Design

Ian McArthur

Coordinator of Learning Systems, Lakeland College, Vermilion, Alberta, Canada TOB 4MO
Tel. 403-853-8594, Bitnet: IMAC@UALTAMTS

Abstract: The relationship of educational systems to other systems with which they interact is
presented. The position is presented that the design of future educational systems will require
input from a wide range of knowledge domains and external stakeholders. As an immediate
step curriculum designers (those knowledgeable in strategies to implement reform) must be
included in the design process. Later in the process the concerns of a wide range of external
stakeholders must be addressed. A brief description of four concerns from the domain of
learning systems design is provided: a typology of kinds of goals; the distinction between
value-laden and technical curriculum decisions; the impact of learning phases on the
organization of curricula; and the relationships among methods, conditions, and outcomes.

Keywords: Learning system design, instructional strategies, educational reform, educational

goals, learning phases, educational technology.

What Is Our Objective?

I believe the question that was foremost at Asilomar was "can the domains of systems theory
and educational technology provide sufficient knowledge to guide the design of new
educational systems?" From my perspective as an educational technologist and learning
systems theorist the answer is no.
The challenge is to figure out what we need to do in order to guide the restructuring of
educational systems to overcome the many shortcomings that have been identified in our current
systems. This paper will propose a number of elements that might be added to the
restructuring model developed at Asilomar as we continue this work. Two kinds of issues will
be addressed: what additional knowledge bases will be required to implement this reform, and
what are some of the contributions which learning system design had to offer?
Coming into the Asilomar workshop the participants were provided with three fundamental
notions: Bela Banathy's [1] educational systems design model, Charles Reigeluth's [14] model
for one example of educational restructuring, and the hope that a combination of systems design
and educational technology could illuminate the restructuring process. From the workshop
were added such new elements as Kristo Ivanov's model for needs assessment and Harold
 335

Nelson's notions regarding design as both art and science. I I will use our group's Bermuda
Onion model (which places educational systems within the broader context of societal systems)
as a starting point to suggest promising areas for further exploration. 2 It must be remembered
that these comments are from one who is well versed in instructional design and educational
technology, but a novice in systems theory. 3

Instructional
Systems

The Bermuda Onion Model

Instructional Systems

Starting from the innermost element, this model suggests that instructional systems are the most
restrictive form of system within the domain of societal systems relating to education. The
domain of educational technology is primarily concerned with instructional systems, and the
focus of attention in educational technology has often been upon strategies to optimize student
learning within instructional systems.
An instructional system can usually be considered to operate at the level of a single course
or unit within a course. The primary focus is on designing instructional experiences which will
assist the students to learn a fairly small set of notions. Typically, the educational technologist

lSee the contributions of these authors elsewhere in this volume.

2This group consisted of David Mitchell, Gianfranco Minati, Wayne Blair, Kristo Ivanov, Larry Lipsitz,
Monique Grandbastien, and myself.

3Thomas J. Schuell [15] defines the Qifference between naive, novice and expert. A naive learner is one who
knows nothing of a domain; a novice is one with little knowledge of a domain, and an expert is one who can
function beyond the expected level for the knowledge available.
 336

has little concern with the intrinsic values of the notions to be learned or with the relation of
these notions within a wider context. Decisions regarding what it is that students should learn
are usually outside of the domain of the instructional systems designer is to take whatever
intentions are specified by external stakeholders and create learning experiences which will
ensure that the learners will learn.

Learning Systems

My work is concerned with the next level of the model, learning systems. A learning system is
a larger system which might contain a number of instructional systems, and operates at the
program level. In addition to considering a larger unit of subject matter, a learning system also
addresses broader concerns with the management of instruction (which I call instructional
logistics) and with the nature of the goals of a program. A learning system deals with much
more than the design and delivery of instructional sequences, including such things as
assessment systems, remediation, value-laden and technical curriculum decisions, and the
creation of customized paths through instructional sequences. However, although learning
systems stress the integration and synthesis of various learning experiences, learning systems
do not address issues relating to overall institutional or community concerns. Educational
technology offers much of the foundation for the design of learning systems, but tends to
emphasize the instructional aspects.

Educational Systems

The next larger unit of concern is the educational system. An educational system deals with
concerns at the level of a number of schools or at a district level. In public education, units of
this size are commonly referred to as system-level concerns, as in a "school system." This is
the level of concern addressed by Reigeluth [14] in his restructuring proposals. The term
educational system is normally limited to formal education, such as the K to 12 systems in
North America, or to college, university, or technical institute concerns. Educational
technology has little to say about the design of systems at this level.

Human Development Systems

Banathy extends restructuring concerns beyond traditional formal education to include human
development systems. Although this term has been used extensively at the Asilomar
 337

workshop, no clear definition has been provided. Regardless of this, it is evident that the intent
of the workshop was to consider the design of more broadly based systems than traditional
formal education, and to use purposely designed human development systems to guide the
nature of society. This intent goes well beyond the scope of conventional educational systems,
even though most public education systems in North America pay lip service to creating a better
society through better education.

Societal Systems

Societal systems are the outermost level of the Bermuda Onion model, and represent the many
and varied systems that comprise the fabric of our cultures. It would appear that the vision of
this workshop is to use purposefully designed lower level systems to alter the nature of various
societal systems to change the nature of our society. I suspect that the goal is to create Bruner's
"better, happier man" [4] functioning within a number of societal systems guided by the
products (the graduates) of human development and educational systems created by and for
communities under the guidance of educational systems designers and facilitators. Educational
technology seldom recognizes concerns of this magnitude and, I believe, has little to contribute
at this level.
In summary, the domain of educational technology addresses issues centered upon the two
innermost circles of this Bermuda Onion model, and conventionally considers the outer three
areas as the environment within which educational technology functions. A major difficulty for
educational technologists will be to shift and broaden their emphasis to include these additional
levels. As the focus widens from instructional systems to human development systems within
society, the prescriptions, strategies, and methods of the educational technologist will need to
be re-evaluated and extended to provide worthwhile input.

Systems Theory

One of the most valuable products of the Asilomar workshop for me has been exposure to the
domain of systems theory through contact with participants from the other side of the fence, the
systems theorists. I am exceedingly grateful to Nimal Jayaratna, Oguz Baburoghlu, David
Mitchell, and others who clearly and concisely outlined the nature and fundamental principles of
systems theory and how it might be applied to the design and implementation of educational
systems. However, I must caution that. in my experiences, very few educational technologists
are intimately familiar with this domain. I doubt that many educational technologists and
instructional designers are clearly aware of the difference between systematic design and
 338

systemic design. Within our field, we promote the systematic design of instruction. This
means following some sort of step-by step design or development procedure ... the technology
of planning and planned instruction. We seldom consider the systemic aspects of effects of our
design decisions.
Also, while the advantages of systematic design of instruction have been widely recognized
and accepted in industrial and military circles, we have had little overall impact on formal public
educational systems either in the K to 12 schools or in post secondary institutions. Educational
technology and instructional design have a long way to go in providing significant assistance in
the improvement of public education. Although we may possess the means, we lack the
influence.

Where Do We Go From Here?

This workshop has illuminated the potential contributions that can be provided by systems
theorists and educational technologists as we strive to create a means to restructure educational
systems. As an initial open forum within which to share our ideas and explore possibilities, it
has succeeded. The question now is to determine the next step in the process.
I outlined above my perspective on the shortcomings of the educational technology
knowledge base in addressing the creation of the higher-level systems in our Bermuda Onion
model. In the next sections I will suggest some possible contributions and directions where an
expanded role may lie. But first, I would like to explore some possibilities for a further
workshop.
I see two distinct problems associated with further progress in these endeavors. First, in
developing an implementation strategy for educational restructuring, we will need to include in
the long run a substantially wider range of stakeholders. If the intention of these workshops is
to design a way to create radically different educational and human development systems, a
major stumbling block will lie in the political realm rather than in the technical realm. At some
point it will be necessary to determine if the communities we seek to help want to be helped.
This whole scheme is based on the assumption that a substantial number of communities will
want to restructure educational systems in the image of our vision. This will require not only a
few isolated communities, but a critical mass that will unfold our vision and welcome our
efforts at fundamental reform. This will require the inclusion of politicians, community
leaders, religious groups, ethnically diverse sub-cultures, current educational leaders (on both
the institutional and community sides), business interests, parent groups and, at lest we forget,
students. Over the course of our endeavors, more and more of these stakeholders will need to
be incorporated into our planes and deliberations.
 339

I do not believe that the time is right to include many of these stakeholder groups yet, as we
do not have a sufficiently well developed vision to present our case, but we must be constantly
aware of the need to include at an appropriate stage in our efforts each of these and other groups
of stakeholders.
Second, I believe it is essential at this time to include two further groups of professionals
who can expand our knowledge base as we continue with our initial exploration into
restructuring: curriculum designers and change agents.
The needs for curriculum designers is based on a concern that both systems design and
educational technology are domains that tend to ignore questions regarding the intrinsic worth
or value of what they are about. Educational technologists do not often question the value of
the curriculum, but rather suggest that they can help students learn whatever it is that someone
else wants learned. Systems designers seem not to question the worth of the systems they
design, but to suggest that if you want a system, any system, they can create it. One of the
participants at the Asilomar sessions suggested that this is called the Eichmann effect: we are
just following orders.
Curriculum designers by their fundamental nature address the value or worth of the notions
that are included within their curricula. Their job is to determine what should be taught. We
need to incorporate the knowledge base of their domain into our restructuring strategies so that
we can see how to determine what should be included within our curricula. I am not
suggesting here that any of us should determine the curricula for the restructured educational
systems, but rather that we should become intimately aware of how to guide communities in
selecting appropriate curricula for their specific situations. I do not believe our group currently
possesses this experience.
In the same way, we need now to include domain experts in change agency. I suspect that
convincing communities to change and knowing how to implement change will be two of the
most difficult aspects of any restructuring efforts. To proceed further without this knowledge
will seriously compromise our efforts.
Banathy and Reigeluth charged our group with the responsibility of exploring the array of
knowledge bases that the NATO workshops must incorporate into planning for educational
system reform. Our group soon developed a list that included the knowledge of the universe. I
think the only things we left out were molecular biology and plumbing. In reflecting on this
effort, I came to the conclusion that the most crucial need at this moment was for these two
knowledge bases: curriculum design and change agency.
 340

Contributions From Learning Systems Design

My work is centered upon learning systems design. As suggested in the introductory

paragraphs, learning systems are larger than instructional systems, but smaller than educational
systems. Learning systems design is concerned more with the management of instruction than
with instruction itself ... with the structuring of learning experiences and the management of
learner progression through these sequences in ways that will assist the students to learn in the
most efficient, effective, and appealing ways. In this section I will propose four specific
aspects of learning systems design that apply to educational restructuring and may aid in
informing our work. 4

The Three Souls

Instructional design has typically focussed on instructional systems to teach students how to do
something. However, there are three aspects of a person that must be addressed by any
comprehensive human development system or educational system, that which does, that which
knows, and that which is. Robert Browning [3] describes these as "three souls, one man."
This is a powerful idea.
For example, the goals of a program designed to produce pilots would be fundamentally
different than the goals of a program designed to produce Princes. Not necessarily because
pilots are different learners than Princes, but because the desired accomplishments are so
different I believe that the kinds of ideas that are incorporated into programs to produce pilots
or Princes should be fundamentally different. The very nature of the program goals must be
different because the products of these programs are so different
Let's look at the program to produce pilots. What is the essence of what a pilot must be
able to do? There is an old line from the field of competency based instruction that states the
mastery level for pilots has to be 100%. If I am in the plane, I want the pilot to be able to
perform every cognitive and motor skill necessary to get the plane from where it is to where I
am heading without the slightest possibility of error. An 80 percent mastery level just is not
good enough. Although we all appreciate the airline pilot who provides those extra touches of
comfort when we fly, we are concerned primarily with what Does.
To get to the essence of "Prince-ing" on the other hand, I don't really care what a Prince can
do. I am much more concerned with what he appears to be. I want him to be a Prince. What
is. The program for Princes and the program for pilots have fundamentally different kinds of
goals. These different kinds of goals require different kinds of instruction and different kinds

4nese comments are drawn directly form my doctoral dissertation [10] and an upcoming book [11]. Used with
permission.
 341

of assessment measures. I call the kinds of goals in the Princes' program Education-to-Be.
The pilot requires primarily Training-to-Do.

What does our Prince and a Marine have in common? An essential part of what a Prince is
or what a Marine is is embodied in their image of what they are. Embodied into the education
received by both Princes and Marines is a very heavy dose of image making. The right stuff.
"The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton" [6].
Education-to-Be is concerned with creating Bruner's [4] better, happier man; with changing
the underlying characteristics of the learner to mould and shape a new man. Prime ministers
and Kings send their children to educational institutions that espouse Education-to-Be.
Finishing schools and the Priesthood are concerned with Education-to-Be, with moulding the
learner to become a socialite or a man of the cloth. Of course, programs that lean toward
Education-to-Be must also have a strong emphasis on the necessary cognitive skills and other
capabilities required to be whatever it is that the program is producing. Training-to-Do is
concerned with performance improvement. The military and industrial trainers are often
primarily concerned with skill development and measurable improvements in learned
capabilities.
The point here is that the kinds of educational systems (and the kinds of assessment
measures) required to create optimal learning systems in the domain of Education-to-Be are
different than those for Training-to-Do. Education-to-Be and Training-to-Do can be viewed as
opposite ends of a continuum of kinds of goals.

To Appear to be To be Able to
Something do Something
 342

For many years, the field of instructional design was focussed almost entirely on Training-
to-Do, to the exclusion of anything else. This I suspect, was partly because B. F. Skinner
[16] thought that every capbility that man could obtain was Training-to-Do. To Skinner there
simply was nothing else. Also, systematic instructional design has its roots in the behaviorist
tradition, beginning with the work of Gagne and Briggs [7] and many others during the second
world war. Under this doctrine, instructional designers tend to regard training-to-do as the
only kind of learning, and the definition of the concept to-do tends to be expanded to become all
inclusive.
I call the domain falling between Education-to-Be and Training-to Do, where specific skill
development or fundamental changes in the character of the learner are not the aim, Sagacity-to-
Know. This domain comprises a middle ground, the large body of knowledge that makes up
the bulk of our understanding of the world.

The field of knowledge acquisition from artificial intelligence discusses the difference
between declarative knowledge (knowledge about something) and procedural knowledge
(knowledge about how to do something). I believe that sagacity-to-know is in some ways
related to declarative knowledge, and training-to-do is related to procedural knowledge.
Browning [3] added the essence of humanity, education-to-be, the knowledge of what we are.
Burns and Capps [5] add a third category qualitative knowledge, the causal understanding that
allows one to reason about behaviors.
Webster's defines sagacity as a keen perception. My electronic thesaurus lists as synonyms
acumen, astuteness, awareness, insight, and understanding. Meaningful understanding is this
missing middle. It encompasses the very large chunk of curricular goals that bridge the gap
between Education-to-Be and Training-to-Do on the continuum of goals. I think meaningful
understandings are the third part of Browning's [3] three souls, the "what knows" part. I
maintain that this domain of curricular ideas is a very important area of curriculum that has been
largely ignored in systematic instructional design.
 343

As we proceed in developing strategies for educational systems reform, we must be aware

of these three kinds of educational concerns and ensure that we have strategies in place to deal
with the differing nature of all three of them. I believe that if we hope to change society for the
better by improving the educational system, we must maintain a constant awareness of the need
to address each of these. This is especially important if there is strong representation form
instructional systems designers, who tend to zero in on the training-to-do aspect as a result of
their previous experience and the nature of the strategies which make up the bulk of their
expertise. This leads directly into the second contribution from learning systems theory, the
distinction between the value-laden curriculum and the technical curriculum.

Curriculum Continua

I make a clear distinction between curriculum, the what to teach, and instruction, the how to
teach it. In this section the idea of curriculum decision making as a continuum ranging at one
pole as a value-laden domain and at the other pole as a primarily technical activity will be
expanded. The significance of this continuum to educational reform will be explored.
Curriculum decisions are decisions concerned with what it is that we want to pass on to our
learners. There are two kinds of curriculum decisions that must be made in the development of
an educational system. The fIrst of these are value laden curriculum decisions, which are
concerned with selecting worthwhile or valued ideas to include in a program. Value laden
curriculum decisions are the concern of curriculum designers, politicians, philosophers, and all
other stakeholders concerned with what it is that the student should know.

However, there is a second domain of decisions regarding what to teach. This second kind
of curriculum decisions are technical decisions, concerned with determining what kinds of
things a learner must know in order to fulfill the expectations of the value-laden curriculum.
These technical curricular decisions are typically the concern of educational practitioners who
are charged with the responsibility of passing on the value-laden curricular ideas to the learner.
This activity of defIning a technical curriculum is similar to task analysis, which is typically
 344

thought of as an instructional activity rather than a curricular activity. In my view, task analysis
is a technical curricular activity, as task analysis is concerned with determining precisely what
capabilities must be included in the curriculum.
The curriculum continuum stretches from highly value laden choices to very precise and
detailed choices of individual transactions with the learner which will, it is hoped, carry the
value laden ideas to that learner. It bears a relationship to the Three Souls continuum of
educational goals described earlier:

Three Souls Curriculum Continuum

Continuum of Educational Goals

There is more emphasis in Education-to-Be on the value-laden end of the continuum, which
follows because in Education-to-Be the intention is to instill notions of worth. As a result,
more of the ideas comprising a course of this nature would relate to the affective domain
(Education-to-Be). Similarly, in Training-to-Do the curricular emphasis is directed more
toward the technical pole of the continuum. This difference can be seen in reflecting on the
degree of public interest generated by proposed changes in Education-to- Be type programs such
as we are proposing, compared to programs related to Training-to-Do, such as welding.
Also, there seem to be more intractable instructional design problems associated with
notions closer to the value-laden end of the curriculum. Martin and Briggs [9] address some of
these issues in their work on the relationships between the cognitive and affective domain.
Another interesting characteristic within typical program design situations is the changing
interest of curriculum designers, boards of directors, school boards and lay groups as decisions
shift from the value-laden curriculum to the technical curriculum. At some point the
stakeholders in the program simply lose interest and leave the decision making to the educators.
 345

Earlier, I stressed the immediate need to include curriculum design experts within our
group. The reasoning behind this position is that instructional design theorists and educational
technologists are not well equipped to deal with the value-laden curriculum decisions which
drive the design of educational systems. While we have considerable knowledge of strategies
to help students learn these things, we typically consider the value-laden curriculum as a given,
and concentrate our efforts on means of developing and delivering the more technical aspects of
the curriculum continua.

Learning Phases

David Merrill suggests that we can view what a student is to learn as one of three levels of
performance [12]. At the lowest level, which he calls the remember level, the student is
required to recall knowledge such as facts, concepts, procedures, or principles. At the second
level, the student is required to use this knowledge to perform some act. At the highest level,
the student must be able to find, to discover, or create new knowledge. Merrill and Benjamin
Bloom [2] (along with many others) also suggest that one of the problems with our current
educational system is an emphasis on the remember level. Bloom, in 1976, summed it up this
way:

.. .learning tasks in which the burden of remembering terms and definitions in the tasks
was unusually great In a single chapter in widely used textbooks we found as many as
100 to 150 new terms introduced and defmed ... we found that up to 80 percent of the
terms were used only on the page in which they were introduced - and never again used
in the course ... we may question the value of burdening the students with terminology
that even the author of the textbook doesn't find useful. ... That students should learn
such material may be questioned from the viewpoint of its utility, its meaningfulness,
and the likelihood of long-term retention [2:25].

Recently, Thomas Shuell [15] suggested that there are a number of phases oflearning that
students typically traverse in learning about a new domain. This work relates directly to the
remember/uselfmd taxonomy of Merrill. Shuell reports three phases of learning in students
approaching a new and unfamiliar domain. He describes the first phase:

Merely because someone familiar with the topic (teacher, expert, etc.) may see an
organizing structure with many interrelationships among the various facts does not
mean that the novice learner can make sense out of them. Initially, there appears to be
little more than a wasteland with few landmarks to guide the traveller on his or her
journey towards understanding and mastery. Under the circumstances, the learner does
the only thing that is reasonable: memorizes facts and uses preexisting schemata to
interpret isolated pieces of data [2:541].
In the second phase "these relationships become better developed, [and] they are formed
into higher order structures and networks," [2:542] but
 346

Unfortunately, these things often are missing from an educational system that
emphasizes the accumulation of more and more factual information - that is, an additive
model of learning [2:542].

During the last phase "the knowledge structures and schemata formed during the
intermediate phase become better integrated and function more autonomously" [2:543]. Shuen
also suggests that learning during the last phase includes the addition of new knowledge to
existing structures and increasingly higher levels of integration.
This position seems reasonable. However, what I fmd troubling is the possibility that
these phases may be an artifact of the current educational systems rather than an intrinsic
characteristic of the human capacity to learn. If this is so, current educational practice may in
some instances be doing more harm than good, if it reinforces or indeed forces these phases of
learning. This would suggest that not only are the less educationally privileged students denied
much in the way of quantity of education, but also may be hamstrung by the emphasis on rote
learning in a novice's wasteland without the opportunity to encounter strategies for the higher
phases described by Shuen. The current educational system may be systematically degrading
the student's ability to master these essential and (according to this theory) more sophisticated
ways of learning.
I believe that learning systems theory can provide alternative perspectives on ways to
organize learning experiences which promote the initial acquisition of simplified mental models
that hold promise to shift the emphasis from the initial learning phase described by Shuen
toward the second phase. Asghar Iran-Nejad [8], in discussing the multi dimensional aspects
of learning and self regulation of the learning process, recommends that schools be
"restructured to bring academic learning in line with learning in real-world situations by
adopting a multi-modal approach" [8:594], to achieve a goal of "a generation of resourceful
learners who can take advantage of their own dynamic or spontaneous self-regulation resources
to maximize the role of the many sources that must contribute to learning simultaneously"
[8:594]. This is closely tied to the development of both meaning and understanding rather than
an emphasis on the recall of factual knowledge. Further examples of ways in which the
knowledge base from learning systems design might aid in accomplishing this can be found in
Instructional Logistics and Chunque Based Learning Systems. [10]

Conditions, Methods, and Outcomes

Reigeluth [13] makes a clear distinction between descriptive and prescriptive instructional
theory. Reigeluth see these types of theory lying along a continuum which ranges from pure
 347

descriptive theory on the one end to pure procedures on the other Prescriptive theory lies
somewhere between the two.

A descriptive theory defines the conditions under which a certain educational situation
exists and the methods used in instruction, and constructs (or seeks to discover) an
explanation of the outcome. A descriptive theory is an after-the-fact explanation of why things
occurred as they did.
Procedures, at the other end of this continuum, are step by step directions for producing a
particular result in a particular situation, such as rebuilding a transmission.
A prescriptive theory on the other hand defmes the conditions and the anticipated outcomes,
and suggests appropriate methods which are expected to produce the desired results. A
prescriptive theory is a before-the-fact explanation of what to do and why to do the things the
theorist predicts and expects will produce the desired results. Procedures tend to have a large
degree of certainty attached to the steps and results. Prescriptive theories are somewhat more
tentative, dealing with anticipated results, usually in more complex situations.
Reigeluth [13] illustrates the difference the difference between descriptive and prescriptive
theory with these two diagrams:

DESCRIPTIVE THEORY PRESCRIPTIVE THEORY

In descriptive theory, the methods and conditions are given, and the outcome is the variable
of interest. Descriptive theory is goal free. In prescriptive theory, the conditions and desired
outcomes are given, and the methods are the variable of interest Prescriptive theory is goal-
 348

driven in the sense that certain outcomes are viewed as desirable, and the point of the exercise
is to predict which methods are most likely to produce the desired result
An interesting point here is the third possible combination of these three variables. What
do we have if the methods and outcomes are considered as givens, and the conditions are the
variable of interest?

