Toward systemic education of systems scientists

The systems view of the world includes a system of concepts, a body of theory, a theory of practice and methodologies of research on, planning for and design of systems. The making of systems scientists involves their learning all these things. But the educational media used in systems education are mechanistically conceived however systemic the messages they deliver. Therefore, there is a fundamental contradiction between the media and the message, and, we believe, the media dominate. Mechanically conceived education is analytic. It disassembles that which is to be learned reducing it to a number of discrete and disconnected parts. But systems learning is a whole that cannot be easily divided into independent parts. The essential properties of this whole are lost when it is taken apart. The parts, as well, lose their essential properties when they are separated from the whole. Analysis of a system reveals its structure; synthesis is also required to appreciate its function. Thus analysis and synthesis are complementary; neither replaces the other. Systems learning incorporates both.