The problems of the world seem to be growing more difficult to solve. Consider public education: K12 is a set of complex and intertwined challenges that seem to defy resolution.
To understand K12 education as an ecosystem, think of it as series of interactions among a variety of closely knit stakeholders. Teachers, parents and students are the principal actors, but there is a host of others, including area school boards, local communities, a raft of state legislatures, the Federal DOE, and a handful of text book companies. And the forces at work are strong. Tradition, culture and silo-thinking work against change, essentially anchoring us to the status quo.
Among stakeholders there are significant conflicts and diverging priorities. Ecosystem outcomes routinely fail to align with our intentions. Look at dropout rates. Look at teacher pay and attrition. Look at despair in the inner city.
Everyone admits that it shouldn’t be this way. Yet viable answers are elusive.
Reared in an industrial world, the machine is the operative metaphor and ’cause and effect’ thinking is the guiding force. We instinctively seek simple answers to all our problems. Often, in the U.S., it’s done by throwing money at issues. Why can’t we just fix schools? Or healthcare? Or the economy? It’s because these are all social ecosystems, and they all defy simple solutions. There is no one law (NCLB), one model (Charters, Montessori), or one big idea (Race to the Top) that will address systemic issues.
The people behind ECOSYS come together with these challenges in mind.
Who are we? Most of us are parents. Many are teachers and educators. But all of us are engaged stakeholders who support high quality education for children everywhere. With focus and positive energy people can to come together to drive that change, working to solve hard problems like these. Public conversation draws in a variety of viewpoints, which is key for surfacing new ideas and new thinking.
How do we frame the challenge? The emergence of complexity thinking tells us that studying interactions helps us understand the patterns that work. How do people across the ecosystem behave? What motivates them? What ultimately drives outcomes? Once we understand those forces and patterns, we can identify possible solutions and ways to guide their implementation.
What is our approach? We’re using the collaborative potential of social media to connect & interact publicly. We discuss challenges each week, documenting key takeaways – and the evolution of our thinking – as a means to move the ball forward. Have a look at our collaboration space (our wiki) to get an idea.
If this approach seems novel, we’d agree. Most self-organizing communities use a birds of a feather model, coming together to discuss and share common practices. In contrast, we come together to discuss our differences, to learn from them and to highlight our wins. We think we’re onto something. Each week for the past two years, the K12 ECOSYS discussion group has been meeting via Twitter chat (hashtag: #ecosys) to brainstorm our approach for unpacking K12 challenges.
Follow the links and the people of ECOSYS to learn more.
Our problems are significant, but they’re also close to home. In the end, it’s about priorities. Our kids need our help. Connect. Engage. And welcome to ECOSYS.
#ECOSYS 
Michael Josefowicz (@toughLoveforx)
January 30, 2012
It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years. It points to the power of persistence.
I want to share how I look at the ecosys and complex adaptive systems in general. If you check out my twitter stream, you probably see “nemetics” “Nemistrings” “nemiSpheres” appear alot. For whatever it’s worth to other folks, I know for me it has made seeing the dynamics in the ecosys more clear. The issue is not really if what I see is “correct.” That needs supporting “evidence” and is shaped by my world view, as everyones view of “evidence” is shaped by their world views.
In any case nemetics is an invented language that has the great advantage of not triggering implicit understandings. Every “meaning event” – by which I only mean I say X, you hear Y – needs to be explicit. It has a great advantage over either common language or education specific language to communicate meaning.
The basic notions are simple, but need a willing suspension of disbelief to make them helpful. Nemes nemistrings NemiSpheres, nemitangled nemiStrings are the only nouns one needs. The flow of events in complexity is defined as Entangling and Dis Entangling. The important thing to keep in mind is that the flow events is the default state of affairs. There is in fact nothing in the real world that maps to “A state of rest staying at rest” as Newton would have it. The phenom of “at rest” is merely an event where systems in tension are subject to balanced forces.
Recently I’ve had two interesting conversations on twitter using nemetics code to elucidate the dynamics of “behavior” problems in an Action Research context. I think it is fair to say that it has been helpful to facilitate communication in 140 chrs and to reveal the dynamics in play.
Rather than try to describe how it can work in clarifying the ecosys at various levels, let me just say that I would be so happy to work with anyone to clarify any particular situation.
A note to Chris. Your persistence, kindness and intelligence is in my view the secret sauce that has kept #ecosys alive and developing over this long journey. Just want to say thanks for what you do.