CONNECTIONS
(1) Innovation Award: TOCFE in Malaysia,
Kathy Suerken
SECONDARY
TACTICS
(2) TOCFE
Content Lesson: Fugitive Slave Laws, Jane Hudak/Cheryl A.
Edwards
EDITORS’
NOTES
(3) Kay
Buckner-Seal
(1) TOC FOR EDUCATION PROJECT RECEIVES INNOVATION
AWARD IN MALAYSIA!
From Kathy Suerken
"Some will say that
hope lies in a nation, others, in a man.
I believe that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of
solitary individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers…"
—Albert Camus
Last July,
Choon Ean Khaw (Ean) began to integrate TOC into a new Transition Program for
all year one students (1.4 million) in Malaysia. The first thing she did was to involve her team in the process of
identifying the obstacles (what to change).
What are the results of the thoughtful actions to achieve the IOs? Five months later, more than 6,000 educators
at 6,000 primary schools have learned the cloud, the use of the Negative Branch
with students, and the Ambitious Target (PrT) process! And, on November 25, the team of Choon
Ean Khaw, Haji Mat Jaafar, and. Aliza Abd Manan received the highly prestigious
Innovation Award in Education.
The
Innovation Award is an annual award for “Quality Day” held at the ministry and
division level and is funded by the Malaysian Ministry of Education, which provides
an annual allocation for this event.
The award is not easily earned as indicated by the fact that it was not
awarded for the past two years due to lack of qualified submissions. The submissions have to be done with a
report and to identify what is innovative, the contenders are invited to make a
presentation to a team of judges appointed by the divisions (all
educators/academicians/professionals) where they are required to answer
questions and demonstrate what is innovative.
Ean writes,
"Jaafar was on leave when we were called, so I had to do the
presentation. There were so many
questions! I was 'grilled' for an
hour. I presented it on two aspects of
innovation i.e. how we used Ambitious Targets in TOC to enable us to carry out
the project in such a short space of time and the other aspect of innovation is
using TOC in the programme that will enable such a dramatic change in learning
environment and learning approach i.e. Cloud Day at Raja Muda Primary School
plus pilot examples of kids doing ATs for classrooms and Negative Branches as
approaches to setting foundations for thinking and communication skills."
Ean's series
of articles to share her TOC journey, which began less than a year ago,
continue next week in TACTics.
In the meantime, please give some thought to your TOC journey and how
your work (your examples, your questions) has contributed to this success. The case studies, applications, ideas (even
quotes) used in the seminar by which Ean learned TOC came from YOU. And the whole process of teaching and
learning through TOC has been improved by those of you who had the courage to
question…to raise reservations… to make others think.
The
continuation of the quote above from Camus reads, “…As a result, there
shines forth the truth that each and every man, builds for them all."
(2) TOCFE
Content Lesson: Fugitive Slave Laws
By Jane Hudak, Cheryl A.
Edwards
Subject: Social Studies (History)
Audience: Middle School (Grades 6-8)
Text: Michigan
Adventures in Time and Place, page 164, “1847-Should
Michiganians Have Obeyed the Fugitive Slave Law?,” Macmillan/McGraw-Hill
1847-
Should Michiganians Have Obeyed the
Fugitive
Slave Law?
Michigan
abolitionists worked hard to help enslaved African Americans escape to
freedom. One famous fugitive family was
the Crosswhites. In 1844 Adam
Crosswhite of Kentucky was able to escape with his family from a slave owner
named Francis Giltner. With the help of
some abolitionists, the Crosswhites traveled along the Underground
Railroad. They settled in Marshall,
Michigan, as free people. However, many
slave owners, like Giltner, knew that fugitive slaves settled throughout the
North. These owners often sent slave
catchers to arrest former slaves.
The Crosswhites had lived safely in Marshall
for three years. But one day Giltner
found out that the Crosswhites were living there. He sent Francis Troutman to bring the Crosswhites back to
Kentucky. He did this because the
United States Fugitive Slave Law stated that fugitive slaves could be arrested
and taken back to their owners in the South.
When Troutman came to Marshall, the townspeople refused to let him
arrest the Crosswhites. The townspeople
did not believe that the Fugitive Slave Law was fair. Instead they helped the Crosswhites to escape to Canada.
Goals:
·
Use a TOC thinking tool to help students
investigate the reasons behind specific historical actions.
·
Expose students to the TOC thinking tool:
Evaporating Cloud
·
Develop the knowledge and abilities identified in
the following Social Studies Standards from The Michigan Curriculum
Framework:
Strand
I. Historical Perspective
·
Standard I.1 Time and Chronology-
All students will sequence chronologically the
following eras of American History and key events within these eras in order to
examine relationships and to explain cause and effect: The Meeting of Three
Worlds (beginnings to 1620); Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763);
Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1815); Expansion and Reform (1801-1861);
and Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877); The Development of the Industrial
United States (1870-1900); The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930); The
Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945); Post War United States (1945-1970);
and Contemporary United States (1968-present). Students
will understand that this event happened before the Civil War when there was no
“North and South,” just the United States of America. The law was a federal law and all citizens were expected to obey
it.
·
Standard I.4 Judging Decisions from the
Past- All students will
evaluate key decisions made at critical turning points in history by assessing
their implications and long-term consequences.
Strand
VII. Citizen Involvement
·
Standard VII.1 Responsible Student
Conduct- All students will consider the effects of an individual's
actions on other people, how one acts in accordance with the rule of law, and
how one acts in a virtuous and ethically responsible way as a member of
society.
Assessments:
·
Given a list of decisions from the past (already
studied) students will select one, develop a cloud, and use it to evaluate the
key decisions.
·
Students will conduct a mock trial: The Federal
Government vs. the Marshall Townspeople”
TOCFE Procedure:
Obstacle: Students are often not excited about
learning history.
