By Alyson Showell LaPorta

You’ve probably heard the phrase before: systems thinking.
It’s a cornerstone of how we approach our work and how we invite students to understand their world. But let’s be real—for some folks, it can sound like a phrase that doesn’t mean that much.

So what does it actually mean?

If you’ve ever stared at a tangled ball of string and realized that pulling one loop tightens five others—you get the vibe.

Systems thinking is the practice of understanding how things are interconnected. It’s the awareness that nothing exists in isolation. We are all part of an interconnected network, the more you examine, the more aspects you see. A school is a system with its students, teachers, cafeteria, and it is connected to transportation, city funding, regulations, and more. A transit strike affects the entire school system, even though you might not think of city busses as part of a school system. And on and on. Personally, our bodies are systems and our emotional experience is affected by many parts of a system. Stress might be linked to sleep, which might be linked to screen time, which might be linked to a group chat that popped off at 2am, which might be connected to a tech company that wanted more eyeballs on screens to boost data sales to advertisers and on and on… well, you get it.

We teach systems thinking because it helps students zoom out and see the bigger picture. It gives them language and tools to move from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What’s going on around me?” And what’s happened over evolutionary time to fashion my human brain and emotions to even register all this stuff! This shift can change the way we look at and experience everything.

So what does that look like in a classroom?

It might be a conversation about the design of the human brain, or how social media algorithms are programmed, and how they affect mood, self-esteem. It might be a visual map of how school policy, family expectations, and mental health all ripple through a student’s day. It might be a moment when a student sees that their anxiety isn’t random—it’s patterned, and it’s understandable.

Systems thinking doesn’t replace mindfulness. It amplifies it. While breathwork and reflection help students stay centered in the moment, systems thinking shows them how their moment fits into a much wider story.