The concept of systems
What is a system? A system is a set of things, that have a reason to be grouped together and have rules explaining how each thing in the set is related to other things. A system establishes patterns, which can then be used to make predictions. Speaking in the broadest sense, the development of humans, that is, how we become more advanced, more intelligent, more capable, is the directed by our development of systems. What separates modern humans from primitive humans and all other living things is our systems. Language is a communication system that allows for superior information transfer. Knowledge systems such as natural sciences allows us to understand the material world and transform it to our needs. Even intangible concepts, such as ethics and laws are social systems which influence our behaviour.
We can think about different types of systems in terms of their scope vs specificity. In three general categories, there are;
Universal systems: ways of thinking that apply to all of life. Philosophy would claim to be an example of this because it asks questions about how to live life.
General systems: apply to many areas of life. An example would be a viewpoint about learning, which can be applied to many subjects. There would be common principles about how people learn, effective methods of learning, and the purpose of learning.
Specific: applies to a certain aspect of life. An example would be the field of chemistry. A student of chemistry learns fundamental rules that govern all chemical processes such as stoichiometry and models of atoms and reactions.
Regardless of the scope of a system, we can see that for every example mentioned, their existence (or our invention of them) represents an advancement for humanity. Without systems, we only understand the world from the limited means of literal experience, everything is basically rote learning. I can even refer to a system to make the argument about the importance of systems, that being Jean Piaget’s Theory of Intelligence (also known in the modern era as Cognitive Constructivism). Piaget devised stages of child intellectual development and called the last two stages: Concrete operations (age 7-11) and Formal operations (age 12+). Operations are ways of thinking and concrete operations refer to formation of these connections as they relate to the physical world (concrete). An example would be understanding conservation of mass. A famous example of this is depicted in this image, which has also been appropriated into a meme.
Formal operations represent the final step in child development, when one takes turns these relational concepts that were observed in the physical world, and turns them into a formal, abstract system. An Atlas student demonstrates formal operations when they solve physics problems involving conservation of energy using symbols (maths equations) rather than having to ‘see’ the experiment in real life. In summary, formal operations are systematic thinking!
There are three purposes to this introduction:
To make clear to the reader the existence of ‘systems,’ and their general characteristics
To show that a superior approach to understanding something is the creation of a system rather than relying on knowledge/beliefs are largely obtained through experience/anecdote
Not as important: an excuse to introduce to the reader some fun ideas in social science and education theory
Atlas as a system
Now to relate this to Atlas Academia. Atlas was created because we saw a deficiency in systematic thinking. First, this was specific to individual school subjects. What counted as ‘teaching’ at school was being shown statements or examples and having to remember them. Many students know this pain, where it feels like the teacher is tell you facts but not actually explaining ‘how’ or ‘why’ something works. It doesn’t make sense. As students, we continued to search for more knowledge to make sense of our school subjects and came to two conclusions. First, that there does exist a systematic way to understand each subject, and our teachers lacked adequate knowledge of this system, and also were deficient in their ability to communicate the parts of the system that they did understand, to their students. Second, that both developing a systematic understanding, and a way of transmitting it, were both very difficult, and endless quests that many great people have spent their life in service of, that being, scientists and true educators respectively.
Now if I were aiming to keep this article as short as possible, I believe this would be sufficient background building for me to move onto introducing the systematic approach of Atlas to learning, and thereby show how what we do is something cool and special. However, I will set myself a more ambitious goal of arguing for the uniqueness of Atlas among all other education institutions.
There was a purpose to introducing the three general categories of systems (universal > general > specific) because I will refer to them here. If the purpose of Atlas was to develop specific systems such as such as understanding chemistry or physics or biology, then there would be no overlap between how we approach each subject. The only value of offering multiple subjects would be commercial/convenience. This is certainly not the case. All Atlas teachers are students of multiple subjects, and innovated on the teaching method for their main subject by incorporating inter-disciplinary learnings. What started out as an anecdotally substantiated belief that true understanding of one field can crossover into others has been transformed into an evidenced approach to learning. A general system of learning! To the best of our knowledge, very few educational institutions care to develop a general system, they instead want to find the simplest system and run it on autopilot (have a set of notes and HW sheets to reprint every year, get every teacher to explain everything in the same way).
