February 11, 2000
A Letter of Inspiration that Needs
No Introduction:
From Jana Borisavljevic,
jana.b@Eunet.yu
Being originally from Yugoslavia
I spent my twenties and early thirties in England. First, studying Steiner/Waldorf Education and working as a
teacher in a Steiner school; then, exploring other “alternative” educational
systems, special needs education and working as a free lance education
consultant. The experiences I had had
with teachers, but in particular parents/carers in the courses and the
workshops I had been running during the last two years, made me focus in my
work on the idea of “emotional literacy.”
One course after another, I kept meeting people who were desperate to
have good, happy and meaningful relationships with their children and yet were
exhausted by constant struggles, conflicts and their own feelings of guilt,
fear, failure and so on. I began to
believe that most adults needed to be trained to understand themselves, their
needs and feelings in order to be able to be clear about what they wanted, why
and how to achieve it, and that this in itself would make their relationships
with children improve tremendously. So,
I designed a six-week holistic parenting course which focused on emotional
literacy and ran it for about six months.
As I kept hearing stories from parents about how their children
responded with amazing creativity to what the adults were doing with their
newly acquired tools in self awareness and problem solving, I became certain
that teachers and their pupils would also benefit from a similar course.
Then one day I had an idea
that filled me with both fear and a feeling of “rightness” about it. I had a thought that it was time for me to
go back to Yugoslavia and offer my experience, skills, knowledge and good will
to children and all those who work with and raise children there. There was something so right about it that I
decided to follow this impulse. So, the
next few months were spent in preparations for the move. I didn’t quite know
what I was going to do or where I was going to start, but I decided to take
things one step at a time and see how Life responded to that. Shortly before I was due to leave, Galina,
the director of an innovative educational project in London with whom I had
been working, asked me to come to meet Kathy Suerken who was visiting
London. Somehow Galina knew that this was
going to be an important meeting for me.
I also felt that and rearranged my extremely busy schedule to meet
Kathy. Listening to Kathy talk was like
listening to somebody speak my thoughts but using different vocabulary. Everything seemed so familiar and yet new at
the same time. And, it felt as if Life
had responded to my first step. Here
was something that I knew was going to be of great help to me personally in
dealing with the many challenging situations I knew were ahead of me. But, also, so perfect in its simplistic
method that I could share it with people in my work in Yugoslavia.
So here I am in
Yugoslavia, finding life here very challenging in many ways but feeling that
this is the right place for me to be at this time. Politically and economically, the country is in a state of chaos. Most people are deeply depressed and there
is a general feeling of lack of hope.
Although I “knew” that it was going to be hard coming here, I was still
taken by surprise by the misery of the people I have witnessed around me. Several weeks after my arrival, I developed
an inflammation of my throat and ear and had to stay in bed for a couple of
weeks. After years of good health and
not knowing much pain, I was suddenly experiencing the weakness of my body,
pain, dependence on other people and, again for the first time in many years,
humility. I know now that my work here
could not start without this experience.
The feeling of fear, which I had started having at the thought of the
immensity of my task here, has gone and the thought has transformed itself into
a thought of the simplicity of my task here.
But even the word task isn’t appropriate any more. What I have is an opportunity to share with
people around me in whichever situation I find myself.
At the moment I am staying
with my twin sister and her family. My
7 and 10 year-old nephews have given me many opportunities to practise the TOC
tools. The seven year old had been
getting wet on the way to school ever since it started snowing here (three
months ago) because he liked walking through deep snow and playing with
it. He, somehow, managed to get it into
his boots, into his sleeves and even under his hat. One afternoon we did a negative branch. Ever since, he has been walking along the path and being dry when
he arrives at school. He and his
brother are able to talk through a cloud when they have a conflict
nowadays. Last night, the elder one
said to me - while we were eating the dinner which I had cooked - that if we
all wanted to achieve the common goal of being happy together and all enjoying
the dinner perhaps we could do a “little cloud”… He didn’t like my cooking!
