Academic, Trade
& Systemic Education

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Education is confronted by volatile economies, changing demography, softening public opinion, reduced government support and commercial competition. The issues facing education require more than employee restructuring or financial management. The important questions concerning relevance in tomorrow's world can be answered by systemic education and systems coaching.

University Education

University education has been an educational holy grail for hundreds of years. Universities have been endowed by royalty, religions, governments and successful alumni, and an ever-increasing number of young adults compete for placement.

University education provides knowledge - know what and know why. The practical know how often comes from technical and vocational colleges. This single fact may decrease the relevance of university education as the gap between theoretical knowledge and pragmatic expertise increases.

University education, whether relevant or not, will remain in demand while government regulations, professional associations and conservative hiring procedures require university diplomas. A person's skills, abilities and individual excellence are less important than their paperwork.

(And the paperwork needs careful scrutiny. Advertisements for mail-order "degrees" from spurious colleges, unknown universities and fake degree mills plague the email inboxes of the world.)

Modern universities are a luxury of an energy-rich economy - a luxury that, unless alternative long-term energy sources are harnessed, will likely diminish with oil reserves. See Collapse

Accelerated Learning, Knowledge Management & Expert Behavior

University and Commercial Research

Since World War II, few important discoveries have been made in universities. The laser, the transistor, polio vaccine, microchips, the hologram, the personal computer, nuclear magnetic resonance, the CAT scan ... and many more were developed by independent businesses. Universities may train technologists - but universities are not where technology advances.

Watch a university scientist start a project. Count the grant applications and weigh the paperwork. Count the number of approvals needed for steering committees and assess the time waiting for answers. Note the politics to get the support of the department chairman and the resources committee, while monitoring rival researchers. Watch the maneuvering to get work space, computer time and assistants. Few commercial scientists need squander so much precious time.

Education Process

The process of education is different to the halls of academia. Young people who qualify receive 5-10 years of education, consisting primarily of classroom lectures and guided library research, may not be prepared for the reality of a changing world.

Most students know that they are unlikely to use 90% of what they learn - and that their examinations merely test whether they can remember something long enough to repeat it. Later they find that 90% of the knowledge that they actually use came from other sources than formal education. University students are expected to jump through academic hoops - so that they can prove their persistence; often at the enormous expense of reduced life experience. Knowledge is a poor substitute for wisdom.

As literacy became normal, bookstores appeared and the need for specialist educators dropped. Internet access is now revolutionizing education. Academic information (know-who, know-where and know-what) is diminishing in its sanctity. Technology knowledge (know-how, know-which and know-when) has become the golden key that open the doors of success. It is an old story that some university drop-outs later employ those students who completed their education. Wisdom (know-why and know-what-if) is ever rare, and may be counter-productive to shallow goals.

Knowledge Management . Expert Modeling

Ruts are Graves

University tenure implies that time teaching a subject improves the worth of the teacher. Tenure evaluation focuses on published articles and grants, not on teaching excellence or leadership development. But the "real world" expects and pays for results - not papers.

Many academic fields have ever-increasing competition with educational resources that are developed independently of formal education. Computer science, recently an ivory tower specialty, has become synonymous with self-educated expertise. Social sciences risk becoming sciences of mediocrity - a preoccupation with statistics and theories - that compete with a multitude of self-help systems that provide better emotional control, success and relationship skills than can be found in universities.

Dr Clare W. Graves (a post-doctoral student of Dr. Abram Maslow) postulated that human societies develop and regress in predictable ways; and explored the underlying codes that shape human nature and drive evolutionary change. Dr. Graves described "value systems" that provide a systemic frame for predicting human dynamics. Each "value system" provides a stable plateau on the pyramid of human development. Graves' value systems are described as memes in Spiral Dynamics (Beck and Cowan, ISBN 155786-940-5)), and are subjectively described in these articles:

Graves 1, 2 & 3 . Graves 4, 5 & 6 . Graves 7, 8 & 9

Systemic Education

Let's start with the definitions I usually use:

• Data concerns experience, reactions and measurements
• Information concerns measuring devices, measurers and context
• Knowledge concerns skills, discernment and relevance
• Wisdom concerns balance, benefits and consequences

Know-why and know-what are the domain of universities. Know-how and know-which are the domain of technological colleges and trade schools. An emerging choice is systemic education, which offers a synthesis of academia and technology, in which academic know-how is upgraded by systemic coaching, accelerated learning and expert modeling:

• Systemic coaching - rapidly improve competence
• Accelerated Learning - rapidly acquire new skills
• Expert modeling - rapidly replicate expert performance

In our Systemic Solutions, we offer a wide perspective, examining how to serve both present and future generations: develop skills for predicting "future history" - skills that can select systemic solutions to complex problems and find ways to avoid long-term and expensive mistakes.