RESTRUCTURING VIEW

It occurs to me that this might be the nub of the problem with the educational system.
Conventional educational systems employ entrenched methods in the schools, and have fairly
clear ideas about the desired outcomes. Both of these are fixed in a cultural or institutional
sense: in the sense that few people hold much hope of fundamentally changing either of them.
In order for the existing methods in our educational system to satisfy the expected outcomes,
what must the appropriate conditions be? The system seemed to work better when the
conditions, such as our cultural perspective, the nature of the students, and the economic and
social framework were different. Perhaps this is our problem: we might be thinking of
methods and outcomes that will not work under current conditions.
If a primary goal of our work is to provide propositions that will combine to create a new
way of viewing the design of educational systems, perhaps we should look closely at the
changes that have occurred in the conditions in our various cultures and communities and then
defme a new prescriptive model for educational systems design to deal with new realities.
In summary, I would propose that we immediately expand the range of theorists within our
group to include both change agents and curriculum designers. We also need to consider now
how we are going to incorporate additional stakeholder groups into our design process as
tentative implementation models are developed. Finally, I believe we should begin to develop a
mechanism to incorporate many of the specific strategies (such as those illustrated in the
examples below) from our various domains of expertise into a formal knowledge base that can
inform our design decisions.
 349

References

1. Banathy, B.H.: Systems design of education: A journey to create the future. Educational
Technology Publications: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1990
2. Bloom, B.S.: Human characteristics and school learning. New York: McGraw-Hill 1976
3. Browning, R.: A death in the desert. In: Rowntree, D.: Assessing students: How shall we
know them? New York: Nichols 1987
4. Bruner, J.S.: Toward a theory of instruction. New York: Knopf 1966
5. Burns, H.L. & Capps, C.G.: Foundations of intelligent tutoring systems: An
introduction. In: Foundations of intelligent tutoring systems (M. Polson & J.
Richardsons, eds.). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum 1988
6. Fraser, W.: Words on Wellington 1889
7. Gagne, R.M. & Briggs, LJ.: Principles of instructional design. 2nd ed. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, Winston 1979
8. Iran-Nejad, A.: Active and dynamic self-regulation of learning processes. Review of
Educational Research 60, 573-602 (1990)
9. Martin, B.L. & Briggs, L.J.: The affective and cognitive domains: Integration for
instruction and research. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Educational Technology
Publications 1986
10. McArthur, I.: Instructional logistics and chunque-based learning systems. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation. Logan, Utah: Utah State University 1990
11. McArthur, I.: Learning systems design. Submitted to Educational Technology
Publications
12. Merrill, M.D.: Component display theory. In: Instructional-design theories and models:
An overview of their current status (C.M. Reigeluth, ed.) Hillsdale, New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum 1983
14. Reigeluth, C.M.: The search for meaningful reform: A third-wave educational system.
Journal of Instructional Development 10(4), 3-14 (1987)
15. Shuell, T.J.: Phases of meaningfulleaming. Review of Educational Research 60, 531-547
(1990)
16. Skinner, B.F.: Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Knopf 1971
Learning Systems:
Is There a Need for Change?

Nimal Jayaratna
Heriot-Watt University, 79 Grassmarket, Edinburgh EHI 2HJ, Scotland, United Kingdom

Abstract: Considerable effort has been and continues to be spent in the redesign of
educational systems. It is argued that problems of society can be attributed to a narrow
definition of education as it is currently perceived. This paper examines the need for an
understanding of both the shortcomings and contribution of current education as the basis for
undertaking systems design.

Keywords: Education, process, systems.

Education has always been and will continue to be one of the most treasured aspects of human
life. Had the task of education not been undertaken painstakingly by parents in the so-called
primitive societies, there would not be a civilization today. The development of languages,
methods of communication and a desire to explain away the already discovered meanings to
future generations, accelerated the phase of education development. In some human societies,
the value of education is so highly regarded that parents with little or no formal education would
undergo starvation and considerable physical hardships in order to see their offspring gain an
education and improve their quality of life. In other societies, educational achievement is so
highly desired that young members of the community who fail to gain access or to demonstrate
success in achievement in formal education would rather commit suicide than to face other
members of their cultural groups.
Like culture (note that cultural values are also passed through an educational process),
education has undergone considerable changes and extensions throughout generations.
However, unlike culture, humans have displayed a remarkable desire to cross cultural, racial,
social, linguistic or other physical/emotional boundaries in search of answers to explain away
'real world' phenomena or to seek answers to hitherto unanswerable questions. Within this
environment, education systems have assumed the responsibility for specializing in the search
for knowledge, for transmission of available knowledge, for facilitating learning and
experimentation in search of new knowledge and for serving as centres for knowledge
 351

acquisition, accumulation and distribution. In many countries, through their respective

governments, institutes such as those which we serve have been entrusted with the role of
pursuing these education goals thus formalising and legitimising the process of education in
society. It is in this context that we should examine the role of education and its contribution to
the societies and their wider world. Any attempt to embark on the design of learning systems,
particularly those that attempt to design learning systems for human development, should
understand both the contribution and the failings of current education before taking on the task
of systems design for change.
Education, at the very basic level, can be defmed as the ability of individuals to understand
expressed thoughts, ideas, models and action of others as well as the ability to communicate
clearly their understandings, thoughts, ideas and models to others. Beyond this level, education
assists individuals to extend their knowledge and understanding of 'real world' phenomena. At
an advanced level, education helps individuals to enhance, enrich and extend their knowledge
and to apply that knowledge to generate new thoughts, ideas, models, techniques, products,
services and other output. This extension and the application of knowledge in the fields of
engineering, science, medicine, technology, manufacturing, etc., are easily visible and
recognizable. However in subjects such as history, philosophy, cultural studies, etc., this level
of extension and application is not so visible but is nevertheless taking place, sometimes in
much more profound ways. For instance, a researcher in theology who examines a Bible script
from a hermeneutic perspective is attempting to understand the same recorded historical events
from the author's social meaning context of the time thereby providing a new insight and a
different meaningful interpretation.
Contribution of education from all these levels are clearly recognizable in society today.
This is particularly so in the rapidly developing technology field that has increased our quality
of life, improved shelf life of products, extended distribution of services/goods, improved
quality of medical treatment, leisure, etc. The growth in information technology and
communication technologies for instance has transformed the way societies operate and helped
to bring about new challenging life styles.
At a wider level, education has helped social groups to develop better and more effective
communication systems, enabled them to work cooperatively for common objectives, helped
collaboration across many different boundaries and to make them appreciate cultural, social and
other differences. The meeting of this NATO Advanced Research Workshop [ARW] group is
an example of such collaboration. At a more global level, organisations such as the United
Nations have been established through the cooperation of governments. Education has also
helped diverse cultural groups to form global voluntary organisations such as OXFAM, the Red
Cross etc., in order to meet various cross cultural and social needs.
If education is responsible for the considerable advances humankind has made in different
knowledge domains, for individual progress and for advances made by such diverse
 352

populations in cooperation towards common objectives then it should also take responsibility
for the undesirable consequences of that progress. The deeper understanding of 'real world'
phenomena, philosophies that help to shape the understanding of 'reality' and knowledge that
helps to understand human behaviour has also helped the same educated individuals to progress
in life at the expense of others. Education has helped these individuals not only to exploit the
generosity, ignorance or the intellectual limits of other fellow humans but also to justify their
action in terms such as 'shared understanding'. Democratic decision making that promotes
participation of wider groups of people is undermined by the collusions, collaborative strategy
meetings and the political planning undertaken by small groups of the same participants at pre-
decision making meetings. Education processes that help the scientists to make new discoveries
are also responsible for preventing them from exploring the wider implications of their
discoveries, or when known, prevent them from making that information known to potential
users. Education processes that help individuals to develop 'critical' thinking faculties enable
them to evaluate others' actions but prevent them from conducting the same level of 'critical'
evaluation of themselves. In this context I am reminded of the quote that

"We judge others by their actions but judge ourselves by our good intentions"
(Author unknown).

At an organisation level, those who demand 100% loyalty from their employees are
prepared to sell their organisation to the highest bidder without displaying the slightest loyalty
to their employees. The big corporate buyers who invest their funds in the takeover of
organisations do so only to break up those organisations once acquired and sell them off in
profitable deals without any regard to the social consequences of their action. Those who
promote worker participation in management do not practice participation in their workplace,
within their committees or their organisations. Union leaders who fight to improve the
conditions of their fellow workers do not wish to share the conditions of the members but seek
to enjoy the benefits of their masters.
At a wider environmental level, the same educated professionals participate in organizational
decision making that leads to the pollution of rivers, the discharge of toxic waste in the
neighbourhood and the sale of products unsafe for human use, even though they are fully
aware of the consequences. There are others who are happy to dispense with human lives in the
third world by exporting dangerous chemicals and drugs to be sold in the open market without
any restrictions even though the products are banned in their home countries.
Problems of starvation, malnutrition, poverty and preventable diseases are still with us but
on a much wider scale even though we have the means of eliminating them. Countries that use
the latest educational knowledge to increase food production would rather destroy their wheat,
 353

com, sheep and cattle in order to maintain market prices than offer these to save the starving
populations.
Violation of basic human rights, oppression, destruction of whole communities and
genocide of entire races are still with us and carried out in even more sophisticated ways.
Education has helped to develop deadly chemical and biological weapons to undertake these
tasks with meticulous precision.
Physical aggression and deliberate action to deny a share in the wealth, benefits and
rewards to people based on their class, caste, race, colour, or other criteria are being replaced
by control of exchange rates, stock market fluctuations and the like. The effects on the target
groups are the same only the means are different. The means are more advanced and can be
rationally defended. Education has been remarkable in this way by helping the decision makers
to disconnect themselves from the consequences of their action. Education has intentionally
or unintentionally helped to make the enemy invisible thereby removing the possibilities for
effective means of resistance.
As can be observed from above, education systems that help mankind to contribute to the
quality of life and to progress in life is the same education that help to deny access to others and
suppress the rights of those adversely affected. Education which provides individuals with new
knowledge and skills is also responsible for failing to educate the same individuals in following
responsible human action [1], i.e., failing to develop knowledge of the implications of using
the newly acquired knowledge and skills.
Any systems design process that undertakes changes to the education process needs to
appreciate both the considerable advances and benefits education has made to the society as well
as the undesirable consequences. The design process needs to develop educational programmes
that will alert the consciousness of the potential 'beneficiaries' of the programmes to the wider
implications of their proposed action on the potential 'victims'. Guidelines for a comprehensive
design will be outlined in the following paper.

References
1. Banathy, Bela: ISGSR 1985 Conference Communications. Los Angeles, 1985
Systems Design Guidelines for Change

Nimal Jayaratna
Heriot-Watt University, 79 Grassmarket, Edinburgh EHI 2HJ, Scotland, United Kingdom

Abstract: This paper sets out some guidelines that would help in the redesign of educational
systems for change. It is recommended that a good understanding of specific needs of people,
sector, environment, etc. is obtained before undertaking any systems design for change.

Keywords: Desirability, feasibility, morphogenetic change, systems design.

The previous paper in this volume, intended as the preamble to this paper, examined the
enormous contribution education has made to humanity as well as to its failure. If we are to
preserve and extend the achievements but eliminate the undesirable consequences of education,
then we must be prepared to undertake fundamental changes to current education concepts and
philosophy. It is not possible to discuss the methodological steps for educational systems
design without understanding the specific environmental needs, hence this paper will only
concentrate on the guide lines for design and not the steps of design.

1. Desirability versus Feasibility

2. Morphogenetic Change
3. Boundary Conditions
4. Why Design?

1. Desirability Versus Feasibility

The ideas in this paper and those that were contributed to the workshop by the author were
made primarily from the perspective of desirability as opposed to that of feasibility. Checkland
[2] alerted designers to this distinction in the design process and developed a methodology that
encompasses intellectually desirable and culturally feasible design perspectives.
However, it is the author's experience that raising intellectually desirable design features for
discussion tend to create hostilities in relationships especially if they tend to interfere with set
plans, career ambitions or psychological needs of individuals. As a result in many situations
 355

designers tend to intellectualize culturally feasible solutions. Despite these difficulties it is

important to encourage and facilitate intellectually desirable notions if we are to generate
fundamental solutions for addressing problems of education.

2. Morphogenetic Change

The acceptance of a need for fundamental change in education implies that we challenge the
existing boundaries and notions of education. This form of change can be defined as
morphogenetic change. Morphogenetic change is "a change that occurs when the model of the
organisation held in view is questioned. Learning and development in the context require a
radical change in the perceptions of the organisation, its boundaries, aims and processes" [4].
The design process therefore has to be fundamental and comprehensive and should challenge
the assumptions on which the design solutions are to be developed.

3. Boundary Conditions

If we are to undertake intellectually desirable morphogenetic changes, then we need to find

some conceptual tools that would assist us in the design of those changes. 'Systems' is one of
the most fundamental conceptual tools for undertaking comprehensive systems design. It
differs from other tools essentially in the way it concentrates the attention of designers' to the
whole, characteristics of which are not found in the parts. For example, the characteristics of
'wetness' in the water is not found in the oxygen or in the hydrogen atoms that collectively
constitute water. The 'wetness' thus is an integrative characteristic. Readers who are not
familiar with the notions of 'systems' please refer to Checkland's book [2] which provides one
of the most comprehensive accounts of the development of 'systems' philosophy.
The application of systems' ideas to the design activity should first of all draw the attention
of the designers to the integrative outcome of the education process than to the outcome of
individual parts, i.e., curriculum, facilities, resources, technology etc.
Secondly, education should be seen as a process of development of individuals who would
not only look after the well-being of themselves but simultaneously try to achieve socially
responsible human action, i.e., those who would seek to satisfy their needs, aspirations, career
paths in the context of others and not at the expense of others.
Thirdly, education is a process that should be the responsibility of the entire society.
Therefore any design effort that attempts to bring about change in the education process should
not limit itself to the design of parts (as is the case with the current pre-occupation with design
of educational systems). Instead, it should extend its domain to include parents, government
 356

agencies, regional agencies, planners, employers, etc. (Current failure to bring about socially
responsible human action should be shared by all and not just by the educational systems). In
effect this is the application of 'socially responsible human action' concept to the practice of
design. Unless the boundaries of the design domain is widen to incorporate all these groups,
any design solutions will only meet the criteria offeasibility of change.

4. Why Design?

At this workshop, the author continuously drew the attention of his colleagues to the question
of 'Why Design?' As designers, we naturally assume that by engaging in design activities we
could use models to bring about change that would achieve desirable transformation in practice.
For example, this workshop is an implicit admission that the previous design activities, their
implementations and the operations achieved at great economic and social costs, have been a
failure. There is no reason to believe that the current and future design processes will not meet
the same fate. Therefore we need to discover the issues that have caused the current educational
processes to be perceived as a failure and what new environmental conditions in the future
would make our designs a potential failure before we engage in the design of any new systems
of learning. Each situation is unique and requires the construction of methodological steps that
take account of the specific features - for example, see methodological classification in
information systems [3].
Unfortunately, "it is not possible to undertake morphogenetic change with solution driven
methodologies" .

References

1. Banathy, Bela.: ISGSR Conference Communication. Los Angeles 1985

2. Checkland, Peter: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice Wiley, 1981
3. Jayaratna, Nimal: Guide to Methodology Understanding in Information Systems Practice.
International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 8. Butterworth-Heinemann, U.K.
1988
4. Robb, Fenton: Morphostasis and Morphogenesis: Contexts of Participative Design Enquiry
in the Design of Systems of Learnings and Human Development. ISSS Conference
Proceedings. Edinburgh, U.K. 1989
A Conceptual Framework for
Systems Design of Education

P. David Mitchell

Concordia University, 1455 Blvd. de Maisonneuve West, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8,
Canada

Abstract: This paper discusses the need for lifelong learning and the need for the entire
society to become a learning society. It presents a conceptual framework for systemic research
on education. The framework is based on three cybernetic paradigms: Powers' Control System
Theory, Beer's Viable System Modelling, and Pask's Conversation Theory. It emphasizes the
importance of: including students in the analysis of the system, considering the societal and
political frameworks within which educational systems operate, and modelling systems and
metasystems. Finally, a model educational systems analysis curriculum is outlined.

Keywords: Educational systems design, lifelong learning, conceptual framework,

cybernetics, control system theory, viable system modeling, conversation theory, student
involvement, metasystems, societal systems, political systems, systems curriculum.

"So far our practice has been to try and solve a societal problem within the system that
generated it, using the language that defines the system to be as it is -- and not
otherwise. The solutions therefore have one thing in common. They do not work."
Stafford Beer

Introduction and Overview

Many reports claim that our formal education systems are producing both illiterate graduates
and ill-educated dropouts and should be more effective in preparing people to live in the 21st
century. But surely the so-called education crisis is really a societal crisis. Moreover many of
our assumptions about what is needed are inadequate in principle and hopeless in practice. A
radically different approach is needed if we are to improve education.
Perhaps the first step is to recognize that education does not refer to pre-emptive instruction
intended to prepare the next generation to function in their parents world but includes ongoing
activities and perspectives of self-educating, responsible citizens and occurs both within and
without educational institutions. No longer can we assume that one's education ceases upon
graduation or school leaving. Not only does a profession have the collective responsibility to
 358

ensure that is members keep up to date but changes in society, lifestyle and jobs demand
continuous education (not necessarily institutionalized) for all of us.
If we consider lifelong learning in an educative society then many models are potentially
useful. However the first step is to recognize that we need to examine not only what goes on
within educational systems but also the actions of the societal and political framework within
which they operate. Even more important is to understand that education is a personal
responsibility, not just a societal one.
A model educational systems analysis curriculum (offered by the author for nearly two
decades) is outlined. Ideally it helps to prepare educational technologists for practice in a
comprehensive systemic context.

The Challenge and Limits of Systems Analysis

Our Mandate: Is It Misleading?

We have been asked to contribute to the advancement of knowledge about processes and likely
products of a comprehensive systems design approach as a new technology for improving
educational systems. In particular, we should focus on either a model of a new educational
system or the application of systems thinking and inquiry to the design of educational systems.
The important challenge facing us is to consider what knowledge is particularly relevant to
the general process model for educational systems design and to propose requisite activities or
principles for this model. At first glance this may seem straightforward; simply find out what
systems design procedures are used in other systems and m ap them onto educational
procedures. Nothing to it! Why is the issue challenging? Because from a cybernetic systemic
perspective it is possible to assert that our nations' education systems are well designed already.
They have adapted superbly to the society within which they are embedded and are doing
exactly what society requires them to do. To illustrate, many legislatures have decreed that no
student may be prevented by academic failure from moving on to the next school year with
hislher chronological peers. In some cases, they may be required to repeat a grade but only
once in every four years. Are these the same regions where one-third to one-half of the high
school graduates are functionally illiterate? Is this primarily an education design problem?
Perhaps society itself could benefit from a system analysis.
Moreover, it can be shown that education is no longer the system's functional purpose;
what happens to students' education is just a by-product of the activity of its professional and
bureaucratic core. This is not a criticism of the teaching profession which may well be the most
underrated and undervalued sector in the nation. It is a systemic phenomenon. These are
startling comments to which I will return later.
 359

What is Wrong with Our Education System?

There is a deplorable tendency in contemporary thinking to assume that something is wrong

with the nation's education system which can be corrected by redesigning that system or its
components, i.e. by adopting some product of the educational technology enterprise or by
engaging in systems analysis and planning which specifies how some desired end product is to
be achieved.
Typically critics assume that more students should be in more schools studying more
subjects, more successfully, perhaps for more time. But not for more taxes. Central to all this is
our notion of education.
Aside from ignoring two huge education systems, those operated by the military and
industry, seldom are our concepts of education really questioned or even our concept of where
and how education happens (both within and without school). Given that m any graduates have
spent more time looking at TV than in school or studying, are we to exclude the "curriculum" of
the television networks? Moreover, we usually ignore the need for adults to adapt to a rapidly
changing world (other than in the narrow job-controlled sense) of knowledge, ideas, lifestyle,
values and opportunities, a world in which societal changes occur so rapidly that societal
adjustment cannot be left to the next generation and its schools.
No longer is it possible to transfer the knowledge of the older generation to the next in the
expectation that the young will acquire all the knowledge and skills needed. We must consider
alternative possibilities for lifelong learning in an educative society, one in which earning and
learning may go hand in hand. The adult population too must involve themselves in educational
activities if they wish to adapt. But this does not imply lifelong schooling. Nor does it suggest
that schools need not change. It does require a new breed of educational technologist who is
capable of dealing with systemic ideas and problems (7,8).
Real and critical problems in many countries cry out for solution. At issue is where and
how to begin. What is the relative importance of: teaching methods; content; teacher training;
teacher's salaries; academic standards and evaluation; instructional materials; the role of
educational technologists, etc.? Implicit in many analyses is an underlying assumption that
something is wrong with our education systems that can be rectified by a comprehensive
systems design approach.

Our Starting Point

I choose to start with seemingly different and perhaps outrageous assumptions, aimed at
improving education. Let me outline them briefly; then I shall try to adumbrate them and show
 360

how we might begin to develop a cybernetic systems design process (which offers hope. Much
empirical, though little experimental, evidence exists to support these assumptions.

Assumption 1: Educational Technology (which should be re-named Educational Systems

Engineering), whether treated as a science, technology or profession, can no longer progress
without confronting certain basic theoretical problems habitually minimized or dismissed.

Assumption 2: Systems analysis and design developed with inanimate systems is inappropriate
for designing bio-social systems intended for the transformation of consciousness (which is at
the root of education).

Assumption 3: There is nothing "wrong" with the nation's education system. It has learned to
do exactly what society requires it to do. If something is wrong, it is in the metasystem within
which the education system functions. Tackling problems exclusively at the level of school and
university will produce insignificant change.

Assumption 4: Concern that schools are not teaching well enough is misdirected because
students are essentially unteachable anyway (i.e. we can't force them to learn but can provide
learning opportunities and incentives), many of the measurable changes attributed to teaching
are not as important as the implicit curriculum and the really significant educational need lies
within the adult population.

Assumption 5: Cybernetic modelling, particularly Control Systems Theory, shows that much of
the research on learning and instruction is either invalid or inadequate for use in education (i.e.
the spurious correlation between behaviour that the observer monitors and what he defines as
Input is generated by the learner's internal, unobservable control system which functions to
maintain the learner's internally designated state of affairs.) Only during conversational
interaction is this system under control of the teaching system.

Assumption 6: The limiting resources in education systems (money, people, knowledge,

values, ideals, and even genetic and bionutritional factors) are controlled mainly outside the
education system, thus invalidating most changes within education. The only resource left to
educators is love and even that is in danger of dissipation.

Assumption 7: It is only through a transformation of one's consciousness that significant

change will occur. Each must begin with himself. But it is difficult to alter consciousness in
oneself or others. How can systems design help? Is this a systemic problem?
 361

Assumption 8: A judicious mixture of Powers' Control System Theory, Beer's Viable System
Modelling and Pask's Conversation Theory offers potentially valuable insights needed for
improving the systems design process for education. Educational technology that incorporates
such insights has the potential -- but not the actual-- capability to effect change. But we have to
take the first step. How and where do we begin?

A Conceptual Framework for Systemic Research on Education

What is my theoretical perspective that I might utter such notions? This analysis is guided by a
cybernetic perspective within the framework of systems. analysis/operational research, an
approach which may use but is not confined to empirical research methods common to
educational research.
Cybernetics, traditionally concerned with communications and control, is "the science of
achieving the maximum satisfaction of goals and objectives ... through optimal use of all
possible interactions of all available resources" (20, p.2). And operational research (O.R.),
according to Stafford Beer, "tries to discover the nature of the underlying system which
generates the particular situation under study. if we know what that system is, how it is
characterized, what are its logical relationships internally and with the rest of the world, then we
acquire predictive power" (1, p.199).
Further, O.R. proceeds by constructing a model to represent the dynamic system
underlying this situation, expressing such conceptual models, Le. scientific analogies, in as
rigorous terms of scientific understanding as possible. Mter. establishing the validity of this
process, then "all the insight, all the laws, all the wrinkles and tricks, which science has
discovered in relation to the original type of system can be imported to the model" (p. 203).
Because of the multiplicity of models available to interdisciplinary teams, O.R., with its
systemic orientation, usually involves problem solving by such teams where the respective
disciplines represent different ways of looking at problems (Le. conceptualizing or building
analogies for system behaviour). We must learn how to develop such models to improve our
understanding of education. And this necessitates systemic research which includes many
perspectives, not just those of teachers and teacher trainers. Whether educational technology
will undertake the necessary transformation of itself to embrace these new perspectives remains
to be seen (cf. 13).
 362

Cybernetic Paradigms for Educational System Design

This paper, like the research underlying it, draws upon many intellectual streams but is rooted
fundamentally in three cybernetic paradigms outlined earlier (13).

* (I) William Powers (17, 18) built a theory of behaviour based on control theory. His basic
tenet is that organisms control their perceptual input, not their responses, i.e. they attempt to
keep perceptions of situations matching reference images of what they are intended to be.
He shows that even when we can relate observed behaviour to observed stimuli, we must
expect to be wrong most of the time! This is because the organism's activities produce many
observables but what is controlled is identifiable only by that organism and it may not be
visible.
To complicate matters, humans can have many, and changing, objectives and variable
reference levels, including ethical and other ideals. This model could be a starting point in
investigating the conditions under which expert learners (in contrast to others) develop
knowledge and understanding or those under which administrators, planners and politicians
operate.

