Systems Thinking and STELLA
Contents
1. raining sx Water in Clouds soil lost per unit of water soil lost per unit of water Vegetative disappearing Vegetative Cover Figure 1 11 A Non linear Look at Soil Erosion The assumption being made here is that there is not a linear relationship between rainfall and the amount of soil being carried away by water Instead the strength of the relationship will change as the magnitude of a third variable Vegetative Cover changes And the plot thickens As the wire running from Soil to disappearing the outflow from Vegetative Cover indicates the rate at which vegetative cover disappears depends on how much soil is in place The less soil in place the more rapidly vegetative cover disappears the more rapidly vegetative cover disappears the less of it there is the less vegetative cover the more rapidly soil will be lost A vicious cycle or Reinforcing feedback loop thus the R Feedback loops as they interact with waxing and waning strength create non linear behavior patterns patterns that frequently arise in both natural and social systems Such patterns cannot arise out of simulations of mental models whose relationships are linear 23 24 Developing Non linear Thinking skills the sixth of the Systems Thinking skills will enable students to construct mental models that are capable of generating such patterns This in turn will enable students to better anticipate the imp2. the so called effect variable also loses its dependent status It too now causes which is to say that academic success stimulates student motivation and a good classroom environment just as much as they drive it Academic success also causes teachers to perform better it s easier to teach students who are doing well just as much as good teachers create academic success And so forth Academic Success is just as much a cause of any of the four factors as they are a cause of it And so independent and dependent variables become chickens and eggs Everybody becomes a co conspirator in a causal web of interrelationships Good Teachers i i Good 4 Academic Parenting Success Gaa High Motivation Good Classroom Environment Figure 1 10 Effect is also Cause 21 Closed loop Thinking Non linear Thinking 22 The shift from the Laundry List causality runs one way view to System Thinking s two way or closed loop view is a big deal The former is static in nature while the latter offers an ongoing process or dynamic view Viewing reality as made up of a web of closed loops called feedback loops and being able to structure relationships between elements in mental models to reflect this is the fifth of the Systems Thinking skills It s called Closed loop Thinking Mastering this skill will enable students to conduct more reliable mental simulations
3. Initiatives directed at addressing pressing social issues will not be seen as one time fixes but rather as exciting a web of loops that will continue to spin long after the initiative is activated Developing closed loop thinking skills will enable students to better anticipate unintended consequences and short run long run tradeoffs These skills also are invaluable in helping to identify high leverage intervention points The bottom line is an increase in the likelihood that the next generation s initiatives will be more effective than those launched by our straight line causality inspired generation The third and fourth meta assumptions implicit in Laundry List Thinking are easy to spot once the notion of feedback loops enters the picture The causal impacts in Laundry Lists are implicitly assumed to be linear and to unfold instantaneously which is to say without any significant delay Let s examine these two remaining Laundry List meta assumptions The assumption of linearity means that each causal factor impacts the effect by a fixed proportional magnitude In terms of the Universal Soil Loss equation for example someone might collect data for a particular ecosystem and then statistically estimate that say an 8 increase in rainfall R results in a 4 increase in soil loss per unit of area A We could then form the following equation to express the relationship A 0 5R
4. You probably immediately recognized it as your old friend the equation of a straight line i e Y mX b Ina linear equation a given change in the X variable results in a fixed corresponding change in the Y variable The variable expressing the amount of the corresponding change is m the slope of the straight line relating the two variables Let s contrast the linear view of the relationship between rainfall and soil loss with a non linear view as illustrated in Figure 1 11 As the wire running from raining to eroding away shows erosion is driven by rainfall The equation for eroding away is raining an amount of water per time times soil lost per unit of water Notice the on the face of the variable named soil lost per unit of water It designates the variable as what s called a graphical function I will discuss the graphical function in more detail in Chapter 6 The function is drawn as a graph on the right side of Figure 1 11 The graphical relationship indicates that the amount of soil that flows away with each unit of water is not constant Instead it depends upon the amount of Vegetative Cover that s present at the time In particular as the amount of Vegetative Cover increases the quantity of soil lost per unit of water decreases an inverse relationship vegetation sinks roots into the soil that help to hold soil particles together and in so doing reduces erosion
5. and representing activities have been executed Simulating yields conclusions that among other things help us to make decisions But as Figure 1 1 indicates simulation outcomes play another important role in the thinking process They provide feedback to the selecting and representing activities note the wires running from Simulation Outcomes to the two activities Simulation outcomes that make no sense or are shown to have been erroneous are a signal to go back to the drawing board Have we left something out of our mental model that really should be in there or included something that really doesn t belong Have we misrepresented something we have included This self scrutiny of our mental models inspired by simulation outcomes is one of the important ways we all earn but we re getting ahead in the story Before we discuss learning let s look at communicating An operational picture of communicating is presented in Figure 1 2 The first thing to note is that the figure includes the elements that make up the thinking activity The intention is to suggest that communicating is inextricably linked to thinking Indeed as the variable Made Available for Scrutiny by Others indicates the outputs of the Thinking process provide the raw material for the Communicating process Three sources of raw material are illustrated in the Figure the mental model the associated simulation outcomes and the conclusions that have been
6. is essentially being ignored The STELLA software is a readily available tool that can play an important role in helping to develop these skills The next process in the Thinking Communicating Learning system is Communicating The kind of communicating I m talking about here is not restricted to what one usually learns in an English composition class The communicating I m talking about must become a vital part of every class It s the feedback students provide after scrutinizing each other s mental models and associated simulation outcomes refer to Figure 1 3 29 Empathic Thinking 30 The current formal education system provides few opportunities for students to share their mental models and associated simulation outcomes Well run discussion classes do this and that s why students like these classes so much Students sometimes are asked to critique each other s writing or oral presentations but most often this feedback is grammatical or stylistic in nature The capacity for both giving and receiving feedback on mental models is vital to develop if we want to get better at bootstrapping each other s learning Many skills are involved in boosting this capacity including listening articulating and in particular empathizing capabilities Wanting to empathize increases efforts to both listen and articulate clearly Being able to empathize is a skill that can be developed and is in some ways the ultimate System
