From: Nancy Maville <nmaville@hps-inc.com>

To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: terrorist attacks

Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001

A useful resource may be the special "Story of the Month" posted on the

High Performance Systems' website that deals with Terrorism. It unfolds

a model built by Barry Richmond and discusses feedback loops. It may be

useful to teachers who are trying to help students understand the events.

Please click the link below if you are interested in viewing the

Terrorist Story of the Month:

http://www.hps-inc.com/Terrorism_Story_Download.asp

Nancy Maville

---------------

Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001

From: "RICHARD TURNOCK" <Richard_Turnock@pgn.com>

To: <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: System Leverage

In the System Dynamics Review, I remember seeing an article about the leverage points on a global scale. The number one item on the list was educating women in developing countries. Men use Islam to control Muslim women, and don't allow them access to education, jobs and health care. Seems to me we should be investing resources to organize already educated Muslim women to encourage them to infect young Muslim women with the desire for education, jobs and health care and infect developing countries with educated Muslim women. If the USA limits foreign students access to education, we may be making the problem worse instead of better. Maybe the USA should have a special program to increase the number of Muslim women educated here who return home to teach young Muslim women.

Richard

-------------

Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001

From: Steve Kipp <skipp@glynn.k12.ga.us>

To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: terrorist attacks

Two 8th grade Social Studies teachers I am working with were studying Georgia

Native Americans. The Cherokee Law of Retaliation held that, short of murder, a

person who was wronged had the right (but not the obligation) to avenge wrongs.

Murder, however, had to be avenged, or the spirit of the deceased would haunt

the family clan. If the students didn't spot it right away, we asked them "What

would happen if this law were strictly followed?", to which they replied

something like "the killing would never stop". Only two students out of five

classes immediately intuited that it wouldn't just maintain a given level of

violence, but could actually escalate.

As a class they helped me "fill in the blanks" (draw converters and connectors)

on a skeleton S/F map consisting of two stocks, one for each of two clan's Need

To Retaliate. Each clan in turn commits violent acts in order to drain their

Need to Retaliate, which of course turns on the inflow to the other clan's NTR,

etc. It's very simple, but they really "see" the cyclic nature of the system. I

must confess my first formulations in modeling mode were designed to produce a

sustained oscillation, which I thought I would later modify to produce an

escalating oscillation, and to my surprise it oscillated into escalation on the

first run. If you trace the tips of the peaks, it exhibits exponential growth. I

animated the stocks so they could see the parallel between the graphical pattern

and the filling and draining of the stocks. This was all done as a whole class

discussion/demo. Students learned the vocabulary words "escalation", and we

compared and contrated "vigilate justice" vs "the rule of law" as systems of

redressing wrongs within the US.

We finished the class with a very animated discussion about how the US should

respond to the Sept. 11 attacks. Who presides over the Rule of Law in the world

as a whole? The UN? The US and our allies? They really weren't aware of just how

much the world is behind us thus far; they seem to have absorbed the media spin

that "the whole world hates us". But most of them already had (or came to agree

with) the opinion that we will be in deep crap if we alienate the entire Muslim

world in our response. I was especially gratified to hear their answers to "How

much of the Muslim world do you think really hates the US and is glad about what

happened?"....a few said "most of them", but most students were of the opinion

that it was a small percentage (25% at most, many said). Interestingly, I heard

confirmation of this from a Muslim scholar on NPR that same day; they don't have

an opinion poll, but he guessed that at this time a very small slice of the

Muslim world really hates us.

I've attached the model (STELLA v5.1.1) to this email if you are interested.

Steve Kipp

GIST- A Waters Foundation Project

Glynn County School System

Brunswick, GA

------------

From: Dan Barcan <dbarcan@beaconedu.com>

To: "'k-12sd'" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: System Leverage

Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001

(Reply to Richard Turnock)

For many Muslim women educated here, this IS home. There are many Muslims,

both women and men, who would be considered Americans by any measure, most

obviously by their places of birth or their legal citizenship. I think I

understand the point you are trying to make, but we all ought to take care

to be specific with our language during a time when too many people are

hunting for scapegoats in our midst.