* (2) If the purpose of one's actions is to control the perceived world, another cybernetic model
of the learner (based on Beer's (2, 3, 4) pioneering work) may prove useful. At its heart is a
perceptual field or set of relationships which determines that this is "oneself'.

The self-regulatory capacity of oneself seems automatic until one aspires to be different
(e.g. run a marathon, solve a complex problem). Such pursuits require more than knowledge
(think of the number of overweight people who know about caloric intake and expenditure).
They necessitate extending the self-regulatory capacity by changing one's model of oneself.
This is because things one is only potentially capable of doing are not initially included in one's
regulatory model. Thus Educational Technology currently is unable to offer much (13). The
applicability of this model to helping people to become self-educating, self-fulfilling, etc. is
obvious. We should begin to test it and to use it not only to investigate ways to help people
learn how to learn but also to develop an intelligent support system and how to model
metasystemic problems. More importantly we need to test it on ourselves.

* (3) Conversation Theory (14, 15, 16) is a comprehensive and potentially valuable theory of
hum an learning and communication that can encompass man-machine systems. A central tenet
is that learning is less a process of (more-or-Iess) passive receiving of context-free information
than an active, goal-directed search for meaning, a view which is consistent with those of Beer
and Powers, inter alia. Moreover we need to conceive, analyze and evaluate learning as
 363

occurring not in one system but in a system composed of two interacting subsystems, teacher
(live or mediated, formally designated or not) and learner.
Learning is viewed as a "conversation" between these two systems' representations of
knowledge -- which occurs when they share goals. The observer sees an agreement by
participants that they share the same understanding of the topics. Note that both subsystems
may be in one person (self-instruction), two people or a person-computer system. Moreover
Conversation Theory can be extended recursively to encompass an entire society.

A Radical Reappraisal of Education

Let us approach the problem of educational systems design by rethinking the concept of
education. What do we mean by "education" and "the education system"? What are we
educating for? I don't want to get bogged down in philosophical analysis here (cf. 7, 9, 10,11)
so I shall assert simply and without justification that education is, paradoxically, a
responsibility of the individual and of society and that this responsibility concerns the
intentional development and monitoring of each person's learning how the world functions and
how to get along in it and how to contribute to the wellbeing of oneself and everyone else. In
short, how to achieve one's potential as a human being through the intentional organization of
personal and societal development. But how are all the individuals and the collectivity to
achieve this ideal?

Personal Development

I suggest tentatively that one's education begins the day a person is conceived and continues,
intertwined in everything he perceives, thinks, feels or does, in the cybernetic feedback of his
total being, throughout his lifetime. Thus one is not "educated" at a specific school nor is one
"educated" as an engineer or historian. Rather, education is (in my understanding of the notion)
a continuous process that occurs within and without school. Somehow each person needs to
comprehend multiple feedback changes needed to navigate through time, space and information
toward the achievement of one's potential, the development of wisdom and, perhaps, a state of
"cosmic consciousness" (or satori, samadhi, peak experience), i.e. "the highest state of
consciousness, a self-transforming perception of one's total union with the infinite" (23, p.67).
Education, in the sense alluded to here, is something more than the acquisition of a set of
performance objectives, no matter how valuable they may be. As Polanyi and others have
shown, one does not become a physicist merely by being able to acquire the knowledge and
speech of a physicist. There is something more, something ineffable. Polanyi (17) called it
"personal knowledge". Any attempt to design an education system must recognize such
 364

ineffable qualities, albeit in a wider context of awakening awareness toward personal growth in
mankind's continuing evolution, enabling us to be better prepared to solve mankind's
problems.

Cultural Development

If we think of education as concerned with the optimal organization of personal and cultural
development, this implies continuity from its genesis at a parent's knee to death. Clearly,
education is not confined to schooling. Therefore when we think about designing educational
systems we must expand our purview to include all sorts of activities that contribute to this.
These include not only schools and universities but also publishers and libraries, educational
and other TV programs, training and on-the-job learning, social organizations (the 'Y', scouts,
amateur radio and other clubs), public resources (libraries, National Film Board), etc. The list
continues (cf. 9, 11). Recall that until recently conversation was the mark of an educated
person. Such conversations could span many topics. Increasingly however we find that
knowledge, especially scientific and technological knowledge, takes on some of the attributes
of capital in the development of business and industry. Pressure exists to emphasize skill- and
task-based knowledge.
Today knowledge and education are crucial national and personal resources which
contribute to both personal and national development. Thus education, work and leisure
intertwine. Often only a paycheque distinguishes between learners as rapidly changing
knowledge, new equipment and processes require adaptation on the part of workers and
students.
Meanwhile the world's so-called education system grinds on, consuming ever-increasing
amounts of money and producing noisy criticisms of its activities. While rich countries provide
tax-supported schooling for 10 to 20 years, half the world's children cannot even attend school.
Enormous problems must be solved if mankind as a whole is to share in the potential for hum
an com fort. achievement and wellbeing now restricted to a tiny minority. What if we were able
to develop a new model of, or new approach to, education, one that could be shared with
developing nations? Would it make a difference? Many so-called educational problems need to
be considered at the meta-systemic level which generates them.

Political and Societal Context

Once we begin to think about the interconnectedness of systems and the role of decision makers
far removed from the system in focus, we can begin to see how the system is regulated and
how its equilibrium can be disturbed.
 365

Consider the problems of education systems in developing nations. We claim to offer

educational and other aid. But how are their education systems affected by the fact that these
countries annually transfer to wealthy nations $30 billion more in debt repayments and service
charges than they receive in aid? Closer to home, what are to make of the report that President
Reagan's Treasury Secretary, David Stockman, revealed that "a deliberate monetary crisis" was
created "by high interest rates to make the continued financing of the public sector a millstone
around taxpayers' necks" (6, p. 15). One result was to raise the cost of bonds issued to finance
local schools and/or to cut costs and accompanying benefits. Another was to force higher
education into closer relationships with major corporations. Some creative university
administrators even balanced their books by selling their library holdings to corporations on a
lease-back basis.
Clearly a systems design team would have to consider alternative ways of financing
education. Local communities differ in their ability to raise money and therefore cannot provide
equal educational opportunities across the nation. In Canada, education is a provincial
responsibility and generally funded at that level. Thus each school district might receive a grant
based on student population. Moreover, some provinces not only stipulate the curriculum but
also impose a provincial school leaving examination to regulate academic standards.
Nonetheless diversity is possible. To illustrate the approach in my own school district, my
children had a choice of high schools (beginning at grade 7/age 12). All follow the Quebec
curriculum but one specializes in, and emphasizes, art, music and drama. Another emphasizes
athletics. A third fits the free school (neo-Summerhill) image while another concentrates on
private-school-like rigour, discipline and even uniforms. Yet another claims to focus on
individual learning styles. And so on. In short, within the provincially funded public system,
there is uniformity of curriculum with diversity at the localliwel. Perhaps such models could be
catalogued to form part of the educational system engineer's knowledge base.
Similarly Canadian universities receive operating and capital grants according to a formula
(which takes into account not only enrollment but also the kinds of degree programmes, etc.).
This does not imply that each institution receives equal resources but at least they need not rely
directly on their students and local community. The Canadian model is more complex than
outlined. Another factor is that the federal government transfers funds to each province based
on university student enrollment (because graduates may work anywhere and contribute to the
national, not just a local, welfare). With such a hybrid system of financing, Canadian students
generally have equal educational opportunities (though urban/rural and other differences exist).
However the Canadian Government recently decided to phase out its contributions to higher
education with unknown but potentially inequitable results. Meanwhile in other countries,
students are even paid to attend. Thus it is that educational decisions can be affected by actions
in other systems.
 366

What System and Why Are We Concerned with It?

The description of a system and its problems, as well as what can be accepted as possible
solutions, has little to do with the system itself. It depends overwhelmingly on who is defining
the system/problem and what he is aiming to achieve.
A cursory analysis of models purporting to describe educational systems reveals that most
appear not to include students! At first blush this seems strange. However in any system
analysis what is salient is the viewpoint of an observer/analyst who recognizes a need,
identifies a system or poses a problem to be solved.
This problem poser is the one who has the motivation or resources needed to tackle the
problem. Moreover the problem poser implicitly limits the set of solutions to those permissible
in terms of that viewpoint. And measures of effectiveness, by which suggested solutions may
be evaluated, also derive from the problem poser's point of view.
Whether the problem poser is a researcher, government decision maker, teacher, school
administrator, parent or captain of industry will create the conditions that limit the system
modelling and analysis and design process to what that person's viewpoint will tolerate.
Moreover that person's model of the system and of what is possible restrict analysis;
possibilities of which we are unaware essentially do not exist. It is not surprising that this
activity is neither paid for nor undertaken by students whose viewpoint therefore is often
neglected -- despite the fact that the education system is intended to serve them and they may
have important contributions to make.
Under extreme conditions we do see student involvement. Perhaps the most memorable
occurred in France and North America in the late 60s but even as I write 250,000 high school
students in France are demonstrating and clamouring both for better protection from theft,
assault and drug sellers and for more and better teachers and other resources to end
overcrowding in classrooms and to improve schools. Many of the protesters come from lower
income families who view education as a key to advancement. The government's response so
far appears to address a sub-problem; they plan to create 1,000 maintenance jobs, 3,000
security positions and 100 supervisory posts in the high schools! This underscores the
assertion that a system, its problems and solutions are defined and constrained by the viewpoint
of the observer.

Multiple Perspectives

To complicate matters, exceedingly complex, probabilistic systems such as schools or

universities pose special problems. There might be multiple, even conflicting, objectives (e.g.
to minimize cost of learning resources while simultaneously maximizing their availability to
 367

students on demand or in the classroom, to meet the objectives of the curriculum and the needs
of each student).
In such cases, optimization usually is the modelling problem to be tackled. A model case
might be an Intelligent Tutoring System that somehow both adapts to the student's aims and
cognitive style while yet pacing and guiding the student. But such a conversational system
cannot be designed specifically as a completely designed procedure to deal with all possible
circumstances. Rather such a system must be designed to adapt, i.e. to learn and develop (12).
Moreover an intelligent tutoring system must consist of many inter-acting sub-models, each of
which must incorporate a model of each of the others and of the overall system within which
they function (something designers of ITS have not yet achieved). On a macro-scale, we might
think of the entire educational system as an intelligent tutoring system in the same manner.
Clearly systemic thinking is a sine qua non for designing educational systems.

Lifelong Learning in the Educative Society

The Scope of Education

An educational problem may be far greater than the restricted vision of some observers. Thus
an instructional design problem may be considered in isolation but the instructional system itself
is embedded in an organization (school, corporation, military) that has other subsystems with
different (often incompatible) goals, priorities and resources that all interact with it. And this
organization, in turn, is embedded with other interacting subsystems in a larger cultural system.
All are embedded in a global society. To complicate matters even more, each learner, teacher,
parent, taxpayer, etc., has his/her own system of perceptions, knowledge, values, goals,
ideals, etc.
In short, the notion of an educational problem or system needs to be expanded to include
more systems and subsystems. And the boundaries between activities that are labelled
educational and those that are not, should be pushed back to encompass informal as well as
directed learning. Think for a moment about where you learned most of your attitudes,
knowledge and skills. Was it exclusively, or even largely, within institutions labelled
educational? Our classical methods of dealing with educational problems cannot be expected to
be of much use in tackling such systemic and metasystemic problems. We need an altered
perspective.
 368

The Educative Society

If we look systemically and metasystemically at education and educational technology our

conception of education undergoes a radical transformation.
Even if we accept an interventionist model, it is clear that we no longer can rely on the
transmission of the requisite knowledge and skills by old, experienced teachers to young,
inexperienced students. Surveys of adult populations' knowledge of science, politics, etc.
reveal not only that the vertical transmission of knowledge alone was insufficient but that in a
rapidly changing world of objective knowledge, lifestyles, jobs, attitudes, etc. we must
somehow design a national or global educational system that shares with everyone what has
recently been decided, discovered, invented, produced or evaluated.
The entire society needs to become a learning, educative society, with each of us conversing
with m any others in what may be called an educational manner. This means that a youngster
could teach an older person, a worker might introduce a manager to new forms of thought and
awareness. And it implies that most organizations within society have the potential to share in
this educational endeavour (9, 11). Moreover, those organizations themselves, in order to adapt
and develop, need to learn through interaction with other organizations but that is another
systemic conversation beyond the scope of this paper (cf. 5).

Policy Issues

Modelling education is a vitally important systemic problem which requires participation of a

trans-disciplinary team, one which must incorporate and perhaps be organized by educational
technologists. Indeed, we need to develop cybernetic models of the nation (and, of the world)
which would be available to our elected leaders. The complexity of inter-related systems with
many feedback loops demands that governments have the best tools available to govern. Our
very future depends on the capacity and leadership to establish them. Such viable system
models, incorporating education, information technology, etc. as subsystems, would be of
inestimable value in establishing national, global and regional policy.
In this world of nearly unlimited computing power and instantaneous worldwide
communication, the central question is political, not educational: What kind of society do we
wish to create for ourselves and future generations? Second to this is the means to use. All we
need is someone to build a viable system model that provides a vehicle to steer our education
and training sector through a rapidly changing environment, a model that builds on the expertise
of everyone. If that can be accomplished we will only need courage, initiative and commitment
-- and awareness of the potentially disastrous effects of indecision.
 369

Managing Systems through Models

Planners and managers tend not to manage systems directly but only indirectly through their
conceptual understanding of the world, i.e. their model of it. This model, of necessity,
represents features believed to be important and filters out seemingly unimportant features and
noise. Cybernetics has shown that even though we manage models instead of the real system
and even if the model is inappropriate, a social system may work satisfactorily -- provided its
rate of change is relatively slow. Rapidly changing systems, especially where the rate of change
itself is accelerating, cannot be managed without constantly updating the model. But it is not
just a matter of changing the model; it must represent reality. Otherwise we end up taking
decisions to manage a surrogate world, not the real system. And many of our social
institutions, including education systems, seem to be managing a surrogate world. Thus our
schools and universities m ay have the wrong models of their students and/or their
environments and politicians may have inadequate models of the education system itself.

The System's Purpose

Earlier I asserted that in most organizations that employ educational technologists, education is
no longer the system's purpose, that what happens to students is a by-product of its
institutional core. Is this a mis-use of "purpose"? From a systems analytic perspective, a
system's purpose can be discerned better by asking what the system is doing, not what it was
intended to do or what its spokesmen claim it is doing. (After all, if it is doing something other
than its purpose it's not very well managed. So we impute its purpose from its behaviour.)
Typically the system's core is devoted to self-perpetuation of their roles and functions (no
matter how well-meaning the people are). Moreover education systems tend to be organized
bureaucratically, with rules and regulations intended, perhaps, to facilitate education but often
serving to thwart it. They may even have a model of their clients, environment and requisite
technology intended to regulate their behaviour. But what they do defines the system's
purpose. To illustrate, if you are an educator do your administrators and colleagues really act as
if education were the prime purpose of your school, college or training unit?

Modelling Systems and Metasystems

When things obviously do not work we must redefine systems and problems. But to do so
means that we must discern a metasystem and learn its language. By dealing at a metasystemic
level we choose the only possible approach that will work. Moreover it is likely that the
 370

outcome of large-scale adoption of metasystemic approaches would be both vitally important

and sensational (21).
By considering metasystems and metamodels in their metalanguage we can examine the
problems themselves rather than just their content in a specific case. However to do so may
mean that we will be considering a pathological problem of a societary system within which
education systems are embedded. Any discussion of societal problems will be metalinguistic to
the internal language of educational problems, which is what preoccupies so m any talented
people.
Consider arguments about student/teacher ratios, the curriculum, performance objectives,
grading policy, etc. All participants immerse themselves in the details of the problem,
examining its content. But the social pathology at the metasystemic level concerns distribution
of wealth, parental and communal attitudes toward education, students' attitudes to the whole
endeavour, and the ability of communities and states to adapt to changing conditions, lifestyles,
job opportunities, etc. Such issues are metasystemic to specific details about what goes on in a
school. To complicate matters, if we were to publicize metasystemic analyses we would be
blamed for precipitating subproblems that are predictable from the metasystemic analyses.
A nation state essentially gets the education system it deserves because it creates and
maintains it. We need not limit our designs to mediated information displays or instructional
system design but must extend our own regulatory model into areas of great potential for
education. Thus although we might engage in designing Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Schools
or Universities, we might also consider non-traditional areas where education happens, e.g.:
toys and games for pre-schoolers, community learning centres, social organizations and
unions, etc. (11). More importantly, we may begin to analyze education meta-systemically to
design viable educational systems that provide each person opportunities to learn and develop
effectively and enjoyably by extending his own regulatory capacity into areas which previously
were only potentially available to him.
To do so our focus may have to be on the regulatory principles whereby each person is
concerned with function and control, using his own natural motivations, talents and interests
(cf. 2). Many writers have drawn attention to the idea that students are essentially unteachable
except under very exceptional circumstances but Woodruff explains why, "Behavior changes
only when a need for a new pattern exists within the leamer, and only to the extent necessary to
satisfy the need. The individual reacts to each situation evaluatively by perceiving whatever his
experience and needs enable him to perceive, viewing it in the light of his present concepts, and
responding accordingly" (24, p. 69). Elsewhere I have tried to address this issue within a
cybernetic framework (13) and will not elaborate here.
What about your own time? Is it allocated toward stated goals? When we try to improve the
operation of an existing system, which purpose (stated or imputed) do we consider?
 371

Creating Social Systems

The systems design process results in the creation of new systems. When dealing with physical
systems the systems engineer must first understand the process by which some resources
(materials, time, knowledge, money) are converted to intended outcomes (e.g. objects,
programs, knowledge). We also need to understand how the components must interact to
produce this system and how the system functions in its environment. When attempting to
design social systems the systems engineer encounters components that are neither inert nor
fixed. Except in a totalitarian structure this difference undermines much of systems analysis and
design when applied to educational systems.
Human components are active, self-organizing systems possessing a complex and dynamic
mixture of values, goals, preferences, skills, knowledge, etc .. Their inclusion in the design
equation is qualitatively different from including nonhuman systems. People systems and
physical systems differ in one vitally important respect.
People systems have, can change and can be given, goals and (within existing constraints)
can be expected to generate the necessary behaviour to solve any problem and achieve a goal. In
short, the human component is an exceedingly complex, adaptive self-organizing system rather
than just a component. Once this hum an is coupled to other components we have the
ingredients for the emergence of a new social system which mayor may not contribute to the
overall purpose of the organization or society within which they function. The system creation
process requires something more sophisticated than system design based upon physical
systems.
Can we identify the missing ingredient(s)? I think we can and I wish to draw your attention
to earlier attempts to explain creative systems design, the first in the Book of Genesis and the
second in The Gospel According to St. John. The writers of Genesis seem to concur with "the
big bang" theory and claim that, in the beginning, God created the universe (out of nothing).
However, John's mystical creation story is more systemic. In English we read that, "In the
beginning was the Word ... and the Word was God" However our oldest version, in Greek,
uses logos which could be translated in several ways other than word ( sentence, coherent
discourse, organization, logic). The etymological essence of logos seems to be "organizing
principle" or "the principle of immanent organization".
This organizing principle in a newly created system, consisting of many and recursive
systems, is the intrinsic regulatory system that holds everything together, maintaining the
identity of that system as it adapts to environmental perturbations. Without this organizing
principle that produces the system we would have only a collection of discrete components.
How are we to make use of this? To paraphrase Stafford Beer, all educational regulatory
systems begin inside the individual (e.g. student, teacher, educational technologist) and extend,
according to cybernetic principles of regulatory processes, through many recursions and many
 372

dimensions of embedment (2). Restated, we must recognize that we cannot describe

(accurately) any system whose behaviour we wish to regulate because the value of each
component's contribution to the overall performance is a function not only of its own regulatory
process but also of the current and past activities of all other components as well as of other
systems in the environment. If we alter only one factor (or even several) to which the system
responds, we may not be able, to predict or regulate the outcome.
At the cognitive level, virtually every concept in a conceptual system is related to others
which, in tum, are linked to more. But learning these may be influenced by quite unrelated
events. To illustrate, the academic performance of students may be influenced not only by what
the educational technologist does but also by m any other factors (e.g. genetic endowment,
early nutrition and environmental stimulation, previous exposure to information and
opportunities to learn and solve problems, psychological stress, blood sugar level, TV viewing,
whether or not the nation is at war, perception of the subject matter, current events, social
relationships).

Can We Redesign Societal Cybernetic Systems for Education?

Cybernetics makes possible explanations of goal-seeking behaviour, whether in humans or

organizations. And it permits us to investigate how it is that successful complex systems
regulate themselves, in the hope that we may discover generalizable principles. System analysis
alone is very useful for revealing a system's structure, how it works, but not why it works.
Systemic thinking is needed to understand why the system functions as it does. Such synthetic
thinking means that we must conceptualize a system as part of one or more larger systems. This
calls for seeking understanding of the larger system which, in tum, may be explained in terms
of its function in yet another system. As Robinson and Knight concluded, "Any lack of
understanding of the nature of this total systems approach results in focus on individual parts of
the whole, inability to find much new in cybernetics, and skepticism that cybernetics can add
anything worthwhile" (20, p. 5).
In considering the total meta-system, with interacting systems and subsystems, as one
inseparable organism, cyberneticians deny the validity (for a complete solution) of optimizing a
component subsystem separately. "The approach insists that the analysis be comprehensive and
simultaneous. Thus, It considers the total organism ... maximizing achievement of its goals and
objectives in its total environment" (20, p.5). But how do we manage this at the level of
society, a university or even a class?
The best we can hope for, I suspect, is to find out how to regulate a system, in which we
are interested, by holding it within its natural boundaries. That is, by monitoring the system's
own changes of state as it responds automatically to environmental disturbances, we may be
 373

able to control it (as operant psychology has shown). However if we try to monitor behaviour
in response to environmental changes, we will fail because behaviour controls the environment.
Thus the input-output model so characteristic of educational research is obsolescent.
As for educational organizations, "What is needed is the redesign of the decision-making,
consensus-building machinery itself, deliberately and carefully employing cybernetic system
principles and practices" (22, p.729). To do so requires that we design self-correcting
cybernetic feedback loops into the structure itself if we wish to produce or manage a viable
system (i.e. one that will survive). Beer's Viable System Model (5) probably is the most useful
for us to adopt. But where is the new cadre of educational systems analyst who can do this?
Finally we need to recognize that the Conant-Ashby theorem shows that the controlling
system has to be (e.g. to contain or simulate) a model of the controlled system in order to be
able to exert any regulatory control. In the context of system design and educational
technology, we must be able to have workable models of our students, the organizations within
which we work or install our solutions, and even of our own society within the global
community. This is a mind-boggling task but our collective failure to do it is no excuse for
further delay.
One thing stands out. if we do not have an adequate model of the system which we want to
regulate (either directly or my system design) then we have little hope of designing a regulator
to control it. This applies equally to our need for a model of the leamer, the educator, the
subject matter and the societal meta-system. But how are educational technologists to
accomplish this?

A Model Educational System Analysis Curriculum

The Discernible Educational Technologist

A new breed of educational technologist/engineer is needed. Indeed educational systems

engineering may be the better term to use (7, 8, 10). Elsewhere I have tried to analyze the scope
of education on the assumption that educational technology must be dedicated to the success of
education as a whole and not simply to specific operations (Mitchell 7,8, 11). And I have
analyzed current and probable role models in order to discern the educational technologist of the
future (10). What follows is a brief overview.
The discernible educational technologist will focus on the optimal allocation of human,
material and financial resources and knowledge in order to produce desired educational
outcomes. He m ay do so by developing models, theories, systems, techniques or materials to
contribute to personal and cultural development (or self-optimization).
 374

The nature of the educational technologist's role is changing from that of media specialist or
textbook writer toward that of a professional -- an educational engineer -- concerned with
problem solving and with all the aspects of the design and function of educational systems,
including those devoted to training and to cultural communication. These m ay include novel
forms of print, video, computer-aided learning, A.I., information retrieval, or educational
games as well as pertinent psychotechnology to motivate and instruct. Thus by paying attention
to adults, as well as children; metasystem analysis as well as system analysis; conceptual
analysis, as well as task analysis; and representation of knowledge, as well as performance
technology; educational technology can make important contributions to the growth of personal
and collective capability. To achieve the state of the art demands a radical rethinking of the field
and preparation to work in it. To advance the state of the art is even more challenging.
Analysis of current jobs and statements about the field reveals four central manifestations of
educational technology, several of which frequently combine in one person's daily life. These
are: Educational Psychotechnology; Educational Information and Communications Technology;
Educational Management Technology; and Educational Systems Technology. Each requires
specialized knowledge (0).
The quintessential concept that embraces this fivefold conceptual mosaic, Educational
Technology, is thus an area of study and practice concerned with all aspects of the organization
of educational systems and sub-systems whereby resources -- human, material,
electromechanical, monetary and knowledge -- are allocated to achieve specified and potentially
replicable educational outcomes. These outcomes may occur in school, industrial training,
museums, social groups, or at home and can include individuals of any age from infancy to
geriatrics.
How might this discernible Educational Technologist be prepared? In addition to the
traditional fare (learning and instruction, media production and management, philosophy and
research design) it will be essential to incorporate a solid systems modelling and analysis
component. One such course has been offered for more than 15 years.