During the next couple of
weeks I will be doing a project with the children in the local school working
with the theme, “Through conflict without violence,” in which I will try to
incorporate some of the TOC tools.
Kathy has been wonderfully supportive ever since I have arrived
here. We correspond via e-mails and I
guess that has helped a lot to make me feel confident enough to try working
with the TOC tools without having been “properly” trained. Having received the last few TACTics
journals has been quite inspiring as I get a sense of a community out
there. I find it “renews” my enthusiasm
reading about people in all these different countries working towards more constructive,
co-operative, creative ways of living our own lives and sharing Life with
others. Greetings to you all!
Editor’s Note: Jana, it is visionaries, like yourself, who
make up your TOC for Ed family. Like any family, know that we are here for you. Send TOC questions, concerns, ideas to
TACTics and hopefully someone will have had the same experience and
respond.
Republic of South Africa:
Feb 19-20: Sessions 1-2
Location: Mossel Bay (18 teachers)
New geographical location!
Taught by: Francois Moll and Louise Huddy.
Feb 26-27: Session 4-5 (follows Sessions 1-3 taught in
January)
Location: Capetown (to primary school faculty of
26 teachers plus principal)
Taught by: Francois Moll and Alfreda Bekkers.
Feb 2000: Student Peer Mediation Training (cloud)
Location: York High School, George
Taught by: Kathy Ross-Smith.
March 21, 2000: 1st TOCFE Regional RSA Upgrade
Mini-Conference
Location: George
by Linda Trapnell
I recently ran a half-day
“taster” course on TOC for 15 head teachers (principals) and several have
signed up for more.
At the end of March, I
have a three-day course for a group of head teachers and a similar repeat
course is to be advertised for all teachers in Nottinghamshire for the summer
term.
A behavior-support team
from nearby Stoke on Trent had some training last summer. They have just requested more as they widen
the successful program they have based on TOC.
The team stresses the value that real-life examples have on getting
teachers to try the program… it's not just a theory but a practical solution.
Speaking of real-life examples,
Linda shares this experience:
In November, England has a
traditional Firework Celebration, “Guy Fawkes Night.” Many families hold firework displays in their gardens
(yards). We always do a short firework
safety program and this year I decided to use the cloud to get the message
across.
I got the whole school
together and we did the cloud: We
have lit a firework but it has not gone off.
I want to go and re-light it. My
friend says no.
D—> I want to re-light the firework
D'—> I don't want to re-light it
B—> I need to see a firework go off
C—> I need to be safe
A—> We need to be happy
The discussions raged wide
as all viewpoints were considered.
During this time, I managed to raise all the safety points I needed to
AND the children felt they had been involved instead of me just telling them
what to do. The eventual conclusion was
to get another firework and tell an adult.
Not complex but the message got across.
The audience consisted of 180, 5-7 yr. olds and the whole thing took 15
minutes. The children are experienced
in doing clouds and involvement was total, especially when I asked what could
happen if we did try to re-light the firework!
Regards to everyone in
TOC-land,
Linda Trapnell
From Kathy Suerken ,suerken@nwfl.net
In order to better prepare for an
imminent event, I need to borrow some intuition! Does anyone have background on Robert Swartz's model of
thinking? I need to know just the basic
concepts (the "gist" of it in a few sentences/paragraph will
suffice). This knowledge will better
ensure that what I share reveals how TOC can provide value added to this
particular audience. Thanks!
Linda and Kathy will be
teaching two TACT seminars (Cloud and NBR/PRT) to
primary teachers in Singapore on February 24-March 3, 2000. Thanks for your contributions, Linda.
As always, your contributions
are what make this TACTics Journal.
Please continue to share so that we all may maintain our POOGI. Thanks!
Send HYPERLINK to:
bucknek@resa.net
cherylaedwards@aol.com
Send mail to:
Cheryl A. Edwards
2253 S. Hill Island Road
Cedarville, MI 49719 USA
"The poor man is not he who is
without a cent, but he who is without a dream." —Harry Kemp