Behind Education 1.6: Chaos Principle and Self-Organization

Whether there are laws and causes and effects is not only questioned by physics, but also by social sciences. Let me briefly introduce some research results of social sciences. Chaos theory, self-organization and postmodernism.

Let’s start with chaos theory, which was proposed by American meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz in 1963. Chaos theory believes that in a chaotic system, very small changes in the initial conditions, after continuous amplification, will cause extremely huge differences in its future state. We can use a folk song circulated in the Western world to illustrate this vividly. This ballad says: If the nails are missing, the shoes will be removed; if the horseshoes are removed, the horses will be trampled; if the horses are trampled, the knights will be gone; if the knights are gone, the war will be broken; if the war is broken, the country will be destroyed. Whether a nail on the horseshoe will be lost is a very small change in the initial conditions, but its "long-term" effect is the fundamental difference between the survival and death of an empire. This is the so-called "butterfly effect" in the military and political fields.

The most important point of the chaos principle is the diversity and multi-scale nature of nonlinear systems. How to understand this point of view? It's actually very simple. We also use an example to illustrate. For example, we all think that the whole world is like a clock. If the clock stops, then one of the parts must be broken. We only need to find the part and repair it or Just replace it. Even if the watch repairman sometimes disassembles the watch and cannot find the damaged part, we will think that there must be damage, otherwise the watch cannot stop. The only explanation is that the watchmaker's craftsmanship is not good. Why is this happening? Because the law of cause and effect controls our thinking. The effect that our clock has stopped must have a cause. This kind of thinking is not only true for us, but also for scientists. When Einstein, whom we mentioned above, was arguing about the uncertainty principle with quantum mechanics experts such as Bohr, he believed that it was impossible to be uncertain and there must be rules. , but we have not yet discovered that he has a famous saying: "God does not throw dice." Chaos theory tells us that a system like a clock is a simple system in which there may indeed be cause and effect, but complex systems and nonlinear System, life system, but there is no absolute cause and effect. For example, if we have a headache, we may not be able to find a damaged part by opening our cranial cavity. This is actually the principle of traditional Chinese medicine theory.

There is no doubt that education must be a complex structure similar to a life system. For example, one of our schools always has poor college entrance examination results. Some say it’s mainly because of the lack of students, some say it’s the teachers, some say it’s the principal, and some say it’s the atmosphere. We set up a research team and went into the school, just like taking apart a broken clock, trying to find the broken parts. This was almost wishful thinking. Anyone who has ever been a teacher knows that Teacher Wang led Class A this year, and the test results were really bad, while Teacher Zhang led Class B, and the test results were really good. Can we conclude that Wang is inferior to Zhang? Obviously not. Because Wang Hui said that his students were not good. We asked them to change, with Wang leading Class B and Zhang leading Class A. As a result, Class B's performance declined while Class A's performance improved. At this time, we came to the conclusion that Wang was not as good as Zhang. Is this fair? Not necessarily. Because sometimes it happens that Wang and Zhang take over the next class of students and each teach a new class. This time Wang has better grades than Zhang. Why is this? As chaos theory says, in fact, what affects the development of events is often some accidental and inconspicuous factors, which we may not be able to predict in advance, just like nails on a horse's hoof. I heard a joke not long ago: "A reporter interviewed a 110-year-old man and asked him the secret of longevity. The old man told him that in addition to paying attention to exercise and diet... the most important thing is that the old man holds a boat ticket. When we arrived at the dock, the Titanic had already left. "Although this is a joke, it also illustrates this problem. "What really affects educational results are often accidental factors. ”

The research object of self-organization is mainly the formation and development mechanism of complex self-organizing systems (life systems, social systems), that is, how the system automatically changes from disorder to order under certain conditions. , from low-level order to high-level order.

This principle tells us that whether it is a school or a class, it may belong to a kind of self-organization. The principal, cadres, teachers, students, etc. constitute this organization. This organization is like a living body. If there is The problem will self-regulate. But because it is similar to a living system, the inference that because A therefore B is not suitable in this organization.

Postmodernism originates from modernism but rebels against modernism. It is a criticism of the wholeness, centrality, identity and other ways of thinking that appear in the modernization process and deprive people of their subjectivity and sensory richness. and deconstruction. This theory also emphasizes the role of human subjectivity. Against pure objectivity.

In short, education is a complex system. Just as Mr. Wang Meng said: "Anyone who says that complex problems are as simple as green onions mixed with tofu are untrustworthy; anyone who says that solving complex problems is like picking something out of a bag, as easy as flipping the palm of a hand, is not trustworthy; anyone who makes troublesome things look like a piece of cake is untrustworthy." It is not credible to say that it is a mistake of one thought or that it is the fault of one person, and that everything will be fine if this one thought is corrected or if one person is eliminated."