WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.419 You know, whenever you're planning something 00:00:01.419 --> 00:00:03.620 big, it could be a work project, mapping out 00:00:03.620 --> 00:00:05.839 a course, even just setting up a key meeting. 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:08.039 Where do you start? Almost always, it's with 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:09.679 the goal, right? You figure out the objective, 00:00:09.779 --> 00:00:11.580 what you want to achieve, and only then do you 00:00:11.580 --> 00:00:15.220 start designing the system to get there. It feels 00:00:15.220 --> 00:00:17.719 completely intuitive. And this isn't just habit. 00:00:17.800 --> 00:00:20.140 It's really, really embedded in how we think 00:00:20.140 --> 00:00:23.059 today, especially in places like public education, 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:26.440 curriculum planning, strategic stuff. It all 00:00:26.440 --> 00:00:28.859 starts by defining the goals first, then you 00:00:28.859 --> 00:00:33.390 build the road to reach them. necessary, foundational 00:00:33.390 --> 00:00:35.869 even. But today we're doing a deep dive into 00:00:35.869 --> 00:00:38.049 some sources that suggest this whole goals first 00:00:38.049 --> 00:00:40.670 idea. It's not some timeless truth. It's actually 00:00:40.670 --> 00:00:43.929 a pretty recent invention and worse when you 00:00:43.929 --> 00:00:47.429 try to apply it to really complex human things 00:00:47.429 --> 00:00:49.509 like learning. Well, experts are saying it creates 00:00:49.509 --> 00:00:51.210 an artificial framework, one that might actually 00:00:51.210 --> 00:00:54.170 fail us. So our mission today is to dig into 00:00:54.170 --> 00:00:56.590 where this goals based planning really came from, 00:00:56.590 --> 00:00:59.009 why it took over so completely and crucially 00:00:59.009 --> 00:01:01.070 understand the argument for why it kind of falls. 00:01:00.969 --> 00:01:04.010 apart when dealing with complex messy real -world 00:01:04.010 --> 00:01:06.870 systems. Yeah, and it's hard to overstate how 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:08.890 much this dominates, particularly in education. 00:01:10.170 --> 00:01:13.269 Gosh, decades now, setting clear, measurable 00:01:13.269 --> 00:01:15.829 objectives. That's just been job one for teachers, 00:01:16.030 --> 00:01:19.650 for administrators. It's so widespread, so accepted. 00:01:19.730 --> 00:01:21.450 It almost doesn't feel like a method anymore. 00:01:21.549 --> 00:01:23.670 It feels like, you know, just how things are. 00:01:23.870 --> 00:01:25.790 Like, think about curriculum standards now in 00:01:25.790 --> 00:01:28.609 the 21st century. They've basically become the 00:01:28.609 --> 00:01:30.670 source for all these goals and objectives in 00:01:30.670 --> 00:01:33.250 educational planning. But even though this objective's 00:01:33.250 --> 00:01:35.189 first thing feels like it's always been there, 00:01:35.209 --> 00:01:37.829 like some kind of fundamental best practice. 00:01:38.379 --> 00:01:42.000 Its history is actually much shorter than you'd 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:44.099 probably guess. We're talking about a big mindset 00:01:44.099 --> 00:01:46.040 shift that really only kicked off in the late 00:01:46.040 --> 00:01:49.000 20th century. OK, so if it didn't bubble up from 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.680 centuries of teaching wisdom, where did this 00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:53.760 focus on objectives come from? Let's trace that 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.239 back. Well, the sources we looked at trace this 00:01:56.239 --> 00:01:59.040 standards -driven objectives -first planning, 00:01:59.379 --> 00:02:01.260 not to education, surprisingly, but to things 00:02:01.260 --> 00:02:05.079 like strategic logistics. defense policy. We're 00:02:05.079 --> 00:02:06.840 really talking about that period moving out of 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:09.240 the big industrial age into the kind of planning 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:12.819 needed after World War II. Big complex operations. 