Interdisciplinary Approach to Team Teaching: A Systems Theory Perspective According to Senge (1990), contemporary models of education in general and schools in particular are often characterized based on systems theory. This theory holds that any give school is a system or learning organization rather than merely the sum of separate parts. Systems theory understands that administrators, teachers, students, support staff, parents, and community members all have a stake in how the school operates, and that in order to maximize the performance of the school, they must all be a part of the decision making, and the directions in which the school progresses.
Under the systems approach both knowledge and decisional power is viewed as spread across the various groups. Administrators have knowledge of ideas, facts and patterns that teachers, students, parents, community, and support staff do not have. Teachers have knowledge that comes from their work in the organization, knowledge that is unique to their position. Each of the groups can see the school and its work in a different way from the others; each group has unique insight into the school, and thus something to contribute to the whole.
In the system view of the school, the decision making is spread across the groups also but only after all sides, thoughts, relative knowledge and insights have been thoroughly discussed. Thus, the system approach is holistic in nature, seeing inter-relationships between
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