School Ecosystems
- Mission & Vision
- Introduction
- School Ecosystems

Why is it important to see your school as an eco-system?
Systems thinking is about understanding the whole of an organization, as opposed to viewing it through the lens of its constituent parts. Associated terms used by the IB are 'eco-system', 'sense-making' and 'adaptive organizations' (see endnote). A simple analogy is to see the system as the completed jigsaw.
The new Heads of School and Leading the Learners workshops - which replaced Administrators and Coordinators workshops in 2020 - have as their key focus to immerse participants into the IB ecosystem and to reflect on their own individual school as itself an ecosystem.
"I consider it impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole, or to know the whole without knowing the parts." (Pascal - cited in E.Morrin, 1999, Organization and complexity)
"The systems concept cannot be over-stated. A school community/system is truly one where plucking a string in one area reverberates across a variety of other locations. It is critically important then that the school guiding documents truly guide, are not merely wall decorations and are brought to life. Turning these two-dimensional documents into three-dimensional success requires creation of a compelling vision, well-articulated goals, carefully defined evidence to chart success towards goals, differentiated support and a recognition that less is often more – clear out the old stuff before topping up with the new." (Jason Crook, IB Coordinator in an IB workshop on Leading the learning).

Systems thinking is about seeing the whole together.
System thinking is a management discipline. It concerns itself with understanding the complexity of the whole system of the school and how the various parts are related and affect each other. "There is something in all of us that loves to put together a puzzle, that loves to see the image of the whole emerge...Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes." (Peter Senge, Fifth Discipline 1990:68).
A systems thinker sees how the various parts of a school - human resources, learning environment, policies and operational procedures - interact and how effectively the different parts work together. This form of expanded thinking allows us to recognize and imagine ways of solving problems by grasping entire processes and systems. Such thinking also reinforces the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
When leaders have a better understanding of the school system, they are better able to identify the leverage points to bring about positive outcomes.
The educational ecosystem
American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner viewed child development as a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment. His ecological system theory is made up of a number of elements:
- The Microsystem = the immediate environment (e.g., the actions and interactions of school leaders, teachers, staff, parents, governors and students- what they are doing).
- The Mesosystem = interactions of microsystems (e.g. the child’s parents and the school).
- The Exosystem = the external environment (e.g., national policies, external agencies – for accreditation and validation, restraints on spending; parental demands etc.)
- The Macrosystem = attitudes, values and beliefs of the culture
- The Chronosystem = the influence of time
"In biology, an ecosystem is one that is formed by a community of living and abiotic organisms that interact with each other. Each of these living beings fulfils processes that allow in some way that another living being can exist. Each of the elements of this ecosystem must adequately fulfil its function so that another component of it can exist.
If we take it to an energy transfer pyramid within an ecosystem, each of the pedagogical leaders must start from their role, impact on another element of the system so that it can fulfil its purpose and thus allow the entire system to function. Pedagogical leaders and directors are a vital part of this ecosystem.
In an ecosystem we have living and non-living things, and in the school, we have teachers, students parents who are the living things, and all the resources, learning environment, materials are non-living and they all interact with each other’s." (IB Workshop Leader, Alfonso Perendones)
Example of an educational ecosystem – across a city
Each year the Moscow Global Forum "City for Education" brings together scientists and businessmen, teachers and parents, school children and students - all who are interested in modern education, unique practices, and the latest educational technology.
Manifesto of the Forum: The city is an educational ecosystem: all its elements are connected with each other and actively interact. Everyone who lives in the city can develop new skills, share experiences, teach, and learn. At the forum, we will recreate the current model of the city's ecosystem with all participants in the educational process: from school principals, founders of specialized start-ups, and representatives of government agencies to students and their parents.
Their professional inquiries include:
- What is there to teach? What is there to learn?
- How should we teach? How should we learn?
- How can we promote education of the future?
- Organisation of educational ecosystems.
- For whom is education of the future being developed?
- What is a ‘global education ecosystem’?
Work through a leadership challenge/problem by using the following questions in each of the steps. On chart paper, “curate the thinking” of the group in a way that can be explained to others.
