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Holistic Education Network of Tasmania, Inc.

Oct 15^th, 2001         Send this email to a friend

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Discover the Third Millennium

Systems Thinking

What is a World View?

One of the greatest impediments to the provision of a meaningful education may not be a lack of good programs, or innovation, or good teachers, but a lack of up-to-date perspectives. How many educators hold beliefs and assumptions from outdated world views that have long out-lived their usefulness?

Fundamental insights made early in the 20^th century into the nature of physical reality, the genesis and evolution of the cosmos, the needs and capacities of the human being, and how people learn have yet to be incorporated into education.

Much of today's education appears to be built on implicit 19^th century mechanistic reductionistic assumptions about resources, processes and people. (Capra, Laszlo, Smith, Lemkow)

How often do you hear 19^th C models and metaphors? 'Billiard-ball' models of reality, 'cause-and-effect' thinking and ‘pull-things-apart’ processes teach a mechanistic reductionistic world view. How often do teachers use19^th C "wheels of change", "machinery of government", "switched on thinkers", "runs like clockwork" or similar mechanistic metaphors? How many educators use current 'quantum', 'systems' or 'ecological' metaphors?

Do teachers tacitly, if not explicitly, teach that physics explains chemistry, chemistry explains biology, and  biology explains psychology - and thus reduce love to a chemical reaction? 

If students see themselves as machines in a purposeless universe how do they find meaning, purpose and wonder in their lives?      References & Reading

"Many students see themselves as accidents of random processes and separate from nature, the cosmos and universal evolutionary processes."  

But isolation and alienation are profoundly false states of mind. We [have] the possibility of forming deeply bonded relationships [with]… all life… and the universe."

Brian Swimme  

Newtonian and Quantum Thinking

Danah Zohar, and many others, argue that major shifts in thinking occurred in the 20th C. For example from a

• Newtonian view of the world, where thinking was linear, rational, logical and rule bound; to a

• Quantum view of the world (sometimes referred to as systems thinking), where thinking is insightful, creative and aimed at generating meaning.  

How many students have heard any 'quantum', 'systems' or 'transpersonal' views of the world?

For the classroom...

The Flat Earth Students are exposed to a compelling idea: the Earth really IS flat!

Earth Mysteries Phenomena that may challenge a mechanistic world view.

The Systems World View

35% of students surveyed believed there is little purpose to human life and 15% believed that not everyone has a place in the world. Only one third of students and teachers held some 20^th century 'quantum' or 'systems' thinking assumptions.  

Report

Some Alternate World Views

• Mechanistic
• Materialistic
• Reductionistic
• Religious
• Systems
• Indigenous
• Postmodern
• Ecological
• Quantum
• Transpersonal

Have you ever wondered.... 

... which century you belong in - 19^th, 20^th or 21^st ?

 Take the test! 

Students and Teachers

HENT Web Site and Discussion List

HENT has a comprehensive web site and there is a national discussion list on holistic education hosted by EdNA. 

Previous issues of HENT NEWS.

 Cosmo and His Search for a Meaningful Education

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