Everything around us – from the human body to a university campus – operates as a system. Yet the word “system” is often used loosely, without a real understanding of what makes something a system and why that distinction matters. In education, management, engineering, and everyday life, grasping the concept of a system is foundational to understanding how complex processes actually work. Once you see the world through a systems lens, you begin to notice that nothing functions in isolation – everything is connected, purposeful, and interdependent.
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What is a system?
According to Encyclopedia.com, a system is commonly defined as a group of interacting units or elements that have a common purpose. Those units can be cogs, wires, people, computers – virtually anything. What matters is not what the parts are made of, but how they relate to each other and what they collectively achieve. As systems theory on Wikipedia notes, a system is “more than the sum of its parts” – it expresses properties that none of its individual components could produce on their own.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the biologist widely credited with founding General Systems Theory, argued as far back as the 1920s that all systems – whether biological, mechanical, or social – are built from interrelated parts working toward a common goal. His thinking has since shaped fields as diverse as ecology, engineering, sociology, and education.
Key characteristics of a system
Not every collection of parts qualifies as a system. ScienceDirect’s overview of systems theory identifies several defining features that all true systems share:
- Interdependence of components: Each part depends on the others to function properly. If one part fails, the whole system is affected.
- Organization and structure: Components work together in a coordinated, ordered way – not randomly.
- Goal-directedness: Every system has a purpose, whether it’s producing a product, sustaining life, or educating students.
- Defined boundaries: A system operates within boundaries that separate it from its surrounding environment.
- Input-output relationship: Systems receive inputs (resources, information, energy), process them, and generate outputs (products, services, outcomes).
These characteristics together define what makes a system a system – and they apply equally to a biological cell, a school, or an automobile.
Interrelation of components: the car as a system
A car is one of the clearest illustrations of how a system works. The engine generates power, the transmission delivers it to the wheels, the braking system controls speed, the electrical system powers lights and sensors, and the fuel system feeds everything. None of these parts can move the car alone. Remove one – say, the braking system – and the entire system becomes non-functional or dangerous.
This reflects the core idea that systems thinking expert Frank Betts, writing for ASCD, describes as synergy: “the whole (system) is greater than the sum of its parts (elements), because the relationship among the elements adds value to the system.” The car doesn’t move because of the engine alone; it moves because of how the engine, fuel, transmission, and wheels interact together.
This same logic applies to an educational institution. A university has faculty, students, administrative staff, library resources, technology infrastructure, and assessment systems. Each plays a distinct role, but it is only through their coordinated interaction that meaningful learning outcomes are produced. As a study published in the Sapientia Foundation Journal of Education, Sciences and Gender Studies puts it, a system is “a structure with interdependent parts” where the interplay of any part affects the whole.
Open vs. closed systems
Systems are broadly classified into two types based on how they interact with their environment: open systems and closed systems. This distinction has real-world significance – it determines how adaptable, responsive, and sustainable a system is over time.
Open systems
According to an educational resource on systems theory, an open system is one that continuously interacts with its environment, exchanging energy, information, and resources. Key features of open systems include adaptability, reliance on feedback mechanisms, and the ability to maintain a dynamic equilibrium between inputs and outputs.
Living organisms are the most obvious example of open systems. As Lumen Learning’s biology resource explains, biological organisms exchange energy with their surroundings – consuming energy-storing molecules and releasing energy back into the environment. A business is another example: it takes in raw materials, labor, and capital from its environment, processes them, and returns products and services to the market.
In education, universities and schools are open systems. TechTarget’s definition of open systems highlights how open systems rely on feedback to adjust processes and improve performance – exactly what educational institutions do when they gather input from students, faculty, and employers to refine curricula and teaching approaches. Changes in government policy, shifting labor market demands, or new technologies all flow into the educational system from outside, shaping how it operates.
Closed systems
Encyclopedia.com describes a closed system as one with relatively little interaction with other systems or the outside environment – relatively self-contained and self-maintaining. A mechanical watch is a classic example: once wound, it operates on its own internal logic, largely unaffected by the world around it.
In practice, Study.com notes that truly closed systems are extremely rare, since energy can almost always enter or leave a system in some form. The concept is more useful as a theoretical tool – a way of isolating a system’s internal behavior by minimizing external variables, as in a controlled laboratory experiment. In educational terms, a highly rigid, standardized curriculum that does not adapt to student feedback or cultural context behaves like a closed system. It may be efficient within its own logic, but it struggles to respond when the environment changes.
