Living Systems with Linda Booth Sweeney

Some people study rocks. Others study ancient cultures or economics. I study living systems to see and understand interconnections, both in nature and their everyday lives.

We don’t usually talk to our kids about living systems. Just in case you’re wondering what I mean by “system”, here’s a simple definition:

A system is made up of two or more parts that interact to form a whole, usually within some boundary. In living systems, the behavior of the system changes if you change the way the parts are arranged. If you take a nut out of a bowl of nuts, the behavior of the bowl of nuts doesn’t change. If you take the heart out of the body, or take a key predator out of an ecosystem, the body and the ecosystem change. Your body, an ecosystem, a family, a classroom, a community – these are all living systems.

Yet it’s easy to focus on just a part, or our part, and not see how “two or more parts” are interacting. In fact, we do it all the time. We tinker with elements in the natural world and expect it to continue working the same. To be fair, it’s hard to see systems. If you think of it, have you ever seen a system walking around? Why not? Well, it’s hard to see patterns of connection that make up systems. For the most part, we have to imagine how one part influences another.

When our children learn to see systems, they see that nothing stands alone, which means that my bully is your bully; my climate is your climate; your disaster is my disaster; your food shortage is my food shortage. They learn to stop jumping to blame a single cause for the challenges they encounter and instead, look for multiple causes, effects, and unintended impacts. They learn to move beyond bullet points to see more web-like patterns of cause and effect that more closely match the more interdependent, complex world we live in. They remember that their world is interconnected and changing, a tightly woven web people, places, event and nature, and as such, is indeed meaningful.

Opportunities to “see systems” are all around us, from the classroom and the playground to the car, the library, the garden, the dinner table, the bath, and the grocery store. With a thoughtful guide, a farm, for instance, is a wonderful place to encourage children to think about interconnections. The parts of a farm -- the farmer, animals, crops, insects, soil, weather, and more -- are all interconnected in important ways. When we visit a farm, we can talk with children, helping them to make connections beyond the farm, to their everyday lives.

For more examples about living systems and games to practice seeing and understanding these connections, join Linda Booth Sweeney here at the blog over the next week.

Tomorrow we'll review Connected Wisdom, the book. You can also listen to this Voice America broadcast with Linda today.