5/100 Things – Nurture a systems perspective
Posted by Gayle Gifford on February 6, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Big ideas, Strategic Thinking
“Your course ‘Public Humanities Institutions: A Systems Perspective’ was unlike any other class that I have ever taken in my academic career… Now that my first semester of graduate school is coming to an end, I am realizing how I have started to apply the idea of “systems” to every aspect of my life…
“The idea that no person or organization is a stand-alone entity seems rather obvious. However, the extent to which a person is connected in a system can be much greater than one thinks. This was definitely one of the most important things I learned early on in this course. It is now something that I think about often…”
— Reina
As a teacher, it is always incredibly rewarding to hear back from a student that they have found meaning and value in your courses. I always learn from my students — which is why I enjoy teaching (despite all those papers I have to review).
Poet John Donne may have coined the words “No man is an island, entire of itself” more than a half millenium ago, but I interact with too many nonprofit board members who haven’t discovered the power of systems thinking that Reina experienced in just a few weeks. Read More >>