Compassionate Systems Framework
Given the serious challenges facing the world today, such as climate change, poverty, and social unrest, there is a global epidemic of anxiety and other mental health struggles among young people. It is important for schools to help students to be able to reflect and develop emotional regulation while developing a growing sense of confidence and efficacy. They also need to understand the various systems in which they operate and those systems that impact them but over which they have no control
The Compassionate Systems Framework provides an approach to education that fuses the focus on the emotional state of students that allows them to be compassionate to oneself and others, while recognizing the systematic causes of problems and possible solutions. This approach develops the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and global mindset of equity necessary to respond to future challenges.
The Compassionate Systems Framework as a Global Sustainability Pedagogy
Developed by the International Baccalaureate and the Center for Systems Awareness, the Compassionate Systems Framework was designed “for building a cognitive and affective foundation for global citizenship. The basic aim of the Framework is to grow ‘compassionate integrity’ in students and teachers—to have alignment between how they think, feel, and act by virtue of an ever-unfolding awareness of interconnectedness” (Center for Systems Awareness, pp. 1–2). As the world becomes ever more interconnected with more societal and cultural divisions, social–emotional learning plays a critical role in developing the emotional maturity of students.
In this Framework, compassion is conceptualized as a systemic property of mind: To cultivate compassion is to be able to appreciate the systemic forces that influence people’s actions. Compassion refers to concern for others and a desire to alleviate their suffering (Goetz et al., 2010). It is the capacity to hold paradoxes—to see and sense the larger system with all its interdependence and interconnectedness and all the unintended consequences of human behavior—without judgment but with real care for the system and everyone involved in it.
Three Essential Components of the Framework
The Compassionate Systems Framework uses a set of practices that helps teachers and students apply systems thinking, compassion, and mindfulness and reflection to important issues both locally and beyond. It contains three essential components:
Personal anchor: Role-play, simulations, and experiences
If we want students to care about and respond compassionately to a challenge and its impact, they need to have an emotional connection to it and be able to relate it to their own experiences. Some children are experiencing or have experienced these global challenges, so the use of trauma-informed practices is recommended. These students may already have a personal anchor, so instruction can focus on the next two Framework components.
Systems thinking tools: Interdependence and Interconnectedness
Systems thinking is a way of seeing and talking about reality that helps students better understand, work with, and influence the many systems with which they interact. The Framework helps systems thinking teachers to facilitate thinking and learning that deliver academic and lifetime benefits to students through the effective application of systems thinking concepts, habits, and tools. The tools allow students to see their thinking, understand how to recognize the system, analyze it, and interact with it.
A comprehensive explanation of systems thinking and an introduction to the mental models used in systems thinking can be found at the Waters Center for Systems Thinking (2021), as well as in other literature.
Mindfulness and reflection: Meditative practices and self and group check-ins
By reflecting on their experience and what they learned about the challenge they were assigned, students develop the emotional intelligence to face big problems without becoming overwhelmed. As individuals develop a vision of where they want to be, while also acknowledging their current reality, the gap between the two results is “creative tension” (Fritz, 1989). Mindfulness and reflection help develop the ability to mentally hold both a vision and the current situation in order to identify opportunities and solutions to achieve the desired results.
