Aug 20, 2010
It seems to me that DE offers a systems-approach to adult learning. This is different than a system for adult learning, although I think DE provides that too, to a point. But you decide! Often when we think of a system, we think of linked items, perhaps we might even imagine dominoes, or a one-step checking writing system (anyone old enough to remember that!?), or a filing system; in all of these cases, I do this, in this order and this is the outcome.
These could be called methods or ways of processing which are not the systems-approach I am suggesting where the outcomes are “by definition” unpredictable. In The Web of Life, Fritjof Capra suggests these ways to think of systems: connectedness, relationships, context.
According to the systems view, the essential properties of an organism, or living system, are properties of the whole, which none of the parts have. They arise from the interactions and relationships among the parts.
What questions come to your mind, in considering these distinctions?
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This blog is written by Darlene Goetzman.
If you are interested in exploring through a systems view, visit the Human Systems Dynamics website.