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It starts with a fictional student whose unreliable bus gets them an attendance warning. The tutor sees missed teaching, the administrator sees an attendance code, and the bus company sees a difficult route. How does the student find out what keeps happening, who can change it, and whether the change helps?
The prompt was The 50 Percent‘s ‘Young Person’s Guide to Systems Change’, shared by Marc Harris. I disagree with its suggestion that deeper intervention necessarily produces more lasting change, and with the claim that systems are ultimately just stories. Both seem to me to make promises that the practice can’t support.
A different account of a situation can open possibilities. The timetable, funding, rules, and authority still need attention. Someone may need immediate help while the wider argument continues, and a small practical change can matter enormously to the person affected.
My alternative draws on my teaching and the wider systems | cybernetics | complexity field. It gives readers ways to examine how a problem is defined, whose experience is missing, what keeps the pattern going, and where they might act. Power, organisation, disagreement, and the possibility of being wrong are part of the work throughout.
There are diagrams, a worksheet, and sources for following the ideas further. The worked example produces mixed results: readers have to decide what the evidence justifies and what remains unresolved.
it’s very much a working draft and more AI unless beautiful than I would ideally like but I thought it would be really interesting to share it for comments and use and see what people think.
The PDF is attached. You’re welcome to read and share it. If you try it on a real issue, which part helps you decide what to do, and where does it still leave you stuck?
