In today’s world, many of the biggest social challenges we face – such as climate change, inequality, and poverty – are interconnected and complex. These “wicked problems” cannot be solved with traditional linear approaches that assume simple cause-and-effect relationships. Instead, they demand a more holistic perspective. Systems Practice offers this by helping us understand how different parts of a system interact through feedback loops and adaptive behaviours, enabling more effective and sustainable change.

An example comes from Kiribati, where an aid program aimed at reducing overfishing subsidised coconut farming to provide alternative income. Unexpectedly, this led to locals having more free time and money to fish for leisure, worsening the problem the intervention sought to solve. This highlights the unintended consequences that often arise when intervening in complex systems and underscores the need to see the whole picture.

Most social change efforts mistakenly rely on “clock problems”, issues that are predictable and solvable with expertise. However, most contemporary challenges are “cloud problems,” complex and adaptive issues requiring systems thinking. Philosopher Karl Popper distinguished these two types to help clarify why traditional approaches fall short in addressing today’s problems.

Central to Systems Practice is the recognition of various forces within a system – enablers that drive positive change (like leadership and innovation), and inhibitors that block progress (such as poverty or distrust). These forces can be structural (institutions, policies), attitudinal (mindsets, cultural norms), or transactional (power dynamics, communication patterns).

Understanding feedback loops, the cyclical cause-and-effect patterns within a system, is crucial. Some loops reinforce problems over time (vicious loops), while others support improvement (virtuous loops), stabilization, or stagnation. These loops reveal the system’s deep structure and help identify where change efforts should focus.

Mapping a system visually helps make sense of these complex interactions, but the map alone is not enough. A narrative is essential to explain the story behind the connections, focusing on meaningful relationships rather than every detail, much like a subway map highlights key routes. This mapping process uncovers insights and reveals leverage points, strategic spots where small interventions can trigger wide-reaching change.

Finding these leverage points requires us to resist familiar assumptions and instead listen closely to the system’s signals. It involves identifying areas resistant to change, places with untapped energy, and existing bright spots of success. Effective change emerges by nudging and working with the system’s own dynamics rather than imposing external fixes.

Crafting a successful systems strategy means taking clear stances, developing explicit hypotheses about how change will occur, focusing on critical dynamics, and preparing for uncertainty. It must remain simple and communicable to diverse stakeholders. Common pitfalls include confusing goals with strategy, trying to do too much at once, and ignoring the system’s current realities and resistances.

Two case studies illustrate the power of this approach. A U.S. education initiative moved beyond funding isolated programs to mapping and transforming the entire education system, engaging hundreds of stakeholders to reveal key inequities and design a shared vision for every child’s potential. Similarly, Humanity United applied systems practice in peacebuilding by challenging assumptions, adapting strategies, and engaging local experts to foster sustainable peace.

Across these examples, shared competencies include systems thinking, strategic framing, collaborative practice, adaptive learning, and purposeful visioning, all applied at multiple levels of the system.

Finally, to ensure meaningful progress, systems strategies must be aligned with rigorous impact measurement and embrace iterative learning cycles: testing hypotheses, adapting, and evolving.

At its core, Systems Practice is not merely a set of tools but a transformative mindset. It replaces simplistic linear problem-solving with adaptive, participatory, and systemic approaches; essential for achieving lasting change in today’s complex social challenges.

Acknowledgement: Acumen’s Systems Practice course

Clay Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation sheds light on how education is evolving in response to new technologies and changing needs. Disruption goes beyond digital tools, it involves creating new models that better serve underserved learners. Sustaining innovations improve existing systems without fundamentally changing them. These efficiency-focused innovations refine, rather than replace, the current model. Disruptive innovations, on the other hand, reimagine education from the ground up. Khan Academy, for instance, offers free, self-paced learning that challenges conventional schooling. Such innovations can scale and transform how learning happens. For schools to thrive, they must balance sustaining and disruptive innovation. While the former strengthens existing structures, the latter often needs the freedom to grow separately. Embracing both allows schools to remain flexible, responsive, and future-ready. Schools that adapt with foresight, build new capabilities, and allow bold ideas to flourish will be best positioned to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

• What are the biggest challenges and opportunities in leadership?

Environmental crisis and possible social collapse.

Preparing young people to transform systems.

Major change is constant now, not occasional.

“It is the sacred obligation of every educator to commit a daily act of sabotage against the system.”

We are tethered to outdated models.

Pediatric suicides rise by 30-40% during school term time.

