Systemic Change on Nick Wang

EDiversity Systems Thinking Coaching by Adler Yang and YES Network

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:42:00 +0000

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things, regarded as systems, influence one another within a whole. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make an organization “healthy” or “unhealthy”.

At my first meeting with EDiversity co-founders Cam and Doreen on August 13th, I learned about some cool alternative education projects that people have been doing, like the Floating Classroom, Bring Me A Book, and Holistic Education Foundation… etc. I was very inspired and motivated, thinking all night about the possibilities of collaborations in the future.

I also gathered that these different groups of people have only just gotten together, and we need to better understand our positions in the bigger picture, so that after the event, we can collaborate most effectively and create the biggest impact possible! For that, I told my good friend Thousand Lim at YES Network and see if he could help.

It just so happens that Adler Yang is also back in town for the screening of his documentary film - “If There is a Reason to Study 學習的理由”. After speaking with Adler, we decided to let him be the facilitator for EDiversity’s first Systems Thinking session.

The meeting took place last Thursday in the department of Sociology at Chinese University. We first started with writing down what are our expectations for the day. Then we move on to peer interviews to find out the problems in each other’s point of view. Next, with the help of the facilitators, we arranged all of our knowledge (in the form of post-it notes) into a system diagram. We then spend a long time discussing about where the “Root Causes” lie. After much discussions, we each wrote in black our choices of “Intervention Points” in the system.

Finally, due to a lack of time, we could only quickly go through the “Initial calling, Vision, Mission, BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)”. There isn’t time left for “Team Building” and “Scheduling”. Everyone was physically tired but mentally filled with new understandings and connections.

Thank you Adler and YES Network for this very useful training session!

Expert Interview - An Afternoon with Adler Yang

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

“I had just turned 14. At school, I overheard one of my childhood friends talking with his teacher. “My top high school choices?! I don’t even know if I can score high enough to get in. Ah well, worst come to worst I’ll just join the gangs.” I had grown apart from this friend since we entered middle school but we used to be really close. I started to feel bad, “why hadn’t I pay more attention and remained close to him?!” I didn’t know what to say, so I just pretended I didn’t hear him. Inside my head, my mind was racing - “What went wrong? Was it family problems? A failure in education? Or is it just fate?”…

We’re shaped by our life experiences. For Adler Yang, this was one of the events that gave him a mission and put him on a course he hadn’t thought he’d travel. Adler started filming a documentary, “The Soul”, which examines how an overwhelmingly high-stake testing and tracking system deteriorates the students’ motivation in learning, and the sense of direction to pursuing life. This film was one of ten chosen documentary projects funded by the Taiwan Public Television Service(PTS) and Taiwan National Arts and Cultural Foundation in the year 2010.

Our meeting last week had been fulfilling, we talked about how the education systems have changed over the years in Taiwan and in Hong Kong, the purpose of public education (indoctrination and subordination) Vs. the ideals of an education (learning to learn, finding own direction in life), the history of education reforms in Taiwan, the problems with over-saturation of college degrees, and the really heavy issues of outdated models and policies that are governing our societies.

There were simply too much “meat” in our afternoon of conversations to extract just a few take-aways for a blog post, but if I must give a summary, it would be this: Any parent would be proud to have a child like Adler, so capable of thinking for himself, being aware of the problems in the bigger picture and choosing to act upon it to create positive change in the world.

I’m sure we’ll have lots of chances to work together to change our societies for the better in the next 10, 20 years!