00:02:13.099 --> 00:02:14.680 Right. And the name that keeps coming up in the 00:02:14.680 --> 00:02:16.939 research here is Charles Hitch. He was writing 00:02:16.939 --> 00:02:19.580 for the Rand Corporation back in 1960. So not 00:02:19.580 --> 00:02:22.139 thinking about classrooms necessarily. He's thinking 00:02:22.139 --> 00:02:24.979 about how to best use resources in massive government 00:02:24.979 --> 00:02:28.520 and military projects. Optimization. Exactly. 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:31.300 That's the key context. Hitch's work was all 00:02:31.300 --> 00:02:35.159 about accountability, maximizing output in these 00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:38.479 really complex, high -stakes environments, managing 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:41.979 huge budgets, big infrastructure projects. In 00:02:41.979 --> 00:02:45.419 that world, you absolutely need measurable goals. 00:02:45.740 --> 00:02:47.800 You have to justify spending, prove you're being 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:51.319 efficient. And that push for rigor led to his 00:02:51.319 --> 00:02:53.689 really famous insight. It was cited later by 00:02:53.689 --> 00:02:55.689 Riddle and Weber, where Hitch basically said, 00:02:55.990 --> 00:02:58.289 we need to scrutinize the goal itself. His words 00:02:58.289 --> 00:03:00.370 were something like, we must learn to look at 00:03:00.370 --> 00:03:02.469 our objectives as critically and as professionally 00:03:02.469 --> 00:03:04.969 as we look at our models and other inputs. Whoa. 00:03:05.090 --> 00:03:06.870 OK, wait. That's actually kind of different. 00:03:07.030 --> 00:03:08.969 He wasn't just saying, set a goal and go. He 00:03:08.969 --> 00:03:11.430 was saying, treat the goal itself like it's part 00:03:11.430 --> 00:03:13.509 of the data. Don't just assume it's the right 00:03:13.509 --> 00:03:16.990 goal. Question it. Analyze it. Precisely. Before 00:03:16.990 --> 00:03:19.180 Hitch. Planning often just kind of started with, 00:03:19.180 --> 00:03:21.620 well, tradition, maybe, or just what resources 00:03:21.620 --> 00:03:23.919 you happen to have. But Hish flipped it. Planning 00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:25.860 started looking at the destination first. And 00:03:25.860 --> 00:03:27.780 then everything else was judged by how efficiently 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:30.680 it got you there. And this idea just took off. 00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:32.680 Oh, absolutely. Spread like wildfires, a good 00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:35.419 way to put it. By the end of the 60s, you see 00:03:35.419 --> 00:03:38.080 major professional organizations, finance, business, 00:03:38.340 --> 00:03:41.539 public policy. They all adopted this model. So 00:03:41.539 --> 00:03:43.539 the question's fundamentally changed. It became, 00:03:43.699 --> 00:03:46.599 what's the measurable outcome we want, and how? 00:03:46.650 --> 00:03:49.750 Fast and cheap, can we get it? Yep. And success 00:03:49.750 --> 00:03:51.849 was purely about hitting that target, hitting 00:03:51.849 --> 00:03:54.669 that metric. Did the output match the goal? And 00:03:54.669 --> 00:03:57.069 look, it was a revolution for the kinds of problems 00:03:57.069 --> 00:03:59.169 they were focused on then. Streamlining production 00:03:59.169 --> 00:04:01.770 lines, making distribution networks faster, that 00:04:01.770 --> 00:04:04.469 sort of thing. If your goal is, let's say, reductionist, 00:04:04.750 --> 00:04:06.789 meaning you can break the problem down into smaller 00:04:06.789 --> 00:04:10.250 parts and optimize each one, then yeah, goals 00:04:10.250 --> 00:04:12.830 -based planning works incredibly well. Okay, 00:04:12.949 --> 00:04:14.650 but here's where the story shifts in the sources, 00:04:15.009 --> 00:04:17.209 right? Because we hit a ceiling. As things got 00:04:17.209 --> 00:04:19.810 more complex, technology, human systems all tangled 00:04:19.810 --> 00:04:21.990 up, just making the parts more efficient didn't 00:04:21.990 --> 00:04:25.199 always lead to a better overall result. Sometimes, 00:04:25.439 --> 00:04:27.279 optimizing One Piece even made the whole system 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:29.660 worse for the humans involved. Exactly. It's 00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:31.420 like the difference between making a factory 00:04:31.420 --> 00:04:33.600 pump out more widgets, which is pretty linear, 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:36.300 and trying to solve city traffic. Right. You 00:04:36.300 --> 00:04:38.540 can make one highway lane super efficient, but 00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:40.639 that might just create bigger jams elsewhere. 