posted 02-11-2001 11:40               

As a researcher and educator, I've long been interested in helping make the field of systems thinking more accessible to adults. (In "The Systems Thinking Playbook", vol 1-3 - a book I co-authored with Dennis Meadows -- we attempt to do this through a series of experiential exercises.)

Now, as the mother of two young children, I've been looking for ways to bring systems thinking ideas to my little ones. I noticed that my son was reading 20 to 30 books a day and thought: why not learn about systems through stories?

Good stories are fun and memorable. And, it is often through fairy tales, myths, and stories of all kinds that we pass on profound and subtle wisdom to future generations.

I wrote "When a Butterfly Sneezes" as a guide for parents and educators who want to help kids see and understand the world of systems all around us. This volume (the first in a series) includes a discussion of 12 favorite tales from around the world -- from Dr. Seuss among other authors -- all offering powerful lessons about natural and social systems.

So, after that long introduction, here's my question for you:

Have you used stories as a way to explore systems thinking concepts with kids? Is there a story you think would be a natural for helping kids think about systems?

One that I've been trying to track down is "The Secret of the Ancient Oak" by Wollo. Can't find it anywhere. I think it was written in the 1940's.

Eager to hear your thoughts.

Linda Booth Sweeney

[This message has been edited by RodWilliams (edited 02-19-2001).]

posted 02-21-2001 22:40               

[Reply] Hello from the Philippines. I have.

I am 44 years old. Recycling one of those never-ending bedtime stories that my dad used to relate to me when I was a kid, I have been telling this recurring story to my 7-year old daughter for three years now, and the framework of the story never changes, but she never gets tired ot it. Amazing.

It's about birds and farmers. The setting is in the mountains of the Banawe Rice Terraces in the Philippines -- a place that my little Ysabel finally was able to visit after 1.5 years of hearing about it in her bedtime stories. I would spin various yarns and plots but all anchored on the place, the people, and the birds.

One scenario would be about, say, The Year of Few Birds. Few birds because it is the year of El Niño climate, and the harvest is poor because the rains have been scarce and the farmers have no rice grains to spare for the birds, so the birds have to go look elsewhere for food. But some stay, and hope to peck some grains from the farmers' warehouse. Without realizing it, I was using systems thinking concepts in this bedtime story-telling routine.

The lynchpin in every story is the farmers' warehouse. Whatever the plot, I always include the birds finding a way to peck a few grains from the warehouse. This is the part that sends her to dreamland, actually. The birds would queue up in a hole that they peck through the shutters, and one bird would go in, grab a grain of rice, make her way out of the hole and fly back to its nest to feed the baby bird. The next bird would go in, peck a grain and bring it out, and fly to the home nest to give to the baby bird. And so on and so forth, until Ysabel shuts her eyes.

The story meanders for a while riding on the evening's plot before arriving at the part where they queue up at the warehouse.

Some plots have been about The Summer of Plenty Flowers, or When Daddy Bird Went Looking For Ysabel Bird, and so so. I always make it up on the spot, taking my cues from events that occurred to the kid or to the family during the day, or something related to things learned in school.

An anecdote on-the-side. Just yesterday, on our way home from school. My wife was walking Ysabel through practice calculating the time. I put in my own little problem and asked: If it takes three hours to get to school from the house and I need to fetch your big sister at six o'clock, what time should I leave the house, Ysabel? Here's her answer (she used systems thinking, no doubt): "You leave at five o'clock, Dad. Because it never takes more than half-an-hour to get to school, so if you leave at five, you'll get there with time to spare." My wife and I were floored by that one.

Suggestion: Perhaps parents would appreciate systems thinking story samples. URLS pointing to such specimen stories would be good for retelling or shop-talking.

posted 02-22-2001 15:03               

I used some fables to show team learning, for example “The Father and His Sons”, for mental models I used “The deer and the lion” and “The goose with the golden eggs” for the law “faster is slower”.

I think that these kinds of fables are a very good tool for teaching System Thinking, not only for kids, and I used them when I have to introduce the topics, together with some plays from The Systems Thinking Playbook (I love Circles in the air)

Is "When a Butterfly Sneezes" translated to Spanish?

posted 02-23-2001 14:02               

As I read the part about "the birds finding a way to peck a few grains from the warehouse" it made me think of Demi's book, "One Grain of Rice." It is a mathematical fairy tale and is essentially a story about exponential growth. Take a look at it if when you get a chance. I wonder how you might create anyother variation of your stories for Ysabel, one that gets across the idea of doubling. Perhaps you can substitute beans for rice? (as in the story Anno's Magic Seeds.) Both of these books are described in my book, "When a Butterfly Sneezes" and both can be found on Amazon (and are in my local library).