The Microsystem = the immediate environment (e.g., the actions and interactions of school leaders, teachers, staff, parents, governors and students).
- What has happened?
- Why is it a problem?
- How have you and others responded?
- How have you tried to solve it?
The Mesosystem = interactions of microsystems (e.g., the child’s parents and the school).
- How do elements within the system influence each other?
- Who’s involved?
- Whose interests need to be considered?
- What have those in the microsystems already done/said?
The Exosystem = the external environment (e.g., local context and culture, national/local policies, external agencies – for accreditation and validation, restraints on spending; parental demands etc.)
- Are there any political influences creating an impact (local, regional, national, international)?
- Which policies/guidelines/regulations do we need to try and meet?
- Which educational innovations could we consider?
The Macrosystem = attitudes, values and beliefs of the culture
- What is contributing to these patterns and trends?
- What makes them see the problem as they do?
- What about the way they think allows this situation to continue?
- How do they need to change their thinking to get a solution?
- What aspects of the school need to be changed if these patterns are to change?
The Chronosystem = the influence of time
- Have we been here or someplace similar before?
- Has this problem/ challenge occurred in the past?
- If so, how has this changed over time or has it?
NEW Diploma Programme course on systems thinking
IB Systems Transformation: Leadership for Change is a pioneering double standard level pilot course in the IBDP, co-developed by UWCSEA and the IB. Designed for students seeking deeper challenge and real-world engagement, it emphasizes project-based, authentic learning. In response to rapid global change—technological, social, political, and environmental—the course develops leadership, systems thinking, and transformative action. This course positions students to lead change in an increasingly complex and uncertain world.
The UWCSEA are one of several schools piloting the course. Read about their introduction to the course HERE.
How do I make sense of my context? Sense-making
School leaders need to make sense of complexity and ambiguity
"Sensemaking is a cognitive process associated with gaining a deeper understanding of diverse and complex contexts achieved though continuous and systematic reflection and analysis with the purpose of facilitating effective action.
Maitliss and Christianson argue that sense making is “a central activity in organizations, and one that lies at the very core of organizing”. Klein et al. define sensemaking as “a continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively”. Hill and Levenhagen perceives it to be how people “develop a ‘vision’ or mental model of how the environment works” Ancona argues sense making enables leaders “to have a better grasp of what is going on in their environments” Dervin describes it “as a methodology disciplining the cacophony of diversity and complexity without homogenizing it”. Ganon-Shilon and Schechter conceive it as an “active process of constructing meaning from present stimuli, mediated by prior knowledge, experiences, beliefs, and values that is embedded in the social construct within which people work”. Maitliss and Christianson suggest it is the process that enables people to unravel the “issues or events that are novel, ambiguous, confusing, or in some other way violate expectations”.
An organizational focus on learning must however also embrace a commitment to sensemaking and understanding the implications of institutional and environmental complexity. When joining new schools leaders must treat them as uniquely complex, dynamic and diverse environments that must be understood and accommodated.
Schools are increasingly being conceived as complex networked systems consisting of interconnected and interdependent individuals and groups of students, parents, teachers, administrators, and governors with conflicting expectations and aspirations that work together to achieve goals. Unsurprisingly, given this interdependence and these multiple perspectives and competing demands the ability of leaders to exert influence on school systems can be a challenging endeavour.
Fertig and James conceive schools to be complex evolving loosely linked systems. Such systems are conceived by Stacey as “webs of non-linear feedback loops that are capable of operating in states of both stable and unstable equilibrium- in bounded instability at the edge of chaos”. Such conceptualisations draw upon complexity theory in highlighting the interdependent and dynamic nature of school organisations." (Mark Waterson, International school leadership, complexity and sensemaking, IB 2020)
Each school needs to make sense of what it means to be an IB World School within their own specific context. There is no one model of being an IB World School–instead it is about a symbiotic relationship between the IB and its schools focused on organisational growth. The Programme standards and practices offers both an aspirational (the standards and practices) and baseline (the requirements and specifications) framework of what it means to be an IB World School.
