TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

June 16, 2000

CONTENTS

            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

NETWORKING

(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

CONNECTIONS

(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

August 9-12, 2000

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

POOGI

(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!

QUOTE

(6)      "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart. —Helen Keller

EDITORS' NOTE

(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