Need: Students
need to be able to relate to the people in this article. They need to put themselves in the shoes of
the people in the article.
Action: I ask students to think of a time
when they were asked to do something by an authority figure, that was against
their beliefs.
Reason: When students read about people, who
have had the same problems as they do, they get involved and excited about
learning.
Result: Students are actively involved in
the topic to be read about.
Obstacle: Students are all reading at
different levels and slower readers often do not complete the text or
comprehend content.
Need: All students need to be
able to understand the content of the article.
Action: I ask the students to read along as
I read page 164 aloud stopping for discussions.
Reason: Asking students to read along
requires their cooperation. Reading it
myself ensures that students will not have difficulty with print. I can explain anything that comes up that
might be confusing or that I want to emphasize.
Result: Students will
have enough knowledge of the story line to be able to participate in defining
the problem the TOC way.
Obstacle: Students are not going to sit still
for a step by step teaching of the Evaporating Cloud.
Need: Students need to learn the
cloud through an authentic application of the tool.
Action: I guide the
students through defining the problem by using the cloud. I say, “I want you to decide if the
townspeople made a good decision or if there was a better way of solving the
problem. First, I think we need to
define the problem very carefully. Who
can tell me what the problem was? Should the townspeople obey the Fugitive
Slave law and allowed the slave catchers to take the Crosswhites back or should
the townspeople not obey the law.”
1. I write
on the board in proper cloud format: Townspeople obey the Fugitive Slave
Law/Townspeople do not obey Fugitive Slave Law. I ask, “Is this in conflict?
Can they do both things at the same time?”
2. I point to
D and ask, “Why do you think the townspeople wanted to obey the law? Why was it important for them to do
that?” After some discussion I write
the best response in the proper place for the B (Need). I repeat the process for D’/C and continue
to build the cloud.
3. I ask them what the townspeople would hope to
gain by solving this problem. Then I
fill in box A: The goal/objective. It
may look something like the following:
A: (In order to have)Freedom for All
B: Everyone must obey the laws passed by
our government
D: Michigan townspeople must obey the
Fugitive Slave Law
C: Slaves must be given freedom or no one
can be slaves
D’: Michigan townspeople should not obey the
Fugitive Slave Law
4. Getting
to the assumptions: I read the cloud as it should be read from left to right
and after I finish reading the B-D connection I ask ‘why’… “Why must the
townspeople obey the Fugitive slave law in order to have everyone obey the
laws?” And I write all of the
assumptions down after the word because:
Examples: Because… the Fugitive Slave Law is in the best interest of
all; we just can’t choose which laws we will obey; all laws are made in the
best interest of everyone; anarchy would rule If we only obeyed the laws we
liked; in order for all to have freedom all must agree to follow all laws; laws
are made for preserving freedom.
5. I
read the C/D’ Connection and ask the same questions, and write down the
assumption. Examples: Because… freedom
depends on people doing the right thing; slaves (and ex-slaves) are part of
”and freedom for all”; there is no other way to reject the law without
disobeying it; the law infringed on the freedom of the slaves.
6. I
then ask them if there are any assumptions on either side that they can find
fault with. If they suggest one I would
ask them how they would change it to make it right, and that leads to a
solution. For example, I took
assumptions: There is no other way to reject the law without disobeying it and
thought there might be a way to legally reject the law. Maybe keep the Crosswhites at home (house
arrest) while they petition the government to change the law. Keep in mind, there are many solutions. There are many assumptions that are invalid
that can be used to create a new solution.
List all of the possible solutions.
Have the students vote on the solution that would be win/win for both
sides of the issue.
Obstacle: I still don’t know what the students
thought of the procedure
Need: Students must be given time
to debrief on the procedure and they must feel comfortable in doing so.
Action: I explain that I really want to know
what they think about thinking through problems/conflicts in this way and I ask
them please to be frank with me.
Reason: I appeal to their
sense of pride when I tell them I really value their judgements and I also
thank them.
Result: I have quotes from students about
the thinking process and am therefore armed with what I need to change in
future lessons.
·
Homework:
Strand
II. Geographic Perspective
·
Standard II.3 Location, Movement, and
Connections- All students
will describe, compare, and explain the locations and characteristics of
economic activities, trade, political activities, migration, information flow,
and the interrelationships among them.
·
Draw a map from Kentucky, to Michigan, to Canada
or of the Underground Railroad.
Strand
VI. Public Discourse and Decision Making
·
Standard VI.3 Persuasive Writing-
All students will compose coherent written essays
that express a position on a public issue and justify the position with
reasoned arguments.
·
Write journal entries of a child in a family that
is afraid they will be arrested for disobeying the law.
·
Write a persuasive letter expressing the family’s
position to officials of the law.
(3) Kay
Buckner-Seal
First and foremost,
congratulations to the Malaysian team for such an esteemed honor in the name of
TOC for Education! Your efforts are
truly making this world a better place.
Thank you, Jane and
Cheryl, for the sharing your history lesson.
It is a not only a model of the effective integration of TACT skills,
but it has been correlated to social studies standards from the Michigan
Curriculum Framework. To those in
the TOCFE family who are not familiar with this document, the Michigan Curriculum Framework is a resource for helping Michigan's public and private
schools design, implement, and assess their core content area curricula. The content standards provide descriptions
of what students should know and be able to do in the subject areas of English
language arts, social studies, mathematics and science. Each content standard has accompanying draft
benchmarks. Benchmarks help to
clarify the content standard and provide indicators
of student expectations at various developmental levels including
elementary, middle, and high school.
The Michigan Curriculum Framework is available at http://
cdp.mde.state.mi.us/MCF/.
We certainly benefit when someone shares. Remember to 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.