Another book that reveals the interconnectedness of humans and the natural world is Verna Aardema's "Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain" (one of my son's favorites). It's an African folk tale... Aardema makes the tale fun for younger readers by using the cumulative nursery rhyme structure of "The House that Jack Built."

You also make a great suggestion: "Perhaps parents would appreciate systems thinking story samples." I will post an excerpt from the Butterfly book and I encourage others to share their systems thinking stories as well.

Gustavo,

Thank you for your sharing how you use fairy tales as well. I'll have to go back to the Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs. It has been years since I read that one.

The Butterfly book is not yet translated into Spanish... we'll have to get to work on that. I'm delighted to hear you've enjoyed The Systems Thinking Playbook. There is a third volume of the Playbook coming out... Pegasus will announce it when it is read.

My best,
Linda

posted 02-16-2002 11:20               

First I would like to say thanks for your marvelous book "The Systems Thinking Playbook" which I used a lot in my facilitation workshop, though I often have to make much modification to suit the mood and context of the participants. Often 30 min. of activity in the field,is followed up by 3 hours of debrief and reflection ...

I hope to offer some observations about kids / teenagers or adults thinking and behaviour about systems thinking.

My recent conversation with my son (teenager) on systems thinking stories. I find that there are many stories they learn in school, especially ecology system, and children seem to show much interest in such subject, especially on enviromental issues, pollution,etc. They could relate stories on how "killing wolves may do more harm to deers" etc.

As I recall, there are many rich stories past down from older generation (from their experience and wisdom) "how systems work" though they relate as stories, not the principles of the systems thinking.

However, I do often find dis-connect between the stories related and they own thinking, in relation to their behavior, life-pattern, ... When such dis-connects occur, stories remain stories and life goes on as usual.

I find it a great challenge then to make the connection between the rich stories and the current reality of the participants / learners (if they want to be learners).

In this respect, I also look forwards to ideas and suggestion to make such connection in Stories on Systems Thinking to kids.

Regards

QuaSyLaTic - Andrew http://www.360q.com

posted 05-09-2002 12:54               

Selangor, I strongly encourage you to share your systems-based observations with kids and teens -- that is one of my favorite activities these days.

From my own investigation into K-12 education here in the U.S., I see a tremendous opportunity for schools to leverage existing ecology-based curricula to teach systems thinking concepts AND to help students to see the connections to their own lives. Many from indigenous cultures along with social theorists and system dynamicists would agree that many of the behaviors we observe in ecosystems can also be found social systems. And we have a lot to learn from these similarities or "analogous structures."

For example, one basic structure we see in a variety of systems is a balancing or negative feedback loop (i.e., a set of interdependent variables interact to negate any changes in the system or to maintain some desired behavior or goal). Balancing feedback loops occur by the thousands all around us. They underlie many natural system behaviors (such as predator/prey relationships), physiological behaviors (such as hunger/eating and maintaining one’s body temperature) and social behaviors (such as the dynamics of coping with stress and room clean up). One of the premises of systems thinking/system is that structural analogies exist among systems in widely different situations. Why is this all so important? As students' learn to recognize these similarities, they are better able to transfer problem solving insights from one context to another.

Now the very do-able challenge is to develop curricula (and write children's picture books as well as chapter books) that engage students in seeing these similarities for themselves and developing their own intuitions about the complex world around them. I'm working on that right now and have also been trying to encourage several other children's book writers to do the same.

Marilyn,
To your question about additional resources… yes, there are! My first stop would be the Creative Learning Exchange website (URL: http://clexchange.org). From there you can find links to other related websites such as the Water's Foundation and Road Maps (MIT). In a few weeks, I'll begin postings chapters from the next volume of the Butterfly book on the web. This volume will describe the systems-based insights in a collection of chapter books. Have you read Robert Kimmel Smith's My War with Grandpa? Great for a discussion of escalating dynamics with 10 or 11 year olds I'll post information about the URL location for those book chapters as soon as I have that information. Feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions or thoughts.