Subject: Call for input from teachers regarding their use of systems concepts

Posted by John Heinbokel on 11/17/2003
In Reply To:Call for input from teachers regarding their use of systems concepts Posted by Richard Plate on 11/17/2003

Message:

Richard,

I'm a faculty refugee from a failed college here in Burlington, VT. A college colleague and I are in the process of transitioning to 'businessmen' in establishing a consulting partnership that focuses on providing system dynamics services, including to K-12 educators. My purpose here, however, is NOT to hustle your business but to reply briefly to your inquiry. While Trinity College still existed, and subsequently at the Vermont Commons School, a grades 7-12 private college-prep school where we are currently housed, we have found SD to be a powerful tool in supporting teachers and students who wanted to move beyond the ordinary. We've found a number of general advantages: it supports interdisciplinary foci; it supports high level critical thinking; and, perhaps most interestingly, it empowers students to explore how they could devise policies in diverse areas to significantly affect how a given system functions. The latter provides avenues for involving the students (and faculty/staff) in real-world, real-time issues and projects in their communities.

That's a very "nutshell" sort of description, but if this line of conversation is of interest, please feel free to get back to me to pursue any of it more deeply.

John F. Heinbokel
Partner, CIESD, LLP
Co-Director, Center for System Dynamics, VT Commons School