The School as a Social System - Essay Example

While school is certainly an open system, the author points out that elements of “open systems perspectives have the potential to combine rational and natural elements in the same framework” (26) and I believe that the organization of schools is one of an open system with a rational framework.

            As mentioned above, schools obviously function as an open system, taking input from the environment, putting it through a transformative process, and producing the changed product back into the environment.  The second major framework schools function in is rational.  A rational system is a system that attempts to achieve a specific goal with maximum efficiency.  Though schools have a wide variety of goals, they are often very specific: they want to educate students to the point that they meet required standards (whether the standards are set by a school board, an accredited body, or the school itself).  They seek to give students a balanced life, by providing access to education (in the form of physical education classes) and food along with academic pursuits.  So clearly schools meet the first part of the definition of a rational system: they have specific goals.