The use of sense-making supports schools adopting a professional inquiry stance in all that they do. This will come to the fore in the revised Guide to School Evaluation which includes a piece on carrying out your own professional inquiry within your school context.
The theory of sensemaking is applicable to teachers and leaders in IB schools: they are expected to design their own content from our frameworks. They must make sense of the framework through IB documentation. They need to immerse themselves into the problem, think, ask, plan, and reflect. Marcel Proust said: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
Reference:
Deborah Ancona, SENSEMAKING Framing and Acting in the Unknown
PS: How do understand sense making on a personal level?
'Sensemaking' can sometimes be difficult to understand. You may like to work with this TedTalk as a way into the subejct - it gives a personal stance.
How do you make sense of the world? In his TedTalk Alan Arnett explores how individuals can make sense of the situation they in. This is a useful video for leaders to bear in mind since sensemaking is connected to how to make change happen. He talks of sensemaking as a way of making connections between yourself, the situation you are in and the other people you are with. He goes on to provide three questions that can make a big difference to how we make progress and engage more people:
- What are we solving? Where about are we? What is the question we are trying to answer?
- Where are we heading? How will we know when we get there? Is it close or far away?
- How might we get there?
What is sensemaking in an organisation?
In Sensemaking in Organizations (Sage Publications, 1995), Karl E. Weick explores seven properties of organizational sensemaking: identity, retrospect, enactment, social contact, ongoing events, cues, and plausibility. I’ve italicized the key terms that Weick uses to represent his heuristics:
- Sensemaking is matter of identity: it is who we understand ourselves to be in relation to the world around us.
- Sensemaking is retrospective: we shape experience into meaningful patterns according to our memory of experience.
- How and what becomes sensible depends on our socialization: where we grew up in the world, how we were taught to be in the world, where we are located now in the world, the people with whom we are currently interacting.
- Sensemaking is a continuous flow; it is ongoing, because the world, our interactions with the world, and our understandings of the world are constantly changing. You might also think of sensemaking as perpetually emergent meaning and awareness.
- Sensemaking builds on extracted cues that we apprehend from sense and perception. Cognition is the meaningful internal embellishment of these cues. We articulate these embellishments through speaking and writing – the “what I say” part of Weick’s recipe. In doing so, we reify and reinforce cues and their meaning, and add to our repertoire of retrospective experience.
- Sensemaking is less a matter of accuracy and completeness than plausibility and sufficiency. We simply have neither the perceptual nor cognitive resources to know everything exhaustively, so we have to move forward as best as we can. Plausibility and sufficiency enable action-in-context.
Each of these seven aspects interact and intertwine as individuals interpret events. Their interpretations become evident through narratives – written and spoken – which convey the sense they have made of events.
A note on Activity Theory
Activity theory has informed the structure of the revised IB Standards and Practices. But what is it? It is about seeing the whole and how the parts of the system connect together.
The following humorous video provides an example of activity theory in action.
In summary:
- Schools are systems consisting of artifacts, rules and labour that influence outcomes.
- Schools systems learn through relationships: people, activities, rules and tools interact together to expand learning and creative opportunities for it.
- School systems assume that collaboration is the ideal action in or between systems.
“Activity systems are systems where people engage in solving problems or making or designing something. They are “dynamic, open, semiotic system(s) of meaningful actions and meaning-making processes” (Lemke, 1990, p. 191). An activity system can be as small as an individual working with a computer, or as large as an organization having hundreds of employees.” (Rantavuori et. al. 2016, 4)
How does this relate to practice?
Activity theory strongly suggests that the parts that make up a school community work together, and that evaluating the relationships between parts is more important than evaluating any individual part. As part of IB evaluation schools are asked to select an area of the programme they have been developing (i.e. what have you been working on?) and then to choose at least four practices from at least two of the four categories in the PSP framework (Purpose | Environment | Culture | Learning):
- A practice that sets conditions ~ that is, what needs to be in place for this to be successful
- What practices identify the people who are responsible for the work? (e.g. teachers, students, leadership)
- What practices show how the work will be done. That is, what actions will be taken?