The Atlas system extends even further. Going back to our lived experience as students and student-teachers, we encountered a new problem when we tried to teach a classroom of students, even with our meticulously prepared system of scientific understanding. While in theory, our explanations should have been sufficient for students, it ignored the reality of the students in that classroom. That is, the rest of their life. In the emotional dimension, the students were stressed, unwell and hence disengaged. Many had gone through life with little autonomy, with no guidance to help them find a purpose. The sources of happiness for them were not intrinsically fulfilling, but just distractions from their schooling, such as social media, video games, acting out. As teachers who wanted our students to not just be academically talented, but live a good life, we realised that we had to address the world outside of the classroom too. Rather than “How does a student learn?” we had to question ourselves, and come up with the answers to bigger questions. “What is the purpose of education?” “How do you teach a person to become a good person?” There are many ways one could describe Atlas. One way would be to say that Atlas is an organisation that is inextricably linked to a system of thinking that was created by its co-founders. This system no longer belongs solely to them, as it is transformed by every person who makes contact with Atlas, be it staff or students. The scope of this system sits somewhere in-between a universal system, which is realm of philosophy, and general systems such as a theory of learning. That is, we don’t think it is our place to tell people how to live. But we also don’t think that we can make a meaningful impact on students by being completely apolitical and restricting our work to what may be considered the traditional roles of a teacher*.
So here are the fundamentals beliefs of the Atlas learning/education system.
The Atlas
1. Defining education and its purpose: Education logically follows from the discovery of systematic thinking which is the driving force for human advancement. Education itself is a systematic approach to developing systematic thinking in those that participate in it. Participating in education is dialectical (goes both ways) in that it results in the development of both students and teachers. While this purpose is universal for all participants in the system of education, there are additional drives for specific groups as expanded below.
a. A student has an additional purpose other than their systematic development, which is one that imposes a shorter-term pressure on their time. A novice student must acquire fundamental knowledge (such as maths, science, and literacy) which forms the base for them to truly understand other fields.
i. Without this base, a student can never truly understand othe fields. Genuine understanding is expanding in 2c. In addition, a student lacking this base cannot understand the nature of knowledge and learning because they will have no way to apply this theory in practice. An example of this would be the study of epistemology (philosophy of knowledge) without have literacy or numeracy skills.
ii. Because of this additional purpose, a student substantially benefits from the guidance of a teacher, expanded in 1b.
b. A teacher has multiple purposes, which is to act as an: authority, mentor, and teacher-student.
i. A teacher is a relative authority rather than an absolute one. Their understanding and instructional methods can never be perfect, and they will always be biased by their personal experiences and attitudes, but none of these facts discredit their function as a relative authority. Rather, as expanded in 1biii, the limitation of a teacher plays a key role in the dialectical nature of education. The teacher as a relative authority, provides direction for students to greatly accelerate their process of learning. This role must not be confused to mean that the teacher ‘deposits’ information into students. This is debunked by Paulo Freire’s criticism of the Banking Model of Education, and is described by teaching contemporaries as ‘rote learning.’ The process of learning, expanded in 2b, involves student-centred formations of systems, and the teacher-authority creates an environment that is the most conducive to this process.
ii. Learning is a fundamental experience of the human condition and thus cannot be separated from all the other universal human experiences. All humans experience emotions, motivations, and self-awareness in life. This means that all humans will experience these things on their education journey. Teachers who once were students (and still are) have a purpose as mentors to use their experience to provide guidance in these matters. A student cannot learn effectively without acknowledging these life aspects, because unchecked, they will lead students to make choices that hinder their development. What is uncomfortable is not necessarily bad, and what is comforting is not necessarily good.