00:04:40.839 --> 00:04:42.920 It doesn't solve the system problem. Precisely. 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:46.220 We hit this wall where the old reductionists 00:04:46.220 --> 00:04:48.560 approached the idea that you understand the whole, 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:50.500 just by understanding all the little pieces, 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:53.019 it just stopped working for these newer, more 00:04:53.019 --> 00:04:55.439 interconnected problems. We'd maxed out the efficiency 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:57.759 gains on the parts, but the big picture problems 00:04:57.759 --> 00:05:00.699 weren't getting solved. So to really get our 00:05:00.699 --> 00:05:02.980 heads around why that old model fails, we need 00:05:02.980 --> 00:05:05.259 to bring in systems thinking. And that leads 00:05:05.259 --> 00:05:08.720 us to Lars Skitner, a sweeter scholar, his book 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:12.709 from 2005, General Systems Theory. Mm -hmm Skeetaner 00:05:12.709 --> 00:05:15.149 saw this happening. He observed that we were 00:05:15.149 --> 00:05:18.009 facing a whole new class of problems in the modern 00:05:18.009 --> 00:05:20.509 world that are just Fundamentally irreducible. 00:05:20.730 --> 00:05:23.069 You can't break them down and solve them piece 00:05:23.069 --> 00:05:25.410 by piece effectively And he listed some big ones 00:05:25.410 --> 00:05:27.449 where efficiency and reductionism just don't 00:05:27.449 --> 00:05:30.209 cut it anymore environmental degradation for 00:05:30.209 --> 00:05:33.720 one the huge complexities around artificial intelligence 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:37.699 and technologies of war. Wow. OK, so if these 00:05:37.699 --> 00:05:40.680 massive global issues are irreducible, then applying 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:43.379 that old goals first planning model to them seems, 00:05:43.379 --> 00:05:46.040 well, doomed from the start. What did Skitner 00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:48.379 say was the reason? What makes them so resistant 00:05:48.379 --> 00:05:51.279 to just setting a target and optimizing? It boils 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:53.459 down to something he called systemic circularity. 00:05:53.550 --> 00:05:56.050 Which is basically the opposite of that nice 00:05:56.050 --> 00:05:58.550 neat linear cause -and -effect chain that goals 00:05:58.550 --> 00:06:00.970 based planning kind of assumes Skinner explained 00:06:00.970 --> 00:06:04.129 it like this The interactions of systems variables 00:06:04.129 --> 00:06:06.329 are so interlinked to each other that cause and 00:06:06.329 --> 00:06:08.709 effect is a kind of circular logic He said one 00:06:08.709 --> 00:06:10.649 separate variable does can be both cause and 00:06:10.649 --> 00:06:12.790 effect circular logic Okay, help me visualize 00:06:12.790 --> 00:06:15.110 that if cause and effect are all mixed up. How 00:06:15.110 --> 00:06:17.069 does that mess up planning? Okay, think about 00:06:17.069 --> 00:06:19.050 climate change. That's a perfect example of the 00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:22.699 circularity. Let's say your goal is linear Reduce 00:06:22.699 --> 00:06:25.779 greenhouse gas emissions. So you decide to switch 00:06:25.779 --> 00:06:28.500 power plants to renewables. Simple goal, right? 00:06:28.939 --> 00:06:31.339 But maybe building all those renewables drives 00:06:31.339 --> 00:06:33.660 up demand for certain minerals, causing mining 00:06:33.660 --> 00:06:36.079 issues or economic instability in some regions. 