---------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:40:58 -0700

From: "RICHARD TURNOCK" <Richard_Turnock@pgn.com>

To: <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: System Leverage

A Sys Dyn Listserv reader sent me an excellent comment on my email about educating Muslim women. The email said in part "...denial of education to women, preventing their access to jobs, and health care is NOT a principle of Islam." The email suggested my focus on Afghanistan was not representative of the entire Muslim faith.

I'm sorry if I my remarks were too focused on a small minority cult. The complex political, social, economic and religious situation in Central Asia and the Middle East is very difficult to define on email. Seems to me there might be enough political will now to focus resources on educating Muslim women in developing countries.

Richard

--------------------

Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 12

From: Niall Palfreyman <niall.palfreyman@fh-weihenstephan.de>

To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: terrorist attacks

Steve Kipp schrieb:

Each clan in turn commits violent acts in order to drain their

Need to Retaliate, which of course turns on the inflow to the other clan's NTR,

etc. It's very simple, but they really "see" the cyclic nature of the system.

It sounds like a wonderful lesson, Steve. I'll try that one myself -

thanks.

One thing: you say that "a person who was wronged had the right (but not

the obligation) to avenge wrongs". This means that only a certain

proportion of wronged people actually respond to the wronging with

revenge. It would be interesting to see how the dynamics of the system

depends on this proportion - the answer would then relate to your

question about what proportion of Muslims support attacks.

By the way: it now strikes me that your model possibly already contains

this aspect - I couldn't open the model because I use a PC. If that is

the case, please just ignore this comment! ;-)

Best wishes,

Niall Palfreyman.

--------------------------

Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001

From: "Philip S. Abode" <pxabode@fresno.k12.ca.us>

To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: System Leverage

"RICHARD TURNOCK" <Richard_Turnock@pgn.com> wrote:

In the System Dynamics Review, I remember seeing an article about the

leverage points on a global scale. The number one item on the list

was educating women in developing countries. Men use Islam to

control Muslim women, and don't allow them access to education, jobs

and health care. Seems to me we should be investing resources to

organize already educated Muslim women to encourage them to infect

young Muslim women with the desire for education, jobs and health

care and infect developing countries with educated Muslim women. If

the USA limits foreign students access to education, we may be making

the problem worse instead of better. Maybe the USA should have a

special program to increase the number of Muslim women educated here

who return home to teach young Muslim women.

Writer may be well-intentioned, but this logic pervades the critical

contradictions suffered by our species today. One may well say "whites" use

Power (as opposed to Islam) to control non-whites and don't allow them access to

education, jobs and health care. The same can be said of internal relationships

between capitalists (rich) and proletariats (poor), elites and grass root people,

adults and youths, etc. The critical question is how to alter the distributive

paradigm which suggests that in the face of common needs and presumed scarcity,

grab-what-you-can rule is the "best" solution. In the process, untold crimes

against humanity have been unleashed and continues to be unleashed. Promoting

and driving another schism between Muslim men and women is hardly an insightful

solution.

Philip

----------------------

Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001

From: Niall Palfreyman <niall.palfreyman@fh-weihenstephan.de>

To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: System Leverage

Richard Turnock schrieb:

Seems to me we should be investing resources to

organize already educated Muslim women to encourage them to infect

young Muslim women with the desire for education, jobs and health

care and infect developing countries with educated Muslim women.

I'm a little hesitant about this approach. Not that I think it wouldn't

work - I can well imagine that it would. But what about the _way_ it

would work? Imagine a young "infected" woman in Afghanistan at the

moment starting to express a desire for education - she might not even

survive the experience! I can imagine such an infection blowing the

country violently apart.

