CONNECTIONS
(1) Response to Peter Senge’s Quote, Zzippi
Margalit
(2) The
5th Annual TOCFE International Conference/The TOC for Education Student’s
Conference, Cheryl A. Edwards
ELEMENTARY
TACTICS
(3) Student
Samples: Saturday Enrichment School, Judy Holder
QUOTE
(4) Author Unknown
EDITORS’
NOTES
(5) Kay
Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards
(1) A
Response to Peter Senge’s Quote
"Of all
the dominant institutions in society, none is more completely a creature of the
Industrial Age than the modern school system.
We stand today at a crossroads: either we continue to try to revive the
industrial age system of education or we acknowledge the need to think
anew."
—Peter Senge, TACTics,
11/17/00
Dear Kay,
Cheryl and Everybody,
This letter
coming by e-mail through the net, is a very good example of the democratic
opportunities that the net can offer to education. Schools are still trying to keep the old "input-output"
conception and in referring to Peter Senge's quote. Thanks to the net technologies and the post-modern reality, we
are already after the Industrial Age.
As we all know, the TOC tools can contribute a lot to the changing
processes in the field of education and help everybody “to think
anew". Thank you, Eleanor and Cora
for your interesting reports
Yours,
Zzippi
(2) The 5th Annual TOC for Education International Conference and
The TOC for Education Student’s Conference
From Cheryl A. Edwards
Date: June 25-28, 2001
Location Detroit,
Michigan USA
Flight Information: Detroit
Metropolitan International Airport (DTW)
Visit the
following websites to learn more about the Metro-Detroit area, its life,
culture, and history.
http://metroscope.com/detroit.html
http://www.detroit300.org/
ELEMENTARY TACTICS
(3) Student Samples: Saturday
Enrichment School
From Judy Holder, United
Kingdom
I
have been doing some work at Galena Dolya’s Saturday Enrichment School in
Enfield, London. I told two groups of
children that I was so impressed with what they'd come up with that I would see
about contacting you to share their ideas.
So here goes!
The first group were
about a dozen 7 and 8 year olds. I was
late starting their session because of a fight between two older students in
the corridor. They had heard the disturbance,
so taking a deep breath, I abandoned my lesson plans, and gave them the story
line:
The
story happens at Saturday School.
Someone got punched and hit their head on a wall. It hurts.
The person is angry. The person
wants the puncher to be expelled.
After we sorted out what
expelled meant, I showed them a smiley face, and we agreed that this is how we
all want to feel. Then they came up
with the rest of the cloud together:
A: Smiley Face (FEEL GOOD)
B: No fighting
D: Puncher) be expelled
C: Likes coming
D': Don't be expelled
Assumptions
B-D:
I won't get hurt again (if he is
expelled).
It won't happen again (if he is
expelled).
There won't be any messed up lessons (if
he is expelled)
Assumptions
C-D':
Not get told off
No other club
(They were clear that we needed to break the cloud on the B-D side,
because there is no other Saturday School.)
Injections:
Put them in different groups
Tell the person who is supposed to look
after you to keep an eye on him
Do a behaviour cloud.
In the course of the
discussion we looked at the puncher's internal dilemma.
Earlier
in the morning the students had been involved in a first incident. The child he punched had earlier struck him
with some equipment during a circus skills session, and he felt aggrieved.
A: Smiley Face (FEEL GOOD)
B: Get my own back
D: Punch
C: Not get expelled
D': Don't punch
Assumptions B-D:
People will make fun of me
if I don't (I understood this to mean take advantage of me)
Assumptions C-D':
Might get into trouble
Might get black eye/bandage
Might get punched back
Not get told off
Injections:
Tell one of the grown ups
Talk
your problems over-use a cloud.
While we were at it,
there was time for a very elementary negative branch. I put a smiley face and a frowning face on the board and asked
them to work out which one punching had led to. We arrived at: I need to get my own back and I punch. —> So I
hurt someone. —> So I get told off. —> Then I feel guilty. —> Then I
feel sad".
The logic is not
perfect, but these very young children were fully engaged and thinking. And all of them recognised the punch/don't
punch dilemma. It really rang
bells. We did resolve the issue between
the two boys that prompted the session.
Guess which injection we used?
Group 2
The second group were
about a dozen 9-12 year olds. I wanted
to introduce them to the ambitious target tool. I borrowed an idea from Kathy Suerken (Thanks, Kathy). She had told me about the response she gets
when she shows children a map of the world with all the places TOC
operates. They relish the idea of being
connected to something bigger than themselves.
I also remembered hearing Eli Goldratt talk about his early goal of
teaching the world to think.
So I played them a tape
of a choir singing Vivaldi’s, Gloria.
It happens that my own daughter was singing in the choir. I told them that I knew she was there, and
that even though I couldn't hear her voice above the rest, her voice, in
combination with all the others was needed to produce that magnificent sound. Then I showed them a map of the world, with
flags for all the countries where TOC has started to teach and explained that
each of our voices, however small, was part of the work. I also said that what they did was
particularly important because they were pioneers. (We did have to stop to discuss what a pioneer is!)
Then I told them a story
about the way TOC started: with someone who had a goal to teach the world to
think. I asked them why the idea would
never work, and wrote down their ideas:
Might
offend religions/cultures
Have
to travel too much
Not
see his family
People
are not willing to do/accept.
How
will he tell everyone to think?
He
may not know how to think himself.
There's
just one of him.
He
may not have enough lifetime.
There
are too many people.
People
are always being born and dying; he will have to keep re-teaching.
No
money
Have
to learn all the languages
Then I asked them how
they would fix these problems:
Teach many cultures: find out what the
cultures are and a way to teach without offending.
Build
a community.
Write
letters, e-mail.
Pay
them money to learn.
Make
it interesting.
Learn
to think himself
Build
a community.
Inspire
followers…
We did not have enough
time to finish, but I made time to ask them which one he would have to do
first. Someone immediately told me that
the first thing he would have to do was learn to think himself.
Well, I told them I
would share their work, so I have.
QUOTE
(4) "Thankfulness
sets in motion a chain reaction that transforms all around us including
ourselves. For no one ever
misunderstands the melody of a grateful heart.
Its message is universal; its lyrics transcend all earthly barriers; its
music touches the heavens." —author unknown
EDITORS’ NOTES
(5) A round of applause for the children at the
Saturday Enrichment School! Judy, we
are always eager to share the work of children. We, too, are impressed and look forward to sampling more. Zzippi, thanks for the relevant connection
to Peter Senge’s quote. To our entire
TOCFE family, we do love sharing. Send
your contributions to Cheryl A. Edwards, 2253 S. Hill
Island Rd., Cedarville, MI 49719, USA.
Or, send hyperlink to <redwards@sault.com> or <bucknek@resa.net.