the mental data base

On Wednesday, Jay Forrester, the founder of System Dynamics, came to speak in class. System Dynamics is a field of study and a framework to understand the dynamics of complex systems using a fairly simple methodology of stocks, flows, and the relationships between them. It was founded and fully developed at MIT and has been an incredibly influential class on me.

I have not always been a great systems thinker. This matters in work, but also in personal relationships, where in the past I sometimes willfully ignored effects caused by my actions, and subsequently acted destructively toward myself and others. Moreover, I tend to rely heavily on my intuition, i.e. my mental models, which I know are quite flawed, albeit sometimes quite useful. The course has therefore been a tool for me to begin to question my assumptions and develop more robust, analytical, and hopefully helpful models of my decision-making and behavior.

Wednesday, two things struck me:

1) This diagram:

This is an image of the various databases of available information. We so often prioritize a numerical database as the "real," the "objective," and even the "true." The written becomes suspect due to biases of the writer or contextual analysis, and certainly the mental is all but useless. However, Jay Forrester put a lot of stock in the mental database, citing all those processes that are just passed on from person to person, e.g., how to make an automobile, or, until recently, how to raise a child. There is so much we learn from each other--from person to person interaction--that is not recorded. We must learn to prioritize and to value this information. There is truth there.

2) The idea of system dynamics as a base model and founding principle of K-12 education. In the first few weeks of Leadership Lab, we watched a video of three first graders using the tools of System Dynamics to model how the reinforcing loop of bad behavior led to playground fights. It was really an incredible exercise of young children understanding cause and effect. I wish I could find the video; I will update if I do.

Jay Forrester shared the story of a biology teacher who used System Dynamics models to teach biology, first nervous that he would not get through half the semester given the material he needed to teach both in methodology and content. In the end he had more than 1/3 of the semester free. Amazing.

This could be such a powerful tool for U.S. schools. I'm not quite sure of how the project will be implemented yet, but I think this is something I could really get on board with. More on the educational initiatives here.