I think in this case the aim should be _not_ to raise the desire for

education in particular, but rather to teach people the sensitivity

necessary to be able to change a system from within (rather than forcing

change). In this way people (and not just women in Afghanistan) learn

the "meta-tools" to be able to change the world in any way they want. In

Afghanistan at the moment education for women is a pipe-dream, but maybe

some smaller goal is not.

Best wishes,

Niall Palfreyman.

---------------------

From: BARANSEL ATCI <BATCI@uzel.com.tr>

To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>

Subject: System Leverage

Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001

Hi Richard,

I am a university instructor and a general manager in a company in TURKEY

-%99 of people is Muslim. The case in TURKEY is different than any other

Muslim country in the world. In Turkey we have developed a Muslim society by

taking into consideration the contemporary civilization as a goal by the

leadership of ATATURK .

I agree with you western countries should focus the

Muslim model in Turkey and support it if they really want to make some

improvement in other Muslim countries.

Although there is some radical Muslim

groups in TURKEY but they have never gained major power in politics, economy

and social life of the country. My sincere belief is that western countries

have very old mental model about Islam and its practice in Turkey. For

example all Turkish radical Muslim groups are living in GERMANY instead of

TURKEY.

Believe me on "behalf of FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY" (we don't understand

the point in this sense) GERMANY welcomes all radical Muslim Turkish groups

who can't live in Turkey because of Turkish law and social pressure on them.

I just want to reflect some different views of majority of Turkish people.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Baransel ATCI

------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001

From: Tedd Williams <ayrtyme@yahoo.com>

Subject: About me...Tedd Williams

To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

Well, again my name is Tedd Williams and I am

currently working in an after school program for high

school teenagers as the Site Supervisor in the Liberty

Partnership Program out of Albany NY. I really enjoy

what I do and find myself wanting to help these young

adults as much as I can.

The youth are "at risk" youth and the program centers

around keeping them interested in school and going on

to college. Mr. Mark Bobb-Semple is my boss and the

program manager, but I am the one inquiring regarding

the information previously requested.

We do have a program for grade school kids (6-8

grades) and I believe the information you are sending

me will be helpful in both environments. I hope to

find it useful. Thanks again.

Tedd Williams

Liberty Partnership Program

(CWIG) SUNY Albany

----------------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001

To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

From: "Christopher Barber" <cbarber@wesleyan.edu> (by way of Nan Lux)

Subject: Systems Thinking/Dynamics Opportunity: The Community Learning Network

Dear Friends,

The Circle of Community Leadership (CCL) is delighted to share with you the opportunity to attend Pegasus' 11th Annual Systems Thinking in Action Conference: Harnessing the Power of Organizational Complexity, in Atlanta, GA, Oct. 24-26th - with a special focus this year on educational change, community systems improvement, and youth development.

If your work impacts these areas, you are eligible for the CCL rate of $800 (this includes the $595 scholarship rate plus $205 for the Community Learning Network activities and membership - see brochure for more exciting details), as compared with the standard conference rate of $1,495. As our invitee, you will also participate in a national network - both at the conference and beyond - with Peter Senge and other thought leaders, that endeavors to apply the principles of organizational learning and systems thinking/dynamics to issues of community systems change (including educational, health, governance, and social service systems).

This truly is a unique and special opportunity to participate in what most have called the premier change conference of the year. Over 40 of the world's leading thinkers in organizational learning, systems thinking, and educational change will share their work and help you apply these lessons in your own organization. 

