International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

A way to transmit, by an appropriate training, an integrated understanding of oneself and of one's interrelations with nature as a whole as well as with other people, eventually of different cultures, races, creeds and languages.

Nowadays, there is much talk about "education", but it is generally confused with "instruction", i.e. knowledge transmission, or training, which is now not much more that the acquisition of a specialized trade or knowledge. Instruction has slowly pushed education out of the classrooms and auditoria.

The school does not anymore bother much about religious belief, philosophy, ethics and civics. As to the practical art of living, i.e. how to live in peace with oneself, how to be a good husband or wife, a good father, mother or son, how to avoid the traps of modern life (racism, ideological fanaticism or stupidity, drug addictions, crime as an author or as a victim), how to respect nature's equilibria. All these do not now seem to be anybody's matter, at a time when the churches themselves become confused and the media seem to believe that ratings depend on blood, violence, cheap or degraded sex, terror and so-called sport (2, 10, or 22 players, for money, and 50.000 well named nerve-racked "fans").

Of course, our new problems, as for example our local and global relation with our environment, the impact on society of new technologies, the planetarization of many situations, are totally ignored by what we still dare to call "education".

And who has ever heard of training the common citizen to give him/her some understanding of politics, that most important social activity in order to allow him/her to distinguish clearly, and properly evaluate the rabble-rousers, the corrupts, the fanatics, the lightweights, the cynics, or simply the dangerously incompetents; and to teach her/him how to be a participative and responsible citizen, who does not believe in fairy tales.

In synthesis, older education does practically not exist anymore, and none adapted to the complexity of our present world did yet emerge, which is one of the main reasons why the fabric of societies is torn into shreds in so many places.

A systemic-cybernetic approach to environmental, societal and personal problems would help to recreate a suitable educative frame, basically by maintaining the natural systemic-cybernetic attitude of newborn, infants and children, who learn by trial and error (a cybernetic process based on feedbacks) and by slowly disintricating internal and external complexity: toddlers are the most accomplished systemists, which is why they survive.

Systemic learning and/or training should of course be adapted according to age and culture.

R. RODRIGUEZ DELGADO proposes the following general systemic approach to manage this situation:

"The design of educational systems for a complex world cannot be based in pre-established rigid formulas. However, some wide scope principles, like the following, could be generally accepted.

"a) Lack of dogmatism. Closed cultures tend to reject all other ideologies, showing themselves as the ultimate truth. Systems thinking, on the contrary, should be open. Criticism of the systems approach should be stimulated. System theory should be liberated of any shackles, as FLOOD advises (1989).

"b) Design flexibility should be maximized. Design should be adapted to cultural varieties; increase participation; allow for a global conception in which similarities, differences and conflicts could be studied; represent a planetary vision vs. chauvinistic thinking.

"c) Design should take into account the complexity of systems, conceiving their elements as pervasive and their limits as fuzzy.

"d) Integrated design of educational systems is important. But it is convenient to see that there are many possibilities of synthesis and integration and that some of them are preferable to others.

"e) Experimentation is vital in designing educational systems. A design that appears intellectually flawless could fail totally when implemented. Failures, however, are ways of learning to make better designs"

Moreover:

"In our complex world, education should cover all the main fields of human thinking and acting. Philosophy, Natural and Human Sciences, Arts, Axiology, Methodology, Technology, Manual skills, Physical fitness and Ludic activities. The different fields should be conceived as parts of a network structure that envelops human existence" (pers. comm.)

As a result, it could be said that systemic education cannot be teached. It must be learned and practiced in community by all stakeholders.