Joy, Timothy, "Crime and Astonishment", 1996

CRIME AND ASTONISHMENT
Timothy Joy
La Salle High School
11999 S. E. Fuller Road
Milwaukie, Oregon 97222 USA

"How did all those people know how to act, to speak, to interact in such tidy ways so
that, centuries later, all their lives could be codified in a one-week lesson:
Puritan Settlers in Colonial Boston."

Traditional education long ago stripped its students of tools of integration; indeed,
integrated or interdisciplinary studies take place almost exclusively in pre-school and, later,
post-graduate work—the sixteen or so years in between stretch out as a wasteland of
discrete, rudimentary tasks bearing little or no connection to any other discipline of one's
education, or aspect of one's life. Our American methodology of keeping subjects separate
had dismembered their world, served it up to them as lab reports and vocabulary lists and
odd-numbered math problems and history work sheets and standardized tests easily graded
by Scantron machines. Sometimes there was knowledge, but rarely understanding. What
it—along with other factors—produced was a rising illiteracy, a thorough sense of
confusion and uselessness about education, and a weeping boredom by about third or
fourth grade.

Consider this corollary notion: The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon) recently ran
stories on the breadth of cheating in schools, even among the prestigious college prep
schools—the paper's survey found 76% of students cheat. The initial moral outrage of
adults was met with yawns and guffaws from students who said the number was foo low.
Students echoed what most of us believe, "School isn't about learning. It's about getting
grades.”

It was no surprise, then, that students believed language use began and ended at
my door. This was true of other disciplines as well—the lines of demarcation had been
rigidly drawn, and the system , including my own academic discipline, reinforced this idea
(The English Journal, the trade magazine for American English teachers, boldly
discourages the use of graphs and charts because "they are difficult to read," and would-be
authors should "avoid them whenever possible"). It was true. I was party to a systematic,
intellectual crime.

So it has been.

But no longer.

Timothy Joy
B33
Enter system dynamics offering a graphical means to crack through these arcane
academic demarcations—the same language can be used in humanities, in sciences, in
mathematics. When C. P. Snow published The Two Cultures and the Scientific
Revolution (1959), he crystallized this idea that institutional learning had produced two
specialized groups of highly educated people, each prized, but each unable to understand
the other. Possibly this discussion reaches as far back as the British Victorians Matthew
Arnold and Thomas Huxley who eloquently debated the educational primacy, respectively,
belles lettres or natural science. Using system dynamics, however, the aesthete can peer
into the same portal as the rationalist and know what to say, what to ask—they can
converse. And I've seen it happen.

At La Salle High School in Milwaukie, Oregon, we've begun using STELLA, if
not universally, at least occasionally in Literature, Chemistry, Physics, Health and
Government. While it is yet early to say conclusively, we can see at least within disciplines
and occasionally across disciplines, sharper and more profound understanding. That the
same language engenders these results is not lost on students.

In a recent Government class, first-year teacher Scott Schuster, a wildlife biologist,
used forestry as a thematic hook to summarize the role of government. We created "The
Schuster Forest," using High Performance Systems' Sym Trees© as a base for a simple
and—as we later realized—INCORRECT model of owl population and wood products
industry. Students assumed the role of government and were, in fact, the planners and
administers of their own forest management policies.

"This is harder than [the STELLA in] Physics," said one Senior, "because it is
more than just math.” In the end, Seniors prepared policy papers that included their final
models, how they would manage their Schuster Forest and the likely effects of their
decisions, which they came to see as far-reaching.

“Everything effects everything else," many said, echoing American microbiologist
Barry Commoner's line that "everything is related to everything else.”

