We had two sessions today. The first was with Nosakhere, where we had a class discussion on what we had been doing in the past week, what sort of potential topics were arising and what type of support do we require ?

This would be the structure in which we would report back every friday, on Vula. We got briefed in on how to go about the Action plans and learning logs. Which made me feel like I was in a Sci-fi movie.

On the same theme of Sci fi, In the later Session, with Kosheek, we spoke of whether we’ve noticed any emerging constellations in potential topics. This was so that we could draw a systems map. 

Systems thinking

This is simply put, it is the understanding of how systems behave and improving them. A system is a dynamic and complex whole, it is not just a linear structure which simply arises then passes away, it is living in many paths, so there needs to be a different method to understand this, from more of a human point of view.

LOOKING BOTH WAYS THROUGH THE WINDOWS OF SENGE’S FIVE DISCIPLINES

Senge pointed out a simple set of dynamics that we tend to forget – that as humans we want to learn, and we want to understand why things are the way they are – in a more whole way.

Systems thinking is a way of seeing how entities connect, where they connect and how they are related to one another, this is much better than just viewing a certain part and not understanding the whole.

Causal loop

We learnt about causal loops in todays class. We learnt about it the true Mphil way, which was by practise. I thought I understood this, and I started my causal loop on my research topic. I think I had travelled through the pathways of my topic a bit to throughly and I ended up just making a mega-mind map of my research topics. When I reflect back on the Ownpower LMS causal loop we did, I can understand it a lot more.

So, I did a bit of reading on causal loops and I came to the conclusion, that to understand a causal loop I need to create a causal loop on causal loops. That didn’t really work out either.

However, I really felt that I needed to engage with the practise of this task and actualise it before reading further about it. So, I did a causal loop on Suffering.