The Direction of Intention

193.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about a book Paul Watzlawick co-wrote several years ago called Change. This is one of the few books I’ve read that required me to map the discussion so I could follow and comprehend it. There are plenty of books written beyond my grasp but this one was important enough to evoke my inner cartographer. The book is built upon two theories:

• Group Theory – concerned with what happens within a group.

• Theory of Logical Types – concerned with what happens between groups or systems.

The relevant distinction for this post, the thing that brought me back to Change, is that Patti and I are currently focusing our work in education and the education system in America is a fantastic study in Group Theory (no real change is possible). Oh, if only I were interested in pursuing doctorial studies (I’d have to learn to write dense tomes but my status would surely rise). Here are the defining characteristics of Group Theory:

a)    Grouping is the basic, necessary element of perception (true enough!)

b)    Altering the order of members within a group brings change-ability in process but invariance in outcome (rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic will not keep the ship from sinking).

c)    A member may act without making a difference: Action does not equal change (this is called “first order change”).

d)    New combinations produce change but the result is still within the group. So nothing really changes.

A system is a living thing and will fight to the death to stay intact even if it is irrelevant, archaic, destructive to its members, and serves as the impediment to its stated purpose. Group Theory is the way a system fights to stay alive! It provides the illusion of change, action for the sake of action: First Order Change. Standardized testing is First Order Change. No Child Left Behind is First Order Change. Tying teacher pay to performance is First Order Change. Shuffling a deck of cards is First Order Change, talking about content as separate from method is First Order Change, imagining that the purpose of education is to provide a better batch of consumers or workers for a factory floor that no longer exists is First Order Change.

Action does not equal change. Rearranging the order of things within the existing system will continue to bring change-ability in process but invariance in outcome. It will certainly provide the illusion of change for a while, at least until the next election cycle or until the next generation of students dulls their minds enough to survive the system (and learn to say to their kids, “If it was good enough for me, it is good enough for you.”).

I wonder what it will take for us to desire more than “good enough.” The world has changed considerably since 1850 (seriously changed, not rearranged); we continue to swap the furniture in the factory and wonder why it is failing in our new world order.

I can’t help but use this quote again:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

R. Buckminster Fuller

Filed under: Education, Rants, Truly Powerful People |