The left column of the following table indicates the primary thrust of university education. The central column includes techniques utilized by technical and vocational schools, and the right column describes some emerging qualities of systemic education.

The emerging Systemic Education synthesizes knowledge and skills, focusing on elevating and integrating conscious strategies and unconscious process for systemic goals. Following the terminology of Dr Clare W. Graves; Systemic Education reflects a Level 7 world-view; Skill-Based Education reflects Level 5 and Knowledge-Based Education reflects Level 4.

Level 6 Community Education is not described above, but is common in post-industrial countries such as Canada, Switzerland and Scandinavia. Level 6 education is typified by non-profit information sharing, equality and consensual decision-making. Many helping professionals spontaneously form groups and systems with a level 6 structure. Levels 8 and 9 have yet to emerge.

What is Learning?

You learn when you acquire experience. Your remembered experience is often called knowledge. You can perceive "gaining knowledge" as a multi-level process.

Adaptive learning - you learn to adapt (or react) to your changing environment.

Generative learning - you learn not only to adapt - you also learn to change how to perceive (or assess or measure) your changing environment.

Evolutionary learning - you not only learn how to act and perceive, you also learn how to change your identity (or transform or transcend) your changing environment.

From Observation to Intervention

Systemic learning, whether therapeutic or organizational, can focus on:

• Observe the patterns of interrelationships and interaction
• Model the systemic dynamics until the predictions match the observed reality
• Construct future oriented goal paths that produce the desired expectations
• Plan interventions that incorporate time, boundaries and relationships as well as content
• Test and fine tune each element of the intervention with view to the consequences
• Designing and implementing appropriate systemic interventions

Our systemic coaching interventions follow an interactive 7-step program:

1. Systemic diagnosis maps how members perceive their system and its context.
2. Goal path analysis maps how members perceive choices and consequences
3. Conflict management identifies and dissolves potential conflicts
4. Boundary management resolves issues of identity and mission
5. Bondwork replaces old beliefs and updates members' values
6. Trauma work ends past trauma and its consequences
7. Mentorship provides ongoing inspiration for key members of the system

Expert Modeling - Overview . Expert Modeling - Elicitation

Expert Modeling - Modeling . Expert Modeling - Duplication

Constructivist-Systemic Education

Few educational providers can offer systemic education. The following educational pattern is utilized throughout Systemic Solutions to train Systemic Coaches, Therapists and Consultants. (Our Systemic Coaching provides diagnostic, remedial and planning skills that are applicable for individual, partnership, family and corporate or organizational coaching).

1. Observe the system
2. Describe the qualities of the system
3. Create hypotheses about connections between elements
4. Create models of systemic elements and interactions
5. Experiment to test the validity of hypotheses and models
6. Formulate theories, laws and principals
7. Apply theories, laws and principals to create systemic tools
8. Solve applied tasks using systemic tools
9. Observe the systemic results (and recycle to step 1)

Applications of Systemic Education

Systemic Education integrates the goals of Knowledge-based, Skill-based and Community-based education while moving into Systems Thinking. We help people:

• Acquire academic knowledge for stability and security
• Develop practical skills to improve expert performance
• Learn relationship skills for healthy empathy and life quality
• Learn systemic skills for flexible competence within systems

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Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © 2002-2012 by Martyn Carruthers. All rights reserved.

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Systemic Coaching & Training What can you accomplish when you recover your resources? Act quickly for our spring special: US $80 / session or US $300 / month   Have You Suffered Enough?  Where are you now? Assess your fixations, bonds and enmeshments What do you want? Know your life goals ... and your blocks to success Do you have the resources? Find your hidden resources by dreaming together Which emotions block you? End relationship disappointments and mentor damage Do your beliefs limit you? Change your limiting beliefs and end dependence Do you sometimes feel empty? Resolve identity loss to recover your lost resources Is your partnership happy? Build healthy partnership (or separate peacefully) Are your children healthy? Happy parents can better manage family problems Do you want team success? Team leaders and top teams can develop together Do you have other goals? Specialty coaching & training

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2012 All rights reserved. Soulwork Systemic Coaching was primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers
to help people dissolve emotional blocks and improve relationships to achieve their goals. These concepts and strategies are for general knowledge only. Consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing medical treatment. Don't steal intellectual property ... get permission to post, publish or teach Martyn's work.