From the Parts to the Whole: A Systems Approach to Teaching

It has come to my attention that the best way to ensure we live in a sustainable world is to do one seemingly simple thing: look at the world around us! The answers we are seeking are actually right in our own backyards. This concept of designing sustainable societies by modeling them after natures ecosystems is described in detail in an essay entitled “ Speaking Nature’s Language: Principles for Sustainability.” The author of this essay, Fritjof Capra, is a founding director of the Centre for Ecoliteracy (CEL). For more information on the CEL see http://www.ecoliteracy.org/. Fritjof Capra primary contribution to the CEL was his push for education that is based on ecological principles and systems thinking. In other words, Capra has recognized that we need to teach our students the basic principles of ecology so that we can run a society that is grounded by these principles. To learn and understand these principles all we need to do is look at nature. As soon as you begin to really look at how nature works, you will realize one very important point: everything is a living system, no matter where you look. It is this very idea of systems that is the key to sustainability and environmental education. Systems are everywhere, from a single cell in a leaf, to the tree itself, to the forest it lives, even a part of the global carbon system. So if systems are everywhere, why is it so hard for us to recognize them and why is this principle of systemic thinking not a mainstream concept?
Capra has described to main reasons why out modern world has so much difficulty with this seemingly basic concept. First is the realization that systems are a nonlinear phenomenon meaning that they are networks of interconnected relationships that work on feedback systems and this is a difficult realization for modern science. Traditional Western Sciences are based on linear systems which work as a series of individual chains of cause and effect. Our basic principles of economics are also based on a linear system where growth, quantity and efficiency are considered as signs of success. This is simply not the case in systems sciences because sustainability is the key not efficiently.

Another reason why many people have a difficultly with systems is because our culture’s values and fundamental worldview is rooted in materialism (Capra, 2005). In sciences we tend to look at and study life by studying its parts, such as DNA, enzymes and other material structures in a cell. In the business world we tend to look at the products and the number figures which are again material things. System sciences recognize that the knowledge of these material things is important, but what are even more important are the non material patterns and processes that connect the material objects to one another.

In essence Capra is saying that we need to change our definition of success and out general way of looking at society and we need to take this new approach. Capara calls this “a shift of perception” when we start to look at the world in terms of relationships, connectedness and context rather than individual objects, content and structure. Capara outlines 6 major shifts in perception which are outlines in more detail within his essay: From parts to the whole, from objects to relationships, from objective knowledge to contextual knowledge, from quantity to quality, from structure to process and from contents to pattern. Coming from a science background I found these shifts to be very contrary to what I was taught about science. We have always been taught that science is about physical observations and quantitative measurements. The idea of relationships and context can be difficult to grasp because you often cannot measure or quantify them.

Outlines below are the 8 concepts that Capara has defined as the most essential concepts in the Language of Nature

Networks

*Each part of the community makes its own contribution to the project and the efforts of each are enhanced by the work of all.
*The network has the resilience to keep the project alive even when individuals move on and are gone.
*Ensures the longevity of the project

Nested Systems

*There are systems and networks embedded within larger systems and networks.
*The different systems represent different levels of complexity.

Interdependence

*The existence and sustainability of individual populations and that of an entire ecosystem are dependent on one another.
*No individual organism can exist in isolation.
*Sustainability always involves a whole community

Diversity

*Diversity makes a system more resilient because it contains species that have overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another if an organism leaves.
*The more diverse the community, the more complex the network’s pattern will be and therefore the more resilient the community will be.
*High diversity means different approaches to problem solving and multiple levels of support

Cycles

*Ecosystems reuse and recycle nutrients in a non-linear fashion
*The idea of “waste equals food”- Here is where liner, economics collides with non-linear ecology

Flows

*We live in an open-system model where energy does not travel in a linear system and cannot be recycled, only converted. This means we need a constant influx of energy.
*A sustainable community or society would use only as much energy as it can capture from the sun

Development

*All living systems develop and from this process all systems undergo the process of learning
*Individuals and environments adapt to one another and co evolve in a non-linear way and so we cannot fully predict a systems response to any given change or development.
*A sustainable community will exercise caution when committing itself to practices with unknown outcomes or effects.

Dynamic Balance

*All ecological cycles act on feedback loops which means that the systems self-regulate and continually reorganizes itself.
*This self regulation works on the basis of tolerance limits. Within a given limit a system can compensate for a change or deviation, but when the change goes beyond the boundaries of the tolerance limits problems can arise.
*Due to the high diversity of a system it is able to create new structures, networks and patterns when it encounters certain points of instability.
*For a community to be sustainable it needs to be able to recognize when the creation of new patterns and structures is necessary to maintain balance.

For more information on the concept of Systems thinking please see Frijof Capra's essay " Speaking Nature's Language" which can be found in the book "Ecological Literacy: Education Our Children for a Sustainable World"