7. subscribes I discover that these assumptions seriously restrict learning Let s see how The name I use for the Western brand of serial cause and effect is Laundry List Thinking another name would be Critical Success Factors Thinking Laundry List Thinking is defined by a set of four 17 18 meta assumptions that are used to structure cause and effect relationships I use the term meta because these assumptions are content transcendent That is we use them to structure cause and effect relationships whether the content is Literature Chemistry or Psychology and also when we construct mental models to address personal or business issues Because we all subscribe to these meta assumptions and have had them inculcated from the get go we are essentially unaware that we even use them They have become so obviously true they re not even recognized as assumptions any more Instead they seem more like attributes of reality But as you re about to see the meta assumptions associated with Laundry List Thinking are likely to lead to structuring relationships in our mental models in ways that will cause us to draw erroneous conclusions when we simulate these models I will identify the four meta assumptions associated with Laundry List Thinking and then offer a Systems Thinking alternative that addresses the shortcomings of each Here s a question that PII use to surface all four as
8. 2 In Summary close the learning loop on the full ramification of actions that have been taken rather than capturing only the partial impacts because those impacts were still ramifying How might we be able to achieve this The answer Pd like to propose falls under the rubric of what s known as organizational learning This is a term tossed about with abandon which has been deeply enshrouded in fog since it was first coined To borrow a phrase Organizations don t learn people do I use the term organizational learning to refer to learning that is captured and then somehow stored outside the bodies of the individuals who create and make use of it As such when individuals disappear their contribution to the collective understanding does not go with them And when new people arrive they are able to quickly come up to the current collective level of understanding because that understanding is housed in some extra corporal reservoir The vehicle I would propose for creating this extra corporal reservoir call it an organizational learning infrastructure is a set of STELLA models The infrastructure would work as follows Each model would be used to predict what will occur not in a numerically precise way but in a qualitative sense in whatever context it is serving A process would be in place to monitor actual outcomes versus model generated predictions When discrepancies between the two
9. Chapter 1 Systems Thinking and the STELLA Software Thinking Communicating Learning and Acting More Effectively in the New Millennium I have been writing and re writing this Guide for fifteen years I always begin Chapter 1 by reeling off a litany of serious challenges facing humanity And you know what The list has remained pretty much the same There s homelessness and hunger drug addiction and income distribution inequities environmental threats and the scourge of AIDS We ve made precious little progress in addressing any of these issues over the last couple of decades Indeed you could make a strong case that if anything most if not all have gotten worse And some new challenges have arisen Perhaps most disturbing among these is what appears to be so far largely an American phenomenon kids killing kids and teachers at school So what s the problem Why do we continue to make so little progress in addressing our many very pressing social concerns My answer is that the way we think communicate and learn is outdated As a result the way we act creates problems And then we re ill equipped to address them because of the way we ve been taught to think communicate and learn This is a pretty sweeping indictment of some very fundamental human skills all of which our school systems are charged with developing However it is the premise of this Chapter and Systems Thinking that it is possible to evolve ou
10. Laundry List Thinking is quite widespread you shouldn t feel bad if you like most people produced a laundry list in response to the What causes students to succeed academically question If you did produce such a list it probably included some of the variables shown on the left hand side of Figure 1 8 The Figure belies four meta assumptions about cause and effect relationships implicit in the Laundry List framework Let s unmask them Good Teachers Good Academic High ese Success Motivation Good Classroom Environment Figure 1 8 A Laundry List Thinking Mental Model 19 The first meta assumption is that the causal factors four are shown in Figure 1 8 each operate independently on the effect academic success in the illustration If we were to read the story told by the view depicted in the Figure we d hear Good Teachers cause Academic Success Good Parenting cause Each factor or independent variable is assumed to exert its impact independently on Academic Success the dependent variable To determine how much sense this independent factors view really makes please consult your experience Isn t it really a partnership between teachers and parents good open lines of reciprocal communication trust etc that enables both parties to contribute effectively to supporting a student s quest for academic success And don t good teach
11. acts of their actions as well as those of the initiatives that will be implemented to address the pressing social and environmental concerns they will face upon graduation The fourth implicit meta assumption associated with Laundry List Thinking is that impacts are felt instantaneously For example when we look at the factors impacting academic success the implicit assumption is that each exerts its influence right now Take Good Classroom Environment The idea here is that a good classroom environment i e physical factors like space light good equipment etc will encourage students to achieve high levels of academic success Boost the quality of the physical environment boost academic success Sounds reasonable but when you draw a more operational picture the cause and effect is not quite so straight forward Take a look at Figure 1 12 Instead of words and arrows Good Classroom Environment gt Academic Success to show causality Figure 1 12 depicts the associated causal relationships operationally In particular the Figure includes the potentially significant delay between initiating improvements to a classroom environment and the arrival of those improvements The vehicle for capturing the delay as you ve already seen in Figure 1 3 is called a Conveyor In this illustration suppose the delay had to do with say the delivery and subsequent bringing on line of a mobile computer
12. arer picture of the distinction between a stock and a flow Body O Weight 7 gaining evaporating H precipitating Water i e O S building venting Figure 1 6 Some Stocks amp Flows To gain a quick idea of why the distinction matters consider the illustration in Figure 1 6b Suppose a person whose weight has been increasing decides to take some action to address the situation First they successfully eliminate all junk food snacks from their diet and do not eat more at regular meals to compensate for doing so Second they implement a rigorous aerobic exercise program to which they religiously adhere This means the person will have lowered the volume of the gaining flow i e reduced caloric intake and increased the volume of the losing flow increased caloric expenditure So what happens to this person s body weight Did your answer include the possibility that it would still be increasing It should have Look at Figure 1 6b The reason the person may still be gaining weight is because decreasing the rate of gaining the inflow and increasing rate of osing the outflow will only cause Body Weight the stock to decrease if gaining actually drops below losing Until this occurs the person will continue to gain weight albeit at a slower rate Take a moment to make sure you understand this reasoning before you proceed 15 When the distinction between stocks and flows goes unrecogn