iii. Education is dialectical in that all its processes (instruction, examination, creation of resources), while appearing to serve the purpose of student development, are undertaken as an interaction between students and teachers. The student does not change while the teacher is frozen, both participants encounter successes and challenges, and will both develop. An essential purpose of a teacher is to openly participate in this process, to inhabit the properties of a student too, becoming a teacher-student, which is needed to develop the education system itself to become more effective.
c. Atlas Academia is an organisation that was created by and operated by people who work towards the advancement of education, and thus, the advancement of humanity. This is the idealised conception of Atlas. In reality, it is classified as a private business and operates in a society organised under the rules of capitalism. Thus, it has additional shorter-term needs and objectives.
i. Meeting immediate needs of students. Students are being failed in the current education system. Their development (knowledge/intelligence, skills/competency, emotion/mental health, social/ethical/humanist consciousness) falls far short of what is required for them to embark on meaningful goals in the world. This deficiency is so severe that even if students do not understand the true scope of what they are missing, they still have an awareness that they are not being taught properly. The education of students is an urgent issue. Even if not perfectly aligned with long term student development, students have immediate needs to score well in internal and external assessments. If they cannot achieve this short-term goal, then they will be in no position to continue developing towards more meaningful objectives. Atlas Academia must function as tutoring service to meet these immediate needs.
ii. Meeting immediate needs of teachers. Many people have inherent drives which if fulfilled, often lead to them doing work that is individually meaningful, and beneficial to society. In a capitalist society, the people in power have a motivation to influence other people to suppress these inherent drives and instead sell their labour to make money (for those in power). The worker receives only a fraction of the value they create, but are coerced into this relationship because the powerful control most of the opportunities (means of production). Consider how many people could be effective teachers who will choose to follow other paths because of the apparent financial draws. Critically, these draws are ‘apparent,’ meaning that they are often illusory, and the reality of taking the path of serving capitalists rarely works out well for the subservient. Atlas Academia must provide employment and income for those who have potential to play a role in education reform, not to simply meet their survival needs, but to provide a counterforce keep them in the education system.
iii. 1ci and 1cii are essential to make an organisation that exists, rather than only in the realm of ideals. Once brought into a stable existence, the purpose of Atlas Academia is as a prefigurative project (link to article). A prefigurative project is the creation of a better society through experimental and iterative steps taken in the real world. Essentially, it is the creation of a safe space where innovation and competency building can occur until a point where it can overtake or be a serious competitor to the dominant form of society. Building a new education system from within the shell of the old.
2. The methodology of education. This section concerns that practical advice of education.
a. The need for a teacher. The purposes or goals of a student were defined in 1a. The purposes of a teacher were defined in 1b. Having a teacher substantially accelerates and improves student development. Given that the development path of a student is limitless, the fact that a student could reach a certain stage of development without a teacher is a weak argument against the need for a teacher. If a student is helped by a teacher, they can go so much further. Achieving the goals of Atlas Academia, requires setting the clear objective to develop students as much as possible, not to merely stop at an arbitrary stage that corresponds to assessment outcomes.
b. What constitutes student development. Development has already been established in terms of human advancement and systematic thinking. Student development, however, is broader than this definition. As expanded in 1ci, students face short-term pressures of schooling that form an obstacle to their development. Thus, preparing students so that they are less anxious and score better in their assessments, and other work that removes obstacles to development, should also be classified as student development. To put it simply, students are not all lined up along a start line. Most are burdened with handicaps which need to be addressed.
c. What constitutes genuine understanding. While there are many ways to model or think about a concept, these many ways can also be classified as right and wrong. The ‘right’ ways of understanding, which can be referred to as having ‘genuine understanding’ should not be judged by a subjective authority but be determined against the criteria of reality. Something is ‘right’ if it can explain/predict/analyse things correctly. It is worth noting that this is also how we conceptualise the ‘scientific method’ which provides a strong argument for science being the central discipline to learn how to learn.
