Our organizational patterns tend to be replicated at different scales, the school system being a good example. An institution organizes itself to manage its ebb
and ebb. When it reaches a capacity limit, whether of space, energy, or time, it has two options: grow
or divide. When it can no longer grow, it divides, and then a coordinating responsibility moves to a higher scale.
Many universities and colleges are creating branch offices as subsystems. Constraints of space, distance to travel, or the volume of work to be handled in a given time usually signal the need for a new unit. All have their own management systems, human resources, communications, etc. at the appropriate scale. The higher coordinating unit shares the same general directions but leaves the adjustment of operations to the local level.
Organization also applies to the intellectual world. When one begins to learn or discover a subject, one begins with the general principles. Then, as one delves deeper, the subject branches out to a threshold where one must specialize because one exceeds one's personal processing capacity. In a group, we cover the subject more broadly because of a larger pool of skills, processing capacity and organization. A discipline such as computer science is fragmented into many areas and yet remains coherent. The broccoli of computer science has become huge. You can take any discipline and observe the same phenomenon.
When a limit is reached, we fragment and add a higher level of organization. When we learn, we organize our knowledge so that we can integrate more and more of it. We overcome limits by organizing at another scale. Organization is a capacity of life to go beyond material limits. We are as powerful organisms as our cells are organized. A society is as strong as its members are organized.
In the twenty-first century, the organization of industrial tradition is being replaced by another model, more organic, but still torn between several trends. The school is at the forefront of these transformations, its young people are interconnected, monitored, subject to all influences. They are also learning to organize themselves.
Denys Lamontagne - [email protected]
Illustration - Pixabay Evgeni Cherkasski