13. arise the assumptions in the model would be scrutinized discussed and then adjusted accordingly Over time the model would continuously improve as a representation of the reality about which learning is being accumulated It would be great to implement this sort of extra corporal learning process in a classroom over a school year perhaps even extending it to multiple years and thereby giving students some sense of learning continuity as they progress through grade levels Having developed experience with such a process while in school may inspire some students to continue the much needed practice of seeking to harvest the learning from full impacts in their professional and public service careers The challenges today s students will face when they leave school are formidable and growing more so every day The education system has not evolved its curriculum methods and tools so as to better equip students for addressing these issues The system continues to be driven by a content acquisition standard that features memorization as its primary learning activity The key to evolving our education system lies in tapping the potential synergies that exist in the mutually reinforcing processes of thinking communicating and learning Systems Thinking and the STELLA software can bring a lot to this party 33 What s to Come 34 This Chapter identified eight Systems Thinking skills that leverage all three
14. ave offered a Systems Thinking skill that can be developed to overcome it Six Systems Thinking skills have been identified thus far 10 000 Meter System as Cause Dynamic Operational Closed loop and Non linear Thinking By developing these skills students will be better equipped for constructing mental models that are more congruent with reality This by itself will result in more reliable mental simulations and drawing better conclusions But we can do even more We re now ready to examine the second component of thinking simulating Let s see what s being done to limit development of 25 Thinking Simulating a Mental Model 26 students capabilities in this arena and what we might do to help remedy the situation The first component of thinking is constructing mental models The second component is simulating these models Throughout the discussion thus far I ve been assuming that all simulating is being performed mentally This is a good assumption because the vast majority is performed mentally How good do you think you are at mental simulation Here s a test for you Read the passage that follows and then perform the requested mental simulation A firm managing a certain forestland is charged with maintaining a stable stock of mature trees while doing some harvesting of trees each year for sale Each year for the last 50 years or so the firm has harvested a constant number of mature trees In o
15. bics literature phobics language phobics and science phobics are created Students come to see the world as divided into content bins some of which they like others of which they avoid Content specialists tend to cast their nets narrowly over the domains they know And they also tend to focus their gaze deeply they ve stored lots of detail about their comfort arena s Their mental models thus tend to be narrow and deep They contain a lot about a little Meanwhile students skills in seeing horizontal connections never really develop Instead vertical detail dominates big picture The problem with this approach to developing student thinking capacity is that all of the challenges I ticked off at the start of the Chapter homelessness income distribution inequity global warming AIDS kids killing kids etc are social in nature They arise out of the interaction of human beings with each other with the environment with an economy They are problems of interdependency They are horizontal problems That s because the horizontal boundaries of social systems in effect go on forever Make a change within a particular organization for example and the ripple effects quickly overflow the boundaries of the organization Each employee interacts with a raft of people outside the organization who in turn interact with others and so on So in the social domain being able to think horizontally is
16. clusions about a best course of action or to understand something about what has occurred If you were seeking to understand why your daughter isn t doing well in arithmetic you could probably safely ignore the color of her eyes when selecting aspects of reality to include in the mental model you are constructing This aspect of reality is unlikely to help you in developing an understanding of the causes of her difficulties or in drawing conclusions about what to do But in selecting a blouse for her birthday Eye color probably ought to be in that mental model As the preceding example nicely illustrates all models mental and otherwise are simplifications They necessarily omit many aspects of All Possible Elements Figure 1 1 the realities they represent This leads to a very important statement that will be repeated several times throughout this Guide The statement is a paraphrase of something W Edwards Deming the father of the Quality movement once uttered All models are wrong some models are useful It s important to dredge this hallowed truth back up into consciousness from time to time to prevent yourself from becoming too attached to one of your mental models Nevertheless despite the fact that all models are wrong vou have no choice but to use then no choice that is if you are going to think If you wish to employ non rational means like gut feel and intuition in order to arrive at a concl
17. drawn from simulating By making these sources available others then can think about them Specifically they can compare them to the corresponding information they possess The comparison process as you are about to see drives a second type of learning Cumulative Communication i ae communicating All Possible Elements Elements Included in the Represented Elements n Mental Model in the Mental Model selecting representing Simulation Outcomes Made Available for Scrutiny by Others Conclusions amp Decisions drawing making Figure 1 2 A STELLA Map of the Communicating Process Learning Learning is depicted in Figure 1 3 It s a pretty elaborate picture and a good example of one that should be unfurled one chunk at a time using the STELLA software s storytelling feature than sprung on you full blown If you would prefer to see the Figure 1 3 story unfurled open the model named Learning in the Intro to Systems Thinking folder and the experience can be yours Cumulative Communication communicating L_j G other inspired Elements Included in the Represented Elements learning Mental Model in the Mental Model All Possible Elements N self reflective NE A Ciera simulating Made Available for Scrutiny by Others 5 g aain Conclusions amp Decisions a a i drawing making taking action z Actions 63 amp y Taken Realized Ramifying 7 Impacts set