Rising student disengagement globally.

Poor pedagogy is encouraged in the pursuit of higher exam scores.

Loss of autonomy in young people (Right to Roam research).

The best leaders are subversive.

Challenge the status quo.

• How do you encourage and sustain a culture of innovation within your school while balancing national and state requirements?

Flip the system.

Best practice versus emerging practice.

Hippocratic Oath.

• How have you been successful in ensuring effective collaboration and spread of productive initiatives across teams?

Peter Senge – No successful change is rolled out from the top of an organisation.

Adaptive leadership – turn the problem back to those who own it.

Amy Edmondson – psychological safety, normalise mistakes, model risk.

Teacher Champions

Really enjoyed Guy Claxton’s lecture at the University of Melbourne yesterday – The Science of Learning: What Does It Really Tell Us About Teaching? He reminded us there’s no single “Science of Learning” – he mentioned a range of insights from thinkers like Roger Schank, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, EdD, Heyes, Resnick, and Perkins. Science can explain how learning happens, but it doesn’t prescribe what or how we ought to teach; that depends on our values and context. He warned against the “hegemony of narrow intellect,” which reduces learning to cold cognition and isolated elements. Real learning is an epistemic apprenticeship; we catch ways of thinking from the people around us. Culture matters. Exposition isn’t bad, but great teaching goes beyond delivery. It builds trust, fosters curiosity, and helps students learn how to think; not just what to know. The science doesn’t dictate action, but it deepens our understanding and informs wise choices.

Between 2014 and 2023, Australia’s print media played a powerful role in shaping the public conversation around democratic education. Outlets like The Age, The Australian, and The Sydney Morning Herald spotlighted growing tensions around who controls the curriculum, what citizenship looks like, and how politics, equity, and identity play out in our classrooms.
🧭 Who decides what students learn?
From debates over religious instruction to national identity and Tony Abbott’s chaplaincy program, the question of control over education ignited strong and polarising opinions.
⚖️ Equity in education
Gonski reforms, Safe Schools, and funding debates revealed deep divides between public and private education. Has our system supported inclusivity, or left our most vulnerable behind?
🌱 Politics in the classroom
Youth-led movements like School Strike 4 Climate challenged ideas of “neutrality” in schools. Should education be politically neutral, or a space for students to challenge the status quo?
🗳️ Civics and citizenship
The 2023 Indigenous Voice referendum exposed gaps in civic understanding. Are we truly preparing students for the responsibilities of democratic life?
📉 “Back to Basics” vs. the bigger picture
Australia’s falling PISA rankings drove a renewed focus on literacy and numeracy, yet critics warn that an over-simplified curriculum may miss the mark on the complexities of modern life.

Systems thinking is a concept championed by Peter Senge in “The Fifth Discipline”, which encourages us to unlearn the siloed thinking of the past and recognise interconnectedness and complexity. Emotions play a crucial role in learning and social interaction. As we cultivate emotional awareness, we become more adept at regulating our responses and being intentional about how we show up in any environment. This aligns with the idea of generative social fields, where the quality of relationships and interactions within a community shapes its ability to thrive. By integrating systems thinking, emotional intelligence, and insights from nature, we can create educational environments that are not only effective but also nurturing and sustainable. Peter Senge reminds us, “Leadership is the ability of a human community to move towards a preferred future” (and I think this is the first time I have heard a definition of leadership as collective rather than individual).

Greenpeace’s approach is rooted in non-violent, creative confrontation to address environmental and peace issues globally. They prioritise moral integrity, diversity, and justice, aiming for systemic change while remaining independent. Non-violence is chosen for its moral high ground, accessibility, and effectiveness in controlling messaging, exposing brutality, and avoiding escalation.

Campaigns target issues like deforestation and gas projects, employing tactics such as direct action, mobilization, and strategic pressure. Strategies include exploiting conflict and maintaining pressure through surprise actions and public stunts.

Actions involve thorough planning, investigation, and training, ensuring safety and legal preparedness for arrestable and non-arrestable actions. Legal rights are emphasised, along with support structures for activists.

Media plays a crucial role, with Greenpeace controlling the narrative through press releases, spokespeople, and iconic images. Activists represent the organisation and deliver messages effectively to the public and stakeholders.

Our education system faces significant challenges. Young people are signalling their discontent through declining attendance, increasing disruptive behaviour, and concerning levels of mental health issues – tangible expressions of the desire for an educational experience that better resonates with the aspirations and the demands of the contemporary world. The rising numbers of school refusers raises questions about the current curriculum narrative. Over three-quarters of Australian students have reported they didn’t fully try in the latest Pisa tests. ATAR is now not used by more than 75% of our young people.

