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January 23 – 25, 2024
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, MA
About this year’s conference theme: “Generative Social Fields”
As a point of departure, last year at our first annual Systems Awareness Research Conference, Dr. Mette Miriam Boell, Research Director of the MIT Systems Awareness Lab, summarized a multi-level, multi-generational picture of a system of education:
The theme for this research conference is how we advance deeper understanding of what it means to work towards more generative social fields across the layers of complexity – time, space, emotion and meaning making – of such a social reality. The idea for this research gathering is to host a series of conversations with different “clusters” of people with whom we work, who are situated in different settings within this larger system, from state-level leadership to counties, to districts and school and community, with some sessions focusing especially on our ongoing research and work in in California. We hope to consistently bring these conversations back to unveiling how we can address the intangibles that often get in the way of more generative social fields, which are frequently ignored or neglected because they are intergenerational, emotionally nested and rich in multiple layers of meaning.
Our aim is that this research gathering is more of a “lab” than a typical conference, and we will do our best to attend to the quality of the social field we create together while we are exploring social fields as a concept.
The below agenda is tentative with individual session titles are subject to change. Further details on speakers and session descriptions will be provided closer to the event.
Stay in Cambridge an extra night and join us for the Systems Awareness for Wellbeing workshop at MIT on Friday, January 26, 2024. Further details and registration for the post-conference workshop can be found here.
We invite you to join us our ongoing virtual seminar series to collaboratively explore diverse research approaches and methodologies in our study of compassionate systems and systems awareness more broadly. The aim of this series from the MIT Systems Awareness Lab is to inspire communities of practitioners and researchers to work together in considering the role of research in their own systems change work.
From this series of research design seminars, we will iterate on research designs that our community can then build upon, refine, implement, and learn from with our partners.
For More Information, contact systemsawareness@mit.edu
Featuring Dr. Mark Greenberg
Emeritus Bennett Chair of Prevention Research and Founding Director, Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Penn State
A design session with Dr. Eric Klopfer, Dan Roy (MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program, Education Arcade) with Gustav Boell and Youth Ambassadors (Center for Systems Awareness)
A conversation with Dr. Jean Clinton (McMaster University), Dr. Peter Senge (MIT), Jacob Martin (Dulwich College Singapore), and Charlotte Ruddy (Dulwich College Singapore)
Friday, January 26, 2024
MIT Building 10 Room 105 – Bush Room
Join us for a participatory workshop on developing systems awareness for wellbeing, offered free for the MIT community and 2024 conference guests, hosted by the MIT Systems Awareness Lab.
Learn and practice skills for cultivating well being by working with contemplative practices and systems dynamics tools, focusing on the intricate relationship between ourselves and who we are in the world, and how we can strengthen our emotional literacy, relational competences and self-care, and, through grounding and centering, develop our decision-making with more precision, clarity and compassion.
Mette Boell
Research Director, MIT Systems Awareness Lab; Executive Director, Center for Systems Awareness. Mette Miriam Boell (Böll) is a biologist specialized in the evolution of complex social systems, mammalian play behavior and philosophy of nature. Mette Miriam has a Ph.D. in organizational ethology from the Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, and holds additional degrees in contemplative leadership and the philosophy and history of science.
Hanneli Ågotsdatter
Contemplative Faculty, Center for Systems Awareness: Ågotsdatter holds her M.A. and is a psychotherapist, architect and meditation teacher. Hanneli is the founder of Kontemplation which offers contemplative programs and group retreats where mindfulness, presence yoga, compassion and creativity are interwoven into an integrated practice.She is a part of the organizational group behind The Danish Society for the Promotion of Life Wisdom in Children, an association placing special emphasis on relational competence, teaching the practice of empathy and presence to professionals working with children and young people.
Søren Munk
Contemplative Faculty, Center for Systems Awareness: Søren Munk received his Educated Master of Science from The Technical University of Denmark and is also a certified psychotherapist from ID Psychotherapist Education. Søren has devoted a large part of his life to the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism, and for 16 years lived, studied and meditated at the monastery of Pullahari, completing their 5 years programme of training in philosophy and meditation.
Questions?
The MIT Systems Awareness Lab Conversation Series is a series of virtual conversations on systems change.
We believe that education can be a leading sector in helping shape the cultural changes needed throughout society and that education innovators around the world are busy doing just that. This conversation series brings researchers, educators and practitioners together to explore work in student and educator wellbeing, classroom practice, and collaborative leadership at the district, region, state and international levels.
Launched in January 2022, discussions focus on the most pressing issues of our time, from climate change and equity to declining mental health and well-being. Some key questions and themes we explore in this series are:
Join us for these ongoing important and timely conversations as we explore how we understand, enable and measure system change in the making within education. Our hope is that the conversations will be helpful to educators, school leaders, teacher leaders, researchers, and anyone interested in deep change in education.