18. e ve put a question like this you sketched an incorrect pattern If you d like to check your intuition open the model named Trees in your Intro to Systems Thinking folder and run it The fact that 90 of the people who take this test guess incorrectly is significant The percentage holds cross culturally and independently of gender education level and any other attribute we ve looked at This means the result is saying something about human beings in general It s saying that as a species we re not very good at constructing a mental model from a written description and or mentally simulating that model once it is constructed It s worth noting that the system we asked you to model and simulate is very simple It s a whole lot simpler for example than the one spitting up issues like kids killing kids drug addiction and global warming And we re simulating this latter system in our heads in order to create policy initiatives for addressing these issues Scary You bet If you refer back to Figure 1 3 you ll be reminded that simulating is a key part of the self reflective learning loop Reflecting on the simulation outcomes we generate is an important stimulator of change in our mental models But what if those outcomes are bogus What if we are not correctly tracing through the dynamics that are implied by the assumptions in our mental models That s right The Self reflective learning loop will break down In add
19. ented Represented oS 8 representing content representing content in Biology in Literature Figure 1 7 Developing General Content Representation Skills by Representing Specific Content 16 Operational Thinking How to Represent the Relationships Between Elements that You Include There s a second important idea illustrated in Figure 1 7 Note the two R s They stand for the word Reinforcing which is the type of feedback loop they designate The loops work like this As general content representation skills build they facilitate each specific content representing activity though to keep the picture simple the link to only two of the specific arenas is illustrated Then as students engage in specific content representation activities because they are using a content transcendent language to do so they develop general content representation skills a virtuous learning cycle The cycle creates synergy because all content arenas benefit from activities that go on in any one of them Now instead of one content arena interfering with learning in another each helps to accelerate learning in each of the others To be able to speak write effectively in the language of stocks and flows requires that students build a fourth Systems Thinking skill a very important one Operational Thinking Much of Chapters 2 7 are taken up with developing this skill so Pll not say any more about it here Teachi
20. ers really help to create both high student motivation and a good classroom environment Isn t it the case that highly motivated students and a good classroom environment make teaching more exciting and enjoyable and as a result cause teachers to do a better job I could continue But I suspect I ve said enough to make the point The four factors shown in Figure 1 8 aren t even close to operating independently of each other They operate as a tightly intertwined set of interdependent relationships They form a web of reciprocal causality The picture that emerges looks much more like Figure 1 9 than Figure 1 8 Good Teachers Good _____ Academic Parenting Success C High Motivation Good Classroom Environment Figure 1 9 From Independent Factors to Interdependent Relationships 20 So there goes the first meta assumption associated with Laundry List Thinking i e that the causal factors operate independently Now let s watch the second Laundry List meta assumption bite the dust The second assumption is that causality runs one way Look back at Figure 1 8 Notice that the arrows all point from cause to effect all run from left to right Now steal another glance at Figure 1 9 Notice anything different That s right the arrows linking the causes now run both ways Cause and effect comes in loops As Figure 1 10 shows once circular cause and effect enters the picture
21. essential Nets must be cast broadly before drilling very deep into detail Yet to the extent students selection skills are being developed at all they are being biased in exactly the opposite direction toward bin centricity Systems Thinking offers three thinking skills that can help students to become more effective in answering the what to include question They are 10 000 Meter Systems as Cause and Dynamic Thinking The first thinking skill 10 000 Meter Thinking was inspired by the view one gets on a clear sunny day when looking down from the seat of a jet airliner You see horizontal expanse but little vertical detail You gain a big picture but relinquish the opportunity to make fine discriminations 11 System as Cause Thinking Figure 1 4 A Slinky Does Its Thing 12 The second Systems Thinking skill System as Cause Thinking also works to counter the vertical bias toward including too much detail in the representations contained in mental models System as Cause thinking is really just a spin on Occam s razor i e the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is the best explanation It holds that mental models should contain only those elements whose interaction is capable of self generating the phenomenon of interest It should not contain any so called external forces A simple illustration should help to clarify the skill that s involved Imagine yo
22. his is a vertical question Developing good answers to these two questions requires skill And like any skill this one must first be informed by good practice principles and then honed through repeated practice Let s see how development of the what to include skills fares in the current education system The first thing to note is that little time remains for developing such skills because so much time is allocated to stuffing content which as noted is an activity that does not require what to include how to represent choices Nevertheless the formal education system does leave its stamp on selection skills And it s not a particularly useful one One of the implicit assumptions in the prevailing educational paradigm is that what s knowable should be segmented The rationale appears to be that it will enable content to be assimilated most efficiently The 10 000 Meter Thinking resulting student learning strategy might be called Divide amp Conquer Those who are best at executing this strategy reveal their expertise at mid term and final time effecting a serial single content focus e g putting assimilated history content aside in order that it not interfere with imbibing biology content Over time students figure out which content areas they re best at and then concentrate on these The result is that students become content specialists At the same time populations of math pho
23. ition because simulation outcomes are one of the raw materials being made available 27 for scrutiny by others in the communicating process a key component of the Other inspired loop will break down as well So it s very important that our simulation results be reliable in order that the associated learning channel can be effective Detailing the reasons for our shortcomings as a species in the simulation sphere is beyond the scope of this Chapter However part of the issue here is certainly biological Our brains simply have not yet evolved to the point where we can reliably juggle the interplay of lots of variables in our heads There is however growing evidence to suggest that people can hone this capacity But in the current education system there is very little attention being paid to this vital skill Systems Thinking can offer a couple of things that can help in this arena The first is the language of stocks and flows Because the language is both visual and operational it facilitates mental simulation As an illustration look at Figure 1 14 It s a STELLA map developed from the tree harvesting story Let s use it to facilitate a mental simulation Seedlings in becoming Development mature Figure 1 14 A STELLA Map of the Tree harvesting Story As described in the written passage the system begins in steady state This state is easy to visualize using the map It means that the two stocks are co