An Illustrative Curriculum

As an educational programme, the detail with which a curriculum m ay be specified varies from
a terse, molar level (e.g. to develop competence in system analysis) to the extremely refined
level of detailed behavioural objectives. In this model curriculum the following intended
learning outcomes were established as the first level of resolution.in my Educational System
Analysis course offered at Concordia for the past 17 years each of these macro-objectives is
elaborated in considerable detail (totalling about 500 objectives). However time constraints and
changes over the years mean that some topics have received only a cursory treatment.
 375

I should point out that a companion course, Educational Cybernetics, is compulsory for
magistral and doctoral students and has been offered by a colleague for nearly 20 years. It
emphasizes principles and applications of cybernetics in instruction and in organizational
development. We believe that these courses (along with a systemic-oriented course on
Philosophical Aspects of Ed.Tech. and doctoral tutorials on Beer's Viable System Modelling)
provide a solid core of cybernetic/systemic thinking for practitioners of educational technology.
In "Educational Systems Analysis" the student is expected to develop capability in:

1. Methods of system description and systems modeling using block flow diagrams and flow
graph theory;
2. Scientific and technological research methodology; (partly accomplished in another
course);
3. Understanding, formulating and using probability theory;
4. Evaluating parameters of a theoretical model from available data by statistical inference;
5. Understanding, setting up and solving problems of rational decisions using the theory of
games;
6. Understanding, formulating and using matrix methods to analyze system problems;
7. Understanding, formulating and using a Markovian Decision Model;
8. Setting up and solving the optimal assignment problem;
9. Setting up and solving linear programming problems;
10. Formulating and solving problems involving curvilinear or non-linear programming;
11. Setting up and solving dynamic programming problems;
13. Measurement and evaluation of educational systems;
14. Analyzing and controlling costs of educational technology projects and proposals;
15. Establishing policies for decoupling systems through inventory control models;
16. Describing and using management planning models;
17. Educational systems management;
18. Computer programming; (seldom included)
19. Constructing, using and interpreting simulation models; and
20. The student will begin to develop a cybernetic worldview in which static systems, dynamic
systems, purposeful or goal-seeking systems, self-organizing and conscious systems
evolve through an exceedingly complex series of mutually adaptive equilibrium responses.

Conclusion

Enormous problems must be so~ved if mankind as a whole is to share in the potential for human
com fort, achievement, culture and wellbeing now restricted to a tiny minority. To refurbish our
 376

ideas about how to implement mankind's educational aspirations we need to develop the
requisite theory and practice so that we can engage in comprehensive and simultaneous analysis
of the systems and metasystems involved. This calls for a shared vision, a new paradigm and a
reorganization of our own personal regulatory systems. This NATO workshop and book can
facilitate the process.

Acknowledgement: Portions of this research have been supported by the Quebec Ministere
de I'Education (FCAR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References

1. Beer, S. (1964) The Theory of Operational Research. The Cost Accountant, 42, (6), 198-
211
2. Beer, S. (1982) Man in a Garrulous Silence. Unpublished ms.
3. Beer, S. (1983) The Will of the People, J. of the Operational Research Society, 34, (8),
797-810
4. Beer, S. (1984) The cybernetics of selfuood. Plenary address to Seventh European
Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research, Vienna
5. Beer, S. (1985) Diagnosing the System for Organizations. New York: Wiley
6. McMurty, J.M. (1990) Education for Sale. CAUTBulletin, September, 11-15
7. Mitchell, P.D. (1971) The Professional Development of Educational Technologists. In:
V.D. Packham, A. Cleary and T. Mayes (ed.): Aspects of Technology. London: Pitman
8. Mitchell, P. D. (1972) Systemic Research for Educational Development. Kybernetes:
Internat. 1. of Cybernetics and Systems, I, 215-220.
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Educational Technology, 12,241-254
10. Mitchell, P. D. (1975b) The Discernible Educational Technologist', Programmed Learning
and Educational Technology, 12,306-325
11. Mitchell, P. D. (1978) Continuing Education. In: D. Unwin (ed.): Encyclopaedia of
Educational Media, Communications and Technology. London: Macmillan.
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Tutoring System, In Proceedings of Sixth Annual Conference on Interactive Instruction
Delivery .Warrenton, Va.: Society for Applied Learning Technology'
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Educational Communication, 18 (I), 3-28
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13. Powers, W. T. (1973) Behavior: The Control of Perception. New York: Aldine
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Group
20. Robinson, H. W. & D.E. Knight (1972) (ed.) Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence and
Biology. New York: Spartan
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Metasystems. Cambridge, Mass.: Abacus
 377

22. Warfield, J. N. (1985) Developing a Design Culture in Higher Education: Some Laws and
Principles of Design. In: Proceedings of the 1985 International Conference of the Society
for General Systems Research, Vol. II, pp. 725-729. Seaside, CA: Intersystems
Publications
23. White, 1. (1972) The Highest State of Consciousness, in Fields Within Fields...Within
Fields, 1972, S, (1), 67-73
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Instructional Planning in the Secondary School. New York: David McKay
Section 5 High Technology Focus in
Systems Design
Hypersystems: A Base for Specification of Computer-
Supported Self-Learning Social Systems

Kristo Ivanov

University of Umea, Institute of Information Processing, S-901 87 UMEA (Sweden).

Phone +46 90166030, Fax +46 90 166126, Email (Internet): kivanov@cs.umu.se
K. Ivanov

Abstract: This paper introduces some general features of the idea of hypersystem seen as a
general computer-technological implementation of the concept of a self-learning social system.
A hypersystem-base is presented in terms of a matrix that also suggests some necessary future
developments of preliminary attempts in terms of what has been called co-constructive systems.
Hypersystem computer support may be used in order to elicit, and keep track of the relations
between, various descriptive and normative (is-ought )system categories that relate to the views
of particular social actors, both groups and individuals. It is suggested that computer support
may be expanded in order to obtain a qualitative follow-up or evaluation of the system's
evolution in matrix terms. Some problems that come to mind in the context of the first
hypersystems implementations point at the need to follow more closely the original theoretical
categories or to reform them in order to prevent their possible misuse in practical situations.

Keywords: Hypermedia, social systems, computer application, constructivism, educational

technology, evolutionary systems.

1. Introduction: Information and Systems

Learning can be seen as a matter of organization of thought processes in terms of information

or, rather, inquiry [14]. Since the "categories" of Aristotle, development and use of information
systems in general has required often the use of some primitive concepts that also implicitly
structure and guide our thinking. While traditional logic spoke of, say, subject and predicate,
late formal approaches in the context of information systems, data bases, and programming
languages mention, for instance, "entity", "relationship", "object", "function", etc. In the
particular context of social information systems including administrative data processing,
several schools of thought have advanced different conceptions of which categories constitute
what might be called information, information systems, or, rather, inquiring-learning systems.
At the interlace between formal information systems and social inquiring systems appeared the
need to enhance the quality of information and of systems by supplementing the formal
categories with categories that deal with error and accuracy [41].
In any case, the disregard of proper categorial thinking in these contexts has apparently
resulted in a technological manipulative imagination that seems to be rather arbitrary and
 382

problematic, as evidenced in recent visions of the application of computer technology to the

educational field [68]. We shall initially see what types of categories were developed in order to
support inquiry and learning.

2. Hypersystems: Categories

Having started from the pragmatist conceptualization of teleological behavior in terms of

decision-maker, alternative actions, outcomes, and goals (valued outcomes) a particular theory
for design of inquiring systems or social systems theory developed a new set of primitive
concepts analog to "Kantian" categories of thinking. Systems structuring, with due
consideration of ends-means hierarchies in both the physical-artifact and the human-purposeful
dimension is there attained in terms of not only morphological-structural (physical) categories
that were implicit in most ideas of information about the physical world, but also in terms of
functional classes and teleological classes which take into consideration more complex
relations, including the human striving for goals and values. Problem solving processes are
there defined in terms of systems consisting of basic categories and sub-categories, sets and
subsets, labeled as 1) Client, (his) purpose, measure of performance, 2) Decision maker, (his)
components, resources & environment, 3) Planner, (his) implementation, guarantor, 4)
Systems philosopher, (his) enemies of the systems approach, significance [14, chap. 3; 15, pp.
79-80].
A hypersystem is a development of the idea of a system that produces information with
improving quality [41, chap. 4; 42, pp. 45ff]. There is obviously a danger in introducing
something which may tum into a new buzzword in a field which is already overcrowded with
such words. That it the reason why I would have preferred to stick to the well established
concepts of social system, computers, information, etc. that have been studied in the past thirty
years. The continuous introduction of new buzzwords like knowledge-based systems,
cooperative work, constructivism as opposed to constructionism etc. (see section number 6
below) seem to require paradoxically the reintroduction of a systems-related concept like
hypersystem in order to order and evaluate all those news from a historical point of view.
A hypersystem in the context of this paper is a learning system that tries to reach beyond
itself and beyond superficial conceptions of computer systems. Webster's gives for the prefix
"hyper-": over, above, beyond. As such the language for this conception is very simple and not
new, and it is reasonably protected from the charge of being a new buzzword. It is a computer
supported application that is built upon the architectural basis of a social system as spelled
above, striving to reach over, above, or beyond itself, i.e. attempting to learn. Constructing a
hypersystem implies that the software package is built upon the relationships that social systems
theory indicates between its primitives according to the system philosopher. It is initially stated,
 383

for example, that the clients are by definition the originators of the purposes, and that the
measure of performance is a measurable operationalization of these purposes. The clients are to
be represented by the decision maker who by definition is the formulator of purposes and, also
by definition, is provided or provides himself with the [for him] "changeable" resources or
artifacts that, operating under the [for him] unchangeable environment, according to a relational
or mathematical model co-produce the measure of performance relative to [the clients'] goals.
The planner or designer is by definition the one who, in his analysis and synthesis,
purposefully and normatively chooses the decision maker that fosters the clients that should
legitimately-ethically (according to a political or religious guarantor) be served by the system.
The core of the hypersystem idea, however, would be to elicit and to keep track, by means
of adequate "pointers" or links between simple or composite nodes, of the relationships
between instantiations of the primitives during the process of solution, or rather dynamic
continuous follow-up of the particular systems problem. There will be a conversation or
argumentation, but it will be mainly or initially about certain primitives, within a certain
structure, with particular functions or goals. Above all, the software will offer specific data-en-
try options to particular social actors as defined by the social systems theory, e.g. clients,
decision-makers, planners-designers, and systems philosophers or creators of methodologies.
The structuring and organization of the software will strive to involve, communicating and
tapping the judgements or opinions of, at least, certain particular social actors or role bearers
whose absence would hide the problems of power and of emotions, including ethics.
At our present stage of technological development it is convenient that the technical
implementation of such a computer application be built upon hypermedia [76] or variants of
"multimedia management", typical of recent educational technology and computer-based
training [7]. They may be seen as technical outgrowths of the hypertext idea from which the
hypersystem term itself might also have been derived [6; 20; 31; 49].
I have up to now outlined the hypersystem idea on the basis of the original social systems
categories as developed in dialectical systems theory: it obviously transcends the formal and
logical limits of so called object-oriented programming languages and methods for systems
development. Other later approaches in a close theoretical tradition propose somewhat different
sets of categories. Critical systems thinking - CST - [74] for instance groups twelve categories
in four classes, each class comprising three kinds of categories: social roles, role-specific
concerns, and key problems. The four classes correspond to the asking for the normative ought
of (1) the sources of motivation: client, purpose, measure of performance, (2) sources of
control: decision maker, components, environment, (3) sources of expertise: designer, ex-
pertise, guarantor, and (4) sources of legitimation: the affected people's witnesses, their
emancipation, and their world views-Weltanschauung.
Other categories that are closely related to the above have been proposed by the proponents
of soft systems methodology's (SSM). They are the so called CATWOE-categories [8]: (1)
 384

Customers, (2) Actors, (3) Transformation processes, (4) Weltanschauung, (5) Ownership of
the system, (6) Environment. At an apparent level of meta-systems it has also been suggested
that various paradigms of information systems development be described and interpreted in
terms of the categories: (1) Key actors (the "who" part of the story), (2) Narrative (the "what",
or the key activities), (3) Plot ("why" did the action take place, akin to causes and purposes),
(4) Assumptions (the fundamental beliefs or Weltanschauung, or epistemological-ontological
assumptions) [39]. Others again [30] wish to launch schemas with e.g. (1) Client, (2) Leader,
(3) Actor [subsystem-leader], (4) Designer, (5) Systems philosopher, and (6) Computer
application, which performs (7) Activities, with the help of (8) Resources.
Outside the tradition of pragmatist dialectical systems theory other primitive fundamental
concepts have been used at the interface between information and systems. This proliferation of
primitives adds to the overwhelming profusion, or even confusion, which derive from the fact
that authors very seldom justify their expansions of alternatives through reference to other
earlier attempts or to theories. One notable exception is the more elaborated and historically
grounded structure that has been suggested recently [59], akin to another recent attempt [36],
and in the tradition of rhetorical-hermeneutical "argumentation" close to the field oflaw [71;
73]. A relational structure according to which to analyze argumentation is proposed there in
terms of (1) Informer, (2) Actor -for responsible action induced by the informer, (3) People
affected -in the field of action, (4) Evidence -for the claim, (5) Warrant -for the evidence, (6)
Backing -for the warrant, (7) Claim -for the actor's action, and (8) Rebuttal or counterargu-
ment -of the claim, or of an earlier rebuttal.
Among late newcomers we have (1) Environment (in terms of situations, support, actors,
and types of task), (2) Systems (in terms of task flow, work contents, and information
objects), (3) Provocateur (analog to systems facilitator), (4) Context, (5) Model (related to the
environment), and (6) User [38, pp. 35, 46, 56, 75].
Several authors have liked to create their own variants of categories. Often they cannot
afford to ground their categorizations in basic considerations or historical controversies in
philosophy and in scientific method. The suggestions are "empirically" based, in the sense of
being based mainly on ad-hoc experiences and intuitions that are not motivated or reflected
upon. One point I want to make by mentioning this is that certain sets of systems categories
(notably Churchman's) establish demanding and commiting relations between categories,
fostering ethical disciplined thinking. So, for instance, one would not talk, as in SSM, about
the category of "environment" without a commitment about who is/ought to be the decision-
maker, and which are the clients' purposes. A similar problem is raised by the category
"computer application" that was proposed lately in the co-constructive approach, a category that
may mask the problematic concept of (mathematical-logical) computation [22, pp. 139ff]. It
may also mask the relationship between resources, environment, and other categories of model
building that is thus reduced to associative manipulation of hypermedia databases.
 385

A most common reason for proposing new sets of categories seems to have been the wish to
adapt language to one's own occasional subculture (often a computer-subculture at a particular
level of technology) and the wish for fmer distinctions within the category of decision makers.
In the original formulations even clerks, machine operators, workers and public servants could
be framed in the role of (sub)decision makers for their particular subsystems. The term
decision-maker itself, however, did not convey sufficiently - to the satisfaction of some - the
connotation of the power relations between teachers and students in an educational system or
between, say, executive managers, middle management, and workers in a manufacturing
system. Even if this is so, terminological reforms that are justified in this way can barely claim
to represent significant theoretical breakthroughs.

3. Hypersystems: Cooperation, Production and Progress

If we base our further argument, for the purposes of this essay, to the first set of categories
mentioned above, and disregard the various subsequent alternatives, we meet the question of
who will use and develop such categories. In practice, for the same explicit systems labeled like
"car sales support", "real estate brokerage support", "travel arrangements support", or "course
curriculum development support", different designers may choose different clients and decision
makers (as representatives of different clients). The degree of cooperativeness in work is
measured, ceteris paribus, by the degree to which we approach the ultimate ideal of the
democratically autonomous worker-manager, student-professor or, rather, the "unified
decision-maker, client, and designer" where the optimistic trilogy of production - science -
cooperation merges with the "heroic mood" [14, pp. 201-204, 254].
The who-question mentioned above can be appropriately discussed in the context of one of
the latest buzzwords that have been launched in the computer field: CSCW or computer-
supported cooperative work. Cooperation, if it is to be meaningful and ethical, presupposes
understanding, but there may be understanding without cooperation and understanding that
even precludes cooperation. Understanding can be appropriately seen as a kind of "teleological
tracking" in which the understander responds to the purposes of the one who is understood
[17, p. B85]. The degree of cooperation of A with B is then the extent to which A's activities
improve the effectiveness of B's activities relative to B's goals [9, pp. 246ff; 11, pp. 309ff.,
375f.; 13, p. 156]. Cooperation is thus seen to be asymmetrical: A may cooperate with B,
while B does not cooperate with A. This may be the case, for instance, when A loves
(unconditionally) B, or A is employed by B (partial cooperation towards part of B's goals), or
when B judges that A's goals are unethical.
The productive unification or dialectical cooperation may get simplified and reduced to
conversational interactive co-constructive negotiations and consensus. Negotiations searching
 386

for consensus, however, may be as much dangerous as superficial conceptions of democracy

based on majority opinion. The degree of meaningful cooperation depends upon the degree of
mutual understanding. A meaningful cooperation might therefore be enhanced by the claim that
the degree of cooperation or its conflictuality, including potential conflictuality, be expressed
and "advertised" explicitly for the purpose of self-control or self-development. At the limit,
such a degree of self-control may be idealized in mathematical or relational matrix terms [26;
41, pp. 4.34ff; 47, pp. 47ff].
At the conceptual level of the question as seen by the "systems philosopher" it is then
necessary to refine the systems definition by making more explicit the dependence of the whole
view upon the dialectics between the is-ought of the judgements and upon the identity of those
who enounce them. Table 1, developed on the basis of an early suggestion [42], illustrates this
attempt to a reflective system definition for the structuring of hypersystems. It must, however,
ultimately and legitimately also run into the paradox of recursivity or infinite self-reflexivity
concerning the who-question, i.e. the question of who is overviewing the table and its contents,
judging that a given cell of the table is what it is, etc. Instead of presupposing that this recursive
reflexivity will be solved uniquely by the intervention of some kind of democratic auditing
agency or goodwilled neutral mediator-facilitator employed by the leader, the table, seen as base
for hypersystem structures, is intended to foster reflection and controllability by evidencing the
complexity of the paradox.
Basically, this tentative table indicates that a hypersystem must consist of at least four or five
subsystems that "belong" to particular role-bearers in the sense that they are in control of the
questioning, collection, and possibly also of the structuring and use of the data describing the
system. For this purpose all inputs to the system by a particular human must be individualized
and identified with reference to his role. At least initially it is supposed that the structuring in the
content of each cell will be made along the definition of social system suggested above,
including decision-makers, clients, resources, environment, measure of performance,
subsystems, etc. The contents of the cells in the particular case of the table above show only my
tentative summarizing examples of descriptions and notes about their typical content, not the
content itself in a particular system-case. Furthermore, in the present exposition and context of
this paper they are limited to the is-mode, disregarding the ought which should also be
considered in a composite table.
The table has for the moment mainly an educational function and for this it is not necessary
to presume that it can be eventually computerized in a grand hypersystem. It is supposed to be
crudely self-explanatory and this may be satisfactory at this early stage of refinement. It should
be noted that columns and rows might be multiplied in order to accomodate several different
designers, decision-makers, etc. Row E and column 5 are not filled up since they are only used
as an illustration of the possib~e future expansion of the categories, e.g. with the category of
 387

Table 1
HYPERSYS1EM BASE
IS or
OUGHT 1) Designer's 2) Decision 3) Client's sys- 4) System phi- 5) Witness'
judgements: system maker's system tern losopher's sys- system? ..Etc.
column hea- tern
dings according
to row
headings
A) According Ex.:"I want to Ex.: "The ma- Ex.: "The hel- Ex.: "The phi- ...
to designer help the ex- nager does not pless clients losopher offers
ploited clients- appreciate the need and require me unpractical
workers or the power of my my influence unprofitable
helpless stu- models". on the unselling data-
dents" through Economic & manager". philosophy
my influence operational Economic and with the hope
on the mana- potential. ethical poten- of being able to
ger". Often be- Research: tial. Research: stimulate me".
lieved to be MODERATE HIGH (low- Research: LOW
same as cell (Research payed consul-
C3? grants & con- ting).
suIting).
B) According Ex.: "The de- Ex.: "I want toEx.: "Client- As above . ...
to decision signers do not create job op- students do not Alternative ex.:
maker think for profit portunities realize the "He tries to
and do not un- through pro- quality of my educate desig-
derstandmy fit". Often cor-
product". ners and long
problems". responding to Economic and term planners
Economic and operational political poten- but he is unrea-
political poten- system. tial. Research: listic"
tial. (Research MODERATE
grants & con- (marketing).
suIting). Strategic
OUGHT-rea-
lity.
C) According Ex.: "The de- Ex.: "The ma- Ex.: "I want Ex. "He tries to ...
to client signer wants to nagerlooks necessary goods help me to un-
play with high- only for more at minimum derstand why
tech gadgets" profit". IS- costs". present systems
"Reality". Economic and designers do
Political poten- political poten- not meet my
tial and risks tial. Research: needs, but he is
(Revolt). MODERATE. politically
(Grass-root) .. weak"
D) According Ex.: "The hel- Ex.: "The ma- Ex. "The client Ex.:" I am the ...
to systems phi- pless designer nager does not wants to par- only one who
losopher needs my met- realize that ticipate in de- thinks about
hods". Research short sighted- sign, but is put long-run im-
HIGH andcf. ness jeopardi- off by techno- plications and
cell A4. Field zes longrun logy". deep causes of
for OUGHT. profits". Research: information
Research: HIGH technology"
LOW. (pragmatism).
Field for
OUGHT.
E) According ... ... ... ... ...
to witness?
..Etc.
 388

"witness" (as suggested by Werner Ulrich). Cell E2 could be seen as an approach to

externalization of systems ethics, etc. In today's systems design practice, however, the whole
table usually "collapses" into the cell Al or A2 (the "functionalist" approach) or A3 (the
"partisan" approach).
In the hypersystems perspective of the table above, the qualitative degree of progressive
productive cooperation [14, pp. 201-204] will be represented by the degree to which the is and
the ought of the various cells in the table describe the system in the same or synonymous
categories and terms. Even within each cell it may be a question of several designers, decision-
makers (including subdecision-makers like workers and supervisors), etc., who may reach a
certain degree of consensus in the context of maximum possible disagreement, even within their
own category. In order to foster such a consensus in the context of the strongest possible
disagreement it would be required to gain a better understanding of the contents of, and of the
relations between the contents of the various cells. As indicated in the table, only a few of the
cells seem to have been the object of research.

4. Examples of Possible Implementations

4.1 . An Example

The term hypersystem encompasses various kinds of attempts to develop computer support of
social systems thinking. A first crude example of hypersystems implementation is the attempt to
apply some of the categorial systems thinking to design of computer support within the frame
of so called co-constructive computer applications [30]. It should be clear that one main feature
that differentiates the co-constructive approach from any other of the mushrooming freely
manipulative applications of hypermedia technology is, of course, its reliance, to some degree,
on the hypersystems categorial base that was presented above.
A recent paper in this co-constructive spirit [34] outlines LIVEBETTER, a prototype
implemented in HyperCard on behalf of local government with the purpose of helping a city
population to exchange apartments. The paper describes the prototype idea in the following
way. You can get an overview of what is available. There are maps to show where in the city
the house is situated, and there is information about the area in terms of available shops, public
service, recreation possibilities, etc. But the point is that you can do other things as well. For
instance (1) Help: if you by chance are not able to interact with the computer, but still want to
make an advertisement, you can get in touch with an actor (operator or subsystem leader) only
by clicking on a hypercard button, (2) Alternatives: "If I don't find anything today, when and
how can I find it?" The system can guide you through the municipal county plans for building
new housing areas, where and when they will be built, what they wi1llook like, the foreseen
 389

level of rents, etc. (3) Intelligent searching: A possibility to let the computer search the database
for a flat that meets all or at least some of your requirements, (4) Mailbox functions: They allow
you to write a note to other clients of the system or to the agency which is running the system.
The note can be e.g. "I have no flat, but 1 have a car for sale ... " but unfortunately it may also
degenerate in "grafiui".
The functions that were mentioned are said in the report to correspond to the point of view of
client of the system, but there are also other roles envisaged for participation in the
"conversation", for instance leader or sub-leaders (actors or systems operators), systems
engineer, experts of various kinds, designer, etc. The actor or mediator of apartment-exchange,
however, is seen as the most important role at the stage of prototype development portrayed in
the paper. He is said to be the guarantor who counteracts violations of the system's (leader's)
intentions through grafitti or downright unethical use. He is supposed to be independent from
any authority'S rule-machinery and he works rather like a mediator of public communications
enhancing quality of work, etc.
The example of ongoing work was chosen above for illustrating the typical spirit in which
co-constructiveness has been adduced in practice lately. In particular it illustrates that it is not
clear to which degree it incorporates the fundamental ambition of following categorial thinking.
There are earlier reports that are pedagogically more ambitious in some details [31]. In any case
it should be clear that the co-constructive hypersystem prototype draws upon some of the
categorial thinking that was adduced in the previous section. It has not yet incorporated,
however, the relational aspects of the categories and some sensitive aspects of the political who-
question that motivate our further discussion below.

