Teaching a Systems Approach to Segregation

Systems are all around us. Sometimes we call a system a system: the public school system, or the political system, for example.

Other times, we don't call a system a system. This doesn't make it any less a system. We might call it the NBA Draft, or the college admissions process.

Sometimes people deny that a system is a system. You can rely on people to deny the systemic properties of racism, for example.

Systems are easy to teach when you have a clear model available to share and experiment with.

Thanks to Vi Hart @vihartvihart and Nicky Case @ncasenmare, we now have a fun, interactive model to understand systemic segregation that's appropriate for kids (and adults) of all ages!

Parable of the Polygons

http://ncase.me/polygons/

I heard about this model over the weekend and was so excited about it, I tried it out on my 7th grade media arts students today. I didn't even give them their own machines, I just walked them through it.

Even then, the students were totally able to grasp the rules of the system, and understand how systems create the world around us. They were entranced. One student who was class clowning that day remarked without irony, "Whoa, this is, like, really deep."

Next time, I'm going to set each student up at a machine, so they can click and drag through it on their own - experimenting, testing, hypothesizing, and proving their own assumptions either true or false.

Systems are important in media arts, because when you tell a story, you create a system for the audience. You create a setting, and you define (implicitly or explicitly) its boundaries. You create characters, and you define the parameters of their interaction. You define what powers each character has, and the latitude for each in terms of ability and mobility. You define what success and failure means in this system. Most important of all: when you mass communicate a system and it becomes popular, it inspires audience members to deploy that system in real life. Thus, we must be cautious as storytellers what systems we're popularizing.