Emergence, education and networked social change

I was just reading How Large Scale Change Really Happens by Meg Wheatly and Deborah Frieze. The short article starts out like this ...

In spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time.  It changes as networks of relationships form among people who share a common cause and vision of what’s possible.  This is good news for those of us who want to change public education.  We don’t need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits.

Great advice for those of us working to build a more open, flexible education. The whole article is worth a read. It talks about how networks and emergence sit at the centre of social changes, both good and bad. A very helpful primer on this topic.