4.2. Co-Constructive systems

At this point it is convenient to observe that a co-constructive system, seen as a particular

implementation of (computer-technological) hypersystems, addresses the questions of some
among the above cells. The co-constructive version of the hypersystems idea strives to reach
beyond the simplest cells, A1-A3, of the hypersystems base. These cells represent the ftrst idea
which comes to the mind when imagining a computer support of the social systems theory. It is
the idea of registering and displaying upon request, or perhaps using operationally, the contents
of the main categories for a particular system according to a particular designer or group of
designers. So, a designer or a so called user could feed in, and retrieve from, a database what
he himself or other like-minded designers think that the clients, decision-makers, etc. of the
system under consideration are, and ought to be. According to one of the main points of the
hypersystem idea, the quality of the systems design or of the information it produces, as well as
its implementability, would be directly proportional to the degree of consensus between
designers, chosen for maximum disagreement, concerning both the is and the ought of the
 390

categories. The philosophy of the AI-cell could easily be expanded beyond the very same cell
Al by imagining that the designers appoint some decision-makers and some clients as "adjunct-
designers" with the right and responsibility to feed their own systems descriptions into the data
base. Beyond the stage of mere design, when it is a question of redesigning a system that is
already operational, it is obvious that only one particular authorized description will be allowed
by the power elite until a subsequent negotiation enables an operational updating. If such
negotiations are not conceived within the frame of hypersystems they may become the object of
other particular computer applications [55; 56]
In the co-constructive approach the designer is supposed to encourage the main decision-
makers to allow that some of the clients' (and the other social role bearers' like the designers
themselves) questions, opinions and systems descriptions be stored in the data base, or
communicated through. The purpose is to provide "historical" documentation and stimuli that
foster insights and future negotiations for the evolution of the system. The purpose of the
systems, therefore, includes paradoxically also the development of "its own" purposes which,
of course, will also be certain people's purposes. In fact, the system may also encourage, as
long as the encouragement is supported or tolerated, that clients exert political pressure on their
representatives or decision makers with the purpose that they satisfy e.g. the clients' wants,
including redesigns of the support system.
In this way, while incurring the risk of evading, masking or postponing many of the political
as well as ethical problems of participative systems development [25; 32], the co-constructive
approach at least in an experimental or university set-up may work for some people like a
"motorcycle" in the tradition of "Zen and the art of motorcyle maintenance", stimulating interest
for the relation between technology and philosophy [63]. The approach may in the future
develop and manage to cover well several of the cells in the table above, mainly cells A2 and
A3, and possibly also B 1 to B3. It seems to be a fortunate coincidence that some of these cells
apparently happen to promise some economic pay-off from the point of view of the decision-
maker, the entrance ticket to most "praxis".
In any case, the hypersystem base presented in this paper may support co-constructive and
other particular hypersystem implementations at least in the self-critical sense of exposing some
of their limits or challenging their self-critical and self learning potential. As a matter of fact
some primitive embryonic-prototypal attempts to apply the hypersystem idea in a
communicative - cooperative - coconstructive mode may come dangerously near what has been
called the strategy of "efficiency" in the sense of cost-minimization [13, chap. 2] or, in the best
case, "Leibnizian" network-systems [14]. This may be the case, for example, for systems that
without any apparent regard for e.g. economic theorizing, free competition versus power and
oligopoly, etc. [3], aim at simulating a free market of information. It is the market which is
supposed to increase the degree of utilization of apparently idle resources or, as in the case of
 391

computer-supported communal brokerage systems mentioned above, for helping the public in a
city to exchange their dwellings.

4.3. Advanced Hypersystems Applications

I will offer below for the purpose of brevity within the restricted space available in this paper,
by means of a couple of examples, only a hint of which features could characterize an advanced
hypersystems application.
At a technical level it is clear that the hypersystems implementation of systems thinking may
also imply the establishment of a paradoxically necessary "discipline" [37, p. 235] or the
"imposition" of particular structures, routines and tests to those who want to use the liberating
potential of the available computer network. This disciplinary structure is represented by the
hypersystems base presented above that in itself is a rough first specification of a more en-
compassing computer application. In contrast to the preliminary co-constructive prototypes that
have been developed up to now the hypersystem base as it was presented here suggests
emphasis on relations between categories.
If, for instance, a particular computer operator (who inputs data) has entered some data
about the resources of the system, the computer program may request a confirmation of the
identity and role of the operator, and of the identity and goals of the decision-maker to which
these resources refer (the resources are by definition controlled by a particular decision-maker
in order to contribute to a goal). The program may also request data on the environment which
is the correlate of the resources. If this environment is specified on a later occasion in the
context of a specific follow-up, the program may request a confirmation that it refers to the
same decision-maker. It is, in fact, theoretically meaningless to match or correlate resources and
environment that refer to different non-unified decision-makers. And, still, the correlation is
fundamentally important and necessary, since it represents by definition activities (including
computer applications) of the (sub-) decision-makers. One thing that differentiates design or
negotiation from operation is that the operational systems description has got certain
consensually determined resources for the attainement of palticular goals.
In a similar vein, whenever the identity of a particular decision-maker is given to the
program and its associate databases, an automatic request may be sent to all the registered
clients, and to those who later enter the system in their quality of clients, requesting their
"anonymous" confirmation that they accept the legitimacy and representativeness of the
particular decision-maker. (Obviously that would be politically extremely sensitive and it
illustrates one kernel of basic difficulties.) The program would later perform with that type of
data appropriate statistical computations with results which can be displayed in visual graphical
form as a basis for decisions. Anonymity was put above within quotation marks in order to
remind us that what is anonymous for computer users will not be so for those employees at the
 392

service of the decision-maker who deal with the operating system of the computer network.
This puts into evidence some of the power aspects that may inhibit the implementation of
hypersystems [45, pp. 43-52; 46].
I hope to be able to return to examples of detailed features of hypersystems implementations
in another paper. In the present context I would like to finalize by stating that it is an important
future area of research to investigate how technical specifications could meet "ethical
specifications" to the extent that the latter can be "operationalized" at all. It is, for instance,
possible to conceive of a computer program that not only works along the regular Kantian
categories of systems defmitions, but also counters every fundamental proposal for action in an
"activity system" with the Kantian question of whether one would like to see the maxim of his
action enpowered to become an universal law. Or rather: "Would you act as if the maxim of
your proposed action had to be erected by your will to a universal law of nature (understood in
its broadest sense of "form")?"
Referring these suggested types of hypersystem manipulation to the table for the
hypersystem-base displayed above puts into evidence the complexity of the required network of
systems concepts. This is not to say that initial prototypes or embryos must necessarily exploit
the whole range of requirements, even if it may prove to be necessary to put some minimum
requirements for what deserves to be called meaningfully a hypersystem. It is rather envisaged
that each particular implementation should and could spell out clearly its limitations or
assumptions in terms of the suggested base. In order to make this possible it will be necessary
to expand and structure the technical features above in a more orderly manner. Such a
"specification" contradicts the possible impression that a hypersystem might legitimately be
reduced to an undefiniable embryonic organism or unstructured formless "essence" which may
grow but cannot or does not need to be formulated in advance.

5. Some Problems or Challenges

5.1. Ideals, Claims and Disclaimers

The remarks in the previous section concerning features of hypersystems implementations

introduce the matter of problems and challenges that particular implementations of the
hypersystem base - e.g. co-constructive systems - may meet. It is the recognition of these
coming challenges and openness to criticism that stand at the heart of my confidence in the
potentialities of such implementations. It is dangerous if matters are mainly the object of belief:
"for where there is belief there is doubt, and the fiercer and naiver the belief the more
devastating the doubt once it begins to dawn" [52, CW 11, 294 & 170]. And belief - for
 393

instance in pragmatist systems theory or in democratic constructiveness - is probably lurking

wherever earlier naive belief in scientism has been relativized.
Some preliminary objections that were made to the co-constructive approach during its
original formulation have been catalogued in the literature [30, pp. 167-173, also p. 84fJ. Such
catalog was structured in terms of: (1) Powerful vs. powerless, (2) Sincere vs. unsincere, or
honest vs. dishonest, and (3) Thinking vs. feeling. Such a catalog can be useful but it is far
from being a research program about the politics, ethics, and psychology, of systems theory,
i.e. about the most important challenges of hypersystem applications. It is a catalog that may
unintendendly reduce these dimensions to a narrow conception of "ideals", ideals that would be
an oversimplification of the original issues of value-measurement [10; 11, p. 174ff; 14, p.
189ft].
An oversimplification of the concept of ideals would bypass fundamental questions such as
what obstacles does reality, and the "form" of the human mind offer to human desire [69, p.
50]. It may be true that science's characteristic ends are ideals in the sense that they are
unattainable but presumedly indefinitely approachable. Even disregarding the embarassing fact
that social computer constructiveness often does not measure its presumed gradually increasing
approach to ideals, it is, however, easily forgotten that the "advantage" of pursuing the ideal of
science (or of scientific constructiveness) is that as a consequence we at the same time
presumedly pursue all our other ends more efficiently [9, p. 189ff; 11, p. 374fJ. How do we
know that this is the case? "The selection of ideals lies at the core of interactive planning", but I
think that it is dubious to believe that "consensus arises in idealized design because it focuses
on ultimate values" [2, pp. 105, 118]. I think that we are not really dealing with ultimate
values, for instance as religions and political-ethical systems try to formulate them in the course
of attempting to make them more concrete.We are, rather, dealing with more frivolous things
that are akin to the once famous and controversial "social indicators" [5].
The recognition of the nature of ideals as related to ethics is not an abstract "philosophical"
question that can be barely understood by systems practitioners. I think that, even if it is not a
selling issue, it has a very concrete and practical expression. It has, in fact, been observed that
disclaimers once offered or pitfalls once mentioned may receive little further attention during the
analysis of systems. The analysis may be carried out with apparent disregard for them. "The
same expert who modestly admits that the technique can be applied beneficially to only certain,
circumscribed types of systems nonetheless plies his trade vigorously and profitably wherever
there is a likelihood of contracts. At worst, the analyst who points out pitfalls is trapped by
them; at best, he fails to bridge them to a professionally satisfying degree. Having done them
lip service, he proceeds as though they had somehow been overcome." [40, p. 8f.].
Further reflections on co-constructive prototypes from the perspective of the hypersystems-
base suggest that, regardless the degree of modesty of their claims, some important potential
problems can be exemplified by the following.
 394

5 .2. The Power of Pragmatism

Particular hypersystems that work with only one or a few of the cells of the hypersystems base
may display the apparent convincing proselitising "power" which is inherent of every
simplification. They have also the power halo of both pragmatism and computer technology in
their alliance with the moneys of industrial capitalism. They may display this power in the sense
that they seem to be "applicable" and to yield unexpected insights into widely different areas of
vaguely described activities. This matter deserves an appreciation of the problems of
philosophical pragmatism, especially in its close historical connections with positivism and
utilitarianism. I intend to cover some of these questions in another context. For the time being I
refer the reader to a recent work [37, pp. 226ffJ which considers some of the problematic
aspects of the pragmatism that stands at the base of the "empirical idealism" from which our
social systems theory evolved.
In any case pragmatism allied to hypermedia computer technology can be predicted to have a
fortunate career ahead, mainly in "rhetorical" functions in the advertising and educational field,
and in developing countries (including now the liberalized Eastern Europe) which are thirsting
for cheap, generally applicable, a-political, human-sized, user-friendly and "powerful" Western
technology.
While I am writing these lines I happen to glance at the call for papers to a conference on
systems thinking. Papers are invited for the following streams: problem structuring, systems
and operations research, systems and the social sciences, information systems, choice of
methodology, use of particular methodologies, project management, applications of systems
thinking, etc. I realize with a certain uneasiness that a presentation of hypersystem-
coconstructive prototypes could fit in almost all the streams, not to mention other conference
subjects like expert systems, decision support systems, computer supported cooperative work,
teleconferencing, human-computer interaction, hypermedia, educational technology, computer-
aided learning, etc.
It occurs to me that what we may be witnessing is the universal appeal of the computer
systems buzzwords. But we may also be witnessing the convincing power of certain kinds of
pragmatic doing which overlaps with technological doing and is related to the emphasis on non-
systemic efficiency or cost-minimization that was mentioned above. It may relate also to the
kind of expertness which is based on superficial isomorphisms, polemically criticized for being
nothing more than tired truisms about the the universal applicability of formal structures: "Thus,
2+2=4 prevails whether chicks, cheese, soap, or the solar system are under consideration" [40,
p. 40, 66f, 93, 113]. As a substitute of the earlier applied mathematics and logic of operations
research we have now hypermedia-like associationistic formal structures [31]. Indeed, they
recall much more old psychological associationism than they recall formal sciences like
mathematics and logic, an issue to which I intend to return in a future paper. In any case there is
apparently no need of theoretical concern with history and tradition beyond the possible
 395

wholesale subscription to a philosophy of democratic-communicative strategy that in many si-

tuations may work as an alibi.
More than ten years ago a university lecturer colleague of mine warned me by claiming that
our teaching of social systems theory at the undergraduate level could equip our students with a
vocabulary and an alibi for disguising the superficiality of their work vis-A-vis unsophisticated
clients. Pragmatic technological power may, in fact, obfuscate the inherent difficulties in
particular areas of applications that are highly dependent upon, say, cultural dimensions or
deeper aspects of democracy and science. The disregard of "soft" complexities may enhance an
appearance of efficiency and a feeling of intellectual power. The sudden impact of a "Faustian"
soaring feeling of intellectual power on practical minds that never before had been in contact
with philosophical thought and its ambiguities may in any case contribute to explaining why
some pragmatist consultants may have given occasionally the impression of having an "arrogant
and stubborn" attitude [16, p. 126]. It has been furthermore noted that fanaticism or violent
reactions to criticism, which often appear in the collective coalitional form of "we" versus
"they", is found in those who have to stifle a secret doubt [52, CW 8, 582].
From apparently "classical-trivial" areas of computer application, such as operations analysis
or sheer programming for inventory control, accounts receivable, or payroll, the designer feels
tempted to pass over to computer support of banking operations, industry sales or services, and
further to the support of university activities such as planning and evaluation of academic
education, psychotherapy, or support of social services delivered by government agencies [23;
50]. As in vulgar Marxism where everything, from manufacturing industries over to marriage
and further to the Church, may seem to be explainable by its reduction to the social classes of
work and capital, so in popular pragmatist systems thinking everything may seem to be
reducible to clients or stakeholders, designers or facilitators, products or services that are
equated with goals, and, further, with ideals, etc. And the meaning of ideals can get diluted
through emphasis on profitable stakeholders, even if profitability is understood in less narrow
political terms. One problematic element in these unwarranted transitions from desires to goals
to ideals and, further, to political stakeholders would be the taken for granted validity or
fruitfulness of the (often incomplete) pragmatic concepts and systems categories, including their
presumed self-evolutionary potential.

5.3. The Use of Categories

Even if we take for granted the universal validity of system categories, they may not be
necessarily applied carefully, in the same sense in which they were developed and defined.
Categories may get renamed or multiplied at will. The connection to original developments may
appear to be pedantic and academically "philosophical", barring the way to the rhetorics of
common language that is required for smooth consultancy.
 396

In particular, the category of goals and measure of performance can get divorced from the
categories of resources and environment which would require an explicit statement of
relationship to the identity of the decision-maker and his legitimacy with respect to the clients.
Resources may get reduced to information resources such as files or databases which are, then,
relationally cross-referenced for brokerage and for matching demand and supply in the spirit of
traditional micro- and macroeconomics. Statement of goals and ideals may get bypassed
through crude computer simulations of "markets" of demand and supply, e.g. database
matchings of clients' offers and needs. In practical work the so called ideals may get equated to
whatever desires or lusts or interests the clients happen to express. Ideals get closer to the
wishes or goals that clients would have if there were no practical, economic, technical, or social
limitations. In such a way the whole problematic area of moral or value philosophy is bypassed
[27, "valore", pp. 964f; 28, "value. and valuation"]. What about ethical limitations? The goals
transformed into ideals may be then claimed to constitute the bridge over to ethics which is then
understood as politics of conflicts of interests and further reduced to ad-hoc organizational
negotiation about wishes or wills. In this way the possible need of confrontation between
designer and decision-maker in the light of the is-ought dilemma - which usually is far from
obvious at the prototype stage of systems development - will be relegated to the ensuing
negotiations among clients and between clients and decision-makers.
The social learning situation will then be conceptualized as constructing the hypermedia in a
way that lets people enter in different, explicitly defined but changeable roles. One may refer
further to the need of reducing doubts about role influences, power etc., and to the need to keep
creative conflict going on, to keep the conflict constructive but not explosive, etc. That may
work as a shorthand expression of the complex idea of democracy. But: what would sociolo-
gists.and political scientists, even those of the less conventional or reactionary type, say about
this list of wishful thinking that matches the good willed prestige words of the democratic
utopia? Even granting the fruitfulness of the questionable concept of role, how and why does
one reduce doubts about role influences, and how does one enhance changeability of roles, not
to say redistribution of power? Is there anything more or less unconsciously "given" as a
presupposition for the process or is everything flexible fluid "flux" to be constructed on the
basis of nothing but earlier flux? Why should the answers to these questions be left over until
later on, be always postponed until after the consultant-facilitator's expensive implementations
of new fashionable technologies?

5.4. Sweeping-In or Unfolding?

The matter is further complicated by the risk of ignoring the relationships between environment
and resources in face of decision makers and goals. The learning process relies on the
pragmatist "sweep-in" or, rather, "unfolding" process [75]. One basic prerequisite of such
 397

process dealing with so-called boundary judgements is the consideration of environment as re-
lated to different social actors, and this is what is hindered by the neglect of relations between
categories. Sweeping in ever more aspects of the problem context in an effort to be
comprehensive clearly begs the problem of boundary judgements, and there is a mistaken belief
that an "open systems approach", by sweeping in environmental aspects into a decision maker's
considerations, must be more conducive to socially rational decision making than are small and
closed systems models. "The unfolding process can take place in a "monological" (self-
reflective) or in a "dialogical" (discursive) setting; in both cases the value of the process
depends on the extent to which the true concerns of all the stakeholders, especially of those not
involved but possibly affected by the decision in question, are considered by those
involved ...What we need is a heuristic tool for tracing the inevitable lack of comprehensiveness
in our maps of, and designs for, social reality" (ibid., pp. 419, 42lf).
I agree with this main idea in spite of its diverging from the hypersystem base presented
above, specifically with respect to the rather unproblematic assumption of the is-map of the
"true" concerns of the stakeholders, and its flexibility. I think, however, that the hypersystem
base takes well care of the need for a "heuristic tool" by embodying one such tool in the form of
the concept of "measurable error" i.e. consensus as a function of meaningful conflicts of opi-
nion [41, chap.4-5; 45, pp. 46ff]. This is akin to certain features of recent research on
"minority influence" [18, p. 406]. It is not a question of having "as many as possible"
dialogically active clients or whatever, and to make statistics or communication or negotiation
out of their opinions. It is rather a question of who, which clients, are going to deal with what,
and how are they going to do it, on the basis of what un discussed presuppositions, past
experiences and historical ideals of ethics. This is probably a sensitive issue to the extent that it
covers the problem of tradition, including political and religious stability, versus change as
envisaged in the concept of constructive learning systems. The question is what ought to be
considered, or to be constructed, as environmental changes or news. Many malconstructed
changes or news unfortunately are supposed to require that we counteract them by
corresponding counter-change activities. These counter-changes, however, dissipate our
attention and our energies, and the cost is that more important "old news" remain unattended.
This is certainly an important question for many of us who are supposed to keep up learning
about getting flexible with respect to constructed technological news, constructed environmental
changes, and constructed negotiations while other difficult "old" problems do not get the
attention they deserve [48]. And now, we have got the news of hypermedia.
 398

5.5. Evaluations: Truth or Usefulness?

The vagueness of ideals and their associated measurement scales which do not integrate conflict
of interests, and are themselves continuously submitted to a self-evolutionary process, may tuin
any systematic evaluation into a purely practical political task.
Consider the following example of the latest research funding policies of a Swedish agency.
The agency may contribute with half of the grant which is needed by the project if the project
leader finds an industrial company or organization that is willing to finance the other half.
Considering that granting chief executives. officials or employees will probably be unwilling to
acknowledge their own possible failures, the evaluative process will to a high degree tum into a
pure matter of practical politics of personal relations, a dubious extreme opposite to dubious
traditional positivistic evaluations, and a phenomenon that was noted long ago in the critical
systems literature [40, p. 6, 66, 108ff, 12lf, 243ff; 62, p.90f].
In this way the moratorium on objectivity, reality and truth (but, symptomatically enough,
not on usefulness) proposed by some representatives of second-order cybernetics [70, referring
to some of them], may become a problematic double-edged guarantee of the job-security of
university-based consultants. They are in fact already institutionally protected by the state
government from an economic bankruptcy, which would be seen on the free market as a result
of a test of the usefulness of their consultancy. In the future there is the risk that they won't get
evaluated in terms of any presumedly obsolete concept of truth either. Welcomed as it may be
by different parties for lowering the visible costs of all involved institutions, it may also
represent a concrete example of "the higher capitalism" [58] of modem universities and
educationalleaming systems, a dubious alternative to conventional capitalism and to the so
called ivory-tower academicism of yesterday. The point I want to make is that the concept of
truth is extremely important and it has been a sore point in the apprehensions about possible
misuses of pragmatism: "The drawing of a distinction between truth and falsehood belongs to
the very essence of thinking" [19, p. 120). We should therefore prevent that truth - or the
concept of measurable error - be banished and replaced by value that is reduced to consensual
usefulness, at the interface between pragmatism and negotiated democratic utilitarianism.

5.6. Sincerity: Morality or Moralism, Privacy or Openness?

Although the concept of truth is considered to be outdated in some contexts of pragmatist

consulting science, social actors - particularly clients operating the input of data into the system
- may get admonished that they ought to be open, cooperative or "sincere" in their data entry.
Since sincerity will probably be understood as fidelity in reproducing or depicting the social
actors' "true" opinions, observations, feelings, etc., we run into the paradox of finding that
constructivism at the socio-psychological and political level of data-entry may be misunderstood
and envisaged in oversimplified positivistic and moralistic terms. Future constructive
 399

applications must be able to work not only in routine commonplace matters, since "in
commonplace matters all moral schools agree" but "it is only in the lonely emergencies of life
that our creed is tested" [51, p. 105].
If the determination of responsibilities is going to get a chance, at the practical level of
computer applications the hypersystem base requires that the process of data entry of categorial
data be linked to an identification of the subject-actor, not only in terms of attribution to the
categorial groups or classes of social actors (designer, decision-maker, client, etc.) but also in
terms of personal identification or individuation. It is obvious that outside the artificial world of
prototypes it is of primary importance that the systems client has not same manipulating
privileges for changing the computer support software as, say, the designer who is by
definition enpowered by the main decision-maker. As an extreme example, the set of resources,
or the "computer application" of an embezzler of payroll or, more generally, of a dissident
designer, will be certainly different from the computer application of the legitimate designer,
and it certainly might include a part of the operating system of the computer.
This introduces us, of course, to the daunting paradoxes of "openness" including sincerity,
and to political-ethical matters of privacy and personal integrity [45, p.52, 81]. They impose
paradoxical limitations to the inherent potential of hypersystems co-constructiveness. There are
already studies available which indicate that institutions and their managers may not welcome
truths and systems in the context of sensitive or politically loaded negotiations [13, pp. 92f; 21;
32; 33; 43; 44; 53; 66]. This seems to be the most serious menace to the implementation of
constructiveness. The ultimate question is whether our education and research should be
dedicated to matters in which it competes with commercial consultants, and whether such
activities can evolve into a later research phase which faces (the clients', the designers', the
decision-makers') lonely emergencies of life.