A useful way to compare the two: ASCD’s article on systems thinking in education explains that a closed system that cannot import sufficient energy from outside will eventually collapse – citing the fall of the USSR as a dramatic real-world example of a closed political system that could not sustain itself internally.
Subsystems and goals
Most systems are not single, monolithic structures – they contain smaller systems nested within them. These are called subsystems. Frank Betts explains that a subsystem is a component of a larger system – the circulatory system within the human body, for instance, or a school’s examination department within the broader educational institution. The larger system within which a subsystem operates is sometimes called the supra-system.
ScienceDirect notes that within any system, elements are organized hierarchically based on their roles, functions, and responsibilities. Subsystems focus on specific tasks, and together they contribute to the overall objectives of the parent system. As the number of subsystems increases, so does the complexity of their relationships – and the energy required to coordinate them.
Subsystems in an educational context
Consider a university as a system. Within it, several subsystems operate simultaneously: the academic subsystem (faculty, curriculum, and instructional design), the administrative subsystem (registration, finance, human resources), the student support subsystem (counseling, libraries, career services), and the research subsystem. Each subsystem has its own internal goals and processes. But crucially, they are all oriented toward a shared supra-goal: producing educated, capable graduates who contribute to society.
According to a paper published by ERIC (the Education Resources Information Center), systems theory applied to education is fundamentally concerned with the relationships, structure, and interdependence among elements – not the properties of elements in isolation. This is why educational reforms that target only one subsystem (say, teacher training) while ignoring others (curriculum design, assessment, or institutional culture) tend to produce limited results. Real improvement requires understanding how all subsystems interact.
Goals: unitary vs. pluralistic systems
Systems can also be classified by the nature of their goals. ASCD distinguishes between unitary systems, which have a single, clear goal, and pluralistic systems, which have many – sometimes conflicting – goals. Most educational institutions are pluralistic: they simultaneously aim to transmit knowledge, foster critical thinking, prepare students for careers, promote civic values, and drive research. Managing these competing goals is one of the central challenges of educational system design.
As Number Analytics points out, effective integration of subsystems toward shared goals requires strategies like collaboration between teachers and administrators, data-driven decision-making, ongoing professional development, and community engagement. When subsystems pull in different directions without alignment to the larger system’s goals, the whole institution becomes less effective – regardless of how well any single part performs.
Why the concept of systems matters in education
Understanding systems is not just an abstract exercise. Research published on ResearchGate examining systems theory in higher education governance shows that universities function as self-reproducing organizations: external policy changes or funding shifts act as stimuli, but it is the internal operations of the institution’s subsystems that determine how – and whether – those changes actually take effect. In other words, knowing how a system is structured tells you where change is possible and where it is most likely to be resisted.
For educators and instructional designers, applying a systems lens means recognizing that no single element – not the teacher, not the curriculum, not the technology – can drive quality learning on its own. The Christensen Institute’s work on modularity theory in education reinforces this: school districts function as integrated systems in which curriculum, instruction, teacher development, and student needs all share interdependent interfaces. If those interfaces are not coordinated, the system breaks down at the seams.
Thinking in systems means moving beyond fixing isolated problems and instead asking: how does this part connect to everything else? That shift in perspective is what separates reactive management from genuine, lasting improvement.
What do you think? When you look at an educational institution you are familiar with, can you identify its key subsystems – and see where they work in harmony or pull against each other? And if that institution is not adapting well to changing social or technological demands, does it behave more like an open system or a closed one?
References
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/management/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/open-and-closed-systems
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/systems-theory
- https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/how-systems-thinking-applies-to-education
- https://www.sfjesgs.com/index.php/SFJESGS/article/viewFile/334/333
- https://docmckee.com/oer/soc/sociology-glossary/open-system-definition/
- https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-biology1/chapter/reading-open-and-closed-systems/
- https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/open-system
- https://study.com/learn/lesson/closed-and-open-systems.html
- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED375485.pdf
- https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/understanding-systems-theory-field-education
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305028484_Systems_Theoretical_Perspectives_on_Higher_Education_Policy_and_Governance
- https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/modularity/
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