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Systems Thinking in education had long been a tantalizing element of my personal drive to create something very innovative and very unique as part of the growing movement for real, meaningful, and sustainable change in global education. When I happened to come across Brújula Educación, I knew I had found a home where I could take my somewhat disparate thoughts on the subject and put them together into a well-informed and nicely packaged gift to myself and my future students.

The wonderful leadership at Compass Education assured me that my teaching of high school Film Studies and Theater Arts this past year would be perfectly suitable for exploring systems thinking, planning, and implementation. As an advocate of SDG-based education (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals), I was indeed able to find pathways into both Film and Theater classes. The process was made so much easier and more cohesive using the tools I had acquired in my Compass training.

I found the Systems Iceberg Model to match most closely with my personal need for serious visualization. I was able to apply it in my planning for two student tasks, and I can say that the student outcomes were thorough, clean, well thought out, and inspiring. And all this with a reduction in questions and the need for clarifications. Using the Systems Iceberg Model, I ‘got it’, and they ‘got it’.

I had my Film students work in small teams. They first had to come to a consensus on an ‘event’, and in this case, they had to evaluate the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and select one as the catalyst for further work. The end goal, this being Film, was to create a video Public Service Announcement (PSA) addressing the issue and how the viewer could proactively engage with the issue.

In order to get on the right ‘approach path’, students were asked to look deeply into their chosen SDG, look at the targets, and also to place the issue squarely in their local community for the sake of making the project personal. As we reside in a mid-sized city in central Appalachia, it was no surprise that teams looked most closely at the SDGs wrapped around poverty and hunger. These issues impact the student body to a high degree at our high school, so it was very natural for the kids in the class to zero in on these two issues.

We worked through pervasive patterns and structures that act as both obstacles to fixing the issues of poverty and hunger, and act as remediation activities such as food banks, free school lunch programs, and financial assistance to families in need. One thing that we found in this project is that the governmental response to these issues, at least in our area, does in fact exist but is woefully inadequate to deal with the magnitude of poverty and hunger problems in the region. Without using the Systems Iceberg, chances are we would have skimmed right over that element of truly meaningful learning.

Armed with some very penetrating and sobering facts on the issues at hand, students went on to storyboard and write narrative for their short films. As with most PSAs, they started their videos by pulling back the curtain to show what poverty and hunger look like in our region and at our school (their choice – this was not imposed upon them). All films were required to have a hopeful upswing at the conclusion, however. This was achieved through a change in tone of narration, a change to more uplifting music, and a hopeful message about how to help NOW.

I can’t overstate it – using the Systems Iceberg really made this a MUCH more impactful activity that took students well beyond simply ‘making a PSA’. It gave them an opportunity to actually stop and think about what goes on around them; the SYSTEMS in place, both obstacles and opportunities.

This was the very first learning opportunity for the kids from the standpoint of using a video camera, tripod, editing software, acting, etc. So while the final products are a little on the lower part of the ‘learning curve’ for the class, I know with utmost certainty that this lesson – the CONTENT, based on looking at real-world systems right here in the students’ hometown and school – were powerful indeed

And that is REALLY what learning activities are all about. Without my integration into the skills and concepts taught by the extraordinary Compass Education leaders, this assignment would have been a mere trifle of what it ended up being. Thank you, Compass Education, for creating such a powerful learning experience for teachers!