Richard Bawden

Systems thinking and practices in the education of agriculturalists

Abstract A systems approach has been taken to a review of agricultural education programmes and as the essential theme of resultant curricula at Hawkesbury Agricultural College in Australia. The systems thinking and practices which have guided, and been shaped by, the innovations are outlined, and the rationale and framework of the major programme are described. The subsequent emphasis has been placed on effective learning for agricultural managers and their technologist advisors. It is argued that problem solving and learning are essentially the same psychological processes and that taking a systems approach to investigating problem situations provides a more useful paradigm for learning about agriculture than reductionist, discipline-based approaches. Experiential learning and autonomy in learning are seen as consistent with this and are basic features of the programmes. A conceptual framework for problem solving that incorporates soft and hard systems and scientific reductionist methodologies has been developed. A contingency approach to situation improving is emerging as a less restrictive and more realistic alternative to a normative approach to problem solving.

The Community Challenge: The Learning Response

In this presentation I intend to narrate a story that has its particular origins in three strategic decisions collectively taken, almost 20 years ago now, by a small group of educators within a small agricultural polytechnic located on the urban/rural fringe of Australia’s largest city. It is a story which arises out of the integrated thoughts and actions of an academic community, which, tired of its marginal status, decided in the late 1970s, to profoundly and concurrently transform itself as a School of Agriculture in three fundamental ways: (a) to change its own focus from production agriculture to responsible rural development, (b) to change its own emphasis from a teaching approach based on courses to one of learning based on projects, and (c) to change its own prevailing reductionist paradigm to embrace an holistic one. The mission became one of helping people in rural communities across the state, to learn their way forward to better futures, in the face of the immensely complex, dynamic, and slowly degrading environments – socio-economic, politico-cultural and bio-physical – in which they increasingly recognised they were deeply embedded. The intent would thus become that of helping people to see their worlds differently as a prelude for doing things differently – essentially more systemically. The context for this grand enterprise is captured in the aphorism ‘if we always see how we’ve always seen, we’ll always be who we’ve always been’! Changing the way we collectively construe ourselves means collectively changing the way we think about ourselves, to lead in turn, to changing the way we collectively act.

Systems approaches to agricultural development: The Hawkesbury experience

Abstract This paper describes the rationale and major features of a unique systems approach to agricultural and rural development at one of Australias oldest institutions for agricultural education. Concerned by the inadequacies of the philosophies, theories and practices of reductionist science and technology as exposed by their own experiences, academics at that institution have adopted systemic alternatives in developing a new paradigm for agricultural development. In apparent contrast to the majority of systems approaches for the development of a better agriculture, the Hawkesbury group shifts the focus of the systems perspective from reality to ways of dealing with reality. The emphasis in this approach lies in the establishment of learning or researching systems rather than research on farming systems. The central thesis of the Hawkesbury approach is that, if there are to be new ways of farming developed which will be more socially and environmentally responsible, then this will be predicated by the development of ‘new ways’ of thinking, knowing and learning. For more than a dozen years, this group has been translating this philosophy into innovative curricula, research methodologies and extension strategies. Indeed it is claimed that the continuing development of the entire organization reflects the pervasiveness of the systemic paradigm.

Systemic praxis in the education of the agricultural systems practitioner

This paper describes the context and the systemic experiential theories that have informed the praxis of educating agricultural systems practitioners. The praxis has involved a process of action research with students and with clients in farming and other rural community organizations. The praxis encourages learners to bring a range of methodologies of inquiry to bear upon problematic issues, contingent upon the nature of such issues. Informed by a number of different theories, and by reflecting on our own work, an earlier model of a nested hierarchy of systems of inquiry has been reconstructed to become a more useful guide to educational strategies: Each contingent methodology can now be seen to have its own learning, meta-learning, and epistemic learning dimensions. A key to enriched learning for responsible changes in agriculture and rural development lies in the facilitation of the consciousness of, and competency at, such a systemic pluralism of methodologies.