- What practices indicates why the school is undertaking the work. That is, what is the reason for this focus?
Reference: Introduction to Activity Theory, Warwick Institute of Employment Research.
A school's ecosystem
IB World Schools aim to develop an ecosystem that encompasses all elements of the IB programme standards and practices framework - purpose, culture, environment, learning. There is always tension (positive and challenging) between the IB framework and a school's context and culture. School's, as all ecosystems, are living organisms, that continue to grow and develop.
Consider your school’s ecosystem in light of the IB programme standards and practices. Describe what your own school ecosystem looks like, sounds like and feels like in terms of what you believe is the purpose/culture/environment/learning. Turn your description into an "elevator pitch" for a new staff member of no more than 60 seconds in length. Be sure your "elevator pitch" includes:
- purpose/mission—what are we trying to achieve
- values—what’s most important
- culture—as defined by the five mandated IB policies
- local/regional/national context and how learning fits into the mix.
Here is an example from a school in South Africa:
Redhill School’s main purpose is to build leaders for their time. We strive to build a community in which students and educators are fully able to actualise their unique potential. We strive to achieve personal and collective excellence. Our logo is that of a mason’s tool, called a trowel, accompanied with a slogan ‘free to build’. This captures our culture of agency, growth and excellence. Symbolically teachers and students are free to build their own structures of learning, using a trowel, which I see as the resources, together with mortar which I see as character, attitude and contribution, to actualise their unique potential. The school thrives on an inclusive energetic vibe, which is a thread which runs through our whole learning community. To thrive in the south African context poses various challenges for our teachers and learners and we embrace these challenges with courage and creativity. (Lulu Burger, Head of Educational Technology)
What is our context?
As a school journey's towards IB authorisation they are, with the revised Programme Standards and Practices (PSPs) to make sense of what it will mean to become an IB school within their context and to the be part of the IB ecosystem.
In the following graphic Kirsten Durward, a workshop leader, has created a visual of this.

An IB school is part of the IB ecosystem. In the following graphic Martin McCurrach visualises what this means. Martin drew this graphic to bring to life the new Head of School (Category 1) workshop which will be mandatory for all Heads of School with effect September 2020. This workshop introduces school leaders to the IB ecosystem as described by the four elements of the revised programme standards and practices{PSPs} (purpose | environment | culture | learning) and provides them with the IB leadership intelligences as a lens through which to plan the journey towards IB authorization and beyond. Schools need to make sense of how the PSPs relate to their own culture and context and how they can develop as a school and learning organisation by becoming an IB world school.

IB World Schools are considered an ecosystem and each school within that ecosystem a micro-climate made up of its own context and culture.

Pearson researched into the skills required in 2030 and found a strong emphasis on interpersonal skills,higher-order cognitive skills and systems skills. The top 10 skills were:
- fluency of ideas
- system thinking — the ability to recognize, understand and act on interconnections and feedback loops in socio-technical systems
- judgment and decision making
- systems analysis and systems evaluation
- active learning
- complex problem-solving
Their website can be found HERE.
Read the following two quotes.
Which words | phrases resonate with you?
Provide examples from within your experience of schools working as system and schools failing to work as systems.
Schools as systems
The whole system is a system thinking view of the complete organization in relation to its environment. It provides a means of understanding, analyzing and talking about the design and construction of the organization as an integrated, complex composition of many interconnected systems (human and non-human) that need to work together for the whole to function successfully. (Lorenzo Erikson, Systems Thinking, 2017).
System failure
Schools can suffer from systemic failure. This occurs in the whole system or high-level system where there is a failure between and within the system elements that need to work together for overall success. Factors in systemic failure may include confused goals, weak system-wide understanding, flawed design, individual incentives that encourage loyalty to sub-ordinate (rather than super-ordinate) goals, inadequate feedback, poor cooperation, lack of accountability, etc. Whole system failure may co-exist alongside functional success. The leadership of silos may individually be successful but not be sufficiently integrated into the whole system owing to a shortcoming of systems design, management or understanding.(Lorenzo Erikson, Systems Thinking, 2017)
What's the difference between simple, complicated and complex problems?
