Educators in Sweden and countries all over the world have noted with concern that in spite of welcome developments during the past several decades, most schools are built or rebuilt to continue to follow practices and philosophies carried forward from schools in the 19th Century. In such schools, the main task for the pupil was to listen quietly and obediently to one teacher at a time, within a medium-sized group of pupils.This study presents a literature review about Systems Thinking, as a theory which ought to be the starting-point for developing schools for the future. A model of Systems Thinking, which in the study is called a Cogwheel Approach is used to illustrate how a compulsory school was developed as "School 2000 - A School for the Future", in Sundsvall, Sweden.
Researchers within education argue that schools, that want to be schools for the future will have to pass through a learning process to develop themselves into learning organizations. This study presents several successful projects, which include effective leadership training for principals, an action research process with their teachers who are trying to find new structures of education together with their pupils.
Effective schools have strong leaders, shared decision making, clear goals, effective instruction, and a lot of time devoted to learning. Effective leaders have a vision of what they want their schools to become. They translate this vision into school goals and teacher expectations; they create a school climate that supports these goals; and they monitor progress.
(Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas,1986.)