00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:39.279 That instability might make countries less willing 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:41.660 to sign on to global climate agreements, which 00:06:41.660 --> 00:06:43.680 then slows down the overall effort to reduce 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:47.399 emissions. Ah, okay. So trying to fence the cause, 00:06:47.459 --> 00:06:50.680 emissions, creates a new effect. instability, 00:06:51.100 --> 00:06:53.180 which then feeds back and makes the original 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:55.160 cause harder to tackle. It's like a feedback 00:06:55.160 --> 00:06:57.500 loop from hell. That's it, exactly. You can't 00:06:57.500 --> 00:06:59.519 just isolate one variable and tweak it because 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:02.019 it's connected to everything else. And measuring 00:07:02.019 --> 00:07:04.819 success by hitting one objective becomes kind 00:07:04.819 --> 00:07:06.939 of meaningless if hitting it triggers three new 00:07:06.939 --> 00:07:09.339 problems you didn't foresee. It sounds incredibly 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:11.639 frustrating for planners. You can't optimize 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:13.560 what you can't isolate. That's the whole point 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:15.959 Skatner was making. He concluded that for these 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:18.819 complex interconnected systems trying to understand 00:07:18.819 --> 00:07:21.259 the whole thing by breaking it down into parts 00:07:21.259 --> 00:07:24.060 Looking at the constituents. It's just quote 00:07:24.060 --> 00:07:27.480 no longer valid Reductionism for these kinds 00:07:27.480 --> 00:07:30.420 of challenges is basically dead. Okay, so let's 00:07:30.420 --> 00:07:33.920 track this hitch back in 1960, makes goals central 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:37.079 for efficiency, for accountability in big industrial 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:40.379 style systems. Fast forward a few decades, and 00:07:40.379 --> 00:07:42.459 Skeetaner shows that same approach actually becomes 00:07:42.459 --> 00:07:44.600 counterproductive when you apply it to modern 00:07:44.600 --> 00:07:47.120 complex problems full of these circular feedback 00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:50.040 loops. Right, and that leads us to a really... 00:07:50.079 --> 00:07:52.600 Maybe uncomfortable question for anyone listening, 00:07:53.060 --> 00:07:55.100 especially if you're involved in education if 00:07:55.100 --> 00:07:58.019 that 1960s efficiency model breaks down when 00:07:58.019 --> 00:08:00.259 facing complexity in engineering environmental 00:08:00.259 --> 00:08:03.819 policy even AI How smart is it to keep forcing 00:08:03.819 --> 00:08:05.899 that exact same model onto what might be the 00:08:05.899 --> 00:08:08.300 most complex system of all? human learning. Yeah, 00:08:08.360 --> 00:08:10.139 that's the connection we have to make now. We 00:08:10.139 --> 00:08:12.079 started out saying goals first feels natural 00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:14.319 for curriculum design, but these systems theories 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:16.420 seem to challenge that assumption head -on right 00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:18.660 in the classroom. The sources we read are pretty 00:08:18.660 --> 00:08:21.759 blunt about it. They argue that goals -based 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:24.779 planning forces an artificial framework on teaching. 00:08:25.420 --> 00:08:28.399 A framework that's explicitly unsupported by 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:30.779 emerging understanding of the natural phenomenon 00:08:30.779 --> 00:08:32.980 of human learning. It's like we're trying to 00:08:32.980 --> 00:08:35.509 impose a structure built for something predictable 00:08:35.509 --> 00:08:38.190 and linear, like managing inventory in a warehouse, 00:08:38.909 --> 00:08:41.570 onto a process, learning that's fundamentally 00:08:41.570 --> 00:08:43.850 unpredictable, dynamic, constantly changing. 00:08:44.269 --> 00:08:47.129 Think about it. A student walks in one day having 00:08:47.129 --> 00:08:48.929 learned something new overnight from YouTube. 00:08:49.250 --> 00:08:51.230 The whole system just shifted. The tech they 00:08:51.230 --> 00:08:53.450 use changes. The variables change instantly. 00:08:53.639 --> 00:08:55.679 And I think there's another layer here that makes 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:58.860 education maybe even more complex than the environmental 00:08:58.860 --> 00:09:01.860 or AI example Skytner used. It's the social aspect, 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:04.179 isn't it? Absolutely critical. Education isn't 00:09:04.179 --> 00:09:07.000 just a natural process like, say, biology unfolding. 