24. ized in this example and in any other situation in which mental simulations must infer a dynamic pattern of behavior there is a significant risk that erroneous conclusions will be drawn In this case for example if the inflow and outflow volumes do not cross after some reasonable period of time the person might well conclude that the two initiatives they implemented were ineffective and should be abandoned Clearly that is not the case And just as often the other type of erroneous conclusion is drawn We re doing the right thing just not enough of it Redoubling the effort in such cases then simply adds fuel to the fire In addition to helping increase the reliability of mental simulations using stocks and flows in representing the content of a mental model has another very important benefit The benefit derives from the fact that the concepts of accumulation and flow are content independent Therefore in whatever specific content arena they are used the use contributes to building the general content representation skill Figure 1 7 seeks to capture this idea via the links that run from each of four content specific representing activities to the building of a general content representation skill Math Content History Content Represented representing content Represented in History oF lt General Content Representation Skills representing content developing Biology Content Literary Content Repres
25. lab for the classroom Such delays have been known to stretch out for months In the mean time it s possible that student and teacher morale might suffer This in turn could stimulate an outflow from the Level of Academic Success before the arrival of the new lab has a chance to stimulate the associated inflow Level of Academic y Success increasing decreasing Quality of Improvements Classroom On The Way Environment draining Morale initiating coming on line Figure 1 12 A Non instantaneous View Delays are an important component of how reality works Leaving them out when structuring relationships in mental models undermines the reliability of simulation outcomes produced by those models Building the Operational Thinking skills that enable students to know when and how to include delays should be a vital part of any curriculum concerned with development of effective thinking capacities A Brief Recap Okay it s been a long journey to this point Let s briefly recap before resuming I asserted at the outset that our education system was limiting the development of our students thinking communicating and learning capacities I have focused thus far primarily on thinking capacities I have argued that the education system is restricting both the selecting and representing activities the two sub processes that make up constructing a mental model Where restrictions have been identified I h
26. le time digesting Figure 1 3 which shows the thinking communicating and learning system An important thing to note about the Figure is that all roads ultimately lead back to learning which is to say improving the quality of the mental model Learning occurs when either the content of the mental model changes via the selecting flow or the representation of the content changes via the representing flow By the way to make the figure more readable not all wires that run to the representing flow have been depicted There are two important take aways from the Figure First the three processes thinking communicating and learning form a self reinforcing system Building skills in any of the three processes helps build skills in all three processes Second unless a mental model changes learning does not occur I will now use the preceding definitions of thinking communicating and learning as a framework for examining how well the current system of formal education is preparing our youth for the issues they Il face as citizens in the new millennium Wherever I indict the system Pll also offer alternatives The alternatives will emanate out of a framework called Systems Thinking and make use of the STELLA software as an implementation tool Pll begin with a blanket indictment and then proceed using the thinking communicating learning framework to organize specific indictments If schools were mandated to pursue anything that
27. looked remotely close to Figure 1 3 I wouldn t be writing this Chapter Instead students spend most of their time assimilating content or stated in a more noble sounding way acquiring knowledge And so the primary learning activity in our schools is memorizing It s flipping flash cards or repeating silently to yourself over and over the parts of a cell are the three causes of World War II are the planets in order away from the sun are Students cram facts terms names and dates in there and then spit them back out in the appropriate place on a content dump exam This despite the fact that students perceive much of the content to have little perceived relevance to their lives and that a good chunk of the content will be obsolete before students graduate Notice something about the process of acquiring knowledge It bears no resemblance to the process depicted in Figure 1 3 In acquiring knowledge no mental model is constructed No decisions Thinking Constructing a Mental Model What to Include 10 are made about what to include or how to represent what s included No mental simulating occurs Acquiring knowledge also doesn t require or benefit from communicating Quite the contrary the knowledge acquisition process is solitary and non thinking in nature And then the coup de gras Will content really equip our young people for effectively addressing the issues the
28. ng the language of stocks and flows and the associated Operational Thinking skills at an early point in the formal education process e g fourth fifth sixth grade would be a huge step toward enabling students to develop a better set of representing skills It would at the same time leverage development of students horizontal thinking skills And the good news is that at the lower grade levels there still remains sufficient flexibility in many curricula to permit taking this step Carpe diem The final question we must answer in constructing a mental model is how to represent the relationships between the elements we decide to include In answering this question we must necessarily make some assumptions about the general nature of these relationships Among the most sacred of all the covenants that bind members of a society together is the implicit agreement about how such relationships work In Western cultures the implicit agreement is that reality works via a structure of serial cause and effect relationships Thus and such happens which leads this and such to occur and so forth Not all cultures buy serial cause and effect some subscribe to perspectives such as synchronicity and God s hand But Western culture does I have no beef with serial cause and effect It s a useful viewpoint However when I look more closely at the assumptions that characterize the particular brand of it to which Western culture
29. nstant because the three flows are equal and also constant The harvesting flow then steps up to a new higher level and remains there Given this pattern for the outflow from Mature Trees the map tells you that the pattern over time traced by the stock will be completely determined by what happens to the becoming mature flow Do you hear this If the becoming mature flow steps up at the same time as the harvesting flow the Mature Trees stock will remain unchanged i e inflow and outflow will remain equal Hence the magnitude of the 28 Scientific Thinking Thinking In Summary Communicating stock will not change But does the becoming mature flow step up at the same time as the harvesting flow No For six years after the step increase in harvesting occurs the becoming mature flow will remain equal to the pre step harvesting rate That s because there is six year s worth of seedlings that are in development and the number of seedlings in each year s cohort is equal to the value of the pre step harvesting rate So six years after the step increase in harvesting occurs the becoming mature flow will finally step up to equal the new higher volume of harvesting At this point the system will be back in steady state However because the becoming mature flow volume was less than the harvesting volume for six years the stock of Mature Trees will have declined for six years And because becoming matu
