Law of System Change

As I look back on the material we covered in physics this year, I can’t help but see the connections to my life as a professional.  I’ve spoken about Newton’s 1st Law of Motion in my last post.  But, the 2nd Law is equally relevant.

It’s great to be in motion. But constant motion in the same direction at the same speed, isn’t always a good idea. What if you need to get somewhere faster, make a turn, or come to a stop.  In those cases, it is essential that you are able to change your motion. The physics term for change in motion (how fast or what direction) is acceleration. More specifically, acceleration is the rate at which your motion is changing.  So, acceleration is a function of time.

The only way to change an object’s motion, or get it to accelerate, is with a push or pull.  In other words, an acceleration requires a force. To be more accurate, an unbalanced (or net) force. Newton’s Second Law of Motion describe the factors that affect this acceleration:

The net force on an object is directly related to the acceleration it experiences

This seems like common sense. If you push identical objects with different forces, the one you push with more force will have a larger change in motion.

If net force is constant, the acceleration on an object is inversely related to its mass.

Again common sense in that if you applied the same force to objects with different masses, the object with less mass will have the greater change in motion.

Putting these two relationships together, we get a mathematical formula relating all three variables. This is the fundamental formula describing Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion.

Changing the motion of an object is one thing, but I can’t but help to see a connection to changes we are looking to make in our classrooms and schools. As Newton’s 2nd states, we need a net force to make change happen. The result of that force depends directly on the size of the system we are trying to change. I may be able to produce a force to produce meaningful change within my own classroom. But when that system gets bigger than a single classroom, I’d need more actors - more force to produce meaningful, observable change.

The rate of change in any system is inversely related to the size of that system. That might seem self-evident, but sometimes we may try to do too much on our own. Or, we don’t build a big enough team to generate the required force to change larger systems. I’m the kind of person who always feels like I can do it all on my own. So, I don’t ask for help. But the times when I have asked for any help at all in anything new I am looking to do, I am amazed at the number of people who are willing to contribute.

The important thing to remember about the force is that it’s not only about the sizes of the forces that are acting. We have to consider the direction forces are acting in. Are all the members of our team working in the same direction? It’s not about individual forces, it’s about the net force. Before we start pushing, we need to check to see if we are all pushing in the right direction. If not, there will be no measurable change.

But if all of our team is pulling in the same direction, it may not take as much force as we think to produce meaningful change.

So when we are looking to make meaningful change in our schools, we need to remember the Law of Change

So before you look to implement change in your classroom or school, there are a few things to consider.

What is the size of the system you are looking to change? Who can you recruit to help implement this change? In your classroom, it’s not about you alone.  How can you get by in from your students? Beyond your classroom, look to your PLC or your PLN.

Before you act as a team, are you maximizing your force? Are you all working in the same direction? You’ll waste a lot less energy if you reach consensus before you take action. I get so frustrated when I am asked to take action but am told to walk back legitimately good work I’ve done because the direction was not made clear before we started our work. Goals may change on the road, but a clearly vision at the start can save a team frustration and wasted energy.

All of our actions are important whether they are fruitful or failures. We must always consider how our actions affect the whole system. Because as the 3rd law says,

for every action force there is an equal but opposite reaction force.

But more on that next time.