5.7. The Economics and Politics of Data Entry

This last issue of data-entry introduces us also to the economics of the technology of data entry
[14, pp. 79ff]. At the embryonic prototype stage of a system it may be easy to motivate, or at
least pay, people or students, in order to make them enter in a playful mode some data,
answers, opinions, and so on which are required for illustrating the principles of operation of
the system, suspending judgements about the ultimate value and quality of the entered data. At
this stage it may also be hoped easily that in a multimedia learning environment the
disadvantaged client will be able to get in touch with a serving employee of a commercial firm
or a government official by simply clicking a hypercard button or by sending an electronic mail
message.
During full scale "live" (co)operation or (co)construction, however, it is a tough issue to
determine and enforce who will motivate or pay for the data entry operations (not to speak of
 400

the data use operations) b~yond those which are politically considered to be an absolute
operational necessity [61]. Stakeholders operating the computer may indeed be willing to spend
their own time "for fun" or "for hope", entering data which may be used by themselves and by
future unknown decision makers in unknown contexts. There is still, however, the question of
who will be willing to pay, if not for the operators' time, at least for the equipment that is used
up and for the non-glamorous updating or quality control of the pertinent data bases. If data
entry is motivated by the expectations of getting an immediate own profit or advantage, then it
is not anymore a question of ethical cooperation and solidarity.
"It is a common habit of mind to accept reality as something fixed, out there, that we can
question in various ways by means of our senses aided by instruments" [12, p. 160]. What
now happens is that we risk to consider the people out there as the reality to be interacted,
questioned or pooled by means of computer instruments, forgetting that among other things
"some knowledge of the emotional life of every observer must be understood to make sure that
the observer's world is separable from this other world" (ibid. p. 189). Defective knowledge
about this emotional life, and therefore also political-ethical life, may easily jeopardize the
whole process of data entry which stands as the heart of constructiveness with its postulated
constructive observer-facilitator.

6. Other Directions for Educational Systems Design

What I attempted above is to intensify and sharpen in a "Singerian-heroic" mode the dialectics
between realism and idealism in the design of educational computer support. On the one hand
"The idealist is a restless fellow who sees evil in complacency; he regards the realist as a
hypocrite at times because his realism is unrealistic. The realist, on the other hand, accuses the
idealist of being impractical, because his insistence on destroying the value of the present way
of life precludes positive action" [12, pp. 171-197; 14, pp. 199,249-257]. In the context of
sensed destructivity it may be noted that people who happen mainly to believe - in religion,
science, democracy, constructiveness, communication (in the etymological sense of the word),
networking, or whatever - continually expose themselves to their worst enemy: doubt.
"Wherever belief reigns, doubt lurks in the background [52, CW 11, 170].
So much can be said at the present time regarding the menace of destructiveness when
focusing on the relationship between conventional methods for systems development (whatever
such conventionalism may mean in the context of, say, databases and expert systems),
hypersystems, and co-constructive prototypes. The issue at stake may very well tum out to be a
catastrophic computer-supported relativization of truth in terms of communicated and negotiated
"attitudes" that are akin to the concept of perspectives, a rejection of what has also been called
"absolute presuppositions", and an "eradication of metaphysics from the European mind" under
the dubious flag of the Kantian war against "dogma" [19, pp. 33, 46-48, 120, 159, 249]. "If
 401

the ancients had not done a bit of thinking we would not possess any dogma about Trinity at
all. The fact that a dogma is on the one hand believed and on the other hand is an object of
thought is proof of its vitality. Therefore let the believer rejoice that others, too, seek to climb
the mountain on whose peak he sits". [52, ibid.].
Alternative systems approaches based on alternative categories were already suggested above
in the context of alternatives to the hypersystems categories. I will finally attempt to round up
this discussion by acknowledging a couple of alternative approaches to educational technology
which do not mention explicitly categorial thinking. Constructiveness, constructivity,
constructionism, and perhaps some other similar words are becoming lately prestige words, not
the least in the context of computer aided education, computer supported cooperative work, etc.
This is happening as conditioned by the availability of computer networks and hypermedia
technology twenty years after the skillful revival of "archetypal" cooperative co-
constructiveness in the context of Hegelian and Singerian inquiring systems [14], and their
practical implementations [2, pp. 116ff]. Recent system approaches to educational technology
carry on this tradition in a more or less theoretically "faithful" way [4].
Today we may contemplate old wine in new (better?) bottles, as the term constructivism, for
instance, is used to indicate that knowledge is built by the learner, instead of been supplied by
the teacher, while constructionism is seen as expressing further the idea that this is enhanced
when the learner is engaged in the construction of something external or at least shareable:
"Better learning will not come from finding better ways for the teacher to instruct but from
giving the learner better opportunities to construct" [1, p. 4]. In this context are adduced
concepts such as rich learning environments, information rich environments, rich environments
that encourage a plurality of learning styles, rich contexts, dynamics of human transactions, etc.
"By giving children opportunity to switch roles from building artificial devices (being
engineers) to observing their behaviors as outsiders (being psychologists) we enable ourselves
to access their thinking" (ibid., p.5).
Personally I am skeptical of of some versions of the constructivistic or constructionistic
"turn" in our theorizing. From what I have learnt up to now I am prone to agree with the critics
of Maturana - a main exponent of cybernetic constructivism - in the observation that his kind of
message seemingly fascinates the audience by means of the metaphorical-rhetorical form of a
system of thought that appears so comprehensive and coherent.

"We have participated in two of Maturana's seminars. They were great performances.
To use his own words, they were 'acts of seduction'. To us, as for others in the
audience, they were a 'kick', yet intellectually and personally frustrating afterwards....
European post-modernism, which has developed into the anti-message of the intellectual
avant-garde of the 1980's also hails the staging of the self and seduction as a rhetorical
strategy. There are no universal criteria of truth. While the modernists declared God to
 402

be dead, the post-modernists declare Reason even more dead. As anyone can see, there
are many points of similarity between American cybernetic constructivism and European
post-modernism. They are not identical, however. American cybernetic constructivism
is found largely in academia, whereas European postmodernism is such more of a
general cultural phenomenon. To put it plainly, constructivism in its cultural practical
guise" [64].

I myself would in that case have preferred a honest outright commitment to F. Nietzsche's
philosophy or, earlier, to the playful organic and constructive skepticism of the famous
encyclopedist - "data-base designer" - D. Diderot.
Another version of constructionist learning [60] seems to have some points in common with
the co-constructive approach presented above, with the important difference that it builds upon
an explicit historical psychological base, of Piagetian development psychology. In this
particular respect of taking up seriously psychological theorizing it resembles those attempts
that are being made in order to develop computer interactivity on the basis of so called activity
theory or German action control theory [23; 24; 35; 54; 57; 77]. In the USA the latter seems to
stand close to early American currents of educational" dialectic psychology" [65]. There is also
a criticism that takes issue with Piagetian educational psychology without sharing the position
of dialectic psychology [29; 72].
In any case I think that all these approaches with their possible merits open some
opportunities for deepening the understanding of educational constructiveness or design of self-
learning systems. Personally I have up to now been suspicious of all variants of "self-"
educational philosophies, self-reflexivity, self-reference, self-consciousness, and whatnot, the
more so if they they do not relate historically to at least to some kind of naturalistic-religious
metaphysics in the spirit of e.g. Campanella's attempts to grasp self-reference (Tommaso
Campanella, Italian philosopher, 1568-1639). From an overview of literature that has been
brought to my attention recently [67; 78] I assume, however, that our co-constructive protoypes
may profit from a better knowledge of the constructive - constructionist tradition. This is the
more so to the extent that they deviate from the subtleties of the original theories that underline
the hypersystems base. Some complementary suggestions for an evaluation and development of
hypersystems and co-constructive ideas have been presented in other papers [31; 49].

7. Conclusions
I have introduced some general features of the idea of hypersystem seen as a typical computer-
technological implementation of the concept of a social system. A hypersystem-base was
presented in terms of a matrix table that also suggests some necessary future developments of
 403

promising preliminary empirical attempts in terms of what has been called co-constructive
systems. Computer support may be used in order to keep track of the relations between various
descriptiv~ and normative (is-ought) system categories that relate to the views of particular
social actors, both groups and individuals. It is suggested that computer support may be
expanded in order to obtain a qualitative follow-up or evaluation in matrix terms of the system's
evolution. Some problems that are suggested in the context of the first implementations of co-
constructive prototypes point to the need of following more closely the original theoretical
categories or to reform them in order to exploit better their potentialities and in order to avoid
their possible misuse in practical situations.
With this paper I wish to test the general orientation of my research by submitting it to a
broader variety of readers. At the same time the paper is an appeal for assistance in developing
the various implications of social and humanistic thinking in computer science according to
some kind of distribution of work and allocation of research resources, not the least among
younger researchers and graduate students.
If the task seems to be too complicated to be carried out along the theoretical base proposed
here, we may be reaching some of the limits of so called rationality and we may start to explore
them more directly.

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doctrinaire isolationism by means of "conversation" with a broader range of authors and works.

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New Educational Technologies Cannot be Fully
Integrated in Existing Educational Systems
Some Lessons Drawn from the Analysis of the
Introduction of Computers in French Schools During
the Last Decade

Monique Grandbastien

Centre de recherche en inforrnatique de Nancy, Universite Nancy 1,

BP 239 - 54506 Vandoeuvre cedex, France
Tel: (33) 83912123, fax: (33) 83 413019, email: monique@loria.crin.fr

Abstract: In the context of future educational systems design, this paper addresses the
important point of new technologies integration. A general overview of possible uses of
computers in education is provided as a first and reference part. Then, the results of
investigations carried out by the author during the year 1989, at the request of the French
Ministry of Education, are summarized. It provides a synthetical description of the various
operations related to the introduction of computers during the last decade in French schools,
especially at the secondary level, and a complete overview of the current situation with its
strengths and weaknesses. Finally, it is shown that an effective integration of new technologies
at every level of the educational system needs crucial changes in the system as a whole. Main
concerned topics are analyzed, such as evolution of subject contents, new pedagogical
organisation, equipments and educational multimedia products and institutional questions.

Keywords: Computers in education, computers in French schools, new technologies and

educational system design.

Introduction

In the context of future educational systems design, this paper addresses the important point of
new technologies integration. For the purpose of designing educational systems, new
technologies may be considered from two points of view. Information technologies may help
the design process itself; this point is for example discussed by M.D. Merrill [1] in a recent
special issue of the magazine "Educational Technology" entitled "Computer based tools for
instructional design". It is also the purpose of K. Ivanov [2] when he proposes the concept of
hypersystem. Another point of view is to design new systems in such a way that they allow and
promote a real integration of n~w technologies when these technologies are successful to fulfill
users needs.
 409

Although the first approach is very promising and full of interest, we limit this paper to the
second point of view. The problem may then be stated as follows: If there is an agreement on
the necessity for new technologies to be fully integrated in future educational systems, then
system designers must be aware of the ways in which new technologies will affect choices at
every step of a design process.
This global aim needs a deep and synthetical view of every kind of computer use in future
schools. We propose to derive such a global view from a typology of existing applications
checked against expected changes either in technology or in societal needs in the field of
education.
Such a view may be qualified as static or ideal, it represents what is and will be feasible.
But what is feasible is not automatically applied, favorable conditions are necessary, main
obstacles have to be identified. To provide matter on feasibility conditions and institutional role,
a case-study approach is chosen. The introduction of computers in French schools during the
past decade is described; strengths and weaknesses are enlightened; accompanying conditions
and support that seem to play an important part in success are especially pointed out as well as
restraints.
Finally, the paper comes to the key-points on which designers have to be attentive
throughout the design process. These points are classified by domains such as lesson contents,
learners activities, equipments and educational software, communication between different
actors within the school and outside. Once more this has to be considered as an academic and
rather static presentation of key points; each of them will have to be replaced at the convenient
step of a design process.
A last remark about the expression "new educational technologies"; it often seems to be one
of these "buzzwords" used to write a lot of lines on subjects that in fact have very few in
common. Computers, television, tele-teaching through networks and satellites are included in
that field. In the following paragraphs, the analysis and proposals will focus on computers in
education; there are at least two good reasons for such a limitation. The first one is that our
objective is not to provide an exhaustive list of possible uses of new technologies in education,
but to identify main applications as well as favourable conditions or main drawbacks. The
second one is that the case-study on which the paper is relying focussed on computers too.

1. Existing Applications and Expected Changes

It is assumed in the introduction part that the integration of new technologies in future
educational systems is something worthwhile. Maybe everyone is not convinced by such a
statement; a possible way to d.emonstrate interest and necessity of technologies is to review
existing applications and to underline their necessity and interest. Another reason to provide
 410

such a description is to build a frame used in the following of the paper to forecast evolutions,
to identify oppositions and to take account of each point in a proposed design methodology.

1.1 Typology ot computer uses for teaching and learning purposes

Computer uses are now so numerous and so different from one to the other that we need some
classification to present the most important ones. Any kind of classification includes some
arbitrary choices and privileges some point of view; the proposed classification does not except
this general law. The categories have been chosen to enlight the integration degree of
applications in existing educational systems.

Computers for vocational computer courses

The expression computer courses covers here the large area of vocational courses where the
computer itself or dedicated software running on it or devices connected to it are to be learnt
because they are an important part of the knowledge and the know-how necessary for the
family of jobs the learner is willing to practise. We can summarize this category as the one
where the computer and its environment are the matter of study for vocational needs.We keep in
this category computer courses giver in general education when computer science is considered
as a component of a general scientific and technical culture, before any professional choice.

Computers for teachers alone

Unfortunately, every teacher does not yet own his personal computer. But we can consider,
due to the low cost of some machines and the attractiveness of integrated bureautic software,
that we are perhaps not too far from such a situation. For the teacher a personal computer is a
very powerful tool to prepare lessons, texts and graphics for pupils, to compute notes and
results and perform a lot of administrative tasks such as statistics on pupils results, to organize
and store matter for further lessons in a personal database; a computer connected with remote
resources and users, via a network is yet far more useful.

Computers for teachers with pupils

Two families of situations must be distinguished when a teacher uses computers with his
pupils.
 411

A single computer used by the teacher

The computer is used as a kind of electronic blackboard on which a lot of actions that would not
have been possible without a computer, or would not have been so easy without a computer are
performed. For a geometry lesson, the teacher can easily draw as many figures as necessary to
show particular configurations, to concrete a pupil's suggestion. For a biology lesson, he can
simulate population growth according to given laws. For a history lecture, he can draw an
accurate picture or use short parts of films from a videodisc and promote interrogations from
learners about those documents. Growing collections of such educational tools become
available for teachers.

A computer for a group ofpupils

There can be one computer at the back of the classroom which acts as a common resource for
instance to access databases or to edit graphics.
There can be several computers available for groups of pupils, sometimes two, sometimes
more. In this case, pupils may use a microworld environment or simulation programs in which
they "experiment" their ideas under teacher's guidance in order to formulate physical laws or to
get familiar with the relative importance of given factors such as in company managing
simulations. Learners can also be given exercises and progress according to their abilities, the
teacher being free for personal explanations to those who need them.

Computers for learners alone

In the expression "learners alone", alone means without the presence of the teacher. A learner
may choose to work alone or together with a computer, according to his aim (alone for an
assessment test, in group to solve exercises if he benefits from stimulation and mutual
explanations provided by a group activity). This category of computer uses includes of course
all personal applications such as text processing, access to remote data, etc ... But we want to
focus here on specific educational applications. Main ones seem to be now exercises and
multiple choice sets of questions. They act as remediation and practise reinforcement tools and
as such helps for self assessment; interactivity, possibility to repeat the activity as often as it
seems necessary and to perform it at one's pace are the most used and appreciated characters of
so called computer assisted learning programs.

Computers for documentation

Libraries are more and more equipped with user friendly document query systems and pupils
can learn how to access accurate documents through those systems.
 412

Computers for internal and external communication

By internal communication, we mean communication between partners inside the school.

Concerned applications are mailing services, data exchanges between teachers or learners,
common resources such as expansive software sharing. The communication between actors in a
school, especially for schools having many teachers and many pupils, is largely enhanced by
electronic communication facilities.
By external communication, we mean communication between a school and external
partners which may be other schools for exchanges between pupils (twinned classes), between
teachers (pedagogical collaboration) or partners as parents or companies in which the pupils
may spend a period as a part of their curriculum or hopeful work after qualifying exam
successes.The importance of openness for educational systems is reminded by A. Collen and
G. Miniati [3]. Openness at several levels is necessary to allow education systems to coevolve
within their societal systems. Computers could be decisive tools for openness.

Compuiers for administrative purposes

As in other areas, the administration of schools has been more and more "computerized", when
needed software became available. First concerned applications were teachers and pupils files
management on central computers. Now a lot of software dedicated to educational institutions is
available on the market, solving problems that: were known as unfeasible some years ago, for
instance the design of time-tables. Education teams have now to learn how to, draw the
maximum of benefits from those new tools for achieving their educational project.

1.2 Expected changes in the future

We have just listed the principal uses of computers in education as they are described in the
abundant literature devoted to this subject. But, as our purpose is to provide guidelines for
future educational systems, we must imagine principal uses of computers in the future. To keep
close to realities, we are not going to invent new potential applications, but more reasonably we
start from existing ones and closely look at their possible evolution due to technological
improvements and societal changes.

Technological changes

When the computer is used as a personal tool, improvements will come from growing power of
the workstations at constant or even diminishing costs, diversification of devices such as
 413

loudspeakers, scanners, graphical tablets, and more and more user-friendly software. These
improvements will also benefit to a large part the "electronic blackboard" applications.
Other improvements will come from so-called artificial intelligence techniques. Researches
in speech understanding will allow one to use speech as a medium to communicate with the
computer, with a lot of applications for disabled and for individualized foreign language
learning. Work done in language understanding will allow more and more answers in natural
language. Intelligent tutoring systems, even if they will not invade our schools for a long time,
will provide systems including learner models allowing more and more adaptation to the user.
Learning and teaching are two domains where knowledge is not yet well formalized and which
consequently have not been target domains for computers applications until a recent period. But
the situation will be changing in the coming years, with powerful workstations and knowledge
management technologies.
Finally, all consequences of the extraordinary communication possibilities provided by
networks either within a given community or allover the world are far for having been drawn
in the educational field.

Societal changes

Will societal demand in the field of education be changing in the coming years, and in case of a
positive answer how? Education is pointed out everywhere as a major challenge for societies of
the coming century. For developing countries, it is a necessity to improve their standard of
living, and for post-industrial societies, the intelligence of their members becoming their
essential raw material, we can forecast increasing needs in both quantity and quality.
In terms of quantity, on one side, pupils have to spend more time in schools because the
economical world needs more and more qualification, on the other side knowledge and know-
how become rapidly obsolete and workers have to be trained or retrained throughout their life.
In terms of quality, in service training requires maximum efficiency because people want to
economize time. Initial training has also to improve its output to qualify more and more pupils.
Some years ago, it was possible to leave school without any qualification and to find a job,
such issues no longer exist now.
So the design of new systems will have to take into account these
moving societal needs.

2. The Case-Study of France

If we exclude some pioneers, computers have been introduced in French secondary schools for
a national experiment since 1971. It was decided after an international meeting held at Sevres in
 414

the frame of OEeD that this experiment would concern 58 secondary schools. The objective for
pioneer teachers that were trained to computers during one year was to invent and experiment
relevant applications in the different subjects they were teaching. A lot of know-how and
experimental software were accumulated during these years. It was before the micro-
computers!
During the 1980s, micro-computers became available and vocational training was obliged to
include them in almost curricula, as computer applications were of growing importance in
industry and services. The French educational system was still very centralized and the
introduction of computers in schools largely resulted from national decisions and national
funding.

2.1 Equipment waves

In 1979, a first equipment plan began, it was named "10000 micros" and aimed at providing
this number of machines in the lycees 1. Another plan followed for 100000 micros, including
colleges2. The equipment was 4 or 8 micros (depending on the size of the school) and a printer.
Last but not least, the well known operation "informatique pour tous"3 began in 1985 and
aimed at giving a computer culture to every french citizen by providing at least one computer in
each school, including primary schools. Besides these general operations, the equipment of
technical schools was completed and diversified. It has to be noticed that those huge operations
were also industrial operations to support French electronic industry and they were partly
funded by industry and telecommunications State budgets.
Equipment operations were still in progress at the end of the decade in a more decentralized
frame (due to national changes in funding training equipments) and according to new curricula,
especially for technical training.

2.2 Accompanying actions

Putting computers into schools is quite easy if you have money to buy them. Having teachers
and pupils using them is not so easy and needs specific measures such as to convince actors
and to provide them with specific capabilities.

IThat is, schools where pupils are from 16 to 19, either for vocational training or for general
education.
2That is, schools for pupils between 11 and IS, for general education.
3Informatics for everybody.
 415

A national training program for teachers began in the 1980s, the objective was to retrain
20000 teachers per year during five years. Local training centers (20 in the country) were
created to give one year training in computer science (almost at the beginning) and computer
teaching and learning applications (the most important). Teachers who attended these regional
centers were then considered as resource persons to train and help others in their school or in a
wider area. New teachers were supposed to be trained at the university (this aim was not really
reached).
"Informatique pour tous" included many training weeks (one week for each teacher)
organized during summer holidays for those who volunteered. But after so many training days,
there remains a lot of non trained people that are waiting for their tum, the "snowball" effect
does not seem to work well, and many of the "initiated" people that didn't really put into
practise the information given, for instance because they got their machines several months after
their training, are again waiting for training.

2.3 The situation at the end of the 1980s

At the end of the 1980s, there are computers in all schools, from the primary level to the end of
secondary general or vocational education. And if there is only one family computer in some
primary schools, the equipments provided for technical curricula are very powerful and similar
to those the future workers will find in their working environment after having completed their
degrees. Teachers of technical subjects have been retrained according to new curricula defined
with industrial partners and have performed a considerable personal and collective work in
order to be up to date.
In general education, there are more disparities. Technological education, including
computers, is compulsory for the last two years in primary education. Technological education
is a subject by itself during four years at the secondary level. But minimum training actions
necessary to teach those subjects have just been completed and it is difficult to draw
conclusions from this generalized curriculum. One may just notice that objectives are
promising.
Concerning the use of computers in teaching or learning other subjects, it is considered that
less than 10% of teachers are users. Main quoted obstacles are the unfamiliarity of teachers with
new technologies, lack of accurate educational software, lack of equipments or inadequate
equipments, too many pupils in the classes, etc .... But despite this small number of users, new
pedagogical software has been created which are sometimes the starting point for a global
redesign of pedagogical paths for pupils.
Administration of schools uses more and more computer applications, documentation
centers are provided with specialized querying systems. Results of pupils are graphically
 416

translated and general statistics are produced for educative team meetings. Data is exchanged
between the school level and the local and regional levels. But all these applications have been
recently introduced and are not fully integrated by all partners.

2.4 Conclusions and suggestions for the future

The previous description is of course very short and the danger of a short description is to be
caricatured. So, the interested reader is invited to consult the full report written by the author
[4]. A general conclusion of the report is: "Computers have been introduced everywhere in the
French educational system, but their use is not everywhere integrated." This short presentation
only aimed at giving examples of favorable conditions and of lacks for a better integration in the
next section. The report suggests to choose as a major objective for the next decade a real
integration of new technologies in the education system and proposes nine main priorities for a
national policy in this field; each point is then detailed according to several points of view and
finally the proposed priorities are translated into one hundred of practical suggestions.

3. Toward an Integration of Computers in Future Educational Systems

We hope to have convinced the reader of the interest of computers in education; if there remain
some doubts, we would like to argue again that computers are a possible solution to face the
ever growing educational demand and the lack of qualified trainers, especially in technical
subjects. That does not mean at all in our mind that computers are a panacea, they only become
necessary (and certainly not sufficient) to give maximum efficiency to educational systems.
Now, what are the domains which educational systems designers must pay attention to in order
to fully draw the expected benefits from computers? We identify main concerned topics In the
following sections.

3.1 Subject contents and curricula

New technologies have brought decisive changes in nearly all activities. Some traditional
lessons become obsolete as for instance the algorithm to compute a square root (it is done with
a calculator) while concepts and techniques known as too difficult become worthwhile to tackle
using simulations and data processing.
So, in terms of curricula main questions are: What are the new objectives and new contents
due to the "computerization" of the target domain? But, as this question has to be answered for
 417

different domains, it is possible that new common capabilities and higher order thinking skills
appear necessary and have to be taught only once, according to given needs. Think for instance
to text processing capabilities, or spreadsheet use or data retrieval. New technologies may bring
deep changes in existing subjects but they moreover question designers on new emerging
subjects.