Cheers,

Christopher Barber

Circle of Community Leadership

917-507-9368

-----------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001

To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

From: Chris Soderquist <Chris.Soderquist@pontifexconsulting.com> (by way

of Nan Lux)

Subject: System dynamics column at Pegasus

Announcement to List from Chris Soderquist:

Greetings. My wife and I used to work at HPS (High Performance Systems). I'm now on my own (I still collaborate with Barry (Richmond) and company on occasion), but still have a goal of bringing the power of system dynamics to the masses. That's why I'm writing today. Bill Harris and I are starting a new, interactive online column, and I wanted to share the Pegasus Communications news release announcing it. I invite you to subscribe to Leverage Points, to read and experience At Any Rate, and to join in the dialogue in the Pegasus Forum on that column. We'll be creating models we think would be simple enough for a novice to understand--just a few stocks and flows, a couple feedback loops. We hope this will illustrate the potential for system dynamics without the complexity that sometimes accompanies it. Perhaps some readers will gain or improve modeling skills; perhaps others will gain more appreciation for such an approach and know when to get others to help them. Perhaps some readers will even "drive" into Road Maps!

You can subscribe at http://www.pegasuscom.com/. The first Leverage Points containing the column should be available within the next day or two.

Feel free to pass this news release around to people who might be interested. If you're so inclined, we'd welcome a posting by you to the Forum once you've read the first column. Our readers could certainly benefit from your insights, and we'd welcome your help in

jump-starting the dialogue. I'd also appreciate any feedback you might be willing to share.

Regards,

Chris

Chris Soderquist

Pontifex Consulting

11 Sargent Street

Hanover, NH 03755

Phone: (603) 653-0228

chris.soderquist@pontifexconsulting.com

www.pontifexconsulting.com

====================

NEWS RELEASE

October 17, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rod Williams

(781) 398-9700

rodw@pegasuscom.com

New thinking for a complex world

Pegasus Communications is pleased to announce "At Any Rate(tm)," a new interactive column featured in its e-mail newsletter "Leverage Points(tm) for a New Workplace, New World." This free monthly e-newsletter spotlights innovations in leadership,

management, and organizational development and reaches a worldwide audience of 8,000, many of whom are key leaders and strategic planners for a wide variety of organizations.

"At Any Rate" seeks to apply the methods of systems thinking and system dynamics to timely issues of general relevance. The creators of the column, system dynamicists Bill Harris and Chris Soderquist, utilize computer-based simulation modeling of complex systems to tackle tough issues such as national deficits, crime, education, global warming, and international conflict. Their purpose is twofold: first, to enhance the rigor and quality of dialogue about important topics that have broad national or global implications; and second, to increase the level of systems thinking capacity in the world by providing a tool for both teaching and demonstrating how such skills may be applied to a wide variety of issues.

Anyone involved in strategic planning at any level will benefit from the insights gained from working with the simulations; they will also be able to generalize what they

learn in order to more effectively address their own most demanding organizational challenges. Each column includes an actual working interactive model that encourages users to manipulate the input variables to see how such changes influence the entire system. In addition, Pegasus provides an online discussion forum with the creators for anyone wanting to engage in a more detailed dialogue about the models and the systems they attempt to depict.

Chris Soderquist is the founder of Pontifex Consulting, a Hanover, New Hampshire-based consultancy that seeks to build the capacity of individuals, communities, and organizations to create their future. Chris can be reached at chris.soderquist@pontifexconsulting.com.

Bill Harris is the founder of Facilitated Systems in Everett, Washington. His consultancy was created to help organizations connect strategy and process to goals and to help them connect their people and purpose more effectively. Bill can be reached at bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com.

Pegasus Communications is the world's leading provider of practical, cutting-edge resources on systems thinking, management innovation, organizational change, and the next-generation workplace. Learn more about Pegasus at www.pegasuscom.com

or by sending an e-mail to info@pegasuscom.com. The company is based in Waltham,

Massachusetts.

For more information about "Leverage Points" and "At Any Rate" contact Rod Williams at rodw@pegasuscom.com.

-30-

--

********

Chris Soderquist

Pontifex Consulting

11 Sargent Street

Hanover, NH 03755

phone: (603) 653-0228

fax: (603) 653-0323

email: Chris.Soderquist@pontifexconsulting.com

url: http://www.pontifexconsulting.com

-------------------------

From: BBracey@aol.com

Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001

Subject: HELLO

To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

--------------------------

End of October, 2001