Resilience in learning systems : case studies in university education

In this paper, we address the challenge of translating the concept of resilience into effective educational strategies. Three different cognitive dimensions (ontological, epistemological and axiological) that underpin assumptions held about the nature of nature, the nature of knowing and the nature of human nature are identified. Four case studies from higher education in the USA, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK are presented, which illustrate how learners can be encouraged to confront their ontological, epistemic and axiological positions and appreciate the positions of others. The cases all emphasize experience as the source of learning and explore how learning experiences can be designed to facilitate transformations at the individual level that might foster resilience at the social–ecological system levels. We argue that the epistemic dimension deserves greater attention among educators and that epistemic development is crucial for those working with social–ecological systems as a foundation for building resilience.

Learning to persist : a systemic view of development

Sustainability is a concept which is entirely appropriate to the age which has spawned it. Being as ambiguous, complex, mystical and multi-faceted as it is, it represents a wonderful example of the confusion that comes with what has been termed reflexive modernity (Beck, 1992): This epoch where we must now face up to the “hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernisation” and concern ourselves “not just with making nature useful, or with releasing mankind from traditional constraints, but also essentially with problems resulting from techno-economic development itself”.

The concept of process management

Presents a conceptual framework for process management of groups involved in action learning and action research. Discusses propositional, practical and experiential learning; and the concept of meta‐learning (learning to learn) in relation to the “learning organisation”. Presents a model of process management that concerns people and process, with implications for research in industry, government and higher education.

Messy Issues, Worldviews and Systemic Competencies

This chapter continues the story of the tradition of systemic praxis that emerged from Hawkesbury Agricultural College in Australia from the late 1970s. While critical social learning systems (CSLS) best describes this ongoing tradition at this present time of writing (2009), the concept of a critical learning system did not appear explicitly in the Hawkesbury literature until the mid nineties (Bawden, 1994). The seeds of this powerful notion however can be traced right back to the seminal papers describing the logic and organisation of the foundations of the initiatives in systems education at that institution (Bawden et al., 1984; Macadam and Bawden, 1985). Details of developments of the Hawkesbury initiatives over subsequent years appear in Bawden (2005) in which an extensive list of references to other publications that trace and describe intermediate developmental stages of the Hawkesbury endeavours, can also be found. While the word ‘social’ is not explicitly included in descriptions of the nature and development of critical learning systems in this endeavour, a strong emphasis on social or collective learning has been an essential feature of the initiative from the outset.

Pedagogies for persistence: cognitive challenges and collective competency development

Education for sustainability is a challenge that is being met in many different innovative ways under many different circumstances in many different parts of the world. In this paper, the author draws on his personal experiences with radical systemic pedagogies within a context of agriculture and rural development appropriate to an emergent Era of Persistence in Australia, to design and conduct a graduate course in the USA that linked sustainability with systems thinking. The organising framework for the short duration, single unit course exploited the integration of five characters of sustainability that the author claims were appropriate both to the context and to the particular circumstances: cognition, complexity, contestation, contingency and collectivity.

SYSTEMIC PRAXIS IN THE EDUCATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS PRACTITIONER

This paper describes the context and the systemic experiential theories that have informed the praxis of educating agricultural systems practitioners. The praxis has involved a process of action research with students and with clients in farming and other rural community organizations. The praxis encourages learners to bring a range of methodologies of inquiry to bear upon problematic issues, contingent upon the nature of such issues. Informed by a number of different theories, and by reflecting on our own work, an earlier model of a nested hierarchy of systems of inquiry has been reconstructed to become a more useful guide to educational strategies: Each contingent methodology can now be seen to have its own learning, meta-learning, and epistemic learning dimensions. A key to enriched learning for responsible changes in agriculture and rural development lies in the facilitation of the consciousness of, and competency at, such a systemic pluralism of methodologies.