The dissatisfaction with and loss of trust in today’s schools are clear indications of the need for change in our school systems. The strong push for a learner-centered paradigm of instruction in today’s schools reflects our society’s changing educational needs. We educators must help our schools transition into the new learner-centered paradigm of instruction that better meets the needs of individual learners, their workplaces and communities, and society in general. It is also important that we educators help the transformation occur as effectively and smoothly as possible. This article begins by addressing the need for transforming our educational systems to the learner-centered paradigm and describes the critical systems approach for carrying out such change. It then describes the nature of the learner-centered paradigm and provides examples of it in practice.

The Need for Paradigm Change and the (Critical) Systems Approach to Educational Change

Information-age vs. Industrial-age Education

Society has shifted from the Industrial Age into what many call the ‘Information Age’ (Toffler, 1984; Reigeluth, 1994; Senge et al., 2000), yet current schools were established to fit the needs of an Industrial-Age society (see Table 1). This factory-model, Industrial-Age school system has highly compartmentalized learning into subject areas, and students are expected to learn the same content in the same amount of time (Reigeluth, 1994). The current school system strives for standardization and was not designed to meet individual learners’ needs. It was designed to sort students into laborers and managers (see Table 2). Therefore, students are forced to move on with the rest of the class regardless of whether they have learned the material, causing many students to accumulate learning deficits and eventually drop out.

The (Critical) Systems Approach to Educational Change

Systemic educational transformation strives to change the school system to the learner-centered paradigm that aims to meet all learners’ educational needs. It is concerned with the creation of a completely new system, rather than a retooling of the current system. It entails a paradigm shift as opposed to piecemeal change. Repeated calls for massive reform of current educational and training practices have consistently been published over the last several decades. This has resulted in an increasing recognition of the need for systemic transformation in education, as numerous piecemeal approaches to education reform have been implemented and have failed to significantly improve the state of education. Systemic transformation seeks to shift from a paradigm in which time is held constant, thereby forcing achievement to vary, to one designed specifically to meet the needs of Information-Age learners and their communities by allowing students the time that each needs to reach proficiency.

Systemic educational change draws heavily from the work on critical systems theory (CST) (Flood & Jackson, 1991; Jackson, 1991a, 1991b; Watson et al., 2008). CST has its roots in systems theory, which was established in the mid-twentieth century by a multi-disciplinary group of researchers who shared the view that science had become increasingly reductionist and the various disciplines isolated. While the term “system” has been defined in a variety of ways by different systems scholars, the central notion of systems theory is the importance of relationships among elements comprising a whole.

CST draws heavily on the philosophy of Habermas (1973, 1984, 1987). The critical systems approach to social systems is of particular importance when considering systems wherein inequality of power exists in relation to opportunity, authority, and control. In the 1980s, CST came to the forefront (Jackson, 1985; Ulrich, 1983), influencing systems theory into the 1990s (Flood & Jackson, 1991; Jackson, 1991a, 1991b). CST uses a post-positivist approach to analyze social conditions in order to liberate the oppressed, while also seeking to liberate systems theory from tendencies such as self-imposed insularity, cases of internal localized subjugations in discourse, and liberation of system concepts from the inadequacies of objectivist and subjectivist approaches (Flood, 1990). Jackson (1991b) explains that CST embraces five key commitments:

• critical awareness of examining values entering actual systems design,
• social awareness of recognition of pressures leading to popularization of certain systems theories and methodologies,
• dedication to human emancipation for full development of all human potential, informed use of systems methodologies, and
• informed development of all alternative positions and different theoretical systems approaches.

Banathy (1991) and Senge et al. (2000) applied systems theory to the design of educational systems. Banathy (1992) suggested examining systems through three lenses: a “still picture lens” to appreciate the components comprising the system and their relationships; a “motion picture lens” to recognize the processes and dynamics of the system; and a “bird’s eye view lens” to be aware of the relationships between the system and its peers and suprasystems. Senge et al. (2000) applied systems theory specifically to organizational learning, stating that the organization can learn to work as an interrelated, holistic learning community, rather than functioning as isolated departments.

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