Academics Glouberman and Zimmerman (Complicated and complex systems, 2004) distinguish between simple, complicated and complex problems. Simple problems can be solved by applying a rule (e.g. a cooking reciple). Complicated problems are the realm of expertise and data analysis, dealing with the known unknowns (e.g. sending a rocket to the moon). Complex problems exist in ap lace of constant flux, and is the realm of the unknown unknowns (e.g. raising a child).
In a complex system the 'actors' (all stakeholders) need to be adaptive. "Complexity theory posits that systems begin as collections of individual actors who organise themselves and create relationships. These relationships form in response to positive or negative feedback. New structures and behaviours then emerge as the actors act and react to each other. Value is created as a result of individual interactions, and often the emergent result is more than, or qualitatively different from, the sum of individual actions." (The simple, the complicated, and the complex: Educational reform through the lens of complexity theory, Sean Snyder, OECD 2013).
Why are schools complex places?
Largely because of the complex interactions of 'the actors'. Schools are relational places - they are full of human interactions. What works for one child, teacher, district or school system is not guaranteed to work for another. Even within a school there may be different sections - what works for one section may not work for other sections, even within the same school system. Context matters. That is why educational jurisdictions over the world differ from each other.
Key to all of this - and problematic for school leaders who are trying to steer from the centre - is the fact that there is no guiding central hand in the evolution of the system. The school leader(s) need to create a fertile environment that embraces the emergent nature of complex systems and work to create processes that maximize the flow of feedback between and across the various parts of the system in a safe and manageable space.
This has many implications. For example, school policies (at the heart of the revised IB standards and practices) must move from one-size fits all solutions to iterative processes derived from constant feedback between all stakeholders. Consider, for example, your language policy - which will need to be reviewed as the needs of your students changes. "The traditional model of policy making, in which design precedes and is distinct from implementation, should be replaced by one of experimentation" (The simple, the complicated, and the complex: Educational reform through the lens of complexity theory, Sean Snyder, OECD 2013). Change management needs to be inclusive and process-driven rather than outcome-driven - change becomes an organic, changing process rather than a preordained solution formulated in the realm of the complicated.
Reflect
- Given that schools are complex adaptive systems what is the role of the (pedagogical) leader in leading teams | staff?
- Identify key words in the following quote that resonate with where you and your school is at:
"School and community culture, economic factors, parental achievement, health issues, local and national politics, and any number of other diverse inputs play a role and can only be captured and made a part of the system’s development by bringing all actors into the process. “A complexity approach acknowledges that all levels of focus, whether this is the individual, class, school, national or international associations, reveal humans and human endeavour as complex, and that focusing on one level will not reduce the multi-dimensionality, non-linearity, interconnectedness, or unpredictability encountered” (Kuhn, 2008, p. 183). In short, launching an initiative targeted at only a single, identifiable problem is akin to throwing a pebble into the ocean. In order to create more than a ripple, the intricate web of different intersecting systems must be better understood and modeled so that pressure may be applied to the system at as many key points, and by as many actors across as many levels, as possible to nudge systems toward desired outcomes. A shift in emphasis is needed away from the analysis of individuals and outcomes to an analysis of processes and a shift in institutional culture toward greater systemic engagement amongst all actors and levels." (The simple, the complicated, and the complex: Educational reform through the lens of complexity theory, Sean Snyder, OECD 2013)
Ecologist Eric Berlow doesn't feel overwhelmed when faced with complex systems. He knows that more information can lead to a better, simpler solution. Illustrating the tips and tricks for breaking down big issues, he distils an overwhelming infographic on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to a few elementary points. As you watch consider how this thinking may apply to schools as complex interrelated eco-systems.
A key message from this video is that when school leaders are trying to affect change they need to step back and observe their educational system (school | district | regional | national) as an evolving organism, and they need to be flexible and adaptive to its needs. Complexity theory tells us that the key to bringing aout any change is complex systems like schools is to use multi-level feedback channels to tap into the institutional knowledge already present in the system.