30. pline curriculum 31 Chapters 2 9 of this Guide should provide the nucleus of what s required to deliver this instruction Learning Learning is both literally and figuratively the bottom line of the thinking communicating learning triumvirate Because the three processes are intimately intertwined all of the Systems Thinking and STELLA based suggestions that have been made for improving the thinking and communicating processes would also work to improve the learning process There is one more suggestion I would like to make that focuses more exclusively on the learning process itself Pll enlist the STELLA software to paint what I hope will be a clear picture of the suggestion The picture appears as Figure 1 16 Cumulative Communication ls communicating All Possible Elements Included in the Represented Elements Elements Mental Model in the Mental Model Simulation Outcomes Made Available amp for Scrutiny by Others Conclusions amp Decisions om h drawing making taking action Actions 3 amp y Taken Ramifying setting in n motion neue N N Full Figure 1 16 Capturing the Full Impacts of Actions In processing the Figure you may wish to take a look back at Figure 1 3 It differs from Figure 1 16 in only one way The two learning generation links which emanated from Ramifying in Figure 1 3 now come off Full Impacts This implies that somehow we ve been able to 3
31. prevent models forged using both perspectives from co existing within a single individual Nothing that is but finding room for developing the three associated Systems Thinking skills 10 000 Meter System as Cause and Dynamic Thinking in a curriculum already overstocked with mandated discipline focused knowledge acquisition requirements To be sure there have always been and will always be efforts made to develop horizontal thinking skills usually in the form of cross disciplinary offerings But such efforts are scattered and rely heavily on the extra curricular commitment and enthusiasm of particular individuals And they grow increasingly rare as grade levels ascend being all but non existent at the post secondary level 13 Figure 1 5 View from 10 000 Meters Mental Models Divide amp Conquer Mental Models Breadth The Content of Divide amp Conquer inspired Versus Systems Thinking Mental Models How to Represent What You Include 14 Until the average citizen can feel comfortable embracing mental models with horizontally extended vertically restricted boundaries we should not expect any significant progress in addressing the pressing issues we face in the social domain And until the measurement rubrics on which our education system relies are altered to permit more focus on developing horizontal thinking skills we will continue to produce citizens with predilections for constructing nar
32. processes Each skill can be readily implemented into today s school systems The primary barrier to doing so is the view that the mission of an education system is to fill students heads with knowledge This view leads to sharp disciplinary segmentation and to student performance rubrics based on discipline specific knowledge recall Changing viewpoints especially when they are supported by a measurement system and an ocean of teaching material is an extremely challenging endeavor But the implications of not doing so are untenable The time is now The remainder of the Guide relies on an extended analogy Learning to use the STELLA software to render mental models is treated as analogous to learning to write an expository composition such as a short story or screenplay The Guide is divided into two parts Part 1 is entitled The Language of Systems Thinking Operational Closed loop and Non linear Thinking The six chapters in this Part form a parallel progression of language grammar and the associated thinking skills needed to apply that language and grammar effectively You ll build up from parts of speech to short story themes and in the process begin to internalize the first three of the eight Systems Thinking skills Part 2 of the Guide is entitled The Writing Process 70 000 Meter System as Cause Dynamic Scientific and Empathic Thinking In the three chapters in this Part you ll learn good writing practices walk
33. r Thinking provides except that it applies to the behavioral rather than the structural dimension Just as perspectives get caught up in the minutiae of structure they also get trapped in events or points at the expense of seeing patterns In history students memorize dates on which critical battles were fought great people were born declarations were made and so forth Yet in front and behind each such date is a pattern that reflects continuous build ups or depletions of various kinds For example the US declared its independence from England on July 4 1776 But prior to that specific date tensions built continuously between the two parties to the ensuing conflict In economics the focus is on equilibrium points as opposed to the trajectories that are traced as variables move between the points Dynamic Thinking encourages one to push back from the events and points to see the pattern of which they are a part The implication is that mental models will be capable of dealing with a dynamic rather than only a static view of reality Figure 1 5 should help make clearer the difference between the Divide amp Conquer inspired viewpoint and the Systems Thinking inspired perspective in terms of the resulting content of a mental model The Figure makes the contrast between mental models constructed using the alternative perspectives look pretty stark That s an accurate picture Yet there is nothing to
34. r thinking communicating and learning capacities As we do we will be able to make progress in addressing the compelling slate of issues that challenge our viability But in order to achieve this evolution we must overcome some formidable obstacles Primary among these are the entrenched paradigms governing what and how students are taught We do have the power to evolve these paradigms It is now time to exercise this power I will begin by offering operational definitions of thinking communicating and learning Having them will enable me to shine light on precisely what skills must be evolved how current paradigms are thwarting this evolution and what Systems Thinking and the STELLA software can do to help Finally PI overview what s to come in the remainder of the Guide In the course of this Chapter I will identify eight Systems Thinking skills They are 10 000 Meter Providing Operational Definitions Thinking System as Cause Dynamic Operational Closed loop Non linear Scientific and Empathic Thinking Each will reappear some receiving more attention than others throughout the Guide It is mastery of these skills that will enable you to make effective use of the STELLA software The processes of thinking communicating and learning constitute an interdependent system or at least have the potential for operating as such They do not operate with much synergy within the current system of formal education The fir
