TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

July 6, 2001

 

This Week’s Issue:

Connections

   (1)            Congratulations…

    (2)   INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2001: A SILVER BULLET EVENT!, Kathy Suerken

  (3)   Thanks!, Cheryl A. Edwards

Editor’s Notes

    (4)      Edictor’s Notes, Kay Buckner-Seal

 

CONNECTIONS

(1)                 CONGRATULATIONS…

And all best wishes to our founder, Eli Goldratt, on the birth of his first grandchild-a son, born to Efrat and Yshai Ashlag on July 2.        

 

(2)            INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2001: A SILVER BULLET EVENT!

  From Kathy Suerken

 

As our keynote speaker, founder, and mentor, Eli Goldratt, so aptly explained to our special event audience of 225 people, "if" you use TOC to analyze a situation, it is possible to so pin point and understand a core problem that it is "then" possible for you--just like Archimedes! –-to leverage the problem into a silver bullet solution.

 

How can we use this concept to help us expeditiously and exponentially move toward our TOCFE goals? In order to leave behind a better world, we in TOCFE are constantly striving toward the goal to prepare our children for life. Based on our experiences, we assume that TOC provides substantive, realistic tools to enable us to achieve that august goal.  However, in order to expeditiously and exponentially market and disseminate TOC to education
systems worldwide, we must convince others to use their time to learn and teach TOC.    The existing 5 day TACT seminar is not always seen as a practical and simple enough entry into best practices--especially by mainstream teachers but sometimes even by other school stakeholders.  Therefore, the focus /leverage point of this conference and beyond was (and
is!) 6 silver bullet training modules, designed to teach the fundamental TOC tools (the cloud, cause and effect branches and the "Ambitious Target"—IO map) through relevant and accelerated (14 hour) learning applications for every stakeholder in a school system.  In other words: primary and secondary teachers, counselors and social workers, administrators and school improvement teams, students AND parents/mentor.


A special commendation is due to the conference facilitators who donated their own time to develop training materials and to facilitate these new seminars to 175 conference delegates from 10 states of the United States and international facilitators from 13 nations.  What a local and global impact! 

 

Thank you:

Denise Meyers,  Remedeas Kelly-Weekes and Audrey Taylor (parents);

Doug Roby and Mary Ellen Bourbeau (counselors and social workers)

Larry Till, Jana Borisavljevic  and David Higgins (students)

Khaw Choon Ean (academic content for primary teachers)

Danilo Sirias (academic content for secondary teachers)

Rami Goldratt (administrators and school improvement teams)


Thank you also to Cheryl's dedicated USA conference committee for organizing the event in which to host these seminars. It is, however, as important to acknowledge those who have helped develop these applications in the trenches-those of you who turned theory into practice and shared your results so the rest of us could learn from them.  I am instantly reminded of a teacher who shared, during Danilo's pilot 'TOC in Content' seminar last March, that she was convinced to come to the seminar after downloading Marcia Hutchinson's classroom intervention case study from the web site.  She was so impressed with Marcia's work that she shared it with all of her colleagues.  Sometimes we don't realize what global impact we have! 

 

A representative sample of our TOCFE "in the trenches" work has been compiled and edited into an Anthology of International Case Studies to support the marketing and dissemination of TOC to education systems worldwide.  This 'first edition' consists of 63 case studies from 10 nations and demonstrates TOC best practices in conduct (includes a 'how to use TOC in peer mediation'); academic content; and administration. In the words of Denise Brown-Ocdise of Detroit Public Schools, "The TOC Anthology truly enables you to go straight to work.  While reviewing it, I could put a real name to each example!"

 

We will begin the process of adding these additional case studies to our web site very soon.  In the meantime, a special thanks to Barbara McKenna who, through a generous donation, helped make the hard copy edition a reality. 

 

In TOCFE, everything is on a process of ongoing improvement-even silver bullets!  Faster and further?  Therefore, A TOC for Education E-Learning Site is being developed and will be launched in January 2002!   At the conference we proudly announced a win/win partnership with Colin Rose, web-based publisher and founder of Accelerated Learning LTD of the United Kingdom.  By integrating our infrastructures and BECAUSE of shared goals and vision, we think we will achieve more and more of the goal now and in the future.  The exciting details will be shared as the TOCFE family work together to develop them.

After all, the BEST IS YET TO BE! 

 

(3)        Thanks!

From Cheryl Edwards, TOC for Education, USA

 

“It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit.” —Sandra Swinney

 

I would like to acknowledge and publicly thank the many dedicated folks who put so much of  their time and effort into making this 5th Annual International TOC for Education Conference happen.

·         Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt, Founder of TOC for Education, for having the vision of “making the world a better place” and donating the knowledge of TOC to education systems world- wide.

 

·         Kathy Suerken, President and CEO, for her sleepless nights and focused efforts towards making the ‘wish come true’.

 

·        The marvelous Bernie Kean, Kathy's indispensable assistant.

 

Rami Goldratt                                               Audrey Taylor

Denise Meyer                                       Remedeas Kelly–Weekes

Mary Ellen Bourbeau                                     Doug Roby

Larry Till                                           David Higgins

Jana Borisavljevic                                 Danilo Sirias

Khaw Choon Ean                                 Jim Barry

Jeff Rideout                                     Jose Martinez

Suzanne Klein                                      Colin Rose

Paula Sommer

 

·         Conference 2001 Michigan Planning Team:

This team, made up of all full time professionals, managed to find the “extra” time to lend their expertise and labor to accomplish all of the behind the scene tasks.

Audrey Taylor                                     Sears Taylor

Fran Foote                                        Jim Low

Beatrice Kovacs                         Larry Till

Joyce Beasley                                                 Mary Ellen Bourbeau

Warren Foster                                      Sandy Grosso

Austerine Hambrick                                 Doug Roby

Kay Buckner-Seal                           Suzanne Klein

 

·         Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Ellis who donated their expertise, time and equipment to video tape the conference

 

·         And my very, very special thanks to Jane Hudak who was ready, willing and incredibly able to do anything that was needed to keep the show going.

 

Appreciation for their support:

·         Wayne State University:

Dean Paula Wood, College of Education

Dean Harvey Kahalas, School of Business Administration

Dr. Frank Plonka, Chairperson, Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering

 

·         Detroit Public Schools:

Dr. Austerine Hambrick, Supervisor, Guidance and Counseling

 

·         Mularoni

 

·         Arvin Meritor Group

 

EDITOR’S NOTES

(4)        Kay Buckner-Seal

 

If you would like to share a connection, an experience, a wish, or a thought, send by mail to Cheryl A. Edwards, 2253 S. Hill Island Rd., Cedarville, MI 49719, USA.  Or, send hyperlink to <redwards@sault.com> or <bucknek@earthlink.net.

 

 

 

To view TACTics in its intended formatting and to read previous issues, visit the TOC website at: www.tocforeducation.com