3.2 Pedagogical practises

New technologies allow new activities for learners and consequently new organisations for
teaching and learning. Computers as electronic blackboards, pupils working in small groups
under teacher's guidance are of course not really new practises, but they become available in
more situations and desirable for some identified cases. Maybe the main question in that domain
is that of the accurate choice of the convenient media for given objectives, as more and more
media become available.
The teacher becomes a pedagogical expert applying the right strategy at the right moment,
his role is shifting from that of a knowledge provider to that of a learning guide.

3.3 Equipment

Vocational and technical education have need for up to date equipment and to get funding for
that purpose. For general education, it is still a revolution because of the mental representation
of blackboards and pieces of chalk, completed by a good library that used to fulfill teachers and
learners needs some years ago. The main idea to integrate is that of a need for educational
equipment, more expansive that chalk and paper and that have to be replaced frequently because
of technical progresses.

3.4 Multimedia products

Once the needs for educational equipment is understood, there remains a problem of selection
of existing products or of creating and adapting products when those found on the market do
not fulfill the objectives. A multimedia educational product is costly and takes a long time to be
designed. So everybody cannot be author and producer, teachers have to learn to work with
products designed by others, leaving a part of their "craftman" tradition to enter a more
"industrialized" area in training practises. They also need to work: in teams where they have to
share their know-how on existing products. This needs a mental revolution and will take time to
 418

be understood. But consequently, new professions are emerging in the field of education as that
of educational software designer.
Another point to notice is the lack of good educational software for large pieces of curricula.
It was a main obstacle for a full success of the French "informatique pour tous operation". I
think this situation is temporary because the market is not stable enough, but it may need
specific actions in the coming years, such as to organize design and production or co-
production at the accurate level (local or national) for a given target domain.

3.5 Information retrieval, exchanges and communication

It is probably in this domain, I will qualify it with the technology used as the "networking
domain", that a lot of work remains to be done. All previous measures and equipment will find
their full efficiency only if they are shared and connected together, if everyone can easily
communicate with each other and get used to expect information from anywhere. A school is
too often still a closed world, even if its members have a lot of relations with different partners,
and inside schools there are several "little communicating" worlds such as the administrative
one, the documentation center, computers for bureautics, computers for experimental
sciences .... A decisive step will be to integrate these separate worlds, to think of information
and computing resources in a global way, as it has been done in companies with "general
information schemes" and to think of necessary links with other partners and other remote
resources.

3.6 Teachers training

The importance of teachers training and retraining has already been underlined in previous
sections, but it is really a key point. Everyone has to be aware that teachers were not trained
with those technologies, and teaching activity has the following special character: everybody
has been taught when he was young and has a model of teaching that he is often led to
reproduce. If we want teachers to use new technologies, these technologies have to be at least
used by their trainers in the teachers training centers, and that is far from being fully realized.
Another point to underline is the rapid evolution of those technologies and consequently a
need for continual in service training on those topics.
 419

3.7 Local, ~egional and national piloting

New technologies should be integrated in schools and at the same time in piloting institutions
and in the training of future teachers. While technologies are not common tools (and it will
probably take one generation to achieve this goal because mental evolutions are slow), support
for new technologies use have to be given at different levels of educational systems. It is one of
the lessons drawn from the analysis of the French situation; in every successful area, support
has been provided; when experiments have failed, the lack of support is always found as one of
the main causes of failure. What has to be underlined here is that for vocational training, one
may partly rely on existing support for professionals, but for general education, educational
systems have to invent and put into practise their own support facilities, and this is once again a
small revolution in this traditional area.
Support needs to be designed at the same time as computers applications in schools and
other piloting institutions. It is part of the educational system.

3.8 A systemic approach to achieve integration

We have just listed topics that should be taken into account when designing new educational
systems, where computers will be fully integrated. We have now to propose an approach for
achieving this goal and we are aware that the design of such new systems need a global
approach. There is an agreement on that idea in all the framing papers prepared for this
workshop on educational system design, either when authors are describing existing activities,
as W. Blair [5] about the Alberta Department of Education or when they present a more general
analysis as P.D. Mitchell [6].So with C.M. Reigeluth [7], we underline that "we do not know
exactly what the new system should be like", we only know that it should involve existing
partners such as teachers, parents, students, local authorities, .... Consequently, a possible
approach would be "to focus more on the process of change - as a design process - than on the
products of changes - new educational systems" and to have every partner building its own new
system.
Computers will be integrated in schools when all members of the education staff use them
for their own purposes and when those members decide together their priorities according to
their pedagogical project and to their local resources, either in terms of staff members skills or
in terms of equipments, training needs and induced organisation changes. "A systems view
suggests that the essential quality of a part resides in its relationship to the whole" writes B.H.
Banathy in his book [8]. We identify several functionalities and several partners that can be
modelled as subsystems and links, they allow to adopt a systemic approach for the whole
system design.
 420

Conclusion

In this paper we have presented some important applications of new technologies in education.
It is shown, by the way of the french case study, that these technologies were introduced by
waves of equipments and societal and economical needs on systems that were not redesigned to
take account of new constraints and new potentialities.
For further and complete integration of new technologies in education, global changes are
necessary. It is the difficult but exciting task of educational designers to perform this
integration. Industry and services have just accomplished their "computer revolution", and we
know how many changes this process caused in those areas, "computer revolution for
education" is still to come.

References

[1] M.D. Merrill, Z. Li, M.K. Jones: Second generation instructional design (102),
Educational Technology, vol. XXX, no. 2, 1990
[2] K. Ivanov. Hypersystems: A base for specification of computer supported self-learning
social systems. Framing paper for Asilomar workshop on education system design, 1990.
[3] A. Collen, G. Miniati. Openness in a general process model for systems design in
education. Framing paper for Asilomar workshop on education system design, 1990.
[4] M. Grandbastien. Les technologies nouvelles dans l'enseignement general et technique,
Rapport au Ministre d'Etat, Ministre de l'Education Nationale, de Ie Jeunesse et des Sports
et au Secretaire d'Etat charge de l'enseignement technique. La Documentation Fran~aise,
Paris, 1990
[5] W.G. Blair. Educational technology planning: assessing the state of the art. Framing
paper for Asilomar workshop on education system design, 1990
[6] P.O. Mitchell. The failure of educational technology and the need for a cybernetic systems
design perspective. Framing paper for Asilomar workshop on education system design,
1990.
[7] C.M. Reigeluth. Principles of Educational Systems Design. AECT Convention, 1990
[8] B.H. Banathy. Systems design of education : A journey to create the future. Educational
Technology Publications, 1990.
Educational Technology Planning: Scanning the North
American K-12 Education Environment

Wayne G. Blair

Policy and Evaluation Branch, Alberta Education, 11160 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta
T5K OL2, Canada

Abstract: Educational technology plans are emerging rapidly across North America at the
national, state or province, school district, and school levels. These plans provide a wealth of
useful information on how policy makers and educators are planning to shape the future of
education using technology.

An environmental scan or search of educational technology plans revealed a wide variety of

planning approaches. To initiate discussion about which important aspects of educational
technology planing would provide the best indicators of a significant educational technology
plan: five indicators are proposed. These indicators are: scope of planning, type of planning,
stage of education- technology evolution, time horizon, and results of planning.

Forty-three documents were identified and these were grouped into reports, visions, and
plans. The environmental scan indicated that most plans do not enter the formal literature
databases and are therefore difficult to locate. About 80% of the documents identified were
located using informal means. To illustrate the state of educational technology planning, thirteen
educational technology reports, visions, and plans were identified, analyzed, and described.

Most educational technology plans reflect an educational technology stage IT of technology

evolution. In general, there was little evidence to indicate that educational technology plans
utilize the potential of technology to transform and/or restructure education.

Keywords: educational technology, innovation, technology, planning, strategic planning,

long range planning, restructuring, reform, education, educational trends, K - Grade 12,
planning indicators, futures

Introduction

There is a growing interest in developing educational technology plans to improve and/or

restructure education at the K - 12 level. In this regard, educational technology plans are rapidly
emerging in North America at the national, state or province, school district and school levels.
To some degree, this trend is due to the increased recognition of the potential of educational
 422

technology by policy makers and educators [2, 16, 18, 19], but also an increased acceptance of
planning as a means to shape the future of education. These plans provide a wealth of useful
information on how policy makers and educators are planning to shape the future of education
using technology.
A variety of educational agencies and groups advocate planning to shape the future of
education and to achieve goals [2, 7, 12, 16]. For example, in 1986 the U. S. National
Governors Association report, Time For Results [16], advocated that all states, school districts
and schools develop educational technology plans to achieve the potential of educational
technology for making classrooms more effective and efficient. In their report, the Governors
indicated that educational technology is a critical tool for education reform.
To assess the state of educational technology planning in North America at the K-12 level,
an environmental scan or search for educational technology plans was conducted. The
environmental scan attempted to identify educational technology plans, both theoretical and
practical, then these plans were analyzed The environmental scan was formal and informal
based on what the author was able to locate over the fall of 1990 and early 1991. Plans that
were identified were analyzed with respect to five indicators judged by the author to be
measures of a significant educational technology plan. These characteristics were: scope of
planning, type of planning, stage of educational technology evolution, time horizon, and results
of planning.
A summary of the identified plans was compiled and a selection of sample plans were
described.

Indicators of a Significant Plan

Planning provides a process that helps give organizations a perspective on where they want to
go and how they will get there. Planning usually exhibits the following five general steps:
creating a base for planning and change, developing the plan, developing an implementation
plan, implementing and monitoring the plan, and renewing the plan. The steps are not rigid and
are not necessarily in sequence, therefore planning may vary considerably from organization to
organization.
To initiate discussion about which aspects of educational technology planning would
provide the best indicators for identifying a significant educational technology plan; five were
proposed. These indicators are: scope of planning, type of planning, stage of educational
technology evolution, time horizon, and results of planning. The perspective on assessing
educational technology plans proposed is based on personal experience and reflection,
buttressed occasionally by reference to the professional literature.
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These indicators are inter-related, but sufficiently distinct to identify significant educational
technology plans. Over the past decade these indicators have changed in emphasis. The
indicators of significant plans identified and the changes in these indicators are summarized in
figure 1.

Planning Indicators Directions of Planning Change

scope confined -----> comprehensive

type operational -----> strategic
educational technology systematic -----> systemic
time horizon short range -----> long range
results emphasis input -----> input and output

Figure 1: Directions of change in planning characteristics

Scope of Planning

The scope of a plan indicates the degree of comprehensiveness of a plan. Some plans for
example only deal with one technology such as computers or distance education and are
therefore confined to that area of technology. A comprehensive plan includes many
technologies and/or related educational and societal areas. Recent literature [3, 12, 15] indicates
that a significant educational technology plan should include a comprehensive view of
education.

Type of Planning

Historically, educational technology has developed through operational, rather than strategic
efforts. According to McCune [12], the activity of planning and the concept of strategic
planning gained momentum in the public sector in the 1980s after first becoming very popular
in the business community. The operational approach is that, when one sees a problem, one
solves it. This approach characterizes how our technological tools have been added to the
 424

education process and generally remain peripheral to teaching and learning. The more recent
strategic approach is to wait until we understand the similarities ad root causes of a great many
related problems before developing a solution. Strategic planning is a process or series of steps
that move an educational organization through [12]:
1. understanding the external forces or changes relevant to it;
2. assessing its organizational capacity;
3. developing a vision of its preferred future as well as a strategic direction to follow to
achieve that vision;
4. developing goals and plans that will move it from where it is to where it wants to be;
5 . implementing the plans it has developed; and
6. reviewing progress. solving problems. and reviewing plans.

A significant educational technology plan should exhibit elements of strategic planning so that
planning goes beyond a mechanistic. linear process.

Stage of Educational Technology Evolution

Identifying changes in the way educational technology is utilized in the field was proposed by
Davies [8]. He described three levels of educational technology evolution. The past was
described as the tools approach - educational technology I. where audio-visual devices are
applied to the improvement of teaching. The present is described as the systematic approach
-educational technology IT. where methodical. rule-based linear processes are developed and
applied to the facilitation of learning. Educational technology III is described as the systemic
approach. where unified and dynamic wholes transform learning. Recent literature indicates [3.
5] that a significant educational technology plan should exhibit the educational technology III
stage of evolution.

Time Horizon

Traditional planning tends to be short range. covering about one. sometimes two years. Long
range plans generally exceed two years and are updated annually. Long range plans are usually
three to five years. but some long range plans exceed a decade. Long range planning is a
significant component of planning because the future vision determines what is done in the
present. A significant educational technology plan [12] should exhibit a long range perspective.
 425

Results of Planning

Planning as an activity to improve education should result in success towards implementing a

preferred future. Any evidence of success would separate those plans that are theoretical from
those that are practical. A significant educational technology plan should describe how results
will be monitored and/or reported. Ideally results would be available on the implementation of
the plan.

Environmental Scan

Environmental scanning is frequently used in the context of preparing for strategic planning
[12]. For this study, environmental scanning describes the formal and informal efforts used to
locate educational technology plans. Formally, the author conducted a search of the Educational
Resources Information Center Clearinghouse database (ERIC), the Education Index database,
the Canadian Education Index database, and the Ontario educational database (ONTERIS).
Informally, personal contacts, conferences, newsletters, reports, ad news clippings were
scanned.
The results of the environmental scan are reported in figure 2. Forty-three documents were
identified as either a report, vision or plan. The environmental scan indicated that most plans do
not enter the formal literature databases and are therefore difficult to locate.

Type of Document Number of Documents

district state or national

level province level level

report 3 5
vision 1 6
plan 10 14 4

Figure 2: Summary of environmental scan

On further analysis the environmental scan indicated that about 75% of the documents identified
were from the United States and 25% from Canada and most plans were comprehensive with
 426

respect to education and/or technology. The results of the infonnal environmental scan
identified about 80% of the documents, while the fonnal scan only identified 20% of the
documents.
Additional sources of infonnation on technology planning were identified. The National
Governors' Association, over the years 1988, 1989 and 1990 has monitored the results of the
educational changes advocated in the report, Time for Results [16]. With respect to educational
technology planning the 1990 [5: 35] Governors' monitoring report indicated that radical
changes in technology and its educational applications at all levels have occurred over the past
four years and that,

"Today, almost all American schools have computers and VCRs, and students have
greater access to them. More than 10,000 software products intended for educational
use in schools and at home are on the market. Distance learning projects have
proliferated. These developments reflect the desire of school districts, administrators,
teachers, and parents to use new learning technologies.

But despite the gains, technology'S potential to transfonn and customize American
classrooms remains largely unrealized. Most school districts still do not turn to
technology to expand and diversify; nor has technology been integrated into the
instructional practices of most classrooms. In short, little progress has been made
toward the central recommendation of the task force - to use state powers to help
schools reorganize, using technology and other means, so that they become more
effective and efficient. "

The Governor's report indicates that almost every state has an administrative office in its
department of education with the responsibility for implementing state plans and prograrns
and/or assisting local district in planning. Many states have adopted statewide educational
technology plans. The report also summarizes several lessons that have been learned over the
past four years. With respect to technology planning the lesson learned is that statewide policies
for technology are crucial and leadership is needed to develop them. In cases in which policies
have not been articulated, the planning and implementation of technology often are carried out
haphazardly.
The Governor's report indicates an unfinished agenda and that significant work: is needed
so that technology supports the reorganization of schools In this regard, the report states that,

"During the 1980s, many attempts have been made to launch "schools of the future" by
using new technology to drive the school vision. Educators must work instead to
enable the vision of a restructured school to drive the use of technology."

A survey conducted by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment [14: 32] in 1987
reported that: forty-one states have a technology division or staff position for educational
technology, twenty-four states have a long range plan for educational technology and plans are
under development in thirteen other states, forty-four states allocate funds specifically for
 427

educational technology or make other state funds available, and forty-nine states use Federal
funds for technology.

Educational Technology Reports

The environmental scan identified eight educational technology reports. Although these reports
were not educational technology plans, they contain useful components of a plan. Frequently
these reports summarize recent thought, research, issues, trends and recommendations that
form the basis for the development of an educational technology plan. Four sample reports
were chosen to illustrate the variety and scope of the identified educational technology reports.

Transforming American Education: Reducing the Risk to the Nation [17]

This report was developed by the National Task Force on Educational Technology for the
United States Department of Education to help educational decision makers sort through the
deluge of information on the usefulness of technology for learning. The Task Force members
concluded that information technology represents a powerful array of tools that when creatively
applied and appropriately integrated will help meet three goals: improving the quality of
learning; increasing equity of opportunity, access, and quality; and ensuring greater cost
effectiveness.
The report is divided into eight sections dealing with the potential of technology and
recommendations to achieve that potential. The section on recommendations includes a time
horizon to the year 2000. Recommendations are grouped under the following headings:
planning; financing; teacher education; curriculum and instructional practice; research,
evaluation, and dissemination; and demonstration schools.
Numerous recommendations are include in the report which can be characterized as at an
educational technology stage H level of technology evolution.

Power On! Hew Tools For Teaching and Learning [19]

Power On, is a comprehensive report that reviews recent educational technology research,
practice, and thought The report includes such topics as: the impact of technology on leaming,
cost effectiveness, the teacher's role, software, research and development, and the future of
classroom instruction. Numerous comments are made regarding technology hardware and
software including: computer assisted instruction, multimedia programs, electronic networks,
word processor, convergence of information technologies, CD-ROM, hypermedia, integrated
 428

learning systems and videodiscs. Numerous recommendations are include in the report which
can be characterized as at an educational technology stage H level of technology evolution.

Change in Public Education: A Technological Perspective [10]

From the perspective of the adoption, implementation, and integration of microcomputers into
the instructional program, this report is a synthesis of recent research findings and current
practice Findings are reported using the following headings: The Setting, Resources,
Governance, Implementation, Process Evaluation, and Integration. One section of the report is
a case study of the Sacramento City Unified School District's strategic plan. This plan includes
a major emphasis on computer technology, but also includes other technologies such as:
videotape, laser disk, and CD-ROM.
Numerous implications for action are included in the report which can be characterized as at
an educational technology stage fllevel of technology evolution.

Technologically, Enriched Schools of Tomorrow: Recommendations to

Decision Makers [7]

Prepared by the International Society for Technology in Society, this report focuses on the role
of the teacher and offers five recommendations for decision makers as they plan for the schools
of the 21st century. Technology is described as a proven tool to shift the student into the
knowledge worker role, fostering more interaction between students and teacher as well as
among students.
The International Society for Technology in Education involved 150 leading educators at all
levels of education in the preparation of this report. Major sections of the report include:
evidence of the effectiveness of educational technology; school dropouts, economics, and
technology; five recommendations for educational decision makers; and rationales for the set of
recommendations. Among the recommendations the report calls for a student/computer ratio of
no more than 5: 1 by 1995. The report can be characterized as at an educational technology stage
II level of technology evolution.

Educational Technology Visions

The environmental scan identified seven educational technology visions. Although these visions
were not educational technology plans, a vision is basic to any planning. Three sample visions
were chosen to illustrate the variety and scope of the identified educational technology visions.
 429

Visions 2000: A Vision of Educational Technology in Alberta by the Year 2000

[2]

Arguing that technology should be incorporated into the curriculum so that students learn
"about technology," "in technology," and "through technology," this report looks forward to
the year 2000 and assesses ways in which technology can be applied both in the classroom and
in distance education in the province of Alberta. Major sections include; The Future, A Vision
of Education by the year 2000, A Vision of Technology by the Year 2000, and Educational
Technology and Learning.

The vision describes a shift in the teaching-learning process of the future based on a
division of labor where teachers can function in the uniquely human areas of diagnosis,
prescription, motivation, ad overall management of the learning process for individuals and
groups of various sizes, while technology can playa greater part in exposition, simulation, and
information processing and removal. The vision describes various forms of educational
technology in use in the future, including computer-based work stations with access to local
and remote databases; student access to portable computers; schools equipped with satellite
receiving and transmitting equipment; widespread use of holography; student access to a variety
of information sources, including primary sources; and student access at all grade levels to
technological tools such as lasers, robotics, and music synthesizers.
No recommendations are included other than the plea that an educational technology action
oriented plan is urgent as a next step. The vision can be characterized as an educational
technology IT stage of technology evolution.

Images of Potential [13]

This report is a series of six school sketches or scenarios created by a meeting of 38 classroom
teachers, hardware and software producers, corporations, school improvement and
restructuring professionals, and school facilitator/designers. The scenarios depict schools at the
turn of the century on a day to day basis in the future at the rural elementary school, urban /
suburban elementary school, rural middle school, urban / suburban middle school, rural high
school, and urban / suburban high school levels. Teacher/student interactions are described
with appropriate educational technology integrated into school and community. Technology in
the future is described as everywhere and available to students and teachers in the form of
services, hardware and software such as: individual learning stations; small group learning
spaces; large screen displays; state-wide regional media centers; fiber optics; distance education;
a state-wide integrated service digital network; electronic mail; a flexible computer scheduling
system that manages learning experiences based on the needs of the learner; student computers
 430

at home and at school; two way interactive communications; massive electronic storage devices;
laptop computers; book size computers; holography; satellites; use of community, national and
global learning resources; and three dimension imaging.
The scenarios are intended to stimulate teachers to employ technology as a tool in their
teaching. In addition to the six scenarios, the report discusses the context, concerns, common
themes and visioning strategies for incorporating technology into teaching and learning. No
recommendations are included and the vision can be characterized as at an educational
technology 11 stage of technology evolution.

A Third Wave Educational System [21]

Reigeluth describes a vision of a future third-wave educational system The vision is offered as a
blueprint outlining the systemic characteristics that a third-wave system might have. Designed
to meet the needs of an information society; the blueprint includes a change in the teachers role
to one of motivating, advising, and managing the student's learning; peer tutors; projects; and
learning centers. It is proposed that a teacher would be responsible for a child for a period of
three to five years, acting as a guide.
The vision includes teachers working in clusters of 4 to 10 as independent schools and
students grouped by levels: Levell (ages 3 to 5), Level 2 (ages 6 to 9), level 3 (ages 10 to 13),
and level 4 (ages 14 to 18). Characteristics of the third-wave educational system include [21]:
teachers as guides; educational resources used to effect most of the learning; no traditional
classes; parents are free to request moving their child if not satisfied with their child's progress;
their is a financial incentive for guides to work together; and guides can send children to
learning centres of various kinds to receive the best available instruction in focus areas.
No recommendations are included in this vision which can be characterized as at an
educational technology stage ill level of technology evolution.

Educational Technology Plans

The environmental scan identified twenty-eight educational technology plans. Six sample plans
were chosen to illustrate the variety and scope of the identified educational technology plans.

Long Range Educational Technology Plan for California Schools [9]

Although the California technology plan identified is dated, it is an example of many plans
identified that are at the educational technology I stage of evolution. In addition, the plan states
that a technology-based program WIll not address the complexity of needs faced by schools.
 431

Rather the purpose of the plan is to provide a guide for others who are planning and
implementing technology-infused educational programs and to promote a general consistency of
use of educational technology across California.
For the most part, the plan is divided into six components: technology - infused
demonstration schools, leadership, staff development, instructional materials, hardware, and
facilities. Each component includes a list of objectives and strategies, but no specific time frame
is included in the plan For example, an objective in the hardware component states that:

"All schools should develop a 'foundation' program in order to acquire at least a basic
quantity of hardware; such a program should permit each elementary student access to
computer - based instruction at least one hour per week and secondary students two
hour per week."

and an objective in the technology - infused demonstration schools component states that:

"By developing a network of technology - infused demonstration schools, the state will
demonstrate the practical use of diversified technology - based resources which will
support the state's overall curriculum reform effort."

This plan can be characterized as at an educational technology I stage of technology evolution.

The components of a strategic plan, comprehensive scope, long range time horizon, and results
emphasis are not evident.

Technology and Trans/ormation 0/ Schools [20]

Perelman calls for the education system to become far more productive with technology as an
essential, but not independent, role. Further, be maintains that meaningful change will depend
on a comprehensive sociotechnical systems design process that integrates technical systems,
human resources, management and organization.
Two scenarios are described for the future of education: the 1998 business as usual scenario
and the 1998 transformation-of-system scenario. The business as usual scenario results in little
change to the education system, lower productivity and a large growth in employer provided
education and home education. The transformation-of-system scenario employs an advanced
information technology system to design, manage, and deliver instruction customized to each
individual learner.
The report concludes with a policy agenda and implementation plan with a nine element
strategy for a strategy. These elements reflect what Perelman has called the sociotechnical
design process. these element are: balancing planning and action, targeting functions,
establishing performance and cost measures, imagineering, gap analysis, tradeoff analysis,
barriers and incentives analysis, innovation budgeting and financing, and implementing.This
 432

plan can be characterized as at an educational technology ill stage of technology evolution. The
plan is strategic with a comprehensive scope to the year 1998. No results emphasis is evident.

