NETWORKING
(1) "It’s All About Assumptions,” Rev. Anthony
Ranada, SVD
CONNECTIONS
(2) The 2nd TOCFE Conference in Israel, Rami Goldratt
(3) 4th
International TOC for Education Upgrade Conference (4) TACT Seminars: Malaysia and Singapore POOGI (5) Relocation of TOCFE Web Page!, Kathy Suerken QUOTE (6) Helen Keller EDITORS’ NOTE (7) Kay Buckner-Seal and Cheryl
Edwards (1) “It’s All About Assumptions” Father
Anthony shared this comment on assumptions in response to this quote in TACTics last fall: “Assumptions allow the best in life to
pass you by.” —John Sales “Hmmm… interesting. Why? Because assumptions
that are not questioned tie you down to one way of thinking and one way of
choosing based on that thinking. In a
classroom context, teachers and students, by generating alternatives to a
particular way of doing things, by surfacing assumptions, experience a whole
new world of seeing, doing and communicating.“ —Rev. Anthony Ranada, SVD,
Philippines (2) The
2nd TOCFE Conference in Israel Hello Everyone, Last Friday
(05/26/00) was held The 2nd TOCFE Conference in Israel. A total of 150 people showed up for the
conference, all of them with education oriented positions. They heard several very interesting presentations,
about what TOC has to offer the education environment. The presentations were given by people
"from the trenches;” that is, those people who really worked with the kids
and teachers in school. TOCFE in the Kindergarten Classroom The first
presentation was given by Ofra Segev, who will also attend the world conference
in August. Ofra presented the
implementation of the "cloud" in two kindergartens. Each kindergarten is located in a different
socio-economic community. Ofra spoke of
the way children reacted to the cloud approach. How, eventually, when a child finds himself in a conflict, his
frustration does not go to the point of reacting with violence, because s/he
knows a solution to the problem can be found by using the cloud. Ofra showed us pictures of children standing
on a carpet, on which a cloud is drown.
First, they stand on the patterns of the “wants” and declare what they
want. Then, they move to the “needs”
patterns and so on. Backing Ofra’s
presentation, was the kindergarten teacher (in Hebrew we call them
kindergardners) of the kindergarten class located in the low socio-economic
community. She told us violence among
the children decreased significantly and that their ability to express
themselves also much improved. The following
presentation was of Shmuel (I hope I spelled his name correctly), who is a
principle of an elementary school.
Shmuel was really enthusiastic about TOCFE, and he really wanted to
implement it at his school. "The
problem was,” he said, "that the teachers are ‘fed up’ with initiatives of
principals. If I want to implement this
program in school, presenting it first to the teachers will not work. It will do the opposite— block the program,
because the teachers will not co-operate. On the other hand, in order to implement
it— I must present it to the teachers, because only they can teach it to the
pupils." Shmuel, found an injection to his
cloud, he decided not to present it to the teachers. Instead he personally taught the children together with their
teacher. This way the teachers witness
the power of the program. In addition
to that, Shmuel formed "Peace Doers" which are actually pupils who
are mediators. These children use the
clouds while helping other pupils to solve their conflicts. Only after then, did the teachers pressure
him to teach them the method thoroughly,
Shmuel gathered the teachers and began to teach them. Teaching Content Using the
Thinking Tools The
next two presentations were about teaching content using the thinking
tools. The first one, was given by a
teacher who teaches the Bible. He is
teaching in a very low socio-economic community. Needless to say, his pupils are very "tough to handle"
kids. He wanted to teach them the story
about NOAH and the Arc. This story is
about the God who punishes the human race by flooding the Earth. Noah, who was the only prudent man among the
human race, was told to save the "Living world.” That is to make sure of the continuation of the animal races
after the big flood. “I could have taught the
kids in the traditional way, which means telling them the story with all the
details and reading it from the bible.
(It could be very boring, I can assure you that.) Instead, I decided to teach the story in an
interactive way, to guide the kids in building the prerequisite tree of Noah’s.
Together my pupils and myself verbalized Noah’s ambitious target: "To save
the animal kingdom. Then they raised
all the appropriate obstacles. The kids
raised most of them without reading the chapter from the bible. They can do that because something that they
don't lack is ‘practical wisdom.’ It
turned out that for all the obstacles, Noah found intermediate objectives. The kids first speculated what could be the
intermediate objective, and then willingly scanned the bible for the ones Noah
had implemented. For Example: Obstacle After the rain
stops, it will be difficult to know
where there is land, when you are in an
Ark. I.O. Noah will send a bird
to look for land. All in all it was a wonderful learning
experience", he summarized.
