Speaker at the Congreso de Educación Sistémica

Presenting a student-centered approach to systems thinking and the future of education

In February 2020, I traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, to speak at the Congreso de Educación Sistémica alongside my mentor and collaborator, Marc Pierson.

Our presentation, iPBSM: The Ideal Education System, explored how systems thinking and perspective-based mapping could help students participate more directly in the design of education. Rather than treating students as passive recipients of a system created around them, we argued that their experiences, needs, and knowledge should become part of the evidence used to understand and improve that system.

My contribution drew heavily from my experience navigating alternative education. I spoke about the gap between what institutions expect from students and what students may actually need in order to learn, develop, and participate successfully.

Presentation Focus

The presentation introduced integrated Perspective-Based Systems Mapping, or iPBSM, as an experimental process for:

• Helping individuals map a system from their own perspective
• Identifying relationships between academic, social, emotional, and developmental factors
• Integrating multiple perspectives into a shared model
• Making conflicts, common priorities, and missing relationships more visible
• Supporting participatory rather than exclusively top-down design

The central case study involved students mapping an ideal education system around areas including academics, health, relationships, guidance, development, emotions, skills, and future goals.

The purpose was not to present a finished model of educational reform, but to demonstrate how students could help describe the systems they experienced, identify the constraints shaping them, and inform an education system better designed to serve both students and the communities they participate in.

Core Ideas

• Students possess meaningful knowledge about the education systems they navigate
• Institutional models often reduce people to roles rather than representing their full experience
• Systems mapping can help individuals identify causes, relationships, and consequences
• Integrating perspectives can support shared language and cooperation
• Education should be designed with students, from within their actual context

Project Details

Role: Speaker, collaborator, and student-perspective contributor
Collaborator: Marc Pierson
Methods: Systems thinking, perspective-based systems mapping, participatory design, and idealized design
Tools: Plectica and presentation-design software

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