35. rder to maintain the stock of mature trees at the specified target level the firm follows a policy of re planting a seedling for each mature tree it harvests in a given year In this magically ideal forest preserve no animals eat seedlings and every seedling that is planted not only survives but grows to maturity in exactly six years Because the preserve has been operating in this manner for more than 50 years it is in steady state This means that an equal and constant number of trees is being harvested each year an equal number of seedlings is being planted each year and that same number of trees is also maturing each year The stock of mature trees has therefore remained at a constant magnitude for 50 years Now suppose that this year the firm decides to step up the harvesting of mature trees to a new higher rate and to then hold it constant at this rate for the foreseeable future Mental simulation challenge Jf the firm continues with its current re planting policy i e re plant one seedling for each mature tree that it harvests and ideal conditions for seedlings continue to prevail in the preserve what pattern over time will be traced by the magnitude of Mature Trees following the step increase in the harvesting rate Sketch your guess on the axis provided in Figure 1 13 Mature Trees f The step increase in harvesting occurs here Figure 1 13 Your Guess If you are like 90 of the people to whom w
36. re was less than harvesting by a constant amount the decline will be Jinear The Mature Trees stock will now rest at a permanently lower level than existed prior to the step increase in harvesting STELLA maps really do facilitate mental simulation But the other nice thing about them is that they are readily convertible into models that can be simulated by a computer And if you follow good practice in doing your STELLA simulations they will serve as an excellent sanity check on your mental simulation Think of the software as a fitness center for strengthening mental simulation muscles In order to take full advantage of the exercise facility it s important to acquire the habit of making explicit a guess about what dynamics a particular model will generate before actually using STELLA to generate them Experience has shown that it is far too easy to back rationalize that you really knew the model was going to produce that pattern It s also important to put your models into steady state at least initially and to test them using idealized test inputs like STEP and PULSE functions The collection of rigorous simulation practices are called Scientific Thinking the seventh of the Systems Thinking skills Currently in the formal education system very little attention is paid to developing simulation skills This means that a very important set of feedback loops for improving the quality of mental models
37. row deep mental models The choice is ours Let s demand the change Once the issue of what to include in a mental model has been addressed the next question that arises is how to represent what has been included A major limit to development of students skills in the representation arena is created by the fact that each discipline has its own unique set of terms concepts and in some cases symbols or icons for representing their content Students work to internalize each content specific vocabulary but each such effort contributes to what in effect becomes a content specific skill Systems Thinking carries with it an icon based lexicon called the language of stocks and flows This language constitutes a kind of Esperanto a lingua franca that facilitates cross disciplinary thinking and hence implementation of a horizontal perspective Mental models encoded using stocks and flows whatever the content recognize a fundamental distinction among the elements that populate them That distinction is between things that accumulate called stocks and things that flow called flows Stocks represent conditions within a system i e how things are Flows represent the activities that cause conditions to change Some examples of accumulations are water in a cloud body weight and anger The associated flows are evaporating precipitating gaining losing and building venting Figure 1 6 should help you to develop a cle
38. s Thinking skill because it leads to extending the boundary of true caring beyond self a skill almost everyone could use more of By continually stretching the horizontal perspective Systems Thinking works covertly to chip away at the narrow self boundaries that keep people from more freely empathizing But even with heightened empathic skills we need a language that permits effective across boundary conversations in order for communication to get very far And this is where the issue of a content focused curriculum resurfaces as a limiting factor Even if time were made available in the curriculum for providing student to student feedback on mental models and empathy were present in sufficient quantity disciplinary segmentation would undermine the communication process Each discipline has its own vocabulary and in some cases even its own set of symbols This makes it difficult for many students to master all of the dialects not to mention the associated content well enough to feel confident in and comfortable with sharing their reflections The stock flow Esperanto associated with Systems Thinking can play an important role in raising students level of both comfort and confidence in moving more freely across disciplinary boundaries Figure 1 15 illustrates this notion Strength of a Relationship Charge ona Capacitor Figure 1 15 decaying Memorized Facts decay forgetting time constant dissipating memor
39. st step toward realizing the potential synergies is to clearly visualize how each process works in relation to the other Ill use the STELLA software to help with the visualization Thinking we all do it But what is it The dictionary says it s to have a thought to reason reflect on or ponder Does that clear it up for you It didn t for me I will define thinking as consisting of two activities constructing mental models and then simulating them in order to draw conclusions and make decisions We ll get to constructing and simulating in a moment But first what the heck is a mental model It s a selective abstraction of reality that you create and then carry around in your head As big as some of our heads get we still can t fit reality in there Instead we have models of various aspects of reality We simulate these models in order to make meaning out of what we re experiencing and also to help us arrive at decisions that inform our actions For example you have to deal with your kid or a sibling or your parent None of them are physically present inside your head Instead when dealing with them in a particular context you select certain aspects of each that are germane to the context In your mind s eye you relate those aspects to each other using some form of cause and effect logic Then you simulate the interplay of these relationships under various what if scenarios to draw con
40. sumptions What causes students to succeed academically Please take a moment and actually answer the question Before I proceed with harvesting the question I want to provide some evidence to suggest the Laundry List framework is in very widespread use both in academic and non academic circles On the non academic side recipe books continue to be the rage One of the first and most popular of these is Stephen Covey s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People The habits he identifies are nothing more nor less than a laundry list And for those of you familiar with the critical success factors framework it too is just another name for a laundry list In the academic arena numerous theories in both the physical and social sciences have been spawned by Laundry List Thinking For example one very popular statistical technique known as regression analysis is a direct descendent of the framework The Universal Soil Loss equation a time tried standard in the geological earth sciences provides a good illustration of a regression analysis based Laundry List theory The equation explains erosion A the dependent variable as a function of a list of factors RKLSCP the independent variables A RKLSCP A soil loss unit of area R rainfall K soil erodibility L slope length S slope gradient C crop management P erosion control practice Okay so now that I ve provided some evidence that