1988 - 2000: Long Range Plan for Technology of the Texas State Board of
Education [22]

The Texas technology plan was the most comprehensive plan identified, spanning the longest
period of time from 1988 to 2000. In addition, the plan is linked to the state education plan
which has a mission that emphasizes quality, equity ad accountability. The cumulative
outcomes of the plan by the year 2000 are:

"I. technology and its applications in education will be distributed equitably and
sufficiently throughout Texas,
2. statewide integrated telecommunications systems will be established,
3. professional staff employed in and entering public education will be skilled in using
technology for instruction and management,
4. effective integration of technology in education will continually increase,
5. applications for education of emerging technology that meet state standards will be
developed and marketed at competitive prices, and
6. a Long Range Plan for Technology for the first decade of the 21st century will be
prepared for implementation."

In the plan, technology is defmed in terms of hardware such as: computer based systems;
devices for storage and retrieval of massive amounts of information; telecommunications for
audio, video and information sharing; and other electronic media devised by the year 2000 that
can help meet the instructional and productivity needs of public education. Specific and
extensive outcomes are elaborated in an action plan that includes three phases and five focus
areas. The focus areas are: hardware, procurement, and purchase; courseware adoption and
provision; training and certification; delivery systems; and research and development. Each
focus area is developed over three phases: 1988-1989 through 1991-1992, 1992-1993 through
1995-1996, and 1996-1997 through 1999-2000. For example, the focus area on hardware,
procurement, and purchase in phase 1996-1997 through 1999-2000 states an outcome that:

"Students will have access to workstations five hours per week, on average,in every
school district This access time yields a student: workstation ratio of 6: 1. "

Although the plan is comprehensive and strategic, the plan can be characterized as at an
educational technology level n stage of technology evolution. Major strengths of the plan are
 433

the detail of the action statements, the comprehensive scope of the plan from 1988 to the year
2000, and an emphasis on results.

Preparing Alberta Students for the Twenty First Century [1]

This comprehensive plan addresses five key areas: the environmental context, where we are,
where we want to be, how we will get there, and how we will know when we get there. The
plan includes all aspects of education in the province of Alberta with technology included as one
of many components.
The plan is updated every year and spans a four year period. The present plan begins with
1990 and looks ahead to 1994. Major sections of the plan are devoted to the environmental
context, a preferred future or vision, priority directions, and performance standards.
Technology is identified as a priority direction in the plan and is described by the phrase; using
technology to enhance teaching and learning. Further the plan states that:

"Technology holds much promise for better teaching and more opportunities for
students to learn. Telecommunications are permitting greater access to information, the
sharing of resources among schools, and the expansion of courses through distance
education. Technology is also rapidly changing not only how teaching takes place but
also what is taught in the classroom."

This plan can be characterized as at an educational technology II stage of technology evolution.

The components of a strategic plan are evident except in the area of implementation. Major
strengths of this plan are scope to 1994 and the emphasis on results. For example, a student
outcome is stated as, "90% of Alberta students attain a high school diploma or certificate by age
19."

Education and Technology at the Crossroads [11 ]

Hathaway has provided an extensive analysis of where education and technology is now, some
alternate futures, and a description of where education and educational technology should go.
He proposes the design and development of a large-scale, technologically enhanced cognitive
mapped learning system with a capacity to harness technology in a way that meets and
overcomes many of the shortcomings and problems encountered by educational delivery
systems of today.

The basis of Hathaway's new vision of education is a cognitive-mapped learning system

that employs the resources of available technology systems (e.g. television, computers, storage
media, and telecommunications), management science tools (e.g. flow-charting, network-based
 434

management systems, operations research,linear programming, queing theory, games theory,

dynamic programming, and simulation), reliability and quality control (e.g. serial models and
complex models ), human factors analysis (e.g. physiological, social, and physical), value
analysis, and planning and evaluation systems. To achieve this new learning system, a plan is
presented that includes administration, developing a cognitive-mapped curriculum, evaluation,
educational facilities, computer system software and a four phase implementation plan.
The plan can be characterized as at an educational technology II stage of technology
evolution, but contains some elements of an educational technology ill stage with respect to the
cognitive mapped learning system. The components of a strategic plan are evident. A major
strength of the plan is the detail provided for the development of a cognitive-mapped learning
system

Systems Design of Education: A Journey to Create the Future [3]

Banathy offers new ways of thinking about education and its societal function. He believes that
the education system must be rebuilt by design, which is not the case now. He proposes the use
of systems design to move beyond the capability of our present education system.
His book is divided into three parts: improvement or transformation, exploring alternate
images, and design thinking and design practice. Banathy contends that current educational
change efforts start out with an analysis of the existing system. Problems are identified and a
plan is developed by which to correct the problems. Systems designers, on the other hand, start
with the exploration of the overall societal context in order to formulate the purpose and the
societal functions of education. They envision an ideal image of an educational system that will
have the potential to attain the purpose and attend to the functions that have to be addressed in
order to achieve the purpose. They design and describe the system that will have the
organizational capacity and human capability to realize the image.
A vision of a future educational system is proposed, but the major strength of Banathy's
book is the outline of steps to be taken to create an educational system using the systems design
process. The process involves four spirals of activities that are guided by a series of questions.
The first spiral involves formulating the core defmition (e.g. mission statement and statement of
purposes), the second spiral involves the specifications of the new educational system (e.g.
who are the clients; who should own the system; responsibilities; relationship to other levels of
government; and relationship toward the community, community organizations, the private
sector, volunteer agencies, and other educational agencies), the third spiral involves the design
of the system functions (e.g. boundaries, building a functions model, and evaluating the
model), and the fourth spiral designs the enabling systems (e.g. management systems and
organization).
 435

The plan can be characterized as at an educational technology III stage of technology

evolution. The components of a strategic plan are evident, the scope is comprehensive and the
time horizon is long term. The strength of the plan is in the elaboration of the steps to be used
for the creation of a new educational system.

Conclusions

While the foregoing search and analysis was not extensive, there is evidence of a wealth of
useful information on how policy makers and educators are planning to shape the future of
education using technology. From the identified educational technology reports, visions, and
plans the following conclusions were made:

1. The term educational technology is used in many ways with many meanings.
2. There is a wealth of recent educational technology reports, visions, and plans available to
policy makers and educators.
3. Educational technology reports, visions, and plans are difficult to locate using formal
databases. Informal methods are more successful.
4. The identified documents provide a wide range of ideas and insights about education,
technology, and the future.
5. Most educational technology plans can be characterized as at an educational technology II
stage of evolution.
6. Most educational technology documents identified originated from the United States.
7. There is little evidence that educational technology plans utilize the potential of technology
to transform and/or restructure education.
8. A few theoretical educational technology visions and plans were identified that can be
characterized at an educational technology III level of technology evolution.

References

1. Alberta Education: Preparing Alberta Students for the twenty-first century. 2nd draft,
Edmonton, Alberta 1990
2. Alberta Education: Visions 2000: a vision of educational technology in Alberta by the year
2000. Edmonton, Alberta 1987
3. Banathy, B.: Systems design of education: a journey to create the future. Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications 1991
4. Blair, W.G.: Interview with Bela Banathy, Monterey, California. December 3,1990
5. Beckwith, D.: The future of educational technology. Canadian Journal of Educational
Communication, Vol. 17, No. 11988
6. Branson, R.K.: Why the schools can't improve: the upper limit hypothesis. Journal of
Instructional Development, Vol. 10, No.4 1987
 436

7. Braun, L.: Vision: technologically enriched schools of tomorrow. Eugene, Oregon: The
International Society for Technology in Education 1990

8. Davies, I.: Prologue: educational technology: archetypes, paradigms, models. In:

Contributions to an educational technology (1. Hartley and I. Davies, eds.). London:
Butterworths 1978
9. Educational Technology Committee: Long-range educational technology plan for
California schools. Sacramento, California: State Board of Education 1986
10. Gillman, T.V.: Change in public education: a technological perspective. Eugene, Oregon:
ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management 1989
11. Hathaway,W.E.: Education and technology at the crossroads: choosing a new direction.
North York, Ontario: Captus Press 1990
12. McCune S.D.: Guide to strategic planning for educators. Alexandria, Virginia: Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development 1988
13. National Foundation for the Improvement of Education: Images of potential. Washington,
D.C.: National Education Association 1988
14. National Governors' Association: Results in education: 1989. Washington, D.C. 1989
15. National Governors' Association: Results in education: 1990. Washington, D.C. 1990
16. National Governors' Association: Time for results. Washington, D.C. 1986
17. National Task Force on Educational Technology: Transforming American education:
reducing the risk to the nation. Washington, D. c.: United States Department of Education
1986
18. Office of Technology Assessment: Linking for learning: a new course for education.
Washington, D.C.: Congress of the United States 1989
19. Office of Technology Assessment: Power on: New tools for teaching and learning.
Washington, D.C.: Congress of the United States 1988
20. Perelman, L.J.: Technology and transformation of schools. Alexandria, Virginia: National
School Boards Association 1987
21. Reigeluth, C.M.: The search for meaningful reform:a third wave educational system.
Journal of Instructional Development, Vol. 10, No.4. 1988
22. Texas Educational Agency: The 1988 - 2000 long-range plan for technology. Austin,
Texas: Texas State Board of Education 1988
Index of Authors
Allen, Dwight W. 281
Amsler, Mary 134
Babiiroglu, Oguz N. 165
Banathy, Bela Antal 104
Banathy, Bela H. 9,67
Baxendale, Steve 314
Blair, Wayne G. 421
Blanco, Hilda J. 238
Callaos, Belkis de 121
Callaos, Nagib 121
Collen, Arne 272
Delgado, Rafael Rodriguez 225
Dolbec, Andre 109
Frantz, Tad Gougen 174
Frick, Theodore W. 260
Gasparski, Wojciech 154
Goulet, Georges 109
Grandbastien, Monique 408
Gregory, Wendy 253
Ivanov,~sto 381
Jayaratna, Nimal 350, 354
Jenks, C. Lynn 134
Jones, Beau Fly 314
Knuth, Randy A. 314
Liket, Theo M.E. 302
Macnaughton, Ian 206
McArthur, Ian 334
Meyer, Thorbjorn 191
Minati, Giafranco 272
Mitchell, P. David 357
Nelson, Harold G. 145
Paritsis Nicolas C. 95
Pruzan, Peter 191
Reigeluth, Charles M. 50
Zeeuw, Gerard de 85
NATO ASI Series F
Including Special Programmes on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control (ROB) and on
Advanced Educational Technology (AET)
Vol. 22: Software System Design Methods. The Challenge of Advanced Computing Technology.
Edited by J. K. Skwirzynski. XIII, 747 pages. 1986.
Vol. 23: Designing Computer-Based Learning Materials. Edited by H. Weinstock and A. Bork.
IX, 285 pages. 1986.
Vol. 24: Database Machines. Modern Trends and Applications. Edited by A. K. Sood and A.
H. Qureshi. VIII, 570 pages. 1986.
Vol. 25: Pyramidal Systems for Computer Vision. Edited by V. Cantoni and S. Levialdi. VIII, 392
pages. 1986. (ROB)
Vol. 26: Modelling and Analysis in Arms Control. Edited by R. Avenhaus, R. K. Huber and J. D.
Kettelle. VIII, 488 pages. 1986.
Vol. 27: Computer Aided Optimal Design: Structural and Mechanical Systems. Edited by C. A.
Mota Soares. XIII, 1029 pages. 1987.
Vol. 28: Distributed Operating Systems. Theory und Practice. Edited by Y. Paker, J.-P. Banatre
and M. Bozyigit. X, 379 pages. 1987.
Vol. 29: Languages for Sensor-Based Control in Robotics. Edited by U. Rembold and K.
Hormann. IX, 625 pages. 1987. (ROB)
Vol. 30: Pattern Recognition Theory and Applications. Edited by P. A. Devijver and J. Kittler.
XI, 543 pages. 1987.
Vol. 31: Decision Support Systems: Theory and Application. Edited bv C. W. Holsapple and A.
B. Whinston. X, 500 pages. 1987.
Vol. 32: Information Systems: Failure Analysis. Edited by J. A. Wise and A. Debons. XV, 338
pages. 1987.
Vol. 33: Machine Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering for Robotic Applications. Edited by
A. K. C. Wong and A. Pugh. XIV, 486 pages. 1987. (ROB)
Vol. 34: Modelling, Robustness and Sensitivity Reduction in Control Systems. Edited by R.F.
Curtain. IX, 492 pages. 1987.
Vol. 35: Expert Judgment and Expert Systems. Edited by J. L. Mumpower, L. D. Phillips,
O. Renn and V. R. R. Uppuluri. VIII, 361 pages. 1987.
Vol. 36: Logic of Programming and Calculi of Discrete Design. Edited by M. Broy. VII, 415
pages. 1987.
Vol. 37: Dynamics of Infinite Dimensional Systems. Edited by S.-N. Chow and J. K. Hale. IX. 514
pages. 1987.
Vol. 38: Flow Control of Congested Networks. Edited by A. R. Odoni, L. Bianco and G. Szego.
XII, 355 pages. 1987.
Vol. 39: Mathematics and Computer Science in Medical Imaging. Edited by M. A. Viergever
and A. Todd-Pokropek. VIII, 546 pages. 1988.
Vol. 40: Theoretical Foundations of Computer Graphics and CAD. Edited by R. A. Earnshaw.
XX, 1246 pages. 1988.
Vol. 41 : Neural Computers. Edited by R. Eckmiller and Ch. v. d. Malsburg. XIII, 566 pages. 1988.
NATO ASI Series F
Including Special Programmes on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control (ROB) and on
Advanced Educational Technology (AET)
Vol. 42: Real-Time Object Measurement and Classification. Edited by A. K. Jain. VIII, 407
pages. 1988. (ROB)
Vol. 43: Sensors and Sensory Systems for Advanced Robots. Edited by P. Dario. XI, 597 pages.
1988. (ROB) .
Vol. 44: Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition in Nondestructive Evaluation of Materials.
Edited by C. H. Chen. VIII, 344 pages. 1988. (ROB)
Vol. 45: Syntactic and Structural Pattern Recognition. Edited by G. Ferrate, T. Pavlidis, A.
Sanfeliu and H. Bunke. XVI, 467 pages. 1988. (ROB)
Vol. 46: Recent Advances in Speech Understanding and Dialog Systems. Edited by H.
Niemann, M. Lang and G. Sagerer. X, 521 pages. 1988.
Vol. 47: Advanced Computing Concepts and Techniques in Control Engineering. Edited by M.
J. Denham and A. J. Laub. XI, 518 pages. 1988.
Vol. 48: Mathematical Models for Decision Support. Edited by G. Mitra. IX, 762 pages. 1988.
Vol. 49: Computer.lntegrated Manufacturing. Edited by I. B. Turksen. VIII, 568 pages. 1988.
Vol. 50: CAD Based Programming for Sensory Robots. Edited by B. Ravani. IX, 565 pages.
1988. (ROB)
Vol. 51: Algorithms and Model Formulations in Mathematical Programming. Edited by S. W.
Wallace. IX, 190 pages. 1989.
Vol. 52: Sensor Devices and Systems for Robotics. Edited by A. Casals. IX, 362 pages. 1989.
(ROB)
Vol. 53: Advanced Information Technologies for Industrial Material Flow Systems. Edited by S.
Y. Nof and C. L. Moodie. IX, 710 pages. 1989.
Vol. 54: A Reappraisal of the Efficiency of Financial Markets. Edited by R. M. C. Guimar aes, B.
G. Kingsman and S. J. Taylor. X, 804 pages. 1989.
Vol. 55: Constructive Methods in Computing Science. Edited by M. Broy. VII, 478 pages. 1989.
Vol. 56: Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Risk Analysis Using Microcomputers. Edited by
B. Karpak and S. Zionts. VII, 399 pages. 1989.
Vol. 57: Kinematics and Dynamic Issues in Sensor Based Control. Edited by G. E. Taylor. XI,
456 pages. 1990. (ROB)
Vol. 58: Highly Redundant Sensing in Robotic Systems. Edited by J. T. Tou and J. G. Balchen.
X, 322 pages. 1990. (ROB)
Vol. 59: Superconducting Electronics. Edited by H. Weinstock and M. Nisenoff. X, 441 pages.
1989.
Vol. 60: 3D Imaging in Medicine. Algorithms, Systems, Applications. Edited by K. H. Hahne, H.
Fuchs and S. M. Pizer. IX, 460 pages. 1990.
Vol. 61: Knowledge, Data and Computer-Assisted Decisions. Edited by M. Schader and W.
Gaul. VIII, 421 pages. 1990.
Vol. 62: Supercomputing. Edited by J. S. Kowalik. X, 425 pages. 1990.
Vol. 63: Traditional and Non-Traditional Robotic Sensors. Edited by T. C. Henderson. VIII, 468
pages. 1990. (ROB)
NATO ASI Series F
Including Special Programmes on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control (ROB) and on
Advanced Educational Technology (AET)
Vol. 64: Sensory Robotics for the Handling of Limp Materials. Edited by P. M. Taylor. IX, 343
pages. 1990. (ROB)
Vol. 65: Mapping and Spatial Modelling for Navigation. Edited by L. F. Pau. VIII, 357 pages.
1990. (ROB)
Vol. 66: Sensor-Based Robots: Algorithms and Architectures. Edited by C. S. G. Lee. X, 285
pages. 1991. (ROB)
Vol. 67: Designing Hypermedia for Learning. Edited byD. H. Jonassen and H. Mandl. XXV, 457
pages. 1990. (AET)
Vol. 68: Neurocomputing. Algorithms, Architectures and Applications. Edited by F. Fogelman
Sou lie and J. Herault. XI, 455 pages. 1990.
Vol. 69: Real-Time Integration Methods for Mechanical System Simulation. Edited by E. J. Haug
and R. C. Deyo. VIII, 352 pages. 1991.
Vol. 70: Numerical Linear Algebra, Digital Signal Processing and Parallel Algorithms. Edited by
G. H. Golub and P. Van Dooren. XIII, 729 pages. 1991.
Vol. 71: Expert Systems and Robotics. Edited by T. Jordanides and B.Torby. XII, 744 pages.
1991.
Vol. 72: High-Capacity Local and Metropolitan Area Networks. Architecture and Performance
Issues. Edited by G. Pujolle. X, 536 pages. 1991.
Vol. 73: Automation and Systems Issues in Air Traffic Control. Edited by J. A. Wise, V. D. Hopkin
and M. L. Smith. XIX, 594 pages. 1991.
Vol. 74: Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) in Medicine. Edited by H. K.
Huang, O. Ratib, A. R. Bakker and G. Witte. XI, 438 pages. 1991.
Vol. 75: Speech Recognition and Understanding. RecentAdvances, Trends and Applications.
Edited by P. Laface and Renato De Mori. XI, 559 pages. 1991.
Vol. 76: Multimedia Interface Design in Education. Edited by A. D. N. Edwards and S. Holland.
XIV, 216 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 77: Computer Algorithms for Solving Linear Algebraic Equations. The State of the Art.
Edited by E. Spedicato. VIII, 352 pages. 1991.
Vol. 78: Integrating Advanced Technology into Technology Education. Edited by M. Hacker,
A. Gordon and M. de Vries. VIII, 185 pages. 1991. (AET)
Vol. 79: Logic, Algebra, and Computation. Edited by F. L. Bauer. VII, 485 pages. 1991.
Vol. 80: IntelligentTutoring Systems for Foreign Language Learning. Edited by M. L. Swartz and
M. Yazdani. IX, 347 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 81: Cognitive Tools for Learning. Edited by P. A. M. Kommers, D. H. Jonassen and J. T.
Mayes. X, 278 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 82: Combinatorial Optimization. New Frontiers in Theory and Practice. Edited by M. AkgOI,
H. W. Hamacher and S. TOfek<i XI, 334 pages. 1992.
Vol. 83: Active Perception and Robot Vision. Edited by A. K. Sood and H. Wechsler. IX, 756
pages. 1992.
NATO ASI Series F
Including Special Programmes on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control (ROB) and on
Advanced Educational Technology (AET)
Vol. 84: Computer-Based Learning Environments and Problem Solving. Edited by E. De Corte,
M. C. Linn, H. Mandl and L. Verschaffel. XVI, 488 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 85: Adaptive Learning Environments. Foundations and Frontiers. Edited by M. Jones and
P. H. Winne. VIII, 408 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 86: Intelligent Learning Environments and Knowledge Acquisition in Physics. Edited by
A. Tiberghien and H. Mandl. VIII, 285 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 87: Cognitive Modelling and Interactive Environments. With demo diskettes (Apple and
IBM compatible). Edited by F. L. Engel, D. G. Bouwhuis, T. Basser and G. d'Ydewalle. IX, 311
pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 88: Programming and Mathematical Method. Edited by M. Broy. VIII, 428 pages. 1992.
Vol. 89: Mathematical Problem Solving and New Information Technologies. Edited by J. P.
Ponte, J. F. Matos, J. M. Matos and D. Fernandes. XV, 346 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 90: Collaborative Learning Through Computer Conferencing. Edited by A. R. Kaye. X, 260
pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 91: New Directions for Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Edited by E. Costa. X, 296 pages. 1992.
(AET)
Vol. 92: Hypermedia Courseware: Structures of Communication and Intelligent Help. Edited
by A. Oliveira. X, 241 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 93: Interactive Multimedia Learning Environments. Human Factors and Technical
Considerations on Design Issues. Edited by M. Giardina. VIII, 254 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 94: Logic and Algebra of Specification. Edited by F. L. Bauer, W. Brauer and H.
Schwichtenberg. VII, 442 pages. 1993.
Vol. 95: Comprehensive Systems Design: A New Educational Technology. Edited by C. M.
Reigeluth, B. H. Banathy and J. R. Olson. IX, 437 pages. 1993. (AET)
Vol. 96: New Directions in Educational Technology. Edited by E. Scanlon and T. O'Shea. VIII,
251 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 97: Advanced Models of Cognition for Medical Training and Practice. Edited by D. A. Evans
and V. L. Patel. XI, 372 pages. 1992. (AET)
Vol. 98: Medical Images: Formation, Handling and Evaluation. Edited by A. E. Todd-Pokropek
and M. A. Viergever. IX, 700 pages. 1992.
Vol. 99: Multisensor Fusion for Computer Vision. Edited by J. K. Aggarwal. XI, 456 pages. 1993.
(ROB)
Vol. 100: Communication from an Artificial Intelligence Perspective. Theoretical and Applied
Issues. Edited by A. Ortony, J. Slack and O. Stock. XII, 260 pages. 1992.
Vol. 101: Recent Developments in Decision Support Systems. Edited by C. W. Holsapple and
A. B. Whinston. XI, 618 pages. 1993.
Vol. 102: Robots and Biological Systems: Towards a New Bionics? Edited by P. Dario, G.
Sandini and P. Aebischer. XII, 786 pages. 1993.
NATO ASI Series F
Including Special Programmes on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control (ROB) and on
Advanced Educational Technology (AET)
Vol. 103: Parallel Computing on Distributed Memory Multiprocessors. Edited by F. OzgOner
and F. Er<;:al. VIII, 332 pages. 1993.
Vol. 104: Instructional Models in Computer-Based Learning Environments. Edited by S.
Dijkstra, H. P. M. Krammer and J. J. G. van Merrienboer. X, 510 pages. 1993. (AET)
Vol. 105: Designing Environments for Constructive Learning. Edited by T. M. Duffy, J. Lowyck
and D. H. Jonassen. VIII, 374 pages. 1993. (AET)
Vol. 106: Software for Parallel Computation. Edited by J. S. Kowalik and L. Grandinetti. IX, 363
pages. 1993.
Vol. 107: Advanced Educational Technologies for Mathematics and Science. Edited by D. L.
Ferguson. XII, 749 pages. 1993. (AET)
Vol. 108: Concurrent Engineering: tools and Technologies for Mechanical System Design.
Edited by E. J. Haug. XIII, 998 pages. 1993.
Vol. 109: Advanced Educational Technology in Technology Education. Edited by A. Gordon,
M. Hacker and M. de Vries. VIII, 270 pages. 1993. (AET)
Vol. 110: Verification and Validation of Complex Systems: Human Factors Issues. Edited by J.
A. Wise, V. D. Hopkin and P. Stager. XIII 704 pages. 1993.
Vol. 111: Cognitive Models and Intelligent Environments for Learning Programming. Edited by
E. Lemut, B. du Boulay and G. Dettori. VIII, 305 pages. 1993. (AET)