d. How a student learns. Learning is activity that leads to development. This is not the rote learning or ‘banking’ of knowledge as described in 1bi. Also. as described in 2c, while knowledge/development can be ‘correct’ in its relation to reality, it also cannot be described in a static or singular form. Respectively, learning cannot be ‘given’ to a student, and ‘learning’ will take different forms for each student. The only part of the learning process that can be reliably describes then is the presence of meaningful challenge. Meaningful challenge is a generative process in which students must discover or create knowledge, and eventually, knowledge systems. An expert student is distinguished from a novice, not only by their development of systematic thinking, but by their drives and consciousness as it relates to systematic thinking. That is, how eager or capable are they at seeking out and coping with challenge? What are their attitudes about challenge and awareness of its relation to the learning process?
3. The reality of education. This section concerns the current ‘material’ truths of education. It is important not to misunderstand these as ‘absolute’ truths. These are better described as ‘uncomfortable’ truths, those that exist in the material (real) world as barriers to education and must be considered, but can be changed (and should be) through the reshaping of the material as we build a better education system.
a. The motivations of students. Students have the potential find fulfillment in education. Once they do, they will have acquired a key component of their life purpose and will be intrinsically motivated to pursue a life of learning. The process of learning will be fulfilling and will continue their personal development in other domains which will allow them to achieve further fulfilment in the additional purposes they acquire. There are a few ways to think about additional purposes. For example, a student may discover their passion in a specific technical/social/creative field. Additional purposes can also be a quality shift of the target of development being the individual, to others. A student begins by developing expertise in a field. Through their learning journey, they develop an awareness of the current limitations and inequalities of the field, and how it has affected themselves as well as others. They then acquire a passion and find fulfilment in helping others progress in that field. It is quite pertinent to point out that Atlas Academia, and the mission of its founders are an example of this motivation shift. What started as a personal journey to develop competency in science evolved into a passion to do the same for others.
i. In reality, many current students do not value education because they have not experienced a meaningful education. This is an apathetic view of education. Students are also suffering through the current failing system. The current system was intentionally designed by capitalist powers in which suffering is the objective, not an accident (link to article). In a world where the system causes harm to students, it is natural for some students to actively hate learning. This is the antagonistic view of education. Both apathetic and antagonistic views must be considered.
b. The motivations of teachers. As teachers are also students, the motivations above all apply to teachers. This means that teachers also suffered from oppression as students, and as warned by Paulo Freire, must resist the urge to become an oppressor. Past traumas must be diagnosed and healed and not become a perpetual cycle. Particular areas for teachers to be cautious about are the exercise of authority and arguing for the continuation of existing functions of the education system simply based on their past existence (e.g. we have to do this because this is how it was done before).
c. The motivations of status-quo stakeholders in the education system. The status-quo stakeholders of the current education system are those that hold authority or benefit from its existence. This includes high-ranking individuals within institutions (leadership of schools, departments, associations) and outside/private corporations that service the education system (exam writers, publishers, consultants), as well these institutions and corporations themselves. Their motivation must be primarily in the continuation of the status-quo. However, if this is the primary motivation, then it must corrupt all other motivations. This is an essential feature of conservative ideology. If one’s mission is preservation, then it is antithetical to progressive action, which risks change. In contrast, the primary motivation of social advancement is a progressive ideology. This is not corrupting, but procreative, or life-affirming. From the pursuit of progress, new directions and potential for humanity naturally sprout, as described in 3a. The continuation of the status-quo in contrast, corrupts life, and is necrophilic.
*For anyone interested, a belief in the apolitical approach falls under the philosophical school of Idealism which is inherently status-quo affirming and pro-oppression/capitalism. For further reading, see Marx and Engel’s criticisms of idealism.