Here is an example of what that looked like in Ontario and South Australia.
Case Study: Ontario, Canada
Ontario did not centrally script and cascade new teaching and learning practices to all classrooms. Instead, it focused on cultivating school-led innovation and improvement. As one Ontario system leader described, “We minimised the amount of directing or mandating we did. Instead, we needed methods to get school professionals’ ideas so we could build on them. We regularly brought people together to share their practices and exchange ideas. We did almost no mandating of specific strategies – we got them to develop their own plans. We didn’t micromanage schools or districts in this process. We empowered them” (quoted in Mourshed et al p. 50).
Case Study: South Australia
Guiding principles from Australia’s Learning to Learn project
Initiated in 1999, Learning to Learn was implemented in 77 schools and preschools in South Australia. It was designed to respond to concerns that prior attempts had led only to incremental improvement rather than the desired transformational change of a systemic culture. The principles below are illustrative of a whole system lens applied to reform.
- Transformation rather than incremental improvement is needed;
- A catalyst or leader is required to trigger the development of partnerships between stakeholders as a basis for achieving a change;
- Complex problems need complex solutions and can come from the local level;
- A sense of vocation constitutes a motivational resource for teachers in the context of education;
- Learning comes through trust and acceptance of risk;
- Reflection on deeply held worldviews and a questioning of identity, not just administrative change, is needed for sustainable benefit;
- Change and uncertainty are ubiquitous and form the backdrop for transformation;
- Sustainable change comes only through responsibility taken at a local level, not through imposition.
Further, the programme avoided:
- Excessive formalism and quantification;
- Seeing planning as a useful activity in itself;
- An institutional view of “human resources”, focusing rather on people and reinforcing professionalism;
- Seeing leadership as about authority, focusing instead on quality relationships;
- Centralist control typical of bureaucratic and managerial thinking.
Source: Goldspink, C. (2007). doi: 10.1177/1741143207068219, adapted from Foster (2001).
How can we as an organisation learn?
Peter Senge defined learning organizations as “…organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.”

Here are a number of tools that you can use in order to develop learning in your school | district. I am indebted to The Academy of Systems Change for these suggestions.
- U Process | Theory U: a method of how to approach difficult problems. It is often used as a change management process.
- Biomimicry: how to use natural forms, materials, and processes as models to drive human innovation. Click HERE for the Biomimicry Institute.
- Double loop learning is a learning process that goes beyond surface level goals, techniques, and responses to target the assumptions and values underlying the system in order to enable solutions to problems that are complex and ill-structured. ”Double-loop learning occurs when error is detected and corrected in ways that involve the modification of an organization’s underlying norms, policies and objectives.” (Argyris and Schön). For a TED talkexample of double loop learning click HERE.
- The iceberg model helps you contextualize an issue as part of a whole system. “By asking you to connect an event–a single incident or occurrence–to patterns of behavior, systems structures, and mental models, the iceberg allows you to see the structures underlying the event.” (Academy of Systems Change). Clixck HERE to download the model.
World Cafe is a tool that facilitates dialogue amongst large groups. Listen Together for Patterns and Insights
- Graphic Facilitation is a way of communicating complex ideas, allowing all to see and internalize the big picture of a discussion or presentation.
Systems intelligence is at the very core of the learning organisation. The concept of Systems Intelligence was introduced in 2004 by Professors Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen of Aalto University in Helsinki.