In Literature, students used "Savage Instincts," a model for William Golding's
Lord of the Flies that demonstrates the evaporating innocence of the young boys as they, in
varying degrees, turn savage. It's a simple model: a stock of innocence drains as another
stock of savagery fills—a conserved system. As students cite evidence from the text to
substantiate their decisions, arguments ensue. While all agreed innocence was lost, many
disagreed with the model, suggesting the loss of innocence was not irreversible or
irrecoverable, and, consequently, many created their own models or amended the base
model. What began as a study of a literary figure evolved into a theological and

Timothy Joy April 11, 1996 2

ASM
philosophical discussion on loss and redemption. How would one model redemption of
the soul?

Apparently, it's a bit like the rock cycle. At least that's what some from this group
said the next year, when as Juniors they were in Geology. When presented with a
traditional circular schematic of the rock cycle, students obediently took the notes. The
instructor then showed them a modified STELLA model: one stock of Magma moving
through a "crystallization" flow into a stock of Igneous Rock . There was an audible gasp.

"Oh! It's just like last year, that Savage Instincts thing we did.” Sure, maybe
crystallization is similar to redemption.

This year, another cohort of Sophomores experienced "The Rulers," a population
and limited resource model used after students read Fahrenheit 451. One group featured an
actor and a mathematician, both gifted in their interests. Once the actor understood the
inherent grammar of stocks and flows, the diagram made sense, even though some of the
mathematical equations remained abstruse. They argued.

“Look at the diagram," said the poet, striking the computer screen with his finger.
"We can't just adjust the amount per person without effecting death rate.”

"True, but as long as we justify the number with a policy and make sure that ...”
And on it went. Their discussion and disagreements went on for two days, but they spoke
about the same system, using the same language, knowing the same numbers. Because
stocks and flows—for that matter, the entire grammar of systems—bear definable
properties that can be mastered, the poet who may not necessarily understand slope in
mathematics can nonetheless "read" a model and understand that increasing per capita use
of a resource (a slope) will inexorably increase the death rate, and, moreover, their
discussion remains inside agreed upon assumptions. That is, what once remained
esoteric, now has a door, a way in.

Still, using SD at a high school is not easy. Our daily schedule of 45 minutes
periods, each a separate discipline, undermines much of our efforts, but that STELLA
might appear in myriad disciplines, that one language might offer equal virtuosity and
eloquence in English and Chemistry and Government, has begun to gnaw at those
divisions. For the first time, we are now alternating departmental meetings with at-level
meetings. And we now have 90 minute blocks, two days a week, which do allow for
crossings, though we've yet to truly exploit the opportunity.

And we've made mistakes. Large, complex models for whole-class discussion or
simulation thwarted our goals and student enthusiasm. Building such models is like a
seduction, so beguiling, as if the teacher were unaware of the transgression, the graphs and
diagrams so elegant and enticing. Students just stare at them as some do at modern art.

Timothy Joy April 11, 1996 3

SS
The smaller, easily adaptable models, however, allowed novice-users to comprehend basic
principles and then move on to expand and experiment. It gave them a starting point, a bit
like knowing the basics of the five-paragraph theme allows a young writer to compose
long, critical writing. Plainly, the teacher should not build most of the model. The sooner
students can build and experiment and test their own ideas, the more quickly understanding
comes. If the teacher does too much, the student will do less.

We found that incorrect models like "The Schuster Forest" worked quite well
precisely because students found our mistakes or limitations. Nor was it just bright
students who noted these always. The Schuster Forest diagram made the competing
systems visible, visceral, and later helped them debunk a local timber company's six-page,
four-color advertisement distributed to several metropolitan grade schools. Students were
able to interpret and discredit graphs and tables, as well as decipher and dismiss vague
phrasings and outright untruths.

While skeptics at La Salle High School remain, they are fewer. Those peers
who've come to understand system dynamics do understand what's possible; all deeply
sense flaws in the current system: repetitive, noggin-splitting assignments, hour upon hour
in ergonomically bankrupt furniture listening to adults, and, sadly, so little originality
expected. I admit it; I've committed this crime, too. But lately I've been astonished, just
enough, I suppose, to reform my sinister ways and move faithfully upon the righteous path
of system dynamics.

Timothy Joy April 11, 1996 4
ASk