I ran across an interesting article on the web recently. It was written by Leks Drakos, a self-described rogue academic with a PhD from the University of Kent, whose research interests include human resources, diversity/equity/inclusion/accessibility, contemporary culture, post-apocalyptica, and monster studies. Drakos wrote the article for Process St., a group who builds processes for businesses or organizations that make your recurring work fun, fast, and faultless.
The article deals with system failure, focusing first on the morbid story of America’s Hurricane Katrina disaster, then addressing system failure by using the advent of the worldwide COVID pandemic beginning in 2020. Drakos answers two questions: what makes a system, and what is system failure?
According to the article, “a system is a set of processes or procedures designed to achieve a certain result. As long as these processes and procedures are up-to-date and working properly, the system runs smoothly and efficiently. Systems are found in every part of the natural world from the way the universe works to subatomic activity. It’s no surprise then that we’ve adapted that structure to create our own system designs. However, while natural systems – for the most part – run automatically with minimal errors, designed systems require much more precision in development and closer attention to maintenance.” One might question Drakos’s claim that natural systems run automatically given the climate struggles the world is experiencing, but let’s proceed.
System failure, according to Drakos, “simply happens when a process breaks. This break could happen for a number of reasons:
The process is outdated
Design issues become problematic
Poor process adherence
Lack of understanding
Lack of ownership
Any one of these issues – or all of them together – can create a system failure. It’s easy enough to combat most of them, however, and generally, additional systems are put in place during development to make sure these things don’t happen. Designs are tested, adherence is monitored, and updates are applied as needed.”
Drakos goes on and says “The only way a complex system can experience a true catastrophic failure is through multiple simultaneous points of failure. This means that, while it’s reassuring to find a single point of error or a scapegoat to blame, that is rarely going to provide a long-term solution.”
Are public schools experiencing a catastrophic failure? Is the public education system experiencing multiple simultaneous points of failure? Let’s take a look at Drakos’s five processes that add up to a system to see and score them 1 to 10, 1 being no where close to system failure and 10 being spot on.
The process is outdated. When was the last time you were in a classroom? I don’t know about you, but the last classrooms I visited looked eerily like my classrooms of the 1970’s. The teacher standing in the front of the class with students, in line and row order, sitting and either listening to the teacher or doing work assigned by the teacher. The fact that America’s teachers struggled mightily with virtual teaching and learning these past two years suggest they haven’t been trained in new learning systems, like others have been in fields like medicine, banking, and other professions. The process is outdated, especially when it comes to meeting the needs of black, brown, and poor learners. Let’s score this one an 8.
Design issues become problematic. Creating new designs for learning within the existing public school system is hard, very hard. Too many adults are more interested in trying to improve on what they have done during the past years instead of training and introducing new designs for learning within their classrooms and schools. Most teachers and principals see the old adage “Let’s build a new plane while flying the old one” as a threat instead of an opportunity. Because of this fear, bold and creative design strategies rarely surface in traditional school system. I give this one a 9.
Poor process adherence. If the traditional system was graded for effort on this process, they would have to receive a 9 or 10. Traditional systems spend billions of dollars every year training their teachers and principals to do their jobs better. Classroom discipline, instructional strategies, assessment practices, special education training, gifted and talented focus, and the list goes on and on, are all worked on during a normal school year. During the pandemic, after the miserable failure of the traditional system to succeed with virtual teaching and learning, it seems like schools have doubled down on training school leaders and classroom teachers in many of the same strategies listed above. I believe everyone is trying hard to improve.
But one only needs to look at grading practices between teacher’s classrooms and throughout schools to see evidence of poor process adherence. Very few schools train their teachers on how to calibrate grades between classrooms, even though the kids are learning the same subject matter. Some teachers use check marks, some use a 10-point scale, some use smiley faces. What might be the most important process to adhere to, deciding how learners are progressing and assigning them a fair grade for that progress, is probably the process in the most trouble across America’s schools. And I could go on with other examples of poor process adherence, but let’s give this one a 9.
Lack of understanding. I don’t think most teachers or principals really understand what needs to be done when it comes to deep learning, or how to create what a colleague of mine describes as “smarter and stronger learners.” I think most teachers and principals know how to teach and how to support teaching. Their hope is that teaching improvement will lead to deeper learning, and that’s just not the case. Public schools, especially those who serve black, brown, and poor kids, are suffering mightily because of this affliction. They can’t help their kids because they don’t understand what they are really supposed to be doing for the kids. Want to confuse a teacher or a principal? Ask them how they know their kids are learning if they can’t use the student’s score on the standardized test as the answer. I score this a 9, maybe a 10.
Lack of ownership. This one is a 10, maybe an 11. Ask someone within the traditional system why a certain kid isn’t learning and watch them point fingers at each other. If the kid can’t read, then it’s the reading/language arts’ teacher at fault. If the student struggles with math, it’s the first-year teacher who doesn’t have good classroom management skills. If the kid is failing, then it’s the entire team of teachers, with all of them pointing their fingers at the others as the reason for the failure. Very few within the traditional public school system own their young learner’s learning. That’s not what adults are paid to do within the traditional system. They are paid to teach and then to assess the impact of that teaching.
Based on the scores assigned to the five system processes, it’s not hard to figure out that I believe the traditional system is in the midst of catastrophic failure, and kids are suffering right now because of it. Most of the kids suffering today are black, brown, and poor kids, but other kids are showing signs of struggle too. If you don’t believe me about the catastrophe called today’s public school system, tune in tomorrow when I share the feelings of another expert and critic in the field – former North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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