Systems Thinking: A Primer
What is a System?
A System has 3 parts: elements, connections, and a function or a purpose. Elements: of a school might be: students, teachers, text-books, tests, classrooms, principals
Connections: of a school might be: property taxes, grading, lectures, evaluations,
Purposes: align to the behaviour or outcomes of the system, not the stated intent. Perhaps the purpose of a school is homogenization and socialization to mainstream norms.
You think because you understand "one" that you must understand "two" because one and one make two. But you forget, you must also understand "and".
Sufi Teaching Story
A system together will generate behaviour that none of the individual elements possess. To probe on whether something is a system, consider what removing an element, or changing the relationship between two elements affects the behaviour of the system overall.