thinking ecologically

Our education system as a whole can be brought down to the point that when you follow it from start to end, and you finish high-school and you go to college and get your bachelors, and then you go to grad school and you get your Ph.D. you have a career in academia. Our education system as a whole is meant to pump out college professors according to Ken Robinson. So one thinks about this and as Robinson says our schooling is meant to take out the creativity from kids, we teach them from an early age that imagery is not important and that they should be accountants and lawyers and they need to go to college and get a degree. And this loss of creativity in my opinion is a frightful thing, because it teaches us to not learn, it shows us that there is a need for information to be given to us and that we cannot be creative enough on our own to discover something, it shows us that we will not be able to live a normal life without someone telling us how. We need our computer and our ipod because we cant entertain ourselves, we need the computer to constantly be in reach of information. We are not creative enough to find ways to live our lives without things. So with all of this one then starts to wonder if that is really a problem with out education system. Looking at it more analytically one can tell that the way in which we are used to taking in  information is a linear one. We are reliant on the verbal language to understand a point. Frascara in his article "Diagramming as a Way of Thinking Ecologically" believes that that is our problem. He believes that for many of the things that we are taught diagramming is a much better way in which to understand. "The structure of verbal language, however, offers a limited capacity to convey information. It promotes linear thinking and sequentiality, and is very poor for the presentation of hierarchies, inclusions, simultaneity, distinctions of levels, multiplicity of kinds and complexity of connections."(p 166) And thinking about the problems that we are facing it is clear that it is not possible to think about things linearly. One action affects so many different stake-holders and has a multiplicity of outcomes. Diagramming this becomes a way in which to understand all of these connections and reactions in a much more natural way. The reason that he terms diagramming a way of thinking ecologically is because the kind of thought process that goes through ones head when looking at a diagram is very similar to ecological reactions. It is by no means a linear path. because when examining our environment it is clear that a multitude of things are happening simultaneously and all of these things need to be understood. Diagramming becomes not only a tool for understanding complex systems like ecology but it becomes an internalization of the outside world. We begin to think like the environment around us acts. Perhaps this can give us a much deeper understanding of the world. In my opinion it also fosters our creativity. Not everyone will understand things in a certain way and there is no right way to understand. Looking at the environment there is no start and endpoint to the systems, no one thing happens before another it is constantly happening simultaneously. So that means there is no correct way to look at a system, one can jump in from anywhere and meet someone else along the way who came from a different point and have a mutual language. So what then would happen if our education system fostered this kind of thinking. If it showed you the system and didn't put you in it. If we lived in a world of diagrams and read information in that sense, wouldn't we then be a society rich with vantage points and ideas? Perhaps creativity should be fostered so that we know how to look at the world, perhaps we should be able to see that when we write on a piece of paper a tree is cut down, and a truck is driving it towards us.