"It took us several lessons, and by the end of the task, there was
a big tree hanging on one of the class walls.
I'm sure this chapter of the bible they will not forget.” His presentation was accompanied by
another teacher from his school, who was the one that taught the TACT to this
school during that year. She presented
other lessons that were taught using the tools, but this letter is long, as it
is; so, I'll share it with you some other time. Teaching Content and Behavioral Processes The final presentation was given by Mira
Grinberg, who will join us in the World Conference.
Mira told us about the way she is teaching teachers to cope with one of
the core problems of the "teacher.” "Every teacher has s
a personal target: To successfully perform hes job as a teacher. Well, at least I hope it's every teacher’s
target.” She started to present the problem: In order to “successfully perform hes job as
a teacher,” the teacher needs to teach the students basic knowledge, and also
to meet the standards by which s/he is measured. In order to do that, the teacher wants “to be more of an
informative teacher.” That is a teacher
that focuses hes teaching on passing the information to the students. On the other hand, in order "to
successfully perform hes job as a teacher,” the teacher needs to guide the
students to becoming a better person, and for that to happen, the teacher wants
"to be more of an ‘educator’ teacher.”
That is a teacher who focuses hes teaching on the student’s lives and
character, dealing much more with behavioral aspects than with learning
content. Now, Mira claims that for many
teachers there is a tension between the two 'wants.” Being more of an informative teacher is practically in conflict
with being more of an ‘educator’ teacher.
The way to solve this conflict is by using the content that is
already being taught in class as a means to educate the student in behavioral
processes. Mira showed us how to
use the cloud in order to teach the content of History/Literature/Bible/ in a
way that is relevant to the student's life. How is she exactly doing it? Well, I have to leave something to tell you
next week. Have a better world, Rami Goldratt TOCFE, Israel (3) 4th International TOC for Education Upgrade Conference Monterrey, Mexico Conference Hours: 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Conference
Registration $75.00 covers the cost of lunches. Send checks payable to TOC for Education, Inc.
along with your registration forms to: Attention: Bernie Kean TOC for Education, Inc. 1532 Glenlake Circle Niceville, FL 32578
USA Airport: Gen. Mariano Escobedo International Airport
(Code is MTY). Transportation from Airport to hotel: Cab $15. Departure Tax: $10.00 Hotel: Sheraton Ambassador Hotel- Monterrey, Mexico (*Room rates
are based on single OR double occupancy.) Classic room— $86(+tax) For more than two people to a
room, there is a $15.00 charge for each extra person. Reservations: Identify yourself as a member of TOC for Education. • Mexico — (direct to the hotel) 1.800.832.8400 • USA
& Canada— (central reservation) 1.800.325.3535 • Nations outside of North America—(switchboard) 1.528.380.7000 Registration Deadline: July 25, 2000 (for conference rates) (4) TACT
Seminars Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (New
location!) A TACT seminar
will be taught by Kathy Suerken June 26-30 to a division of
the Curriculum Development Center, Ministry of Education. Singapore TACT Upgrade,
June 23 and Public Address June 24 given by Kathy Suerken at
Nanyang Technological University (5) Relocation
of TOCFE Web Page! From
Kathy Suerken We are pleased to announce the
relocation of our web page to www.tocforeducation.com The previous web site will be linked
to the new one for several months and many upgrades in content are planned
as we strive to continuously improve! (6) "The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart. —Helen Keller (7) It’ s been great hearing from you, Rami! Thanks for sharing details of The 2nd TOCFE
Conference in Israel. We have all
learned a great deal and look forward to hearing about how Mira and the others
are using the TOC tools to teach content. Teaching
content through the TOC tools is a topic that is surfacing in educational
systems all over the world. We
encourage everyone to share their teaching
lessons with TACTics so that we all may learn from them. So, to our entire TOCFE
Family, we would really love to hear your comments, examples and concerns. Please continue to share so that we all may
maintain our POOGI. Send HYPERLINK to: bucknek@resa.net redwards@sault.com
Send mail to: Cheryl
A. Edwards 2253 S.
Hill Island Road Cedarville,
MI 49719 USA NETWORKING
CONNECTIONS
August 9-12, 2000
POOGI
QUOTE
EDITORS' NOTE