Systems thinking in school organization

Since the 19th century, Taylor's (1911) principles of scientific management (e.g., division of labor, hierarchy and control, impersonal orientation) have dominated the procedures and structures of state schools in Western society. Sergiovanni (2005) argued that schools have been perceived as rational institutions based on bureaucratic characteristics that developed during the Industrial Age. This mechanistic view, which has been strongly criticized by researchers and practitioners alike (e.g., Fullan, 2016), represented the precursor of what may be called the Machine Age (e.g., Araya, 2015; Peters, 2010), which was dominated by the reductionist approach.

Reductionist analysis posited that a prerequisite for understanding the whole is analyzing its parts (Jones, 2000; Lewontin & Levins, 2000). According to this approach, any sort of phenomenon must be comprehended through rational analysis, i.e., by reducing it to its indivisible components (Mazzocchi, 2008; Rosenberg, 2006). Thus, the reductionist answer to every ‘What is this?’ would always be: ‘“This” is whatever it is made of.’ This reductionist approach, epitomized in Charlie Chaplin's film Modern Times (1936), depicting modern life by analogizing it to a factory assembly line, later manifested itself in the fields of educational policy and administration. That is, policy-makers, administrators, and educators, have used the Machine perspective as a core image for individual and organizational growth.

Can we envision schools that co-create reciprocal networks based on multiple emerging perspectives? In this fast-changing 21st-century, schools that merely produce ‘more of the same’ education (the assembly-line metaphor) will not satisfy the need to address the challenges and complexities that will face students in the future (Key, 2010). Rapidly evolving technologies will leave these students no choice but to actively participate in an increasingly diverse, globalized, and media-saturated society. This reality calls for a satisfactory response to the present day's multiplicity of difficulties and expectations, which cannot be provided by the traditional frameworks of school organization. Complementary organizational frameworks accompanied by strategies to guide faculty members toward success are therefore sorely needed.