Public education, a wonderful creation of human society, is currently troubled by a cycle of increasing decline. Ever-increasing demands leave educators less able to address their own student, school and district issues. So, school quality goes down, for a 19 + 1 = 18 effect. That is: if school quality is 19, add a new demand (+1), school quality goes down to 18. Then, desperate new policies are mandated every year -– too quickly for schools to keep up. Over three years, the process looks like 19 + 1 = 18 … 17 … 16. This poster explains this increasing decline as caused by [I] flawed practice in which the leader or supervisor ‘installs’ the new policy, program and tasks in the supervised. This install practice is built on [II] flawed and conflicting assumptions. Namely, the flawed assumptions are that agency is in the supervisor, rather than the supervised. Expert supervisors have observed the errors in this thinking and many have overcorrected for an emerging new paradigm that assumes agency in the supervised, rather than the supervisor. The result is an either/or debate and conflict. Clarification of agency, building on Boulding’s Typology, yields [III] corrected theory and improved assumptions. Namely, cause/agency in learning and behavior is: dual & multiple, infinitely variable, and in everyone – learners and leaders. The result is a new unifying DISPLAY/PICKUP paradigm for education and management. The supervisor’s role is to be the agent of the DISPLAY of the agenda and subject matter. The supervised are agents of PICKUP, each at their own rates, for their own purposes. [IV] Corresponding practices are proposed, with the goal that [V] 19 + 1 = 20 … 21 … 22.
Keywords:social system design; paradigm shift; educational systems design
