I always congratulate, and for that, my best help goes because it facilitates the work, to those people who are always thinking about daily improvement, willing to always listen, investigate and deepen what they are told, apply and check what they received, as well as deepen it and investigate it, and finally how interesting it is, to listen to the living testimony of the achievements achieved, to speak with authority and above all to encourage others to follow this path of learning by doing.
Just a few days ago I was meeting with a group of basic education teachers and among them the directive and administrative staff of a renowned educational institution. They were talking that afternoon and I was attentive to capture the need and give my contribution quota if necessary. They mentioned that, “ In education we need a thought related to changes in the way of conceiving and interpreting reality; seeking the replacement of the reductionist vision of classical thought, by a vision of relationship, broad and strategic ".
As a connoisseur of the subject in management and concerned about a better management of education, he was facing the need for a new paradigmatic approach that provides us with useful tools to intervene in reality, and helps us plan the changes that modern organizations need to an adaptation to the new requirements of the environment.
It was evident that the need was to touch the broad field of Systemic Thinking and this is where I want to contribute and make known the basic guidelines and principles of this approach. And from this change our way of working and solving problems, with a relational holistic vision that this thinking requires.
But what is really systems thinking ? The answer was originally given by its creator, the great Ludwig Von Bertalanffy with his famous Systems Theory. He postulated that every living system is an open system, which necessarily exchanges energy, matter and information with its environment in order to survive.
The modern organization is not alien to this, the educational institution, by the way, as one of these, must adapt to the market and be in constant transformation, being vital, to properly relate to other organizations and thus continue to function. I consider that there are many flaws in this regard.
The school is an open but not a closed system. Although the behavior of some seems to be the opposite.
All systemic thinking has three basic goals: First, the Holistic Approach (totalizing-integrating - dynamic in our management), where the facts, events or observable phenomena, should not be decomposed into parts, but must be studied in its entirety. Second, one must learn valid general laws or properties of this thought. Some I will analyze below. And third, there must be an interdisciplinary intervention with a common and general use of terminology. Within the latter, my single opinion is not enough, I need to solve the problem with the approach of others, that with their opinions we will know with certainty, the cause or origin, as well as the most appropriate solutions.
Under relational Holistic thinking that is the essence of systemic thinking, it requires studying the educational institution not as an isolated whole, but as a larger whole, integrated into an environment. Everything, whole and indivisible is our school. You have to do a comprehensive analysis to solve your problems. The parts are not representatives of the whole, but they do affect the whole. Let's change the functional approach of doing things, let's look for process perspective, this will finally have an impact on the total quality of the results.
In summary, 3 basic postulates that must be fulfilled: Holistic-totalizing approach, understanding and applying general laws of an open system, and holistic-relational thinking.
Many defend their area, defend their tasks and functions; they leave out the total reality. I am not saying that it is wrong to defend what is yours and do it well. The problem is that this does not allow us to see the rest, the others. We do not understand that we are part of a whole. Isn't it because of this that the result or final product, when evaluated, yields favorable results in certain aspects but bad in others?
The current approach demands that everything is well, everything goes well, everything is harmonized and coordinated towards the common goal first, then the particular ends come.
To understand the operation of a system, we must review some rules or principles that will help the best performance. Let's try a few.