"Our everyday life is embedded in systems in contexts such as work, organizations and family. The generic set of abilities involved in the human ability to live successfully in interaction-intensive systemic environments has been conceptualized as systems intelligence(SI), defined as intelligent behaviour in the context of complex systems involving interaction and feedback. A subject acting with Systems Intelligence engages successfully and productively with the holistic feedback mechanisms of her environment. She perceives herself as a part of a whole, the influence of the whole upon herself as well as her own influence upon the whole. By observing her own interdependence in the feedback intensive environment, she is able to act intelligently". (Systems intelligence inventory)
The systems intelligence inventory that consists of eight factors describing the most relevant skills related to SI. The SI inventory can serve as a useful tool in enabling people to identify their personal strengths and weaknesses in a way that serves the whole.They are:
- Systemic Perception: Our ability to see the systems around us;
- Attunement: The capability we have to feel and tune into people and systems;
- Reflection: Our capacity to reflect on our thoughts and think about our thinking;
- Positive Engagement: The character of our communicative interactions;
- Spirited Discovery: Passionate engagement with new ideas;
- Effective Responsiveness: Our talent at taking timely, appropriate actions;
- Wise Action: Our ability to behave with understanding and a long time horizon;
- Positive Attitude: Our overall approach to life in systems.
Factor
Systemic perception
- I form a rich overall picture of situations
- I easily grasp what is going on
- I get a sense of what is essential to a given situation
- I keep both the details and the big picture in mind.
Attunement
- I approach people with warmth and acceptance
- I take into account what others think of the situation
- I am fair and generous with people from all walks of life
- I let other people have a voice
Attitude
- I explain away my mistakes
- I have a positive outlook on the future
- I easily complain about things
- I let problems in my surroundings get me down
Spirited Discovery
- I like to play with new ideas
- I look for new approaches
- I like to try out new things
- I act creatively
Reflection
- I view things from many different perspectives
- I pay attention to what drives my behaviour
- I think about the consequences of my actions
- I make strong efforts to grow as a person
Wise action
- I am willing to take advice
- I take into account that achieving good results can take time
- I am wise in my judgements
- I keep my cool even when situations are not under control
Positive engagement
- I contribute to the shared atmosphere in group situations
- I praise people for their achievements
- I'm good at alleviating tension in difficult situations
- I bring out the best in others
Effective responsiveness
- I prepare myself for situations to make things work
- I easily give up when facing difficult problems
- I'm able to put the first things first
- When things don't work, I take action to fix them
For a more detailed discussion of Peter Senge's ideas I recommend this article from Infed.
The Society for Organizational Learning
Schools as 'Learning Organisations' explores Peter Senge's work.
Waters Center for System Thinking - tools to develop systems thinking in schools.
Linda Booth Sweeney’s website provides accessible materials that help communicate complex systems concepts
For an article on 'the rapidly evolving and sprawling ecosystems that are modern educational systems' I recommend The simple, the complicated, and the complex: Educational reform through the lens of complexity theory, Sean Snyder, OECD 2013.
Introduction to systems thinking, Daniel H Kim, Pegasus
An introduction to systems thinking and wicked problem solving: Draw how to make toast.
Systems architypes 1: Diagnosing systemic issues and designing high-leverage interventions, Daniel H Kim, Pegasus
Applying systems architypes, Daniel H Kim & Colleen P Lannon, Pegasus
A large network of Californian educators, administrators and researchers have dedicated themselves to Compassionate Systems Leadership, a learning journey of professional growth and institutional healing, grounded in attention to personal wellbeing, organizational learning, and systems thinking. Over 1,000 educators and practitioners across the State have been introduced to and, in some cases, co-designed compassionate systems tools and practices through professional development workshops, trainings and coaching.
Compassionate Systems Tools
You will find a helpful collection of compassionate system tools on the Compassionate Systems Leadership website. Click HERE.
Thinking Tools
www.untools.co: This is a great site providing a collection of thinking tools and frameworks to help you solve problems, make decisions and understand systems.
A number of key concepts have informed the design of the new PSPs and should be reflected in the design of the suite of workshops. They are:
- ecosystem (of the IB and of each school)
- systems thinking (keeping the big picture in mind)
- learning organisation (as dynamic, collaborative, reflective and inclusive)
- sense making (collaborative and ongoing meaning making)
- adaptive organizations (which are flexible)
You will see that these concepts overlap with each other: namely, viewing the IB and each school as an ecosystem invites participants to view their school as a whole system and to develop systems thinking, and within this to make sense of the whole as well as the parts. In the appendix I have suggested questions we may like to ask ourselves as we design these workshops to ensure that these concepts are embedded in the design process.