Subject: Systems Language - causal connection

Posted by Niall Palfreyman on 2/9/2010
In Reply To:Systems Language - causal connection Posted by Jennifer Arzberger on 2/8/2010

Message:

Arzberger Jennifer schrieb:

What if playing basketball inspires you to engage in your studies? I remember a friend's mom teaching me, "The more you do, the more you can do." I think there may be some underlying presuppositions reflected in this CLD.

Tim Joy wrote:
The more time you spend playing basketball the less time you spend on hw less time on hw worse grades worse grades more likely mom will ground you from playing basketball means less time playing bb

Hi,
I've tried building in a couple of these points, and come up with the attached result. While I find CLD's good for communicating, I don't like them for thinking, so I've used stocks and flows. What I like about these is that they focus me on the mechanisms of what's happening, rather than on the effects, and I think this basketball example is a classic.

I've got self-approval as the flow which increases self-image, and this flow is positively affected by two factors: Grades (a stock) and playing basketball (a flow). What I'm thinking is that for someone who doesn't get a kick out of doing maths, but who is already skilled in basketball, it's not the basketball skill that s/he wants, so much as the 'flow' of actually playing basketball. And that's what's missing during homework: while s/he might like the resulting good grades, the actual drudgery of doing the homework is only fun if s/he already has facility in it.

This makes me wonder about the possibility of structural changes in an SD diagram over time. Hopefully my aim as a teacher would be to bring this student to a point where s/he enjoys the actual act of doing homework, which would involve entering a new arrow from 'doing homework' to 'self-approval'.

Best wishes,
Niall.

Follow Ups:

Systems Language - causal connection - Bill Braun 2/9/2010 
Systems Language - causal connection - Niall Palfreyman 2/11/2010