NEW RELEASE!! Civic Systems is an introduction to systems-based learning (SBL) that uses the learner’s immediate environment and local government as primary learning resources. An understanding of systemic relationships is essential to societal survival and responsible citizenship, but is neglected by conventional textbooks and curricula. Click here for the Civic Systems overview and download links

Systems-Based Learning Courses (Information and Links):

Free e-book about the merits of systems-based learning

Systems-Based Learning (SBL) accepts the view of Alfred North Whitehead, Thomas Merton, John Goodlad, Albert Einstein, Peter Senge, Buckminster Fuller, Arthur Koestler, David Bohm, and many other respected scholars, that neither the academic disciplines nor the traditional core curriculum adequately model reality’s holistic, systemically-integrated nature.

Adopting systems theory as the primary organizer of knowledge solves the problem by making all academic disciplines and school subjects parts of a single, much simpler way of organizing information. To facilitate adoption, SBL's sequenced, hands-on activities use traditional "core" content and their personal experience to help learners of middle-school age and older construct comprehensive, integrated, permanently useful mental models of reality to guide thought and action. More information.

SBL courses are offered free of charge or obligation to educators for use with their own learners. We encourage users to critique the courses of study and work with others to suggest improvements.

This article, "The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts" published in 2013 by the English Journal, summarizes my views on curriculum.