41. through an illustration of these practices and finally be given some general writing guidelines As you ve probably concluded if you ve endured to this point this isn t your typical User s Manual That s because learning how to make effective use of the STELLA software really has little to do with the mechanics of the software itself The software s user interface is simple enough to master just by playing around for a few hours The real issue with the STELLA software is internalizing the associated Systems Thinking skills as well as the language and method This is conceptual not mechanical work The Guide is concerned with helping you to make a shift of mind and to internalize a new language If you need technical assistance in learning to use the software there are excellent Online Help Files and self study tutorials that accompany your software For conceptual help visit the HPS website www hps inc com for articles and references to Systems Thinking resources Congratulations on your purchase of the STELLA software and good luck in your efforts to apply it The benefits you ll reap from learning Systems Thinking will re pay many times over the investment you will make
42. ting in motion impacting oS OT Sf _ Figure 1 3 a Pee A STELLA Map of the Learning Process The first type of learning was identified in the discussion of the Thinking process Call it self reflective learning It comes about when simulation outcomes are used to drive a process in which a mental model s content and or representation of content is changed I ve also just alluded to a second type of learning one that s driven by the Communicating process Call it other inspired learning As Figure 1 3 suggests the raw material for this type of learning is the mental model itself the simulation outcomes associated with that model and or the conclusions drawn from simulating How much learning occurs depends upon both the quality of the feedback provided where quality includes both content and packaging as well as the willingness and ability to hear the feedback Figure 1 3 also adds a fourth source of raw material for learning the impacts of one s actions As the Figure suggests often it is difficult to The Blanket Indictment perceive the full impact because ramifying takes a long time and spreads out over a great distance To reflect this fact the information for this type of learning is shown as radiating off the conveyor named Ramifying rather than the stock called Realized Impacts NOTE Conveyors are used to represent delays It s useful to spend a litt
43. u are holding slinky as shown in Figure 1 4a Then as shown in Figure 1 4b you remove the hand that was supporting the device from below The slinky oscillates as illustrated in Figure 1 4c The question is What is the cause of the oscillation Another way to ask the question What content would you need to include in your mental model in order to explain the oscillation The two most common causes cited are gravity and removal of the hand The System as Cause answer to the question is the slinky To better appreciate the merits of this answer imagine that you performed the exact same experiment with say a cup The outcome you d get makes it easier to appreciate the perspective that the oscillatory behavior is latent within the structure of the slinky itself In the presence of gravity when an external stimulus i e removing the supporting hand is applied the dynamics latent within the structure are called forth It s not that gravity and removal of the hand are irrelevant However they wouldn t appear as part of the causal content of a mental model that was seeking to explain why a slinky oscillates Dynamic Thinking The third of the so called filtering skills Systems Thinking skills that help to filter out the non essential elements of reality when constructing a mental model is called Dynamic Thinking This skill provides the same distancing from the detail that 10 000 Mete
44. usion or a decision no mental model is needed But if you want to think you can t do so without a mental model Figure 1 1 presents a STELLA map of the activities that comprise thinking constructing a mental model and simulating in order to draw conclusions As the Figure indicates constructing is divided into two sub activities selecting and representing The first sub activity answers the question What should I include in my mental model The second sub activity answers the question How should I represent what I include These are the two fundamental questions that must be answered in constructing any mental model It is my conviction that the paradigms currently governing teaching in our schools restrict development of the whole set of skills needed to become effective in executing both the constructing and simulating activities That is our schools are thwarting development of thinking capacity something no school board would approve and we can ill afford Constructing Represented Elements in the Mental Model Elements Included in the Mental Model representing Simulation Outcomes Simulating Conclusions amp Decisions drawing making A STELLA Picture of Thinking Communicating The wire that runs from Represented Elements in the Mental Model to simulating is intended to suggest that simulating cannot proceed until a mental model is available which is to say the selecting
45. y ll face in the new millennium It s important to recognize that although I am indicting the content focus of our education system I am not indicting the teachers who execute that focus at least not all of them Pre college teachers especially are hamstrung by rigid State and in some cases Federal mandates with respect to material to be taught pedagogic approach and even sequencing My indictment is primarily aimed at the folks who are issuing these mandates I m indicting those who have established measurement systems that employ a content recall standard for assessing mastery and who confuse knowing with understanding and intelligence To you I wish only to say loudly Wake Up That said let s get on with some specific indictments and with suggestions for doing something to improve the situation Whether the mental model being constructed is of an ecosystem a chemical reaction a family or a society three fundamental questions must always be answered in constructing it They are 1 What elements should be included in the model or the flip side what elements should be left out 2 How should the elements you decide to include be represented 3 How should the relationships between the elements be represented Deciding what to include in a mental model in turn breaks into two questions How broadly do you cast your net This is a horizontal question And how deeply do you drill T
46. y time constant dissipation time constant The Generic Structure of a Dissipation Process The Figure shows the accumulation of strength in a personal relationship the accumulation of electrostatic charge on a capacitor and the accumulation of facts in human memory Each is represented by the same symbol As stocks each performs an analogous function albeit in quite different contexts which is to report the status of a condition In addition as illustrated in the Figure the logic by which one or more of the associated flows operate is generic This is at the very least a comforting discovery in a world generally perceived to be growing more complex and unfathomable on a daily basis and in a curriculum rife with detail dense dialect specific content bins But it also holds the wonderful potential for creating cross curricular learning synergies What s being learned in physics could actually accelerate rather than impede learning in literature or psychology and vice versa And by building their capacity for seeing generic structures students will be simultaneously boosting their capacity for making horizontal connections in the real world Teaching the stock flow Esperanto and the Operational and Empathic Thinking skills needed to speak write it effectively can go a long way toward improving the student communication capacities needed to realize the synergies latent within a multi disci
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