Perhaps not so disconnected, renowned climate scientist Joele Gergis warns of a future where temperature increases of 4.0 to 7.0 degrees Celsius by 2100 could become a reality, presenting humanity with a critical choice between extinction and transformation. The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2024 anticipates five out of the top ten risks within the next decade being tied to the environment.

As we confront these challenges, it is essential to infuse education with the awareness that we stand at a pivotal juncture. We must redefine success as a future where humans thrive sustainably, inseparable from the wellbeing of our planet. Every teacher is now a Climate Teacher, playing a pivotal role in shaping eco-conscious minds.

Addressing eco-anxiety requires action, and for young people this can be growing food, caring for animals, and greening schools. Some teachers are doing an exceptional job integrating nature into the curriculum. Check out Year 3 student Emma Glenfield’s cutting-edge research about magpie swooping. Victoria now has a wonderful Environmental Sustainability in Schools Policy. The UK has committed to appointing sustainability coordinators in every state school by 2025.

Beyond traditional sustainability, the concept of regeneration beckons—a paradigm that goes beyond avoiding harm to actively repairing and restoring the damage inflicted upon the planet. It’s time to shift from an extractive approach to a regenerative one, giving back more to the environment than we take. In Victoria, the Woodleigh Institute is building an alliance dedicated to propelling change in education through a focus on systems thinking, wellbeing, and regeneration.

The challenges facing our education system demand a profound shift in perspective, acknowledging the discontent of young people as a crucial signal. Book learning isn’t enough in a climate-changed world. We must prioritise the development of schools explicitly designed to cultivate people who can thrive in a world undergoing transformative change. The canary in the coalmine of youth disengagement, combined with the urgency of warnings from climate science, underscores the need to reimagine education as a cornerstone for a sustainable and regenerative future.

Last week I participated in an Introduction to Compassionate Systems Workshop, co-facilitated by Dr. Peter Senge and Dr. Mette Boell from the MIT Systems Awareness Lab and the Center for Systems Awareness. The Compassionate Systems Framework is an approach that’s empowering students and teachers to address complex challenges and shape the future. 🌍💡 It integrates wellbeing, mindfulness, and systems thinking, highlighting the importance of understanding interconnectedness and change through systems thinking. This framework encourages ethical behaviour driven by awareness of consequences. 🌱 By nurturing these skills, students become better equipped to navigate and positively influence the intricate, interdependent global systems they are a part of. 💪✨

This framework challenges the traditional approach of transforming large institutions with a compliance-oriented culture and emphasises the importance of cultivating employees’ understanding of the need for change. It recognises the value of personal reflection, meditation, and relationship building in improvement, moving away from viewing employees as mere cogs in the system. The focus is on employees as humans, and it acknowledges that changing the world begins with changing ourselves.

“The structure of education needs to change. The only way that this can change is through how human beings show up. If it doesn’t come with an understanding of how people turn up, nothing will change. Changing the world comes from changing ourselves.” (Mette Boell)

The core of the Compassionate Systems Framework lies in cultivating “compassionate integrity” in students and teachers, promoting alignment between thoughts, feelings, and actions through an evolving awareness of interconnectedness. It introduces concepts like mindfulness meditation, generative social fields, and core capacities of compassionate systems leadership, emphasising the significance of emotional literacy and the quality of connections.

“If mindfulness was a drug, it would be ripped off the shelves of the pharmacies.” (John Gabriel, MIT)

It encourages a shift from the traditional leadership model, acknowledging that real learning involves being open, embracing ignorance, and recognising the need for personal growth and development. Leadership is no longer confined to a hierarchical structure but is a shared responsibility for creating a vision-directed organisation.

“Imagine if we created schools that students didn’t want to leave and educators didn’t want to go home from.” (Mette Boell)

The framework highlights the importance of vision, reflection, and the science of wellbeing. It underlines the role of empathy and compassion as essential tools for creating positive change in the educational system, addressing issues like ADHD as responses to an “insane” structure.

The Compassionate Systems Framework promotes designing compassionate systems in the classroom, emphasising understanding and collective experiences with students. It advocates for a shift from rigid scaling to cultivating growth in a living system. It challenges the status quo and encourages us to embrace new ways of thinking and acting to bring about a more compassionate, interconnected, and effective educational system. 🌱💪✨