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:09.639 It's also profoundly social. And the sources 00:09:09.639 --> 00:09:11.720 call it a social construction. What does that 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:14.320 mean practically for planning if learning is 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:16.480 socially constructed? It means the setting, the 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:19.259 people involved, they aren't neutral. They're 00:09:19.259 --> 00:09:21.659 active variables constantly reshaping what success 00:09:21.659 --> 00:09:24.970 even means. while the process is happening. A 00:09:24.970 --> 00:09:26.809 classroom isn't just a box you pour information 00:09:26.809 --> 00:09:29.389 into, it's a dynamic community. Students have 00:09:29.389 --> 00:09:31.629 their own goals, their cultural backgrounds influence 00:09:31.629 --> 00:09:34.509 things, their emotional states are huge inputs, 00:09:34.730 --> 00:09:37.389 all actively shaping the outcome. So if your 00:09:37.389 --> 00:09:39.149 goal is totally fixed from the start, like say 00:09:39.149 --> 00:09:41.190 everyone must hit this specific score on this 00:09:41.190 --> 00:09:44.009 specific test, you might end up having to ignore 00:09:44.009 --> 00:09:47.429 or even suppress all that rich messy social reality 00:09:47.429 --> 00:09:49.649 just to make the numbers look right. That social 00:09:49.649 --> 00:09:52.009 dimension just ramps up the complexity way beyond 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:54.080 beyond what even Hitch was dealing with. And 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:56.539 the sources conclude it fundamentally requires, 00:09:56.539 --> 00:09:58.940 well, different planning procedures, procedures 00:09:58.940 --> 00:10:01.279 that can handle emergence, circularity, the social 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:04.379 reality, not just optimizing for industrial style 00:10:04.379 --> 00:10:07.259 efficiency. Wow. Okay, so we've really covered 00:10:07.259 --> 00:10:09.620 some ground. We started with that feeling that 00:10:09.620 --> 00:10:11.919 goals have to come first in planning. We traced 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:14.659 it back to Charles Hitch at Rand in the 60s, 00:10:14.840 --> 00:10:17.820 needing efficiency for massive logistical systems. 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:21.340 Then we saw how that very model starts to fail 00:10:21.340 --> 00:10:24.080 when you hit irreducible complexity, which systems 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:26.580 thinkers like Lars Skeitner pointed out. Problems 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:28.620 where everything affects everything else. And 00:10:28.620 --> 00:10:31.019 the core takeaway for you, listening, is that 00:10:31.019 --> 00:10:32.980 education seems to be exactly that kind of complex, 00:10:33.179 --> 00:10:34.919 interconnected, socially constructed system. 00:10:35.100 --> 00:10:37.259 The sources strongly suggest that applying planning 00:10:37.259 --> 00:10:40.100 methods designed for industrial efficiency fundamentally 00:10:40.100 --> 00:10:41.919 misses the mark on what teaching and learning 00:10:41.919 --> 00:10:44.159 actually involve. Which leaves us with a pretty 00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:46.620 provocative thought to chew on. If starting by 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:48.519 defining the outcome is itself flawed, if it 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:50.940 forces this artificial structure and ignores 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:54.299 the messy human social reality of learning, then 00:10:54.299 --> 00:10:56.360 what are we missing? What knowledge, what sparks 00:10:56.360 --> 00:10:58.799 of insight, what amazing applications might we 00:10:58.799 --> 00:11:00.600 be shutting down completely because we're only 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:03.059 looking for what fits into our predefined objectives? 00:11:03.460 --> 00:11:05.360 What would planning even look like if it didn't 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:07.539 start with the goal but maybe with the complexity 00:11:07.539 --> 00:11:07.919 itself?