Subject: SD and critical pedagogy

Posted by Eric Stiens on 10/8/2008
In Reply To:SD and critical pedagogy Posted by Karl North on 10/8/2008

Message:

Karl,

I agree wholeheartedly!!! And though I have never posted on this list in the past, I have lurked on it for about a year.

I was introduced to system dynamics by a social work professor at Washington University (he reads this list, perhaps he will chime in) and one of the first questions I had for him was -- how do we have all these really brilliant SD models about ecological sustainability and the false assumptions built into capitalism and neoliberal/neoclassical economic theory, yet nearly all the models I see being published are about these isolated problems of making supply chains work better and increasing profit margins? How can we have probably one of the most well developed SD models (the World3 model) ever built saying in blinking neon letters that we are on a possibly irreversible path towards ecological collapse and simply ignore the conclusions of that model, but still think that the methodology is useful?

Perhaps this speaks to the versatility and neutrality of SD modeling as a tool for a wide variety of problems, but to me it smacks of hypocrisy and an unwillingness to engage in the sort of foundational-assumption shattering that systems thinking/inquiry (and good radical theory) is capable of.

I agree that there is a strong symbiosis between radical theories of social change/critique and systems thinking in general, and I think that SD modeling in particular could apply a rigor to analyzing how to solve social problems at their root levels rather than at symptomatic/surface levels that is not only useful in terms of "academic cred" and tenure-seeking publications, but really and actually providing a basis for transformational interventions/policies that may otherwise be dismissed as too radical or pie-in-the-sky

Perhaps we are in the minority on this list, and within the SD and systems thinking community in general - but I'm all for taking these tools out of the business schools and into the streets as it were.

--

I am currently working on a long pamphlet/short book meant for foundations and community organizers on how using insights from systems thinking and feedback concepts as a "language" to use when discussing race in the United States immediately places us into a much more useful and productive discussion rather than focusing on race/racism as simply individual or psychological concepts - and actually broadens the discussion to include everyone because the focus is no longer on who the "bad guys" are, but how a dynamic process is producing racial disparities perhaps in spite of well-intentioned policymakers (though of course that is debatable - one could also make the case that in the movement from de jure segregation and conscious racial hostility to de facto segregation and institutional/structural ways of maintaining racial hierarchy, we have simply found a more palitable way of maintaining white supremacy)

I would be happy to send on a draft to you when i am done if you are interested in reading it.

(and while how racial disparities are maintained in a post Civil Rights US has been a long standing personal/intellectual interest of mine - the questions that the kids came up with were not of my influence - the instructions given were basically, brainstorm problems that affect your lives or something you've always wanted to know the answer to and we'll figure out a way to investigate it -- the other two questions they came up with immediately were "How come if all the people in Mexico are poor and the president is rich, the people don't just take his money away" prompted by a recent news program that showed President Fox in a limosine and the slums of Mexico City and "How come people in other countries that get paid less than American workers for doing the same thing don't just stop working and demand the same amount of money" prompted by one of the kid's parents recently losing their job and complaining it was because other people in other countries would do it for less money -- perhaps more budding anti-capitalists in our inner city classrooms than we realize LOL)

Eric

Follow Ups:

SD and critical pedagogy - Ana María Rosón 10/9/2008 
SD and critical pedagogy - Eric Stiens 10/10/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - Karl North 10/10/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - John Sterman 10/12/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - Eric Stiens 10/17/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - Jaimie P. Cloud 10/9/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - Richard Turnock 10/19/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - Dexter Chapin 10/23/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - Richard Turnock 10/23/2008
SD and critical pedagogy - Della Robinson 10/26/2008